Surprise Sunny Morning at Sourland Mountain Preserve

Aah September!  What a great time of the year with cool crisp air and long straited clouds!  Sky becomes a canvas under a camera lens especially at dusk.  Kids are back in school, us adults are in routine and after the usual running around on Saturdays, Sundays are spent preparing for the week ahead.   Long lazy days of summers are a myth for me.  Never having experienced one in summer, I look forward to lazy Sundays of fall instead.  Today was supposed to be just one of those.  The weathermen in NJ had sounded like a broken record for the past few days; temperature in the mid 70s, showers on and off all day so keep an umbrella handy, more of the same for the next five days.. blah..blah...blah.... 







Last evening just as the sun set over the horizon, the sky was a fiery red and I trespassed on to the local golf course to take this image.  A large puddle of water morphed into a lake when viewed through the lens.  What a perfect reflection!


But I digress, let me get back to the lazy Sunday.




















Our dear friends had been asking us to join them on a hike at the Sourland Mountain Preserve to check out the prairie full of yellow flowers but since the weathermen and weathermom were in a joint cahoots to prevent us we didnt quite make it up there in the entire month.   It would have been much the same today.  However, to my surprise, I wake up to a hint of blue in the sky and quickly called our friends to join them at Sourland.   Looking forward to a priarie full of yellow flowers, I carried my camera with me.   On the way there I noticed the battery charge - 3% - "great" says J, "we can now have a real hike." (hmm what should i read into that?), and then at the site our friend said - "we are a couple weeks too late, the flowers are all gone".  With or without the prairie full of flowers, Sourland preserve was a treat.
As we started at the trail head, the trails were wet and muddy from all the recent rains and so we had company (I had trouble finding him - my generous friend chalked it to camouflage but I think my eyes need a good check up) .  Small brooks had been born where there were supposed to be rocky trails.

Even though the weather was somewhat warm and muggy, there were signs of the coming cooler season all over.  With every other step we saw a leaf with a different color and pattern. 

We did not see the prairie filled with flowers but there was a prairie full of flowers to satisfy the eye.

Coming back to the trailhead we saw a group of geese contemplating whether to swim in the lake.  I wondered if No Skating in English meant No swimming in Geeselish?

And the final treat was a group of moths just lingering on the ground.

All in all a fabulous Sunday morning!

Netherlands - not in a day but short enough

Dome of our hotel, our beacon

Our trip to Flanders had a little detour, Amsterdam.   Isnt Holland worth visiting in tulip season, why bother in August?  A lone traveller I am not, and J really wanted to go to Amsterdam so why not just go there for one night?  Well, I am an armchair traveller that researches all things about the trip to the extent that maps used to be memorized at one time, now thanks to Steve they are just apped.  The result: none of my trips can be called adventures.  Wow! to my surprise Amsterdam has a lot to offer, not just the green leaf and red light.......so we ended up staying there for - less than enough - four nights.   
I guess I will have to  make another trip in tulip season and catch the Aalsmeer flower auction.
Flying easyjet from London to Amsterdam was easy enough.  Getting from the airport to Amsterdam Centraal, another story - note to self - keep Euros and carry american credit cards with chips or pin that work.
No sooner had we left the train station, I hear J crying out - "watch out, you will be hit!" even though I was a good 10 feet away from the traffic lane! This continued throughout our four days and I never got the hang of staying safe.  Note to self - traffic can come as two wheelers too.

Thank god this one was parked and not racing away

Signs all over town warn you about pick pockets.  I say they need more signs about cyclist who run their own tour de netherlands on the streets of amsterdam.
Our first tourist venue - the Anne Frank Huis, it is open till 10 pm on some nights.  
The next day was spent visiting the Rijk and the Van Gogh museums.  Note to self - multiple museum surges in a single day for J can lead to museum circuit breakdown - Do not repeat .  At all three venues we had bought our tickets in advance to skip the usual lines but still had to wait for 2 hours at Van Gogh. It was well worth it!!

Wanted to buy this until a street bum told me it could be from China :)

9:30 pm and folks still at the Anne Frank Huis

Daily rains offered us an opportunity to enjoy being true tourists, a complete package with coach trip, psuedo clog factory, pseudo cheese factory, for tourist only relocated windmills and fake wooden tulips in stores - a day trip to Zans Schaans, Markem and Volendam.  

"Psuedo Cheese Factory"  all 200 square feet of it

Wind mills at Zans Schaans

Markem ended up being a clog at the clog factory and a short walk through alleyways to the ferry terminal.  We did not think either Markem or Volendam (just a stop for lunch) was worth paying for the trip especially if you are short on time.  I can say I went to the Netherlands and saw the dutch windmills - for that alone maybe a self guided excursion to Zan Schaans would have been enough.

