Amsterdam...splein

Bright and early Saturday morning, I caught the train to Amsterdam. Bleary-eyed, I made my way to car 18 and showed the email confirming my reservation to the agent standing by the door. Although I had signed up for ticketless travel, my train card, which isn't sent until you book a trip, had not arrived in time, so per Thalys' instructions, I printed the email confirming my purchase and took it with me. What followed was a little French bureaucratic lunacy. I showed my email to the agent standing at the door of my car, and he advised me that I would need to go back to car 12 or 13 and show the train manager my email because he couldn't let me on. The train manager was very friendly and laughed that the agent wouldn't let me on the train. Said, "it's no problem!" and initialed my email. I made my way back to car 18 and boarded the train. Ten minutes into the trip, as I walked to the bathroom, the same train manager stopped me and asked for my ticket. So I showed him the same email and said "uh, it's ticketless," and he said, "oh yes, this one." Yet he STILL stood there examining the email--the one bearing HIS initials--for a good two minutes then punched the code into his little machine and read the response (I presume saying that yes, indeed, my ticket was still valid) before returning the email to me and telling me I was free to go to the bathroom. Two more times on this trip, the French agents checked tickets. Each time they spent several minutes reading the email and reflecting on...something before saying "ok" and moving on. Interestingly enough, when we boarded in Amsterdam, they didn't even check tickets, and when they did check tickets thirty minutes into the trip, the agent simply looked at my email for fifteen seconds, smiled, thanked me, and handed it back to me.



Four hours later, I was in Amsterdam, and it was beautiful. I took the tram from Central Station to the hotel--a ten to fifteen minute journey through the city. I woke Melina who had flown all night and had not slept, and we were off. We found lunch in an Irish pub that I would not recommend, but we were both hungry, and it was nearby. We spent the afternoon walking through the streets, along the canals, through Dam Square, through the red light district, past churches, through the beautiful flower market, etc. The buildings and the canals which run all through the city are so charming. Found a cute restaurant and had a delicious dinner. Our waiter spoke English (as does about 95% of the population), and thank goodness for that because the Dutch language is not easy to figure out. To my American eyes and ears, there seem to be lots of extra letters, and everything seems to end in "splein" or "en" or some other common syllable. Melina and I had quite a few laughs speaking our version of Dutch...our mouths just can't make the sounds.

Oh, and the bikes. They really DO bike all over the place. It's a little dangerous to be a pedestrian in Amsterdam because when there's not a bike coming toward you, there's a tram coming toward you. And while traffic congestion wasn't a problem, crossing the street took a lot of concentration as you had to look every imaginable way with every step. Following is a picture of the "staff parking lot" at the Concertgebuow (Concert Hall) near our hotel.

The next morning we made our way to The Pancake Bakery for breakfast. Pancakes are huge in Amsterdam, and this place was recommended as touristy but good. Melina ordered the bacon pancake, and much to her disgust, I ordered the bacon and banana pancake. Yum. Sweet and salty...delish.

After breakfast we visited Anne Frank's hiding place. It's called the Frank House, but it was really Otto Frank's place of business. The family moved into an area in the back of the building called the annex when they went into hiding. You know how emotional I am, and it was really a challenge to keep it together, but I did in spite of the fact that it was so deeply moving to be there, to be in the place where they hid in order to simply remain alive, to hear Otto Frank, the only one of the four to survive the war, talk about his daughter, to read Anne's words in every room--her hopes, dreams, and fears--and to know her fate. She wanted to be a writer. Sad to have a dream come true and not even be alive to experience it. We cannot forget how this thing happened to so many people, but I am afraid we have short memories. It scares me because the world is a dangerous place, and making nice is not going to make it safer. Just ask Neville Chamberlain or Marshall Petain.

On to lighter things. We left the Frank House and walked around. The weather was a little chilly, but the sky was blue, the sun was shining, and all over the city flowers (yes, many, many tulips) were blooming so it was beautiful. Went to a bar in the red light district and had a drink. Our table by the window gave us a bird's eye view of two prostitute's doors, so we sat there for a while and watched the action. Craziness! The women stood in front of full-length glass doors in their undies and tried (some more than others) to entice gawkers into becoming customers. It was crazy to watch! These women were nice-looking, twenty-something girls. The bartender told us that they charge 50 Euro for 15 minutes, and they "see" two to three clients an hour. Oh. My. Gosh. He also said that the "clients" are rarely there for fifteen minutes, and sure enough, we timed two at 7 minutes each. Hilarious! The last guy that we saw go in was still there when we left about 10 minutes later, so I guess he's the exception that proves the rule. ;) Several times people--men and women--would stop and ask something of the girls. Of course, we couldn't hear the conversations, but I would have loved to. Interesting, crazy-interesting.

We left and did some shopping then headed to dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant where our Mexican waiter kept us entertained with his flirting and his jokes. Afterward we went to another pancake place for dessert where we had poffertjes: quarter-sized pancakes covered in syrup and powdered sugar. That's right...we had pancakes twice in one day. When in Rome...

The next day we just walked around a bit and ate, of course. My train left for Paris a little after two, and as good as it was to see Melina and as beautiful as Amsterdam was, I was ready to be home. On the way back I saw one of the most amazingly beautiful views--field after field of row after row of beautiful, colorful, vibrant tulips! Oh how I wish I could have taken a picture! There were also many fields of sheep and tiny little lambs...so sweet. And somewhere in Belgium, I saw a trailer that was painted like an American flag. Fantastic!