September 4, 2002

(Toby)

First and foremost: I have decided to do the Jimmy Fund Walk again this year - only this time here in Abingdon (where I work). Turns out my company sponsors a marathon here in October, so I am going to walk that route on Jimmy Fund walk day with a co-worker. For those of you not familiar with this, it is a 26.2 mile walk (in Boston - the marathon route) to raise money for cancer research. I've been doing the walk for 11 years now. Crazy, I know. But the truth is it's a good thing to do and I'm gonna do it. It's my small contribution to help find a cure for cancer. Click here to see this year's 'won't you please sponsor me' letter. And thanks in advance for your support.

Unlike Prague or Bruges, Amsterdam is very much a working and living city, with tourism as just a part of it. Much like London or New York, only smaller. (And with legalized drugs and prostitution.) It is a city with a great energy to it that you can sense as soon as you arrive. It is full of canals and bikers - man, there are bikers everywhere. They have bike lanes in the streets and on the sidewalks - they even have a parking garage for bikes near their Central Station (see above picture - only bikes in there). Truth be told, my only real complaint about Amsterdam is that it could be truly dangerous walking around because you never knew if you were in a safe spot - often there were no sidewalk curbs and we were never really sure if we were on the sidewalk or in the street. Plus the trams had their own lanes which were seamless as well. And the bikers seemed more likely to hit you than the cars. Yikes.

We stayed at a small hotel on the Prinsengracht canal, called, surprisingly, Prinsengracht Hotel. A quiet and very pretty canal centrally located. Also located near a bakery/chocolaterie that had amazing apple strudel. Ohmygod. It rained in the afternoon / evening the day we got there, but other than that we were once again very fortunate with the weather.

Our first day there (Saturday) we took a tour of the old Heineken brewery, now a tourist trap called The Heineken Experience. You might be able to see a video we took when were there (if they haven't pulled it off their server yet) by clicking here. (Click on the picture to see who's holding the can of Heineken.) The Experience as pretty lame, although the price of admission got you 3 free beers and a souvenir beer glass (in a Heineken tin), so at least you feel like you didn't waste you money, just your time. That night, after dinner at Planet Hollywood (sad, we know), we walked around the red light district. Even in the rain it was pretty crowded with tourists and kids at stag do's. Sex shows, sex shops and ½ naked girls in glass doors with red lights abound. Somehow, maybe because it is all legal and in the open or maybe because it is so touristy, it really didn't seem that seedy. (Although I've heard it gets worse as the night goes on.) Plus the woman all seemed to have a good sense of humor about it. Like most things, I guess it all comes down to attitude. Sorry, no pictures - not allowed. Do your own websearch if you want some!

On Sunday, we tried to go Anne Frank's house, but the line was huge. So we walked down to Dam Square to see the palace…..which was closed. So we went into a modern art exhibit (sculpture) at the New Church. Interesting. Some of it was actually pretty good, but a lot of it was a little too abstract for me. The artists were from all over the world and spanned the last century or so.

Next came the flower market - man do they have a lot of tulip (and other) bulbs! Did you know that 70% of the world's cut flowers come from The Netherlands? Well now you do. It was pretty amazing to see that many bulbs. Pity we don't have our own garden here.

Then we went to the RijksMuseum and saw some famous art - Rembrant, Van Gogh, Monet, all the famous ones. Our favorite part of the museum was a special watercolor exhibit. Unfortunately, I think neither Tom nor I are really the true art museum types. We tend to walk through fairly quickly without fully appreciating what we are seeing. Perhaps we'll get better at that - or maybe YOU can come with us and help us appreciate the art more!

Outside the museum was a festival/arts trade show with multiple music stages and many (very many) arts exhibitors. Seems like a city that is very supportive of the arts - we like that. We took some brochures but unfortunately, they were all in Dutch. Oh well. At least we got to see a real human actually wearing clogs - check out the picture below.

Sunday night we did what tourists in Amsterdam do. Enough said.

Click on a photo to see the whole picture
A dog at his seat in the bar	More bulbs than you know what to do with	A local wearing clogs	The Royal Palace - closed during our visit	Mr. Death posing with tourists outside the palace

On Monday we went early to Anne Franks' House - really a well done museum. You get to walk through the house (actually, it was her father's office) and up to the attic to see where they all hid for 2 years. It is a larger space than either of us thought, but still a pretty harsh reality. Hard to imagine not going outside for 2 years let alone living in fear of being found every day. It certainly emphasized the horrors of WWII, but it also made you see the good in the people that tried to help. If only there had been more of them.

