we arrived in utrecht -site of that evening's David Byrne concert- in the early afternoon. i had found several interesting things to do around town in my travel guide of holland, and frank & tracey politely obliged my tourism.

utrecht is a quaint little town, with bricked streets and canals running all through it. it's also the site of the tallest church tower in the netherlands: dom tower.

my travel book told me that if we climb to the top we would be able to see both rotterdam and amsterdam. frank assured me that this was just a lure to get unsuspecting tourists to climb a zillion stairs, so we opted to stay on the ground.

we also visited the Speelklok tot Pierement Museum, a collection of 'burping fairground organs and ingenious musical boxes'. it was a fascinating place, but we were frustrated by the fact that we weren't allowed to touch any of the exhibits, and therefore couldn't *hear* any of the music they produced. however, i did managed to snag my first photo of frank & his wife, in front of one of the huge calliope-things. (frank's a little paranoid about his face being seen on the 'net, so i've blacked out his face as a courtesy to him.)

my travel guide also mentioned the Museum voor het Kruideniersbedrijf as 'possibly the world's only museum devoted to groceries', and intrigued, i forced frank & tracey to hunt it down with me. we were quite surprised to find, down a very narrow and dark alley, a one-room museum exhibiting old product-packaging (old cereal boxes and such). we didn't stay long, but thanked the nice lady who tended the candy store downstairs anyway.

after a quick dinner (where i was introduced to a scrumptious item called a 'kroket' - what amounts, very simply, to fried gravy), we headed to the club where we were to meet up with some friends before the David Byrne concert. i won't bore you with the details of the show, but you can click here if you're interested in photos of the concert.

after the concert, i headed off to northern holland with my second dutch host, jan. our adventures are detailed starting on the next page...

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