Benelux 2025 Region Trip://Leg 6.2~ Last Blast in Amsterdam ft. Van Speyk

                    Date:5/17/2025-5/28/2025

Destination: Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg

Goal: Coasters, Culture

Distance: 4079 Miles

Means of Travel: Flight

Potential Credits: 39

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A clay model of a man in ornate renaissance garb, complete with a neck ruffle and skull cap, laying dead with his head on two pillows and a dog beneath his feet.

We went to a country known for being wet and marshy, so all things considered, we'd had good luck this trip with the weather. But our last day in Amsterdam was slated to be a bit of a washout, and I couldn't even be mad. Fortunately for us, while poking around the internet, I'd snagged a sick deal on tickets for the Rijksmuseum and a canal cruise for two people.

Dag 10 / Jour 10

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A man holds a backpack, with an ornate brick structure with a spire and gold clock in the background.

We had a super easy train ride into town, where I first noticed how pretty Amsterdam Central's facade really is. It's kind of dirty inside, but you can't deny it has a presence.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A plate holds a bun topped with smoked salmon, poached eggs, and Hollandaise sauce.

After finding the light rail we needed, John found us a breakfast spot in a little casino hotel, where I got this Norwegian benedict.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A view of a waterway, where a boat passes under a bridge.

Not a bad to enjoy a mimosa and smoked salmon with hollandaise.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Across some water with reeds is a small ornate building.

From breakfast, it was a short walk across this cute park to the Rijksmuseum. Lots of little buildings and public art installations, people on bikes, just a general chill vibe here.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A tall, ornate building with two towers and mansard roofs features ornate brickwork and accents. A black and white poster shows a Black man before an American flag, with the words "AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY" in blue.

And here's where we were going to hide from the rain that was about to come nail the Dutch capital! This is the Rijksmuseum, kind of the Netherlands's national art museum, but it's so much more than that. It's sort of the story of the Netherlands told through art more than anything. Famously, Rembrandt's Night Watch painting is held here.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A statue of a Hellenic hunter with a bow and arrows with a dog.

Now, here's the thing with the Rijksmuseum. It is massive. Like, MASSIVE in all caps. We allocated four hours to this place and still saw only two thirds of it, roughly. Needless to say, I can't shoot in awful lighting sans flash, edit, image describe, and write captions for every single piece in this museum. So the blog coverage is going to be short enough to comfortably read, and I'm just gonna show a few things I really found interesting here, and focus more on the story the pieces told.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A painting of a man with a narrow face and red beard wearing a hat and overcoat, made of small, colorful brush strokes in a frame.

First room had some Van Gough, needs no explanation. This man is THE Dutch artist, and while he has a whole museum here not too far from the Rijksmuseum, they still had some of his work present. This included the famous self-portrait of him wearing the hat.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A gold frame holds a painting of a windmill overlooking some farmland and a canal.

Many paintings here showed Dutch history, themes, and landscapes. Can't get much more Dutch than a windmill.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A small diorama depicts Indonesian merchants milling around pavilions, with a man in an ornate costume and mask at the center.

"There's some Indonesian art over here," John told me. "Some of it's actually pretty sad." And surely enough, one of many horrific rooms here showed just how much the Netherlands had gotten their paws dirty exploiting various corners of the world for a buck. This sculpture of an Indonesian market, while artistically impressive, was a rose-colored collection piece for Dutch East India Company workers to take home, depicting colonial life as quaint and wholesome and ignoring the general brutality of it.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A semicircular map of shiny shells against a black background in a frame.

This was an artificial harbor off the coast of Nagasaki, where both the Portuguese and Dutch conducted trade. The map here was actually pretty and made of iridescent shells.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A glass display case holds an urn, a box containing a black rose, and a small wooden box.

Here's a chapter from Dutch history that's much more on the heroic side! It's 1831, the Belgian Revolution is in full swing, and Lieutenant Commander Jan Van Speyk's gunship has just blown ashore on a riverbank outside Antwerp. Angry Belgians are storming his boat, threatening him with their waffle irons, and they've got the Smurfs on speed dial. Knowing that his ship is about to fall into enemy hands, Lieutenant Commander Van Speuk declares, "I'd rather go up in smoke!" And like a hardass, he tosses his cigar into the ship's magazine. Ship goes boom, kills everyone onboard, including the ship's crew, and Van Speyk himself. This shows a few items from the wreck, as well as trinkets made from her timbers.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A large oil painting showing a military scene, with a general on horseback.

