In case you were wondering, I will more-than-willingly travel in the name of photography. Getting married outside of NYC? Need a photographer for your destination wedding? I’m your girl! :D

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I kicked off my trip to Spain in Madrid. I was only there for a day and a half (3/14-15) and was recovering from jetlag, so unfortunately I didn’t see as much of the city as I’d have liked. What did I do, then?

• saw a protest on Plaza del Sol
• browsed the Prado museum
• frolicked through El Parque del Buen Retiro
• got lost and then caught in a downpour when trying to find 2 vegetarian restaurants for lunch (one was full and the other was closed, of course)
• had some amazing chicken and cider at Casa Mingo (definitely off the beaten path and oft frequented by locals)
• tried chocolate and churros (so good!)

The weather was less than stellar – 50′s and rainy. But it was good enough to roam the streets all day.

One thing I noticed was that English was not commonly spoken in Madrid. A lot of European countries seem to unofficially ‘require’ its citizens to know English, but I ran into several vendors/merchants who couldn’t understand me. I had to dig deep to pull out whatever relevant Spanish phrases I could muster from my former studies (which have since been nearly wiped out by Italian), which most of the time left me feeling lame and regretful for no longer holding mastery of the language. But between my jumbled Spanglish/Spatalian and perhaps some miming, I was usually able to communicate with people well enough to get what I needed :)

Samantha and Brett had a super special wedding, followed by a super fun shoot at Grand Central Terminal. I am super stoked to share the rest of the images from their wedding day – coming soon, I promise!

(by the way, if you’d like to wrap your cat too, check out this amazing video… or if you’d like a good laugh, watch our parody of it! :)

But gosh, Brussels is awfully nice. I was so taken with the architecture there. The main square is absolutely stunning. And the waffles!! Oh man, to die for. I also felt obligated to sample some frites and chocolate (duh). You can’t go 30 seconds without seeing any of these things being sold in touristy parts. It was also pretty easy to wander off into the more residential and grungey parts of the city, which was a refreshing change of scenery.

But I was completely stoked for Brugge – everyone plays it up as being the quintessential medieval town, and by far the highlight of Belgium. And yes, I’d seen the movie ‘In Brugge’, so there was no doubt that I had to visit.

My experience of Brugge, however, was less than ideal. For starters, the weather was gross. Then I forgot that the train station was quite a ways from the old town, and I forgot how I was supposed to get there so I decided to walk toward it… except I ended up going the complete opposite direction and it was starting to get dark, so I hopped on the first bus I saw that was heading back toward the train station. Then I failed to get off at the right stop and had to get off at a bus terminal and walk all the way back uphill to the stop, which was the start of the old town. See, this is why I always travel with guidebooks!! I just didn’t have one for Belgium since I was only going to be there for a day or two. Never again will I make this mistake!

And oh, then it started to rain. I had to force myself to wander around but I just wasn’t feeling it. Brugge is SO commercialized now and super touristy. It borders on tacky, to be honest. When I felt like I had seen the bare minimum of the town, I went to a rustic little restaurant for dinner and treated myself to the house wine (being that it was the last night of my trip, and given the crappy evening I had endured, I think it was necessary) and some mediocre stew. Sigh.

I took a bunch of photos in Brussels, but not too many in Brugge (not surprisingly):

And a few from Brugge:

And, uh, it has an OBSCENE amount of bikes. I LOVE me some biking, so I can appreciate a biking society. But good lord, there were just too many bikes. They were parked all over the place, to the point where sometimes you had to walk around the sidewalk just to get past them. They even have multi-floor parking lots FOR BIKES!! Absurd, yet oh-so-wonderful that so many people have embraced such a healthy and eco-friendly way to get around the city.

When I was in Amsterdam, I reunited with a very good friend of mine from the Netherlands who I met while living in Sydney in 2006. So I didn’t go too camera-crazy because we were busy catching up. We did a ton of walking, toured the Anne Frank house, and visited the Van Gogh museum. And! – we found the Cat Boat! That’s right, there’s a boat in one of the canals that’s full of cats! It’s somewhat of a tourist attraction now, but they do try to find homes for the kitties. And right about now, you’re thinking ‘who the heck goes to Amsterdam and looks for a cat boat?’… right? Well, it’s just the ridiculous sort of thing I would do :D

Overall, Amsterdam gets a thumbs up from me. I totally could have spent more than two days there. So until next time… here are some shots I snapped while wandering around:

Usually when I visit, I bring warm, sunny weather to Boston. This time, not so much – it was about 40 degrees there in early November. So cold that Shannon had to stop and buy a pair of gloves while we were out. She totally pulled off a pair of $1.99 hot pink gloves from Goodwill during a photoshoot!

