This whole journaling and blogging thing is very time consuming. When I blog before journaling, I feel as though I'm betraying my journal. I love my journal. My Grandma Jackie gave it to me before I went on a trip to Poland and Israel in 2006. I love being able to flip through the golden-edged pages back to random memories and observations from travel experiences throughout the years. On the other hand, I've really taken to this blog. I love that I can write as I'd write in my journal (plus a few read throughs and the thesaurus tool on my widgets) but anybody can read it and kind of get inside my head. Pretty cool. Then again, I want my grandkids to be able to find my journal and read it one day and bring it in for show and tell. Will they be able to do that with a blog? It's 3 am and I have Drawing at 9, so I think I'll just start typing.
Last weekend I was in Amsterdam from Friday morning through Monday morning. We had freezing, rainy weather the whole time, but the weather did not take away from my impression of the city. Although Amsterdam is beautiful and quaint in its own way, its charm is not centered in its aesthetics, but in its people. From start to finish, I was drawn to their positivity toward other humans and toward life in general, and the pride native-born and newly converted Dutch alike have for their city.
The three girls I was traveling with and I arrived late Friday morning, exhausted from an overnight bus, flight, another bus, and 30-minute walk to our hotel, so we decided to take our first half day to tool around the city casually, walking into any store that caught our eye. We'd save the tours and museums for the remainder of the weekend. After a goofy day of almost getting caught for shoplifting when my purse set the alarm off in "Da," Amsterdam's Walgreens, giggling our way through one of many sex shops, and eating enough chocolate to actually make me lose my appetite for sugar for a whole 24 hours, the four of us crashed in our comfy beds and slept soundly through the night.
We woke up early the next morning to head to the Anne Frank House for a self-guided tour. Excerpts from her diary were displayed on walls throughout the narrow-hallwayed, steep-stairwayed house. She wrote about small things she found pleasure in. She wrote that when people are negative or ridiculous in their behavior, we just have to laugh because that's all that can be done. Her positivity was amazing. Today, it is refreshing to find someone with a genuinely positive spirit towards life. Anne was in hiding from the Nazis for two years, living in a time when no one could be trusted. She did not get to ride her bike or sit outside on her front step or play with other children for two years because if she did, she'd be taken to a concentration camp. And she maintained her spirit. It is absolutely amazing to me. Perhaps I'm stating the obvious. I was just so swept and touched by her love for the world and her trust in the goodness of humanity. The most inconceivable part of the visit, was that I walked into the house at 9:15 and walked out at 10. I walked outside, ready for a weekend of more museums and fun. Without question. 45 minutes.
After a quiet, thoughtful walk and a snack, we were off to a free tour of Amsterdam. We were running a few minutes late and missed the group's departure from Central Station, so we literally ran through the streets until we arrived huffing and puffing at the National Monument, the first stop of the tour, just in time to meet our tiny blonde pistol of an Australian tour guide. Amy started the tour with a brief history of Amsterdam, and an explanation of why she loves Amsterdam. It was her birthday, but I have a feeling her great sense of humor and enthusiasm was instilled in her person and had probably been enhanced by her home of four and a half years. Throughout the tour Amy pointed out interesting things I never would have noticed on my own. She taught us about Amsterdam's history in the most personable way, sharing her own opinions of the historical figures without holding back. We walked through part of the Red Light District and stopped at the Oudekerk, meaning literally Old Church. Amy laughed that the Dutch had a way of naming everything exactly as it was. Amsterdam, for example, was originally Amstellerdam, a dam built in the river of Amstel. Another church exists, called the Nieuve kerk, New Church. Their national monument, is literally named, National Monument. She explained to us that the church was conveniently located for sailors who used to stop in Amsterdam to visit the women of the Red Light district, and then feel so guilty afterward and need to confess immediately before meeting another woman or going back to sea.
We stopped in front of a green, squiggly-walled structure on the side of the street and Amy surprised us all when she told us it was a public urinal. They were located all over the city, built in the 60s for sanitation's sake and because the government thought people should not have to pay to pee. This was a great idea, but the women still had to pay. Considering the time, groups of angry, full-bladdered Dutch women would not settle for paying to pee while their male counterparts could chose from a different free stall on every corner. Pencilled in between bra-burning conventions, a group of women protested for public bathroom stalls to no avail. When the government did not react, the women all gathered to urinate on one of the central bridges in the city. And what do you know, they got their stalls! Unfortunately, with the rise of drug use in the 80s, junkies left the cylindrical, now poster-laden yellow stalls unsafe for proper use and the government had to permanently lock them all. However, Amy told us, if any of the ladies had to pee during the tour, she'd gladly point us to the nearest bridge.