This painting was massive and took up an entire wall.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A painted portrait of a man with brown hair and sideburns wearing a green overcoat and white ascot.

Both of us felt we’d seen this painting before, but looking it up the subject matter was foreign to both of us.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A weathered fabric banner reads "LOUIS NAPOLEON KONIG VAN HOLLAND" beneath a seal of two lions flanking a red shield with a black stripe holding three white Xs.

Royal banner from William I of the Netherlands, featuring the XXX seal of Amsterdam.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A painting shows a white walled fortress in a tropical setting, flying a flag of red, white, and blue striping of the Dutch flag.

They also had this gallery of Dutch colonialism, which included an Indonesian woodwork baby cradle, likely made for an East India Company officer by an Indonesian islander. This painting of a Dutch plantation, a model of one of their ships, and Chinese pottery were also on display here.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A model of a large sailing ship with square rigging.

Model ships were just a common theme in general at this museum.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A painting shows men in 1600s hats and collars walking out to defend Amsterdam at night.

On the third floor was the museum’s most famous piece, well, a reproduction of it. This was Rembrandt’s Night Watch oil painting from the 17th century. Famously, it is notable as pioneering the idea of the “action shot” painting for military subjects. Up until now, these paintings were mostly still in nature; Rembrandt showed Amsterdam’s night guard mid-march. This was revolutionary in art.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Beneath an ornate vaulted ceiling, with trim reading "REMBRANDT," the Night Watch painting sits behind elevators of black metal scaffolding.

That painting in the previous photo is a copy, as the real deal sits here under restoration.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A long chamber of colorful vaulted ceilings, with indigo walls adorned with paintings. People stroll around the hardwood floors beneath skylights in the ceiling arches.

The Rijksmuseum is not just a place that bears art, the architecture itself is gorgeous. It’s like an art piece meant to hold other art.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A clay model of a man in ornate renaissance garb, complete with a neck ruffle and skull cap, laying dead with his head on two pillows and a dog beneath his feet.

Terracotta model of William of Orange, whose name we saw as a main character in the history of all three nations, laying in state. The man was sort of the father of the Netherlands, and this statue was the basis for his tomb.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A white church with people in 1600s attire holds a black tomb structure, ornamented with gold statues. A white statue similar to the one above lies beneath the roof.

His tomb is at a Calvinist church here in Amsterdam, not the one we saw but a different one, but the painting of the final resting place looked so much like the Westerkerke that Ihad to check and make sure it was not the same place.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A piano-like instrument reads "SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MVNDI" beneath an amber cover.

Remember a few photos ago where one of the Nederland's national heroes blew himself, his boat, and his crew sky high because those filthy Belgians were going to take over his boat? The Rijksmuseum happens to have a "Flemish Influences" gallery, which celebrates woodworking in, as they refer to Flanders, as "the southern Netherlands." This was kind of the final nail in the coffin for me in my opinion that the Belgians, and their neighbors, clearly don't seem to be happy with the current arrangement. The French-speaking, slow-paced, fancy, sparsely-populated agricultural countryside of Wallonia is having to find common ground with the industrious, fast-paced, Germanic-speaking Flemish people in a world where their shared religion is becoming less important. Wallonia was a part of France, Flanders was a part of Nederland, Nederland seems to view Flanders as an extension of their own country, and this simple room of wooden artwork and the captions here were enough for me to see just why these people hate the current arrangement.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A tall vaulted library is lined with thousands of books along the wall.

They also have this big awesome library, which smells of old paper and feels straight out of a high fantasy novel. And don’t you dare make a peep here, you can hear a pin drop from floors away it’s so silent. And hard to take pictures of.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A medieval statue of a woman in a blue dress surrounded by children.

We made our way downstairs, with the museum closing in 45 and still with half of it to go. Accepting American Photography was not happening, we made a quick romp through the bottom floor of medieval art.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A bloody wall-mounted statue of crucified Jesus with his arms ripped off.

And what European art museum would be complete without some good old-fashioned Christian torture porn?

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A multi-frame painting shows Jesus and two others floating over Amsterdam, as a casket is lowered into the ground.

