Today we did something very Amsterdam. We rented bikes and rode all over town. Vivian sat in a seat behind me and Evan was on the back of Jo's bike. Cycling is a way of life here and it is hard to imagine what Amsterdam would feel like - even to a tourist - without the cyclists. (specially if you imagine them driving and parking an additional 600,000 cars).
We began traveling three weeks ago things. I haven't opened google news or listened to NPR. I'm in my own little world of Vivian and Evan and Jo and cafes and canals. A couple of days ago Amsterdam observed a day of mourning and a minute of silence in memory of the dead passengers of the downed Malaysian plane that had departed from Amsterdam. And there's all the killing going on in Palestine.
So I had to smile when I came up to this ET mural on the door two houses down from us. The kids posed in front. Evan has his right hand cocked like a pistol. Just like ET if you look carefully. And the arboreal Californian landscape has been replaced by a dystopian ghostly city below Elliot and ET.
A world and a future that is at once familiar and alarming. Tomorrow we move on. A last minute trip. Doe-doei Amsterdam. Bonjour Paris.
We rode along till we ran into a park with a nice playground, across the canal from the Heineken brewery (during my first trip to Amsterdam I visited the brewery and didn't notice the park). Jo and the kids stayed and played and I cycled to Amsterdam Central station to book train tickets for tomorrow. Then we had lunch at a restaurant next door and started back. And it started pouring. The crowds cleared and all four of us got completely drenched. By the time we got home and changed and dried off it was sunny outside.
It was supposed to rain all day today. So we hopped back on the bikes and rode to Oosterpark and then to a windmill and finally to Nemo where the kids again played in the rooftop swimming pool till they got hungry. Then we got back home and went to a neighborhood Thai restaurant and followed it up with epic apple pie from Winkel on the walk home.
I asked Jo how she thought the trip had gone so far. She pointed out that she was adding Amsterdam to the list of places where we could live. Vivian said that she could go to a Dutch school and learn to speak Dutch. I'm feeling contented. And generally happy.
So I had to smile when I came up to this ET mural on the door two houses down from us. The kids posed in front. Evan has his right hand cocked like a pistol. Just like ET if you look carefully. And the arboreal Californian landscape has been replaced by a dystopian ghostly city below Elliot and ET.
A world and a future that is at once familiar and alarming. Tomorrow we move on. A last minute trip. Doe-doei Amsterdam. Bonjour Paris.
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