Amsterdam

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Our plane from El Paso set down in Amsterdam on June 6th. While we had planned only a few days here, we soon decided that this most hospitable city of bicyclists transporting everything from cellos to as many as 6 children at once (one on mom's back, another on the handlebars and 3 in the front bucket), glorious parks filled with children at play and seniors taking in the sun needed a few more days. In addition to taking canal rides through the city, making a de rigure stop at the Houseboat Museum (to compare and contrast our Sausalito days on the water) and hanging out at the local Kafe-hauses, we chanced upon the "Sauna Deco." New friends at a coffeehouse could not understand why we would go to a sauna on such a perfectly beautiful day (joking that we must have brought the beautiful weather from California, since only a few days before it had been cold and rainy) when we could be just watching the boats and bicycles and Dutch folks from a perfect vantage point.

But what a find! A marvel of love and dedication offered to city travelers and residents alike, the antique dealer proprietors had rescued stained glass, balustrades, staircases etc. from an old Parisian hotel that had been demolished to lovingly create a lavish, other era escape into dry heat, wet heat, cold pools and a very fine salad shop/restaurant where it was quite improper to "dress" for dinner.

These pleasures for the senses and heart were balanced by Amsterdam's inspired and powerful broken mirrors and Auschwitz victims monument where the sky above could no longer "seamlessly and impassionately cover the atrocities of the holocaust". Truly a city of contrasts, heart and intelligence.

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