One of my many weird internet rabbit holes has been pre-industrial artwork that appears to depict UFOs. This grim painting of bubonic plague victims being laid to rest to have Jesus riding on some kind of metallic sphere, which I thought was an interesting way to draw divine judgement.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A marble relief of a clergyman holding a book and castle in his hand.

Honestly? The Rijksmuseum takes forever to do, but there's so much cool history here told subtly through primary sources. You have the beauty of the renaissance, brutality of Dutch colonialism, it's an honest, multi-faceted look at a nation's history through treasured objects of craftsmanship. From tombs of rulers just a light rail away to exotic Indonesian handiwork, this is Nederland. Whether you like it or not, this is the country's story. A story America would never have the balls to tell in this way.

Bro outside was busking on an accordion, and was absolutely rocking out to the Game of Thrones theme!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A brick building with spires and pointed roofs rises from behind trees into a cloudy sky.

This is why you be nice! Leaving the museum, I was heading across the sidewalk with other pedestrians, when this guy zips by inches from me on his bike, turns, and yells something at me in French. Problem was, he assumed the dumb American tourist couldn't possibly speak any language other than English, and I understood what he shouted as the French equivalent of a very offensive four-letter English word that begins with the letter C and refers to the genitals of a cisgender woman. I just gasped and asked John if he heard that, trying to not laugh, but I wished I had turned around and wished him a nice "merci, a bientot" in French to make his day a bit awkward.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A building bears a Heineken logo atop its roof, and gold letters covered by a post read "HEINEKEN BROUWER'J."

We walked to the subway to our final Amsterdam activity, where I smiled when I saw the Heineken Brewery. A place where my dad and his work buddies were famously served so much Heineken on their canal cruise/brewery tour that he ended up in bed at 2 am.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: The shore of a canal with a large, ornate train station and facade across the waterway. Under an orange awning, a man in an orange coat mans an orange podium reading "LOVERS CANAL CRUISES."

We took the subway, where just like Paris, the announcements kept telling us to watch our stuff for pickpockets (this is why you wear thoosie zipper pocket shorts if you can!), we ended up back near Central. But we weren't taking a train, we were here for a boat! This was the port for Lovers Canal Cruise!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A boat features seats at tables and a glass canopy overhead, being pelted by pouring rain.

John was very understandably iffy about doing this in the pissing rain from which we were fortunately sheltered in the Rijksmuseum, but as with Paris's bateaux mouches on the Seine, these boats have a nice glass canopy, making this an all-weather thing!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A canal waterfront with houseboats and bikes in front of a row of trees and narrow canal houses.

It was a dreary, disgusting, wet day in Amsterdam and honestly, the vibe is perfect for this city.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A town waterfront featuring a long houseboat and a white suspension drawbridge.

One of Amsterdam's famous drawbridges! When your city is covered in these canals, they become pretty important in ensuring both pedestrians and watercraft can get around.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A waterfront lined with narrow brick and mortar houses and houseboats.

Lovers is kind of the big canal tour we were seeing, but shockingly, this didn't take us through many major Amsterdam landmarks. No Anne Frank House, no Red Light District, and that's okay! We saw those on foot, this is all about the cute little neighborhoods. See those little pulleys hanging from the arms atop the buildings? They use those to hoist furniture up the houses so that they don't have to lug a queen-sized bed up a sixty-degree staircase.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A view from the water of a brick bridge lined with bikes crossing along a neighborhood of tall, narrow houses behind a grassy water garden.

There were people with earbuds talking about things, something we couldn't fully understand. And then, a gentleman sat down next to us, plugs in a set of black earbuds, and angrily presses through a menu of "ENG, DUE, FRA, CHI," getting more and more frustrated until he exclaims, "ITA! Italiano!" These little radio things went with these earbuds we were conveniently not given for some reason, which had info about the tour we likely missed.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A stylized buttress of a boat has a large iron ring beneath it, holding up a bridge with tall, narrow brick buildings and a balustrade overlooking the water.

One story the guy was able to get on and tell aloud was about this bridge. These iron loops here were designed so that should Amsterdam be invaded, they can pull a pin and collapse the bridge instantly, turning this beautiful waterway into an obstacle for the enemy.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A waterfront street has bikes and cars parked along a brick retaining wall, with canal houses.

And you do not want to fall in these canals, trust me! In addition to seeing the fines they impose for urinating in the waterways, we overheard a story behind us. Someone's friend got drunk, cannonballed into the canal, and was impaled on the rusty wreckage of a bike.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A shot under an arching brick bridge, revealing the archways of six others beyond it. A bike is parked on the railing of the street crossing the water.

