Amsterdam: a Small City with a Big Heart

I love to travel. I'm an American by birth (I was born in South Carolina to an American father and a Scottish mother; My Dad was in the Navy stationed in Dunoon, Scotland when he met my mother). However, I consider myself a citizen of the world. You see, I spent my elementary school years in Spain and Italy because of my Dad's Navy career. And with my Mom's family in England and Scotland we frequently traveled (and still do) to visit them. And, having relatives from the UK, we sometimes travel with them on family vacations (folks from the UK love to travel). I remember the summer in Gibraltar with the famous monkeys pulling my cousins long hair. Or the cazbar in Morocco where the "water man" sold water being poured out of what looked like a sheep's stomach (I'm sure it wasn't, but it sure looked that way to me).

The point is I love to travel to other countries to see how others live. My dream vacation would be to Tokyo. I've been to many places in Europe, and while I love it, the people, for the most part, look like me (white, or along the Mediterranean, white with a nice tan). The money is similar the US dollar (by that I mean a burger might cost 4 Euro and not 10 million something or other). And when English is not spoken, you can usually get by in Europe because so many of the languages are derived from the same language and often have similar sounding words to English. None of this would be true in Tokyo. You see, I'm a tall 6'2 and a pasty white man. I imagine I would look nothing like everyone else in Tokyo. And I assume a burger would cost 10,000 Yen or something ridiculously expensive sounding like that. And finally, the language is nothing like English. Anything beyond "Domo Arigato Mister Roboto" and I would be lost... and I would love it! But Tokyo has yet to happen for me (and I will write about it when it does!), but my second dream vacation did happen.

I used to work for a Dutch owned company with headquarters in Amsterdam, but I had yet had the chance to The Netherlands on business. I heard stories how nice it was, but never was given a business trip there (although they loved sending me Seacucus and St. Louis!). A few years back, my area here in the States got a new Director, and she was from the Amsterdam office. She meet with all of the US managers to get to know us. On a whim, I told her I would love to find a reason to visit the Amsterdam office (not so much to visit the office, per se, but I didn't tell her that). And as if by magic, I was on a plane Amsterdam bound a few weeks later for a one day meeting (10 hours by plane each way for a one day meeting is crazy, but I jumped at the opportunity).

Now, when I used to tell my friends I wanted to go to Amsterdam, they assumed it was to smoke pot and to hire a hooker (not that I've ever done that here... gotta love friends, right?!) After all, isn't that what Amsterdam is famous for?!? Actually, the only people smoking pot there were American and Canadian college kids, and I'm not sure who hires the ladies of the night, but it wasn't me. Anyway, in true Amsterdam fashion, on the flight from Newark to Amsterdam's Schipol airport I was seated next to someone who told me his name was "uncle stoner" and he wrote for a marijuana magazine! Just my luck, right?! For the next seven hours, at least when I wasn't pretending to be asleep to avoid awkward conversation, he told me about the best coffee houses to visit (the coffee houses are where you go to buy marijuana; don't ask me why), what the best type of pot to buy, and, if I was going to hire a prostitute, how much I should pay for each service. He even said I could drop his name to ensure the best service at the coffee houses! I knew this was going to be an interesting trip!

Once at the airport, after saying good bye to my new "friend" uncle stoner I hopped in a taxi for my hotel. It was early in the morning, and although tired from the flight, I wanted to see and do as much as possible before I had to be in the office the next day. I cheked in and freshed up and was out the door to explore.

Central Amsterdam is a relatively small area and I wound up walking everywhere I needed to go. There is an excellent tram service that covers all of central Amsterdam, too. I first went to perhaps Amsterdam's most famous, or infamous, attraction, the Anne Frank House. This is the house where Anna Frank and her family hid until they were betrayed by someone (it's still unknown who turned them in) and arrested by the occupying Nazi forces. It's also the place where she made entries in her now famous diary. The rooms in which Anne's family together with another Jewish family lived were bigger than I had imagined, but still it would have been cramped with two families living there. The most chilling part of the whole experience for me was entering the back rooms where they lived by going through the small passage hidden behind a bookcase, just as Anna had done. I could not imagine going through that passage way only once and not again for sometime, and then only because you were being arrested and sent to a concentation camp. There is also a museum with artifacts and stories about the Anne Frank and the Nazi occupation (and brave resistance by the Dutch).

From there, I thought I needed something a bit lighter, so I walked to the museumplein, or museum square, home to several museums including the Rijksmuseum and my destination, the Van Gogh Museum. The museum is the largest collection of Van Gogh's works and includes The Potato Eaters and three Sunflower paintings. The museum is also home to works by other famous 19th century artists. The multi-story building is a great way to spend a few hours, and the building itself is a work of art, designed by famed Dutch furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld.

From there, I wondered the city and found myself in the Leidseplein, an area with a thriving cafe and club scene. I enjoyed sitting in one of the many cafe's watching the sun go down and the lights of the canal houses come on. Reflecting on my day in Amsterdam, I vowed to return again (and I have since returned several times). The people are so friendly, the atmosphere is laza faire, and the city is like a postcard. In fact, Amsterdam is my favorite European city even though I've never hired a lady of the night or visited a coffee shop.