Jake and Josh’s Grand Adventure

Jacob Here:   Ever since I was a child I have loved trains. My favorite activity was playing with the wooden trains at my nana’s house. My favorite ride at Disneyland was big thunder mountain which has a rollercoaster train, and I watched Thomas the Tank engine. So when I got to visiting Hamburg I had to come and visit the worlds largest model train set. This place was massive and went through three floors of two building that were separated by a canal in between. It wasn’t just a long train track, as it included many scenes from around the world including a bunch of different countries in Europe, the United State, Brazil, Antarctica, and much more. Fully decorated scenes with buttons activated special features in each of the lands. If that’s not cool enough every 15 minutes it would turn from day into night and the sets would light up and come to life, and the coolest was a giant model volcano which spewed lava down its side in the Pompeii section of Italy. It was truly a unique exper

Josh here: During our visit to the Netherlands Jake and I stayed in Rotterdam. Like many cities during WWII, Rotterdam was largely destroyed during bombing raids and has been rebuilt since. It still shares the familiar canal systems of many Dutch cities, but also boasts some quite modern buildings. One example is the “Markthal,” a functional public/private building with an interior multistory shopping mall and food hall, surrounded by an entire series of apartments with windows facing both into and away from the central hall.  In Amsterdam, we met up with Bella, a friend of ours from college who shared an afternoon showing us around the city. The flower markets along a few of the canals were among our favorite sites. A country known largely for its tulip production, we visited a tulip museum. From their origin in the mountains of Central Asia, to their introduction to many European states through diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire, and beyond into current modes of production

Hello again! We have been having so much fun traveling around that we got behind on our regular updates. We will be posting lots over the next couple weeks to get you all caught up on our adventures.  Jake here: Bruges was probably one of the nicest cities I’ve ever visited. It has a large bell tower, the belfry, that chimes with beautiful music every 15 minutes. Josh and I climbed to the top and had a great view of the city. We listened to the music from the bells at the top of the tower which cut through to your soul like a knife and drowned your ears with earth shattering beautiful noise. One evening we listened to a concert where the belfry was played like an instrument using a keyboard attached to the bells. All of the bells are connected mechanically to the worlds largest bass drum it is a truly ginormous musical instrument. ( This video can give you an idea of what they sound like ). Just below the bell tower, the town square turns into a farmers market with local produce, veget