Amsterdam

So the song 'Goodbye San Francisco, Hello Amsterdam' by Doug Sahm was in our heads the whole time, so put that on while you read this.

Ok, so we weren't even going to go to Amsterdam. I figured it was just a tourist ghetto of hash bars with a bunch of goofy stoners about. My god, how this is untrue. Amsterdam is one of the coolest cities in the world. Clean, vibrant and simply gorgeous. Most of the Netherlands is built on land reclaimed from the sea, and there are canals everywhere making this place way more deserving as the 'Venice of the North' than anywhere. I can't overemphasize how nice and inviting the city was. The people were so welcoming and kind. Everyone and I mean EVERYONE spoke English. Being a small country with a language not spoken by many, they take immense pride in speaking the international language. This combined with a liberal, laid back attitude make this a wonderfully congenial city to be in. I mentioned to somebody that everybody was just really nice and laid back here and they mentioned the calming presence of the hash bars as the reason. You might think that all the liberal attitude makes this a hedonistic city, but it only is in small parts. Just because you can smoke weed and get prostitutes legally doesn't mean you have to.

Brooke was very excited to see the Van Gogh museum and it did not dissapoint. Other impressionist masters where in the collection as well as a special exhibit that contained 130 of the most prized works by various Dutch artists. This exhibit went over the point that the Dutch historically haven't been great collectors of art (even their own) until the early 1900's. The French and Spanish own a lot of Dutch art and this wounded their national pride and they were determined to stake claim to their lost heritage. It chronicled the efforts of private individuals and the government that made efforts to reclaim art from various private art collections around the world. This was an interesting side to see, especially the dollar amounts they paid for these pieces. Of course paying 1 million dollars for a Van Gogh in 1920 seems like a pittance today when the same piece would fetch 20 times that.

Their are a lot of Turks here and I finally found my beloved Adana Kebab. It wasn't as good as it was in Turkey, but it scratched the itch slightly. Brooke has developed a taste for tea, and I introduced her to Turkish tea which is a huge part of their culture (The Turks drink more tea than any culture, including the British). We also ate Indonesian food. Sweet Jesus, where has this been all our lives. Indonesia was a Dutch colony and their are a lot of Indonesians and therefore their food in Amsterdam. The food is not quite Chineee and not quite Indian, with plenty of rice and noodles (but no pork, Muslim you know) and just the perfect amount of spice. It seems like great stoner food which probably enhances it's appeal here. Maybe with the president-elect having lived in Indonesia, it will start becoming more popular in the US, we can only hope.

On that note, it was election time when we were here. Being Americans we had a lot to say on the subject and everybody (speaking English as they all do) was eager to talk to us about the election. It was nice to talk politics with various people and it makes you realize how important US politics are to the world. Quickly, somebody tell me who is the prime minister of the Netherlands! I know they have a queen (Beatrix), but I have no idea who any other leaders are. We went to an Irish pub in the Red Light district to watch the results. This gave us an opportunity to walk through the red light district. Sure, it is pretty hedonistic, and makes Bourbon street look like Disneyland, but why the hell not. It is not like the world's oldest profession is going anywhere. On our way to the museum in the morning we passed through a mini red light district and their were prostitutes in their warm windows, sitting and reading the paper and waiting for business. Now isn't regulating and taxing this profession much more ideal than leaving these people to the mercy of the streets. Anyway, I digress. So we were watching the results come in and met some Australian political junkees. Now they were just as familiar with the American political system as me. Again, who is the prime minister of Australia? Anyone? It was fun being surrounded by lots of people from the US and other countries watching the results roll in, but the bar closed at 1:00 which is only like 6:00 on the east coast, so we retired to our place and track the results. Brooke heads to bed, but I stay up and watch the inevitable. The election is called around 5:30 local time and I wake Brooke up around 6:00 for the moving acceptance speech and we hit the sack.

The next day every paper is covered with pictures of Obama. We talked to some more people who were really optimistic and hopeful about the future, because needless to say that Bush has a sub Nixon approval rating in our country and is even less popular around the world. Every decision we make affects the world so everybody takes great stake in our election. We were also inspired and happy that after 8 long years of mismanagment and foolish blunders, that our nation might once again inspire the world with it's actions.

We slept in most of the day but managed to catch the Dutch WWII resistance museum. It was nice seeing this side of the conflict, as we are mostly familiar with the post D-Day activity. The Dutch are a proud people who did not take the invasion lightly but battled from within. In 'Band of Brothers' the story of the 101st Airborne, the soldiers mention that the Dutch were some of the best and most helpful people they met and this really lifted their spirits. They really liked these people and we cannot disagree.