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Tolerance
July 4, 2007
Happy 4th of July friends and relatives!! We hope everyone is having a safe and fun holiday! We are in Holland still and I celebrated with Justin shopping in the Waterlooplein flea market and visiting the Van Gogh museum. It was rainy but otherwise, a nice peaceful day! No fireworks however so different from our past 4th of July holiday celebrations. Come to think of it….I can’t recall one in the rain either. (lots in the fog…but none in the rain)
We have been in the Netherlands three days so far. We have made Haarlem our home base. We decided to spend an extra day here as Will got sick our first full day and I was confined to the apartment with him all day. Seems he picked up the stomach flu! At first I assumed it was something he ate and would pass quickly. I went out for a bit to make some calls and when I returned he had a blazing fever, and continued to be sick after 10 hours of no food. The next day he was fine about mid-day and took Amsterdam by storm! Kids…they certainly recover fast!
It was sure nerve wracking being with a sick child away from home. As a mother, my first instinct was…we have to go home. He however called our apartment home. (We are staying in a rather large studio apartment that is part of a hotel.) I felt better about that. It was hard however…as I have a routine when my kids are sick and it was all off. I felt sort of helpless not being able to instantly help him, plus there was no doctor for me to call if he got worse, we were stuck in the room all day, I couldn’t try my usual tricks of dry toast and chicken soup with the ease of home. Thankfully he recovered fast.
Haarlem is a darling small town about a 15 minute train ride from Amsterdam. I am glad we made this walk-able little town our home base instead of the huge city. We can walk to the train in less than 10 minutes. The cobblestone streets are lined with bakeries, cheese shops and little boutiques. As I lie in bed in the morning I hear the church in the square ring its bells. It is so peaceful and
delightful…yet the fun of Amsterdam is just a short ride away!
Yesterday we took a peaceful canal boat cruise through the waterways of Amsterdam. We got a nice view of the city, the architecture and the history. The boats were covered as that kept us out of the rain! It poured on and off all day, with long sun breaks in between. After the boat ride we further explored the city on foot! We walked all over and took a quick tour of the Red Light District. Wow…you have to see it to believe it…much to Justin’s mortification. He can’t believe his parents took him there. I told him, you’re here…you have to see one of the most famous tourist attractions in the world. More power to them actually….they make about $750 euros a day or over $1000 US dollars based on today’s hideous exchange rate!
We also visited the Anne Frank house. It is one of the most moving places I have ever been….I teared up frequently during the visit…even had to put my sun glasses on towards the end. You could feel the Franks there and their fear while in hiding. While their hiding place was bigger than I imagined, they were there for 2 years, had little food, no sunlight and had to be constantly quiet. My boys are never quiet so the Nazi’s would have found us the first day. I can‘t imagine as a parent the fear they felt trying to keep their children safe.
I continue to be overwhelmed by the Holocaust. It boggles my mind how such an atrocity in modern history could have occurred or still occurs as in the case of Darfur. As the four of us travel through the most tolerant city in the world, where sex, drugs and rock and roll are a part of the culture and community, I can‘t help but think how as humans have we become so intolerant of each other and our differences to the point of creating laws to force a point of view and to the extreme, genocide. As Scott was explaining to Justin about why Amsterdam had legal prostitution and marijuana use, I thought to myself why as a society to we fail to act in Darfur and yet are so tolerant of the flagrant acts of Paris Hilton or even our own president without so much as a flinch. When as humans does tolerance and intolerance go too far? Why can’t we come together to recognize that all of our differences contribute to this world and make it interesting. I learned some important lessons from the Dutch this week…don’t sweat the small stuff. I also didn’t realize they mounted the biggest underground resistance to the Nazi’s during WWII, so they don’t put up with any crap either and have a history of activism. They are role models!!
Tomorrow we leave for a week in Germany. Bring on the Strudel and hopefully some sun! I’ve had the same jeans on for 2 weeks while my tank tops languish in the suitcase. Pray that global warming actually warms Europe at least for a few days!
PS: Check out the previous blog entries…I finally have the pictures posted.
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