Today is Labor Day in the states. Hurricane Katrina flattened a lot of the southern US last week, and a lot of New Orleans is still under water. There's nothing we can do about it from Amsterdam. We'd planned this trip months ago. We have friends and co-workers in New Orleans, and there's no way to know if they're ok. The news media here in Europe is appalled at the poor response to the disaster. Have a nice vacation!
(if you click on the pic above, you'll get a better view of it)
Philosophy:
The pain you feel is proportional to your proximity to the disaster. The closer to the disaster you are - whether emotionally, physically, or metaphysically - the more pain you feel. Far away from the disaster, you feel less pain or involvement. If it happens on the other side of the world, you might not even ever hear about it. We can rationalize it; we have to rationalize it, as long as the destruction has not hit too close to home.
/Philosophy
If our own home had been wiped out while we were in Amsterdam, we wouldn't have been able to turn the other cheek and enjoy a vacation. As it was, we felt pretty guilty about being on vacation while such a catastrophe was taking place back home, but what could we do?
(sigh)
We woke up in the Amsterdam American Hotel after a long sleep feeling pretty good and hungry. What jet lag? We had already decided to have breakfast the first morning at the Cafe Americain in our hotel. 
The Cafe gets a lot of positive press, and it IS a beautiful and elegant place. A fully-furnished breakfast buffet, for 20 Euro. Kind of expensive, but WTF. No a la carte. They have cereal? With skim milk? Wow, how American. Oh yeah, it's called the American Hotel. And, look. A single sheet of condensed world news, in one of six languages of your choice. No bulky newspapers to wrestle with. No newsprint on your fingers. Cool. Reading the news in Dutch sounds nasty. Reading the news in French sounds sexy, and reading the news in English is just depressing. It's all Katrina. Ohmigod, stories of water 15' deep. Sounds like the whole city is underwater.
More bad news: where's the coffee, pal? For 20 Euros for breakfast, you'd think they could be quicker and more generous with the coffee. (One of the things we're going to learn on our trip is that very few Europeans have adopted the concept of the "bottomless cup of coffee" that many of us Americans take for granted.)
After a leisurely breakfast, I gave both PH and MD a call. I'd hooked up, metaphorically speaking, with both of these guys before arriving, via the Internet, via the Bartcop Forum. One of the calls from our hotel room - to PH - was to a mobile phone. BIG MISTAKE! Turns out the hotel gouged me for 20 Euro for that 5-minute call alone!! The phone call to MD - a local work number - was charged at a reasonable rate, something like .20/minute. LESSON LEARNED.
PH agreed to meet with us for dinner that night and MD was tied up with a special project at least until Tuesday. MD insisted that we needed to rent bikes and see the city that way. It was obviously a popular method of getting around the city. There are well-marked bike paths all over. Bikes, bikes, everywhere. In Amsterdam, they treat bikes like we in the US treat cars: meaning, while riding their bikes, they use their cell phones; they eat food; they transport their children; they listen to music; they read the newspaper; they use a Blackberry; often all at the same time.
So we're off in search of a bike rental shop. It's a beautiful day: sunny, warm. Very unlike Amsterdam, so say the natives. Trees everywhere along the canals. Gorgeous. Doesn't stink either, like some canals can. Cool. Finally we find a Mac Bike outlet at the Leidseplein, after asking for directions. Can you imagine? Me? A guy, stopping in a shop and asking directions?? It was EASY! Not at all humiliating. 21st-Century Schizoid Man.
All they rent is your basic one-speed, reverse-braking bike - remember those? So we get two, with insurance, please. Turns out wifey's bike was just a little too big and she couldn't comfortably reach the ground while stopping, but I didn't really discover this until about 10 minutes later. (Jaws movie music)
We take off on our rented bikes along the bikepath alongside the street, me in the lead, and within 1/10 mile, maybe within 60 seconds, I hear a sort of soft crashing sound, I stop, look back, and poor wifey is on the ground with her bike on top of her. She's scraped up her shin, foot and hand and she's pissed, but not sure how hurt she is. I pedal back as she is getting up from the ground. She says she got brushed by a passing bicyclist and, since her bike is too tall, she could not brake herself with her foot and fell.
She is saying she can't do this, can't ride the bike, so I insist that we go back to the rental location and turn in the bikes. Lo and behold, this time they are able to find a smaller bike that she can reach the ground easily with.
(Sidenote: Ok, yall, if someone tries to stick you with a product that just doesn't feel right with you, like, in this case, a bike that's too big, you do NOT accept said merchandise. Just leave to try out a different vendor. Chances are good that the first vendor will suddenly be able to find something that does in fact suit you. Point is, do not accept faulty merchandise. If wifey had put her foot down and NOT accepted a bike that was too tall, she likely would not have fallen. If I had known she couldn't reach the ground, I would have said, "get another bike." This should be common sense.)
So we pedal all over Amsterdam. There are probably more bikes in the city center than there are cars. You do have to watch out for them. They come up from behind rather quietly, then, *ring ring* goes the little bell on the handlebars and it's best that you not freeze in place. The biker has sized you up and anticipates which way you're going to go so that they can go around you. If you wobble and waver back and forth while walking, you're going to confuse the bikers and you might get run over. Fortunately, we had no collisions, with other bikers.
We pedaled up north to the Noordmarkt at the Jordaan, but they were just closing down the market. East we go into the city center, just a beautiful day, south a bit, back west to the Leidseplein. I was darting in and out of traffic like the locals do, almost got hit by more than one car, but the drivers seem to respect the bikers. I didn't take any really crazy chances but was a little aggressive like many of the locals. Wifey says I was crazy and risking my life. She said, "Hey, I was behind you! I saw that taxicab almost hit you. I saw that motorcycle almost run you down, and I saw you almost run into that parked car. But besides that, you were just fine." Cool.
We stopped for lunch at an outdoor cafe along the Prinsengracht (the outermost of the four semi-circular canals), locked up our bikes (you must lock them - with so many bikes around, often people will help themselves to yours) and had a coupla beers and some strange but tasty toasty things stuffed with cheese. Two musicians, one with a sax and the other with a stand-up bass, wandered by and played several tunes. Nicely done. Now THIS is vacation!
We tipped them a couple of Euros, but when they finished, they hit us up again!
We decided to turn the bikes back in before dinner, instead of keeping them for the whole week as MD had suggested. Turns out wifey was pretty bruised up from her earlier fall from the bike. We touched base again with PH and he agreed to bike over to our hotel for a drink and dinner. When he arrived, we had a cocktail at the American Cafe's outside plaza then walked over to Wagamama for a tasty meal of noodles and such. It's really cool being able to meet people that live in the city and hang out for a bit. Thanks again PH and MD. PH wished us a good evening and biked home. We'd try to get together again later in the week.
Wifey was beginning to limp, almost imperceptibly, from her bruises, so we decided to head back to the hotel room and recuperate. Nice. Long. Bath. Ice. Down. The. Bruises.
Hey, look! Adult movies on the hotel room TV! Un-cut too! Ah, those enlightened Europeans. A fantastic first full day in Amsterdam. Oh, yeah, the CENSORED CENSORED CENSORED were pretty freakin' awesome.
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