In the middle of the tour, on our way to stop for coffee, we crossed a bridge where a smiley group of people about my age were giving away free cookies and brownies. The cheerful trio assured passers by that the sweet treats were drug free; they just felt like doing something nice. This moment was Amsterdam in a nutshell. Friendly people full of love and trust for the people around them. I didn't realize a place like that existed. And on top of their friendliness, the cookie was delicious!
We walked for three and a half hours and learned so much about the innovative city. We learned about the hooks centered below the pointy roofs of every building, why buildings slanted into each other or in front of one another, and why secret churches and coffee shops were welcomed into the community. Although Amsterdam was once a Calvinist city that banned Catholicism, the churches would be a good source of income and therefore were accepted.The government of Amsterdam accepted the buying and selling of marijuana because it is incredibly economical and when sold and used within the strict, logical guidelines set by the government, it is completely harmless. The same logic and open-mindedness applied to the Red Light District. Run by stirct, safe guidelines, the women in the windows work only for themselves and have to pay taxes, so the industtry is highly beneficial to the city. Amsterdam's acceptance of otherwise rejected groups of people or ideas can also be seen in the Jewish history of the city. Jews were tolerated when they immigrated to Holland to escape the Spanish Inquisition because they were generally successful bankers and merchants and were useful to the city. While the Jewish population of Amsterdam was practically demolished by the end of World War II, Amsteram today has one of the largest Jewish populations in the world, and the city's Jewish mayor, Job Cohen, was runner-up for the award of World Mayor in 2006.
Later that night we went on yet another tour, lead by yet another Auzzie gone Amsterdammer. "The Red Light District: Exposed" was everything I ever wanted to know about the Red Light District and more. I started crushing on our tour guide Ryan within two minutes of listening to his strong accent and hearing the respectable way he presented the district. He talked about the self-advertising figures in the windows as business-savvy women, not as whores or pathetic, desperate, objectified women. The district was not scary. We were warned not to take pictures of the women, however, because they were known to throw cups of urin at tourist photographers. There is something about women and urin in that city! Ew. Ryan explained to us the measures of safety the government had instilled. In every room, the women had a button they could push if one of their clients got out of hand. Those men would be beat up and arrested immediately. He explained that because many of the women were working moms, there was a day care located conveniently in the middle of one of the red glowing streets. Supposedly when asked what kind of work their parents did that meant they needed to go to day care after school, one little boy responded, "My mommy gives out free kisses." I kind of loved that.
The next morning we walked through the bitter cold fog to the Jewish History museum, made up of four former synnagogues in the former Jewish quarter. The museum was interesting because the Jews have so much history in Amsterdam, but we didn't need to spend more than an hour there. Afterwards, we trammed to the Van Gogh museum. This was one of the stops I was most excited for because I had completed a four-piece study of a rarely displayed painting in one of my art classes at IU and I hadn't been able to find the painting anywhere. Unfortunately, after gazing at and studying four floors-worth of paintings and sketches, I never found the painting. "Starry Night" wasn't even there. I could hardly feel disappointed, though, because I found so many of the works completely mezmerizing. In order to check our last museum off the list, we had to bare the windy rain and make our way to the "Heineken Experience" where we witnessed beer being made and tasted some of the fresh brew. I'm not a huge beer drinker, so it was cool to see, but not that amazing. Still, I'm glad I did it.
By Sunday night I was ready to get back to Firenze. I missed my roommates and my apartment and speaking Italian. I'd miss Amsterdam though. All weekend I realized I did not feel like an intruder as I have often felt in Florence. I didn't feel like I was polluting a quaint European city by speaking English and carrying around a map. Amsterdam is a city of ideals. At one point in the Red light District tour, when Ryan was taking us through one of the "blue light" streets, I asked him if anti-gay people had ever come through and hurt the men inside the windows. He simply responded, those kinds of things don't really happen here. People mind their own business if they don't agree with someone's choices, but for the most part everyone accepts everyone's right to be accepted.
Although feeling welcome in Amsterdam was refreshing, coming back to Florence felt like coming home. As my Italian and my aquaintance with the randomly intersecting streets of Florence improve, I feel less like an intruder, and more comfortable making eye contact and saying "Buongiorno!" to every fabulously-dressed old woman, sturdy standing doorman, and Gucci sunglassed Italian teenager I pass in the street. Tonight I'm off to Interlaken for a weekend of skiiing and more chocolate! Ciao for now!
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