Markem, Toby McGuire town. 

Marina - Markem

Man made beach in Volendam, you say you dont see one?
See that little corner in the forefront?

Checking herself out!

A few additional hours in Amsterdam itself would have been worth it .  Around the corner from the Anne Frank Huis is an area called Jordan, full of turkish restaurants, cant go wrong with any of them.  Exploring the little alleyways and walking around the Harrengracht, Kiezersgracht and Singel canals (I am not talking about the canal boat trip - though we did that too) is wonderful.  Here are some of the images from Amsterdam.

Enjoying lunch outside Rijk

Even saw these horses at the Brewery tour

A side alley by Dam Square, could be Anytown, global world

One of the canal homes lit in the evening

Daytime view of the quiet residential canals

Didnt know Fanta came in so many colors

View of the Canal in the Red Light Area
Turn 180 and you see Saint Nicholas watching over the district

Brussels - beyond Grand Place and Mannequin Pis

It is our last day of vacation.  An entire day in Brussels but no particular agenda on the mind.  Only one of us can handle museums for more than a day on vacation (you guessed it - that would be me) so indoor appreciation of art was out.  After freezing on the hopon/hopoff the previous day (if Belgium is on the agenda in summer and you are not from western Europe - travel with all possible jackets, gloves and scarves you own), we decided to just walk around town.  www.visitbrussels.be helps guide us where we will go. All the usual tourist spots were already explored on the double decker bus so the morning was won over by the Classic walk.

After a late breakfast at the Marriott, we headed across the street towards the Grandplace for our morning walk.  We already hit the Bourse on the walk itinerary so what better way to start this walk then at Mannequin pis, especially after all those Nespressos at the hotel!  As we walk through the Grandplace, the center cobbles are covered with an array of green, thanks to a farmers market.
We enjoy the courtyard of the City hall, which btw has an internet portal where you can surf the net for free.  Might as well put the so saved Euros towards a devine piece of praline.
Onward to Mannequin Pis - the statue described by Asian tourists as "rather small no?"  A 100 yards on  Rue de l'Etuve and I remembered we had not had a single waffle on this entire trip to Belgium, how could that be - and was remedied ever so quickly at the first cafe at the corner of Rue de Lombard.  And then the rest of the walk continued..........  The cafes were empty, almost serene and the stores had enough room to walk around and take pictures inside.

A look back at the GrandPlace

Thats my waffle you see in the iron.

Had we followed "dont look back as you move forward", we would have missed this great view of the Grandplace city hall tower.

Gallerie St. Hubert was a feast for a photo lenses.

Beautiful array of tapestry pillows

Gallery St. Hubert - Side Aisle

Only in Belgium!  Chocolate not Perfume Boutique - Chandelier too!

Chocolate and Champagne

Being Indian, I had to photograph this window of an optometrist

Bring Color to your Winter Blues!

Seeing a lady light a votive at the Cathedral St. Michel, I took comfort in that and prayed for everyone back home as Irene pounded the Northeast.

At a quick lunch in the open air flea market around Rue de' L Infant,  I had every intention of indulging in Frites today (Fries for us americans) before I found out that all Belgian fries are fried in the good old lard, a definate no no for a vegetarian.  You'd think I would be devastated but then I saw the silver lining: reason enough to indulge in a chocolate at the next Neuhaus or maybe two for the same budget at Leonidas, or even better, one of the artisanal shops in the alleyways - The afternoon walk was full of possibilities.
After lunch it was a trip back to the hotel so we could quickly tap into the internet and check on the situation at home.  Our town is flooded, power is lost and trains are not working but the police are doing a fabulous job of updating us via Facebook! 
A quick cup of Nespresso and armed with a map we head out again but instead of following the Art Nouveau route, we made a right on Anspach (not my idea!), make a few wrong turns (did i say it was not my idea?), end up in what seemed to be the most depressed part of town (still not my idea but convinced J to walk real fast out of this place) and get back to Place Sablon, where alas all chocolateries are now closed.  The best part of walking in a city like brussels is to identify the high tops of landmarks and start walking in that direction (ever try doing that in the US cities? - hardly ever works).  So we walk towards the Palace of Justice and find the setting sun shining on a Benedict church and the Palace of Justice.  After soaking in the view at the tomb of unknown soldier, a walk towards the  Parc Royal on Rue de La Regence takes us past another hidden gem, the sculpture garden.  After exploring the sculpture garden we end up at the greek town near Grand place and end our Belgium trip with a Greek meal (certainly no lard here and absolutely devine).  Back to Grand place to spend our last hard earned dollar at the chocolateries which are open until 11:00 pm - there is a chocolate god after all!

Front facade of the Benedict Church (side and back are all traditional 20th century brick)

Sculpture Garden

Juxtaposition of the modern and the ancient facades