Here's a rare photo op of seven bridges in a row!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A purple bike is parked on the edge of an arched brick bridge, the only colored object in an otherwise grayscale photo.

These color pop photos are stupid, but I hate how much I love this one. It was hard to get any decent shots so I had to get a little artsy. But I'm an artsy bastard, how long did we just spend at the Rijksmuseum?

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A brick corner building with greenery on its upper floors, an iron bridge in the foreground has bikes propped against its metal railing.

Honestly? This was a cool experience. It's a vibe just chilling on the rainy canal, watching the buildings float past and seeing how the real Amsterdamned live. I felt like we got more than a fair price for this and the Rijksmuseum, two beautifully relaxing activities that killed a nice, rainy day for us in the Dutch capital.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A long, narrow restaurant with people sitting at tables, brickwork and woodwork make up the building.

For our final dinner of the trip, John found a place called Brasserie Van Speyk. Van Speyk? I thought, having deja vu. So I flipped open my umbrella and we walked through a rainy, twisted street in the shadowy dusk, where we came across this cozy little narrow restaurant.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A menu reads, "Welcome to Van Speyk Situated in a building dating from 1659. A former warehouse and factory of horse carnages. The restaurant is named after the famous naval officer Jan van Speyk (1802 - 1831) who grew up in a municipal orphanage where the Amsterdam Museum now stands. Although educated a tailor, he chose for a career at sea an joined the navy where he earned the name "the terror of the pirates." In 1831, a time of international tension Belgium, he commanded a gunboat which was drive. heavy winds against the banks of the river Schelde, near Antwerp. When a large group of angry Belgians sprang aboard, Van Speyk reputedly shouted, "I'd rather blow it up!" and threw his burning cigar into the munition store. By sacrificing his own life, that of his crew and many Belgians, Van Speyk attained an unrivaled reputation and status as a hero. His remains were ceremonially interred in the New Church, just across the road from this restaurant, and King William I decreed that from that moment there would always be a ship in the Royal Navy, proudly named Van Speyk.

That's why the name was familiar! This was the story we learned at the Rijksmuseum, Van Speyk was the crazy mf that blew up both himself and his own gunship that we saw just this morning. Turns out he was interred not far from here, likely resting in pieces after throwing his cigar into a gunpowder magazine. The restaurant itself had history too, being hundreds of years old and repurposed as with most European city structures.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A plate holds pieces of herring fish, pickles, greens, and onions. A red, white, and black XXX Amsterdam flag is stuck into a fillet of the fish.

We did the courses thing, and got some Dutch smoked herring as a first course. Tasted very similar to the stuff in Sweden, and that's a good thing, but it's served a little differently. Scandinavians do viking bread, red onion, sour cream, and potatoes with theirs. But here in Nederland, we were served this with pickles and white onions.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A plate holds a pile of mashed topped with bacon, a piece of sausage, and a dollop of mustard.

Chilly, rainy final evening in Amsterdam? We had to get the stamppot! And this was absolutely delicious. Ingredients were a bit different, I think the mash for this had endives in it (very Dutch ingredient I gathered), the bacon was more like tiny little crisps verses the giant slab of pork belly I was served in Bruges, and notably, there was gravy on this stamppot. Wouldn't have been complete without a Heineken either.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Across a waterway is a large train station under a cloudy sky.

"If you need to use the restroom, you can go break your neck," I told John, pointing to the daunting sixty-degree spiral staircase down to the toilets. We'd been drinking like a couple of degenerates, I knew we were gonna party it up a bit more as we definitely did not have alcohol left to kill at the AirBnB, I was too tipsy to risk it. But we made our way back to the train station. And with another complete trip overseas under our belts, we headed to Central, where I snagged a few beers and a kebab because you can't make late night bad decisions in Europe without one of those kebabs. hopped on the train to Zaandam. We even passed that big ridiculous green building you see in travel photos!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A bathroom is adorned with pretty wall decorations, but is covered in graffiti on every surface.

Needed to pee as I was not risking my life to use Brasserie Van Speyk's restrooms, the toilets on the train are free but I guess you get what you pay for. Still cleaner than the average American public bathroom, though.

