Now that I've had almost a full week back in the States from my little jaunt around Holland, I thought it was time to share some of the experiences I had. Not just from this trip, either, but from the last time I was in Holland nearly 20 years ago. This should be fun.

	Then	Now
Age	19	you do the math
Purpose of trip	musical tour with the Continental Brass and Singers	SMB Nation Amsterdam conference
Length of stay	2 days (first part of 2 week tour of Holland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden	5 days, including travel
Where I stayed	some youth camp outside of Rotterdam	Hotel Schiphol A4 just outside of Schiphol Airport
Interesting places I visited	Kinderdyke (lots of windmills) Ten Boom clock shop (hiding place of Anne Franck) Delft and the Delft factory	Van Gogh museum Delft Dedoeln in Rotterdam Canal bus
Favorite anecdote	When walking through the windmills in Kinderdyke, I heard a familiar accent. Not only was a family from the US also walking through the same set of windmills, they were actually from Texas. San Antonio, to be exact. At 19, and in my first trip out of the country, I was just amazed that I'd be thousands of miles away from home and bump into someone from as close as San Antonio.	While standing in line waiting to get into the Van Gogh museum, I was telling my associate about my previous trip and how I ran into a family from San Antonio while walking through the windmills of Kinderdyke. The gentleman in line in front of us, who we had spoken with earlier, turned around let me know that he was from San Antonio.

Yesterday (or earlier today depending on your timezone perspective) I got to visit Rotterdam again for the first time in almost exactly 19 years. I'll admit that I didn't remember much about the place. The first time I was there, I was much younger, and I didn't make a real effort to document or remember the trip.

But my friend Marina, who I got to meet in person for the first time after working with her for a couple of years online, took me past the one place I did remember - the de Doelen venue where the Continental Singers put on a combined show my first night in Holland on that tour. As fate would have it, all the stars aligned so we could not only get into the main building, but we were there about 30 minute prior to a free lunch concert, so we were able to actually get into the concert hall.

Boy, did that bring back some memories. Sure enough, that was the same hall we played in nearly 20 years ago. I remembered the shape of the stage, the layout of the seats, and lots of other aspects of the day that I had long since forgotten. Most specifically, I remember the stage exit in the rear of the building where we left to go wander the streets of Rotterdam after getting the stage set up and going through a warmup for all three tour groups that joined into the massive show. We went and found someplace to eat and as we were walking back to the venue, we saw the people lining up outside the building to get in and see the show. They were lined up around the block waiting for the doors to open. That's when we realized what a big deal this show was going to be. In my particular tour group, up to that point, we had been playing at churches for 100-200 people in the large performances. In Rotterdam, we played in front of several thousand. And for our particular group, that was the first of the large shows that we got to play in Europe.

What an amazing time and an amazing memory. Thanks, Marina, for helping me live that recollection again!

Every once in a while, a little gem comes along that I find myself enjoying with absolutely no good reason. Today, that was Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine. I was doing some final testing for the Amsterdam broadcast and fired up the satellite to see what was on the Showtime free preview weekend when I ran across the title. How could I possibly pass it up?

OK, yeah, it's really, really bad, but for 1960's camp fun that you don't really have to pay attention to, it was fun. Well, fun in that it didn't cause any pain.

Anyway, Q says "check it out." Or don't. Whatever.