TRAIN RIDE

If you happen to find yourself on a train in Central Europe this may be what you see:

BY THE WAY

This is what I see when I wake up:

Look out the window to the right:

to the left:

and down:

You see, it's not all perfect. That train comes by at least once a day.

EUROPE: DAY 21

I went to Amsterdam this last weekend and got in pretty late last night after the train ride back. In Amsterdam I saw the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank Museum and walked all over the place.

The Anne Frank is a little depressing -- there are videos of interviews with the people who knew and helped the family and there are pictures of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen where the Franks were taken. They are difficult to watch and look at.

The Van Gogh was not depressing. It was actually quite cool. Many of his paintings that are somewhat well known are there (with the exception of Starry Night which can be seen at MoMA). They do have Wheat Field with Crows.

Also happened to see another dutch guy there, Rembrandt:

Didn't go into the Rembrandt Museum thought, apparently there are no Rembrandts inside, instead I did a little movie touristing. There is a scene from Oceans 12 that was filmed at this place:

This is Dampkring. They also have this sign in the window:

Which means they are registered with the government and can sell "coffee." You may also note the sign at the top indicating they may have "Clean Air Quality", but that is actually a Dutch word meaning: please smoke a lot of "coffee," but no tobacco.

BIKE TUSCANY

PICTURES FROM FLORENCE

Florence is in Tuscany and they grow sangiovese grapes there. These grapes will be going into a Chianti Classico wine, which is composed of 70% sangiovese grape:

This is from the bicycle ride through the region. The ride was about 12-miles long with a pretty substantial range of elevations, someone did throw-up (it wasn't me), it was great. [Bike Tuscany]

The estate at Principe Corsini: (P.S. Try the Don Tommaso)

We stayed in an apartment in the southern part of Florence, it beats hostels and hotels:

FIRST LONG WEEKEND IN EUROPE

I went with friends down to Florence, Italy. I'll post and put up some pictures later.

WOW

Cyclist on car hood

KEEP YOUR LAPTOP SAFE-ish

One of the guys in the program had his laptop stolen while in France. That sucks. I too know the pain of a laptop theft (fortunately that's been some ago time now). Some people deal with this with LoJack and other products that can be used to track your machine. The best way is to not get your laptop stolen in the first place, but saving that there is another option. Only downside is there is no guarantee that you will have your machine returned, or what state it may be in if it is.

Adeono is an open source (sometimes read: free) tracker. Way cooler than the other tracking systems on the market too, because you are the one who gets to see where machine is -- now I don't want no vigilante justice now.

LAST NIGHT WITH THE CHIEF

Last night was our last night with the Chief. We had a reception at the Grand Hotel Europa and had our pictures taken. The hotel was nice and was got a chance to talk with the Chief again. Instead of asking him about his job I stuck to sports -- he's a Cubs fan. And agreed, tacitly, that Congress should probably keep out of sports (BCS -- even though they probably couldn't screw it up anymore than it already is), and that there is probably some issues of anti-trust. What a smart guy!

From there we walked over to a nice Italian restaurant, where they only spoke Italian. Fortunately we were able to cover with a little Spanish lingo, and what little English they knew. Then I came back to the hotel had a beer, played card, and I'm about to hit the bed.

(By the way, we got to ask some questions of the Chief before he left and I'll post what I heard later.)

SOME PHOTOS OF INNSBRUCK

This is where I go every morning:

I took this from Nordpark looking out toward town:

Naomi in the clouds:

END OF WEEK 1

Today is the last day of our first week here in Innsbruck. It's the only week that we have a Friday class so weekend travel was a little limited this weekend. I hung around Innsbruck and did laundry.

This first week was also the busiest because of the amount of assigned reading from our Supreme Court class (where we covered just under 400 pages). My other two classes weren't quite as intense, mostly because they will be spread out of a longer period.

In International Intellectual Property we'll be talking about the Internet and how it makes dealing with IP more fun. We spend most of our time, so far, talking about Copyright and will probably be getting into Trademark next.

International Business Transactions has had us reviewing forms and the mechanics of a typical international transaction involving the sale of goods. Discussions have been intwined with many of the elements of contract law that I like.

It has rained quite a bit this week and it would be nice if that would stop. The days it was not raining were really nice -- Naomi couldn't have picked a better week to visit Innsbruck.

INTERNET

I finally have Internet again! The place where I'm staying has been having a hard time providing access, and I have heard a few lame excuses (like lightning, etc.). I would have been a little more impressed with one of these, but everyone can't be so creative.

Class with the Chief Justice has been really great. It is quite amazing so far. He has, however, not been so kind in the quantity of assigned reading. I read several hundred pages of text yesterday. Still feeling a little tired from it too. On Monday there was a reception for him at Schloß Ambras. The reception was pretty cool too, as we had a chance to meet and talk with the Chief and Schloß Ambras is really nice.

I was called on the second day. It went well -- I only had to recite procedural history of the Dred Scott case. I've been pretty tired, but having a good time.