On our way from Anne Frank's house to the canal for a boat tour, we saw the 'beer bus' pictured below. Talk about a difference in realities! Looks fun though, doesn't it?

The canal boat tour was a nice ride, but not much of a tour. Tom enjoyed it, I was disappointed in the amount of narration we got. I was hoping to learn more about Amsterdam and what we were seeing. Here are some pictures. After lunch, we walked over to the Van Gogh museum. Physically, a very nice museum - large and bright. Again, we went through fairly quickly, preferring Van Gogh's lighter period.

Click on a picture to see a bigger version
A pedal-driven beer wagon, with a bunch of drunk guys driving	Pic from canal boat - there is a hook at the top of the house for hoisting furniture into windows when you move	Houseboat on the canal	Seven bridges all lined up along the canal	Toby in front of the Van Gogh Museum

We went to a large flea market on the way home - mostly junk, although we did find some cheap toothbrushes. We also got more apple strudel on the way home. Yum!

For dinner, we had made reservations at a place called Paste e Basta where the waiters were said to sing opera to you during dinner. Well, they did sing some opera and some pop stuff, but for about $27, I expected better singing and better food. Oh well. All part of the experience.

Since we had pretty much been walking around the city for 3 days, on Tuesday we decided to take a ½ day bus trip to see Volendam and Marken (old fishing villages), some windmills and how clogs and cheese were made. Very pretty countryside, and very pretty small towns. Seems like each of our stops was a big gift shop, but it was interesting to learn how clogs are made (takes about 5 minutes each) and we bought some yummy cheese. In one of the villages, we saw a woman in her yard dressed in the traditional dutch outfit. Not sure if she gets paid to do that or not. Also, on one of the doors there were two little wooden clogs hanging which our tour guide said meant there were two babies inside. It was very sweet. Below is a picture of how they hang their laundry without clothes pins. Kinda cool. One of the best parts of the tour was that as we were driving, our guide gave us lots of good information on Amsterdam and the Netherlands (in English, Spanish and German) - the kind of stuff I was hoping we'd get on the boat tour. All in all, a good trip. Here are some pictures - notice the statue that was outside the clog showroom. It's not really what it looks like, but we couldn't resist.

Click on a picture to see a bigger version
Making clogs with by machine	Cheese aging peacefully on the shelf	Your average windmill	Another windmill	The statue: what is this guy doing?
	A view of the Volendam village	No clothespins! Kinda cool	A lovely Dutch spider

In our last installment, we forgot to tell you about a 'beach' party we went to at Kay and Barry's (aka Baza's) house. They both work at Akzo, Kay in customer ops and Barry in marketing. It's an annual event for them - a once a year big bash. It was a beach theme this year and came complete with a bouncy castle, carved out pineapples for drinks, leis, a 3 piece steel drum band, a limbo line, karaoke (no we didn't) and a fish and chips van (yes we did). It was really a well done party with lots of my co-workers there. It was nice to introduce Tom to many of the people I talk about all the time. Really a fun night - and good to see some of the non-work personalities! I never knew……

Since we've been back, we saw another play at the Oxford Playhouse: Life x3. It's about a couple who think they are having dinner guests the next night when the doorbell rings and their guests show up. It basically runs through 3 different scenarios of what the night could be like. Sort of a 'life is what you make of it' kinda deal, and very well done. Very enjoyable.

Next up: Scotland with Rich (a full week of holiday!)

Bits & Bobs:

• the letter 'H' is pronounced 'Haich', in the States we just say 'Aich'. Human Resources is called 'Haich Ar"
• Did we ever mention the 15+ minutes of ADVERTISEMENTS before a film at the cinema? Most annoying - we didn't like the 2 minutes of ads in the States - this is 7.5 times worse.
• The people in my office say they were 'gobsmacked' - meaning some combination of amazed, shocked, stunned, surprised. The old jaw-drop thing.
• I love throwing in a little British intonation at work. Nobody else seems to notice until I say "didn't that sound British?"
• They may not have many mosquitos here (although they do in Bruges and Amsterdam), but they sure have a lot of varieties of house spiders. Tiny, small, big, REALLY BIG, thick, thin......Ugh! Luckily I married an excellent spider remover.
• I heard from Raelinda yesterday that Molly (our cat in Boston) has been chasing another mouse around the house. She is great at tracking them. If only she knew what to do with them once she cornered them!
• Only one person commented on my car issue (from last update). Thanks Dad. I'll keep all of you in suspense as to my choice.
• The apple trees out front now have plenty of good tasting apples. It's nice to grab one on your way to work or when you come home.

And there you have it for this report.