(One final note on when you gotta go in Nederland: the "Dutch poop inspection shelf" on toilets has to be a myth or something. I did not see a single toilet like that in my time here.)

Upon getting back, I had a growler of crappy sugary sangria I got for 5 euros at an Aldi to finish, and I think John had some red wine to kill off. So we did that, I took a shower, and we settled in. I'd slept on the bed, he'd slept on the couch the first night, and we were supposed to swap this night, but I think both of us were so messed up that we just kind of passed out where our stuff was.

Dag 11 / Jour 11

It was an early, rainy morning in the Netherlands, when I rolled over, pulled up my United app, and saw "Cancelled." My plane was supposed to go from Houston to Ewwark, Ewwark to Amsterdam, and back to Dulles, but that didn't happen. But because United is amazing, they auto-rebooked me on a flight to Chicago O'Hare. Not what I wanted, I picked a Dulles connection as it was quicker and I heard passport control there is a lot more chill (had a really bad experience with ableist American border patrol last time I came home from Denmark), but with my Global Entry, I figured it would still be a breeze. I got an Uber as I had a whole Aldi bag of souvenirs to bring home and wasn't about to lug three bags on the train, and invited John to use it too. So we got there, his Delta terminal is ninety degrees from my United terminal, we said goodbyes, and I got my bag checked by some SwissAir counter agents.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: On a tray sits an English muffin sandwich, croissant, bottle of orange juice, and a coffee. Off to the side, is a leather passport holder with a green sunflower lanyard.

I have a thing where I try to do McDonald's in every country where they have a presence and I can find one on the way. This was the Liverpool breakfast combo at Dutch McDonald's in Schiphol, where I was able to spread out and rest a bit on the other side of security. It's a weird burger patty, egg, and cheese sandwich on an English muffin sandwich with a croissant, coffee, and OJ. 

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A green glass structure resembles a Dutch house and reads "house of tulips" over a gift shop.

"Just when you thought you'd never see one again," I shot this photo to John from my United terminal, thinking we'd seen the last of our tall, skinny, green wooden houses.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett wears a sunflower lanyard, holding a water bottle in an airport terminal with a United screen behind him.

I chillaxed and worked on The Lightning War: Counterstrike at a table with an outlet. Meanwhile, a group of young American college kids were remniscing about the wild spring break they had. Here at 9 am about to get on a flight, this kid with broccoli hair shows up with one of the canned rums and cokes. Meanwhile, a girl he was with was already hatching a plan for her 21st birthday after very publicly bragging about all the drinking and pot smoking they just did.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: An airline tray holds a blue tray containing a roll, a salad, and a lasanga.

Everybody knows the worse an airline is, the better their food is. So amazing United has to serve the most disgusting slop known to man to make your experience tolerable. This lasagna was absolutely awful, even for airline food. I'm not sure what those noodles were made of, but I was certain my Italian-American partner would call the mafia on anyone who would have the nerve to serve that to her. Vinnie needs to pay a visit to whoever decided this was an acceptable meal! Both coming here and coming home!

I rot my brain on these flights. It's thirty hours of sunlight in a day, you're sitting there for nine hours up to nothing, it's the perfect time to just throw on the lowest quality garbage on the in-flight entertainment system. I watched Companion first, which was a pretty good AI sci-fi horror thing. Then I did Y2K, which was about the New Year's Eve into 2000 when all the technology came to life and killed everybody. Then I only had time for a South Park, so I put that on. The old guy next to me was very kind, but was not all there, and in the midst of Cartman and his buddies getting into trouble, this guy elbows me and tells me "that'll make you crazy, won't it?"

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A plate holds mozzerella sticks, boneless wings, and a few Southwest egg rolls, with a beer and a water.

After landing at ORD, a grumpy border guard waved me through the Global Entry line, where I retrieved my checked bag only to take it just around a corner and drop it into a pile? I went through TSA, where a guy's instruction to "take the dog out" of the conveyer belt holding the carrier about sent a little toy poodle thing running through the Precheck line! I decided to do one more expensive meal, and got Chili's in O'Hare's gross regional terminal. Dad had a thing for these eggrolls, so I had to. Wouldn't have been complete without a water I didn't have to pay for, it tasted like pool water but it was free!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A shelf holds a red wooden horse, a pink and red gnome, and a blue ceramic windmill that reads "HOLLAND" on its base, with a D-Day placemat in the background.

