Amsterdam, Netherlands

A word of warning before I tell this story. If you have been using these stories to lull your child to sleep you may want to skip this one and re-read a chapter from the latest Harry Potter book. Otherwise you are going to have to do a lot of explaining.

So after my older sister and niece flew back home I was still a bit undecided as to my plans. My flight to Thailand is not until the end of the month so I have a couple more weeks in Europe. My original plan was to fly to Copenhagen and make my way back to Paris via the train. While I searched for cheap flights I suddenly decided that I would go to Amsterdam instead. Holland was in the final game of the World Cup and I thought it would be a great place to watch the game. At one point I thought the final game would be between Holland and Germany, not sure which country I would have gone to then. So I bought my ticket for the next day and went to work on finding a place to stay. Given my last minute plans and the excitment of the World Cup finals my choices were limited, but I found a place.

So on the day of the final I boarded the train in Paris for the 3+ hour ride to Amsterdam. The predominant color on the train was of course orange. Once I arrived in Amsterdam I was out of the train station no more than 5 minutes when I got my first wiff of weed. One of the reasons that Amsterdam is popular is that weed is legal in small amounts. I also got my first glance at Amsterdams love of cycling (this will be covered in another story).

I'm going to jump ahead a bit to give some background on how tolerant Amstredam is about things that would never fly in the US. For instance when is the last time you were walking down the street looked over into a store window and saw a women standing there is her finest underwear? The first time I saw this I wasn't anywhere near the red light district where this is common place. To show how my mind works as soon as I saw this lady the song "how much is that doggie in the window" popped into my head, I know it's wrong. I think I was next to one of these ladies at the laudermat as she was washing her "uniforms", I mean who else has an entire load full of unmentionables? I think only in Amsterdam can you buy a Big Mac and go right next store and watch a peep show. Then there are the "coffe houese". These are places that you can buy and enjoy weed. While I did not enter any of these shops I'm positive a couple of times I got a contact high just walking by (I exceeded my food budget on these occasions). There tolerance does not just extend to "drugs" (I don't really consider weed a drug) and sex. I have also seen a lot more mixed raced families and families with adopted children here than I did in Italy or France.

Ok, now back to my lodgings. According to the directions my hostel was in walking distance to the train station, these directions did include the phrase "turn down the alleyway" which should have been my first clue that the place I would be staying might be a bit different. I was not staying directly in the red light district but I was pretty much in party central. There were "coffe houses" all around. The main man at the reception desk looked exactly like Mr. Bean (facial expressions and all). There was another guy that occasionally worked the desk and I think his communication filter was broken because he had no problem saying things to the guest like "what's wrong with you I already explained that to you".
The place had no elevator, only a very step set of steps, which you would think with the condition of some of the guest this would be dangerous.

The bed I had reserved was in a mixed room which means that there were guys and girls together. This was not so bad since during most of my stay there was a very nice looking guy that had no problem sleeping only in his tighty whities, not a bad view to wake up to.

A couple of times that I was in the lobby (only place to really get internet) I saw some "couples" coming in and/or leaving that did not appear to have known each other for very long. They seemed to depart in opposite directions in somewhat of a business like manner. Which lead me to believe that in addition to the daily rates this was one of those places that also had hourly rates so that people (men) could enjoy some of the local sites in private. All in all it was a good place to stay with plenty of things to see close by.

As I walk to the park where the World Cup final game will be shown on several big screens I'm just one in a sea of orange. For as far as I can see almost everyone is wearing something orange, from shirts, to pants, to scarves, and even some people's hair. It´s a similar atmosphere of that in Brazil when their team played, although I think the Dutch fans were a little more controlled.

Museum park is where the game will be shown and I'm pretty sure all of Amsterdam is there to watch the game. I could have gone to a local bar and probably would have gotten a better view of the game, but I wanted to be right in the middle of the action. So I arrived at the park and there were about 5 big screens set up. I found a place that gave me a pretty good view, although I knew it probably would not last. It was about an 45 minutes until the game, but they had a DJ and everyone was having a good time. Between the beer and the weed I'm sure there are some that will have very little memory of anything that occurred. It's possible that I might have even got a contact drunk there was so much beer flowing. There were several news helicopters flying overhead to gets views of the crowd and just prior to the game a larger helicopter flew over the crowd dropping flowers in the color of the countries flag (red, white and blue). As the game began people were hopping on light poles and standing on other people's bike seats to get a good view. For most of the game I was standing next to a gal that had been seperated from hers friends and so she was kind enough to translate the Dutch announcers for me. The Dutch played a great game and I think it could have gone either way, but Spain did in fact win the game.

Two days later I woke up with plans to go to the Van Gough museum. However if I had read the Daily Dutch (actually the newspaper is called the Holland times, but I like my name better) I would have learned that the team had returned home the night before and that today would be a day of celebration. So the museum was closed as it's location was right next to the park, but also as a result of the celebration the trams where free all day. So having watched the game with pretty much all of Amsterdam I decided to celebrate with them as well. Again there was a sea of orange headed to the park. I passed Andrew Bynum of the Lakers on the way to the park, he was in the opposite direction (towards the red light district). If you did not have anything orange no worries as plenty of free stuff was being passed out at the park from little flags, to plastic soccer balls to cloth hats.

At the park there was a DJ spinning tunes, with most of it being techno music. Everyone from older ladies to police were singing and tapping their feet to the beats. There appears to be a love of techno music in this country. They can put anything to techno including yoddling and the accordian. At one point I recognize a song but it took me a while to determine it was Sex of Fire by Kings of Leon. I had never heard the polka version. Once again the tolerance of the country showed as one of the songs was just some beats and the MF word shouted out on occasion (I can only imagine the complaints in the US). They even put the song Country Rose to a techno beat.

