Amsterdam

The scenario: A group of five rents a car and travels to Amsterdam to see a city of live and let live philosophy where the people have a sparkle in their eyes, most likely because of the pot they smoke.

Characters: Eric (yours truly), Valentin, Shola, Ileana, and Aurelieus

The story:
As always, or at least most of the time, or at least in my stories anyway, it started in the morning. We met in front of the gate at Airbus at about 8am. 8am is a much better start time for travel than 5am, but I knew I had problems as soon as Ileana pulled up with the car. Note to self: never let the shortest person in the group rent the car. The car was a BMW one series; it was a nice, small, hatchback/station wagon crossover, but a little too small for someone 6’5”. Anyway, we hit the road, and showed up at the campground in Amsterdam around four hours after departure. Did I mention that we would be staying in tents? There’s no better place to experience hippy-land than at a campground. The campground was only a campground in the sense that you put a tent up there, and then only if you could find a space. Everything is small there. The cabins at the place had the foot print of a car (an American car) and were tall enough that I think you could stand up in it, but I’m not sure. Well, some of us could stand up in them. At least the cabins were colorful. But we weren’t staying in the mini-cabins; we brought tents. So, after staking out a spot amidst the sea of rip-stop nylon, we built our temporary dwellings and deemed them worthy of accommodating us.

Next on the list was to rent some bikes and tour the town. Little did I know, I would be taking my very life in my hands on that bicycle. In retrospect, they should have been offering life insurance policies at the rental place instead of bike theft insurance. Here’s why: the bike paths, unlike where I’ve been in Germany, are not only for bikes. In Amsterdam the bike paths are full of pedestrians, mopeds, bikes, and cars the size of ovens. Not to mention the cars and trams while crossing the streets. And while we managed to avoid all of those dangers, Shola managed to run into a sign and bend the basket on his bike, and then later run into Aurelieus. I havn’t laughed so hard in quite a long time. Thankfully, nobody was seriously injured. Shola just broke his leg, and Aurelieus his wrist.
I think there are more canals in Amsterdam than in Venice, but don’t quote me on that. We rode up and down streets lined with quaint houses on one side and canals on the other. The golden sun glinted off of warm clay tiles on the roofs while birds sang in gently swaying trees. A mother rocked her baby on a nearby wooden bench. The water lapped quietly against the earthen and brick edges of the canal. A tender song that would have stopped Odysseus floated sweetly out of an upper window and drifted down to the people below. And then there was me, crying, because everything was so beautiful.

So, we biked through the city, along nice side streets, and through some parks. In one of the parks we stopped for a bit to listen to a live jazz band that was playing. I laid down on the grass in the sun and closed my eyes – quite nice. When I got up, I had the feeling that I wasn’t going to like tomorrow morning after a night in the tent on the hard ground. We then continued to ride our bikes some more. My butt was really sore by the end of the day. I mean really sore. I will continue to be straight for the rest of my life.

We ate dinner at this rip-off place that didn’t have either of the specials that they advertised outside. I was entirely disappointed with the restaurant. After that, we went to a coffee house, had a cup of coffee, and watched the people walk by. Valentin had eaten dinner with his parents, who coincidently happened to be in Amsterdam for the weekend (they are from France), and so wasn’t with us at the time. By the time we met up with him, it was getting to be later. We had a drink while we rested our feet, and then decided to take a walk though the red light district.
The red light district was a place of no shame. Where we went, there were two main streets that lined either side of a canal, and narrower side streets branched off of those streets. The narrower streets were lined with glass doors where prostitutes would show off their wares, usually wearing several inches of cloth altogether. Some of the doors would have a curtain drawn, meaning occupied. Mostly, the girls in the windows would just present themselves, but some would motion for guys to come in, or even open the door to call in someone who had been looking but not buying. Along the main street were live porno shows, sex shops, and more glass doors. People would be lined up for the shows out onto the street as if they were just waiting in line at the local movie theater. The fact that everything was so normalized was really bizarre. I shall not need or want to go back to that place.

So, we rode a fair distance back to the campground and finally hit the ground hard after a long and tiring day. It started raining during the night, it was cold, and there was only a thin blanket between me and the ground. Maybe I got four hours of sleep that night. Anyway, packing up the wet tents in the light rain the next day was not much fun either. After packing up, we drove into the city, found a parking place, and took the tram to the Van Gogh museum.
I really enjoyed the museum. I learned a bit more about Vincent Van Gogh, and saw some quality paintings. Van Gogh died when he was 37. What a short life. Often poor, he had to live with the support of his parents or younger brother, who was an art dealer and would sell his paintings. I was able to see the shift in Van Gogh’s paintings as he developed as a painter. His beginning paintings used a limited number of dark colors, and later on, with the encouragement of his brother, shifted to brighter colors and scenarios. While not always being accurate as far as maintaining a certain perspective and capturing the physical reality correctly, his focus was on catching the atmosphere of a situation. My favorite painting was one of his earlier works. I can’t remember the title exactly, but I think it was something like “the house.” It brought me back to a cool day in autumn. The sun had just set, but there was still just enough light to see. In the center was an old wooden house, with no light inside. A strong breeze bent a large tree that had just a few remaining leaves on it. The air would be dry, and the fields barren, but it would still be a satisfying day. I would want to go walking with thick socks and a warm jacket. What a picture.

And then we went home.

But not straight home of course. On the way back, we took an unintentional detour towards a city south of Bremen that ended up adding about two hours to the trip. The end.