But before I (we) do – here is a highlights album from the trip!  And just incase that is cheating since that really isn’t a picture from today, here is a pile of stuff that I’m just not going to deal with until later.

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Was seriously awesome – just thinking about it will forever make me smile. And Delft! And vagabond trains! Ahhhhh…..

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> Long but fun day! Nick picked me up from the airport bright and > early this morning and we took the train into Amsterdam. Our hotel > wasn’t open yet but they let us stash our bags and thus we walked > the majority of the day with me in my comfy huge airplane > sweatshirt- it is cold here relatively speaking for late august so > the sweatshirt was good. Our hotel is in the RLD near the train > station, so just in heading down toward the Heinekin experience & > van gogh museum, we saw a lot of the city. Could not for the life > of me find the entrance to vondelpark, but we did find a cheese shop > with yummy cheese and bread as well as a different park to enjoy it > in ( yay cheese! Did I mention I was psyched at seeing a cheese > stand within minutes of getting off the plane before customs?). > Anyway- back to the hotel to check in and off to the Anne Frank > museum before heading to dinner. For two people that got maybe 3 > good hours of sleep last night, we’re going strong… No Internet, > but going strong! >

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So, so glad I didn’t have to go to work this morning. Last night, mom and I watched the BBC pride & predjudice- love that movie, and mom had never seen it. This morning, finished packing, did a little work, ran a couple miles with Pinot, and came to the airport. Officially bording my flight to Amsterdam in 7 minutes. Yay to IAD gate C12 being directly across from auntie anne’s pretzels.

Awesome find – Nick pulled out a public transit map to Kinderdijk.  And I thought we were going to have to rent a car.

Otherwise – all I can say is that it is really good to be home.

We kicked off Silverdocs 2009 with a viewing of “Splitting Hairs” last night at the Round House Theater in Silver Spring.  The documentary – and it’s filmmakers – was/were hilarious.  Any 30 minute movie about a beard and mustache worldwide competition must be, wouldn’t you think? Some of the footage was pure gold – wonder why they stopped at 30 minutes.  Anyway.  One of the filmmakers was (seemingly) so excited about the opening that he overindulged in (alcohol?) before the screening and was completely out of it the entire time, which made for an eventful pre- and post- screening commentary.  Note that the text link above will take you to the website of the movie itself, while the picture (should) take you to the AFI commentary on the movie.  Nick and I both thought it had a sort of “King of Kong” feel, and completely dug seeing Phil Olson in person leading the AFI Beard & Mustache contest after the screening.  (I can’t help but think that Nick B-R would be all about this!)

And with that, we’re off to the races with another 6 documentaries over the next day and a half.  Our full schedule is below – let us know if we should be looking out for you at any of these!  Info on each of the movies can be found here.

Thursday, June 18th
	10:30 PM		SPLITTING HAIRS F. Stone Roberts 2008 | Short Film, Special Program | 28 min. BEARD AND MOUSTACHE CONTEST	Round House Theatre
Friday, June 19th
	8:45 PM		BEST WORST MOVIE Michael Paul Stephenson 2009 | Feature Film, Theme: Pop Culture Films | 92 min.	AFI Silver Theater 2
	11:30 PM		CAT LADIES Christie Callan-Jones 2009 | Feature Film, Theme: Senior Interest Films, Theme: Women’s Interest Films | 60 min. FORTY MEN FROM THE YUKON | Tony Massil 2008	Round House Theatre
Saturday, June 20th
	1:15 PM		PARTLY PRIVATE Sterling World Competition 2009 | Feature Film, Sterling World Competition, Theme: Health Interest Films, Theme: Jewish Interest, Theme: Middle East Interest Films | 81 min. KINDA SUTRA | Jessica Yu 2008	Round House Theatre
	4:45 PM		OLD PARTNER Lee Chung-ryoui 2008 | Feature Film, Theme: Asian Interest Films, Theme: Senior Interest Films | 77 min.	AFI Silver Theater 3
	9:00 PM		NO IMPACT MAN Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein 2009 | Feature Film, Theme: Enviromental Interest Films, Theme: The 21st Century Family | 92 min.	AFI Silver Theater 1
	11:15 PM		WINNEBAGO MAN Ben Steinbauer 2009 | Feature Film, Theme: Pop Culture Films | 84 min.	AFI Silver Theater 1

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In other random news, this week we booked tickets to Amsterdam!  Woohoo!  Nick is going for the full week for EuroPar, and meeting me in Amsterdam proper on Saturday for a long weekend in the Netherlands.  I’ve never been, and am pretty excited.  Any travel tips?  Let me know – I’ve been searching TripAdvisor thus far and am pumped.

In other travel news – all of the hard work with booking Oktoberfest tents seems to be paying off, as yesterday Frau Rutar (that’s me!) received another table reservation offer via snail mail for Sunday at noon.  We’ve now secured 4 table reservations from noon-end on Sunday!  That’s a lot of beer … and a lot of chicken …  can’t wait

And one more set of travel stuff – I’m working on a new project at work with a demo in Seoul, South Korea in August!  I was so excited to go, before I realized that with the long flight, I’d have to miss a family wedding…and thus, no South Korea for me this summer.  In future phases though, that may be a good excuse to go!

Local news – after 6 years of living in the DC metro area – we just last weekend made it to the Jefferson Memorial.  I dug it.

—-Follow Up —

SilverDocs was the awesome, and is officially something I’d miss if we ever left this area.  All the films were great – looking forward to getting a pass next year!