On the screens they showed the team posing with Queen Beatrix at Noordeinde Palace which is located in The Hague. From their the team loaded into military helicopters and their progress to Amsterdam was occasionally updated on the screen. The helicopters did a couple of fly overs right over my head. From there they flew off to land and the team was loaded into boats and made their way to the park through the canals. On the screens we could see that the canals were lined with people and in the water there were so many boats that were following the team. Once the team reached the stage the crowd went wild. The main team members were introduced and then the entire place basically turned into a giant rave with the team leading the dancing from the stage.

I'm a big sports fan and like most I can admit that most professional athletes get paid big money to play kids games. However this does not make their goals any less real and doesn't make just missing these goals any less heartbreaking. So it was nice to see the Dutch fans show love to their team, and for the team to be so gracious in accepting this love.

I have been to both China and Japan, both cities known for having a lot of cyclist, however I think that Amsterdam may have them beat. The minute I walked out of the train station I saw what can only be described as one of the largest bicycle parking garages I've ever seen. It was about 3 levels and there had to be at least 500 bikes on each level. In addition to this there were bikes lined up and down the street.

In the US those that have bikes tend to have somewhat "fancy bikes", gel seats, shocks on the front and/or back, water bottle holders, head lamps, etc. The bikes in Amsterdam are in no way a status symbol, they are merely a means of getting around. So this means they have the basics, a seat, handle bars, petals, and tires. Part of the reason for this may be due to the fact that bikes may have a short shelf life depending on the locations there being kept. Often times there are bike racks to put your bike, but often times you make just be leaning it against a tree or a building. If you do this and you are blocking others in they may not be too nice to your bike on the way to theirs. During the World Cup final I saw many bikes that were getting stood on to get better views. It's not unusual to see what appears to be beaten up abandoned bikes as you walk around the city.

There are so many bikes I believe you are more likely to get hit by a bike than by a car. I did see one lady get her arm hit as a cyclist went by. In defense of the cyclist there are a large number of people that are clueless as to where they are supposed to walk and where the cyclist ride. I got in the habit of looking both ways as to not get run over.

Everything that we would do in our cars they do on their bikes. Grocery shop, ride to work, ride to dinner, buy appliances and furniture (I saw a lady with a chair on the back of her bike). Sometimes I see people riding one bike and then holding a second bike as go along.

They ride by themselves or with others on the back or in the front or sometimes both. It's common to see one person pedaling along at normal speed with someone just balancing themselves on the back. First of all I don't know how the weight of the additional person doesn't slow them down and second of all I don't know how the person on the back just balances without holding onto anything. It's also common to see an entire family riding by. The parents either have seats on both the front or back that the kids ride in or they may have a wagon like wooden structure on the front. With these you may see 2 or 3 kids in them. It seems that as soon as a baby can hold it's head up it's time to strap them in the seat (usually in front). I saw one baby that looked like he must of just learned to hold his head up and his dad was taking him out for his first ride. I also saw one lady that had a baby strap to her body and another in the front seat.

With all the bikes there is lack of helmets and considering the number of tourist that are on bikes trying to learn the system I would think there would be more crashes but I did not observe one my entire visit.

Holland is of course due to the fun that can be had in Amsterdam, but there is of course other great reasons to visit.

After a few days of staying in the party zone I moved to a hostel (Stayok) that was a bit away from the center of activity, but there was a tram station nearby so it was very easy to get around. I did a day trip to the south of Holland. First stop was to a small windmill village. The windmills in Holland were used for many things but mostly for removing water from lakes and rivers and placing it in dikes. About 40% of The Netherlands is reclaimed land. In fact the Schipol airport is actually below sea level. Next stop was a cheese making demonstration. Cheese is a major export for Holland. We were close to the town of Edam which is where the cheese of that name comes from. We stopped for lunch in the fishing village of Volendum and then took a quick boat ride over to the little town of Markam we got a very quick demonstration on clog making from a lady that seemed like she needed a vacation really bad (she was borderline rude). We stopped in the city of Delft to get a pottery demonstration. The pottery is hand painted with Cobalt blue and is world famous. I found it ironic that Delft is also the birthplace of Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek who is often referred to as "the father of microbiology". We drove through The Hague where we viewed the House of Parliament as well as Peace Palace. Last stop was to Madurodum which is a minature village with most of the major landmarks in Holland. The park was built by the father of George Maduro for his son that fought agaisnt the Germans and died in the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.

There are also a number of great museums in Amsterdam. My favorite was the Van Gough museum, for a number of reasons. First of all I like Van Goughs work because when you look at it seems like you can follow every single brush stroke. Also I feel like you don't have to have a Master's degree in art history to fully understand what he was trying to convey. Also the size of the museum felt just right, often times museums are so big that often times when you leave you feel that there was so much you didn't have time to see.

If you don't feel like doing much of anything Holland is good for this as well and it seems the locals have this down to a fine art. On weekends the canals fill up with boats of various sizes, with people from all different backgrounds. You see families (the kids almost always had life jackets on), young adults, older couples. You also see events being held on the boats such weddings and birthday parties. If you don't have a boat no problem there are plenty of parks both near and away from the canals, the zoo also seems to be a popular place to hang out even for those without kids.

So regardless of what you like to do it would seem that Holland has something for everyone and it's great that I was able to see some of the many sides of the country.