After nodding off in the gate's horrible seats, I endured the short forty minute from Chicago to Dayton, one that's so short but feels so long depending on what happened before. Mom got me at the airport, I headed home, saw the damage to the apartment next door from Day 1, and finally, put up my little windmill on a shelf next to Sweden's dala horse and a gnome for some reason.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A row of tall, narrow houses are reflected in a canal, with tree branches in the foreground.

What is a "Benelux?" Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, yes, but what is it really? Three countries that share proximity but have different industries, different terrains, speak in different tongues, practice Christianity differently, and can't seem to decide if a waffle is a cookie or not, what do they have in common? And the answer is honestly, not much. A version of Germanic culture seems to have popped up along these marshy, low-lying shores, and had success more or less seeping inland. But each country was different, and I kind of wanted to sum them up individually.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A wide expanse of green, scruffy plain is bisected by a ditch, with two windmills and a town across the water in the background.

The Netherlands served as our host most of our time here, and if I had to pick one word to describe the country, it's "green." Yes, they enjoy the green stuff in Amsterdam, but it goes beyond that. They made this land themselves, and they protect it themselves. Green paint protects their houses from the pouring rain, green grass plains rise from what was once the sea, we saw plenty of floating gardens in Amsterdam, and the forest drives here are straight out of a fairytale. They busted their butt for this land, that land is flood-prone, and they're owning that so well. The most recognizable symbol of the Netherlands, the windmill, is even a tradition in clean energy that can be seen today in the many wind turbines that dot these flat diorama-like countrysides. It's a sustainable country with progressive ideals, amazing public infrastructure, and aesthetics and traditions that continue to look back at their past. If the Dutch are our future, then our future is solarpunk. Thank you, Nederland.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A large structure composed of eight connected chrome spheres, suspended by columns and frames into a geometric pattern.

My word for Belgium? "Contrast." Not conflict, contrast. While I'll admit this country's history strikes me as odd, with one group feeling so underrepresented with their country's government that they arguably joined a people with even less in common with them, it's created a vibe that blends Germanic and Latin roots in kind of a unique context. Because Jeremy Clarkson called Belgium "that place where Brits and Germans settle their differences," much of the country was destroyed, both giving way for unique progress and making what history remains that much more of a treasure. They know a thing or two about how we can coexist (and how we can't) with people who may not be entirely like us, and they were the perfect people to host the feuding Americans and Soviets at a 1950s World's Fair, and that Atomium I feel is a trophy they deserve for it. Thank you, Belgium.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A stone castle wall adorned with two towers with conical spires and several glass windows.

And a word for Luxembourg? This one is tricky, but one word that comes to mind is "translucent." This ultra-wealthy nation sits in its tiny little hidey hole between Germany and France, their cultures have both permeated it strongly, and they're okay with that. While they're so small that they often get left off of crude maps, they're too big to be a microstate. They've got their own cultural identity, surely, but I also know that they fought so hard to become independent only for Europe to globalize not even a year later. So it's a tiny nation that's easy to look right through, it doesn't really do much to make waves, but if you squint and look hard enough, there's something really beautiful there. Thank you, Luxembourg.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Three men in front of an indigo globe reading "WALIBI HOLLAND" in red font.

And last and most importantly, thank you John and Youri. It was kind of my crazy plan I asked John if he wanted in on, and the next thing you know, I'm booking a flight in the dead of January. And we pulled it off, it was a ton of fun, we got along great, I didn't totally drive John up the wall after ten days of my antics, and I now have beef with Boost Mobile, but it was incredible and I'd do it again. He's a great friend and I'm glad that after nine years, a pandemic playing online Survivor, and all kinds of ups and downs over coasters, that we're still bros and can still do things like this. And Youri went from some random thoosie we got to talking to at Plosaland (something I often detest) to being kind enough to show us around his home park with Dutch snacks. Sorry you drew the short straw on Pulsar, man! Hope it wasn't too cold!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett leans against a red, white, and blue Piper Cherokee airplane.

Generally, losing a parent makes it impossible to like the year that it happened. But this made 2025 a lot harder to hate. And considering I told my father I'd go to Amsterdam for him, I like to think that's what he'd have wanted. So one final thank you. One to my father, whose little Heineken mishap on that business trip led to his son visiting the same city where it happened years later. Gonna keep hitting the skies and adventuring for you.