Skateboarding in Amsterdam

My trip to Italy and Amsterdam in late November 2001.

I traveled to Amsterdam and Italy in November of 2001 to visit my girlfriend Jessica. I drove from Providence, RI where I was a student at Brown University, then flew from Boston to Amsterdam, then to Rome. I stayed in Rome for one night and then took a train to Florence, where I stayed for one week, including Thanksgiving. I then took a train to Bologna and flew back to Amsterdam for a 15 hour layover, then a plane back Boston, and lastly a bus to Providence. I traveled to and from Europe with a longtime friend Mike, we had been schooling together since five years old. His girlfriend, also a Brown student, was studying Latin in Rome, while mine, a graduate of Tufts University was studying Art History in Florence. Mike was studying Neuroscience, and myself the History of Science. All of us students and friends made for an amazing trip. We ate at many restaurants, my self being Italian, appreciated much of the food and wine. I remember visiting the History of Science Museum in Florence and being blown away. They have Galileo's middle figure in a glass case and the largest armillary sphere I think I'll ever see. Their chemistry and medical equipment collections are superbly kept, well organized, and displayed beautifully. Most of all there are four floors, so much I spent an entire day and went back the next to finish up. My girlfriend looked amazing, just brilliantly glowing about our time together. We visited many museums and galleries, as well as the ruins at Fiesole outside Florence. Everywhere I went the sentiment of 9/11 pervaded my interactions. So few people flying made plane tickets very inexpensive (I paid less than $300 USD for my round trip flight). In a way, the whole world was American. 9/11 had been witnessed in real time around the world, everyone felt they had experienced it together, and that showed in my interactions. Indeed, many of the places I visited had televisions with images of 9/11 flashing across the screen. It's hard to imagine now how fresh it lingered in out memories just two short months later. When my trip concluded, Mike and myself flew back to Amsterdam on our way home to New England. We had time to see downtown, visit some cafes, do some quick shopping for friends and relatives back home, get lost for awhile and head back to the airport. Along the way he shot this photograph of me skateboarding. I had skated a little here and there in Rome, Florence, and Bologna but had little time to find good terrain and didn't take any photos of me on my board. When I realized this I told Mike to take one of me on the skateboard and this is what came out. I don't know why I did that particular move, but I like the way the photo came out and have cherished it ever since he emailed me a copy and gave me a printed and framed one before I left Rhode Island for California in 2003.