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Published: October 20th 2008
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My transportation for the day
The bell is the most important feature of the bike. Northwest Airlines began direct service between Dallas/Ft Worth and Amsterdam earlier this year. For those of you in the DFW area, make use of this route as soon as possible. I need to figure out how to spend more time here.
So much has been written about Amsterdam that I won’t try to come up with anything original or profound. What you think you know about the city is probably part true, part wrong. You just need to visit the place for yourself so that you can have your own image in your mind, not some 2nd, 3rd, umpteenth-hand experience you have heard or read. Yes- there are bicycles everywhere, a red light district and coffee shops and smart shops scattered around the city. As of June 1 this year, smoking of tobacco is prohibited indoors. I chuckled every time I saw a sign that read “Smoking allowed. No tobacco.” It is so much more than these.
Once there, you realize that Amsterdam is not bound by the cliché images bestowed upon it. It should be defined by the atmosphere that makes all these stereotypes possible. It really holds something for everyone and is something different
The Ballad of John and Yoko
Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton,
Talking in our beds for a week.
The newspaper said, "Say what you doing in bed?"
I said, "We're only trying to get us some peace".
to each person. For me, I have stumbled across a great bagel shop that provided some great ideas for my future business venture.
Since I had only 1 full day to see as much of the city as possible, I figured the best way to do this was to join a bicycle tour of the city. A couple of highlight for me (These are in addition to riding through the Dutch countryside in a vicious thunderstorm. Probably why I now have a sore throat.):
1. Watching and listening to people on the tour. There was the lady who miraculously avoided every pedestrian and parked car along the street and couldn’t keep up with the rest of the group because, come to find out, she never switched out of the highest gear. All this while her husband was 200 meters in front not wanting anything to do with her. Then there was the older American woman who fretted about forgetting her helmet in the hotel room and trying to ride a foreign, unfamiliar bike. She actually brought her helmet 5000 miles to Europe? Lady, it is a 7 speed beach cruiser not a fighter jet! I’ll be sure
The windmill microbrewery
Would look a little out of place in Dallas. to keep at the front of the pack. And yes, I really am trying to cut down on my cynicism.
2. The actual tour is always enjoyable but the tips you receive from the tour leader are invaluable (especially when you show up in the city without a guide book or any research). For example, windmills were going extinct fairly quickly in Amsterdam so the government had to devise incentives to get people to save them. I’m not sure on the particulars but one windmill was turned into a not-for-profit microbrewery. This place was awesome! Only open from 4-8 each day and served some excellent, cheap beer. There is something about going to a microbrewery and getting a beer for a coin out of your pocket. Granted, it was a 2 euro coin which is about $2.70. Still, that beer I had would easily be $5.00 in the States. We’re not talking Amstel light here. (Side note - these 1 and 2 euro coins were great at first until I realized they are a lot like casino chips. I wasn’t attaching the real value to them. I’ve been throwing them around like nickels and dimes.)
Definitely worth
the 7.50 euro entry fee is the Anne Frank House. Like any memorial or remembrance of the holocaust it is offers an ongoing awareness so that as we become farther removed by time and geography we will hopefully never forget what happened and what can happen. If there was ever a case for a person’s potential impact on the world, it is this. One young girl kept a diary of her day to day life in hiding without a clue that she would become the picture of the Jewish struggles during the holocaust for ages to come. While it may not be on the scale of Anne Frank, you never know how you will impact the world.
One final thought...we look back at the Third Reich and the Holocaust and always are shocked and amazed that it happened. What is occurring at this instance that will cause generations in the future to ask “How could they let that happen?” Is it the current genocide in Darfur? The erosion of our privacy in the United States under the guise of a war on terror? The shifting of power from the citizens to big money in our democracy? I’m sure there are several things. One common thread when you look back at such events is that they were able to occur and perpetuate because of fear. Fear of speaking out; fear of disrupting the status quo. Instead of questioning whether something is right or wrong it is easier to look the other way, especially if you think you are not impacted. Oh, but you are.
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anonymous
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Fear is at the bottom of much....
Excellent comments and perspective on "what will others look back on our time and bemoan." Great post and pictures. More posts like this, please!