It’s worth noting that the main impetus for that Europe trip was Jasmin’s 30th birthday party, to be held in mid-September in Denmark. I got the invite earlier this year and I don’t think anyone really expected me to make the trek over there. But it’s exactly the sort of thing I would do – something that may seem a little crazy, but that I’ve rationalized and justified in my mind. I first met Jasmin two years ago on a Switzerland camping trip with two of my Swiss friends, who were also invited to her party. When would be the next time we’d all be able to get together like this? Plus, I was also due for a reunion with my Dutch friend (who will also make an appearance on this blog in due time). Everything fell into place, I found a cheap flight (I’m telling you, I’m freakishly good at this), and come September 10 I found myself across the pond in Europe.

While visiting Jasmin in Denmark, I also had the pleasure of meeting her boyfriend, Kenneth. I didn’t get to do a full-blown photoshoot with them, but I did snap a few pictures of them during the time I spent in Denmark. They are so great together that I can’t help but smile about it :) Kenneth provides the balance to Jasmin’s crazy, goofy side – if nothing else, I think these photos show that perfectly.

Oh! And let’s not forget the pastries! There’s a reason we’ve embraced the Danish – it’s freakin’ unbelievable straight from its native land. But boy did I feel silly ordering a Danish and an Americano at one cafe. Could I BE any more American?! :/

One thing I didn’t like? It was ridiculously expensive! And also, the coffee was so weak that I had to order a double shot just to TASTE the coffee in the latte. Coffee there ended up being like $5-6 a cup by the way, which goes to show you how horrible the exchange rate is. Sucks to be an American traveling abroad these days! Not that that’ll ever stop me from doing what I want to do, i.e. seeing the world. And to be fair, these ‘cons’ apply to Denmark as a whole, not just to Copenhagen.

Oh, and the weather in Denmark? Absolutely absurd! It would be sunny one minute, then a huge cloud would roll in, make everything dark, and bring wind and perhaps a short burst of rain. This cycle repeats frequently, to the point where you can never really put your umbrella away.

But Copenhagen gets two thumbs up from me. Probably my favorite city I visited on this trip!

The good thing about the frequent bursts of rain is that I pretty much spent the whole afternoon chasing rainbows around Copenhagen. I didn’t even have to rush to try to take pictures of them because they just always seemed to appear right in front of me.

This shot below might be my favorite from the whole trip. I love the contrast between the gorgeous lighting on the buildings and the darkness of the water. And if you look closely, you can see a second rainbow!

I stayed in a converted prison in Visby, a medieval town surrounded by a wall, aka the only source of life on the island outside of summer. It’s supposed to be a big party place during summer, with streets full of raucous youth. But it was kind of hard to imagine it like that when I only saw a few people on the streets at a time, between bursts of wind or rain. I LOVED a quiet Visby, though – I spent hours just wandering the streets in awe of my surroundings.

On one day, I rented a bike from probably the only place in town still open after summer (a hotel across from the ferry) and biked around the island. Gotland is pretttttty big, and it was probably not the smartest idea to bike alone on a long-distance trek. But that’s how I am – I’m convinced that I can do anything myself, reason be damned! Well, that’s not completely true since I’m an extremely rational person – I just happen to believe in myself a whole lot, and sometimes it turns into an ‘I’m invincible!’ mentality, leading me to some tricky situations. I like to refer to them as adventures :)

My Gotland adventure turned into a 92km (nearly 60mi) bike ride around the northwestern part of the island. I had no concept of how far I had ridden, nor how fickle the weather was. It was a gorgeous blue sky day when I began the ride, which later alternated with massive cloud cover and random bursts of rain and wind throughout the entire afternoon. Cold rain and wind is not fun to bike in, specifically when you are in unfamiliar surroundings where nothing is open and buses are few and far between. I also made frequent stops near the end of the ride to rest, rehydrate, and seek shelter from the rain in the overhangs at bus stops.

But aside from the weather and lack of civilization, it was a fantastic journey. I saw all sorts of farm life and beautiful landscapes, but boy was I happy to see the walls of Visby at the end of the day. True to fashion, I took hundreds of photos during my 3 days at Gotland, my favorites being the following: