Amsterdam (part 2)

... Sorry about the delay from the previous post, my time has trickled
away rather quickly since I started working full time.  Here is the
continuation of our Amsterdam trip.

Being the good tourists we are we figured we should partake in a
biking tour of the city.  Our tour guide was an ex-pat American who
has been living in Amsterdam for 7 years.  He had a really good
perspective and was a very good guide.  Laura and I were assigned
bicycles.  Oddly enough, the chaos of the universe ordered itself
mysteriously enough to provide me with a bike named "Vote
4 pedro".  I had been riding it for two hours before noticing. It
nearly made me fall over.  I figured it must have been sign from The
Flying Spaghetti Monster.

On the bicycle tour we saw a lot of the city, and used a lot of the
amazing bicycle infrastructure.  The countryside was beautiful, and we
snaked our way to a wind-mill and a cheese/wooden shoe factory (only
in Holland).


While in Europe we've seen some absurdly small cars, but the ones
there were crazy.  These little cars could go down bike trails.  They
drive them through parks, or anywhere that bikes and scooters go.  In
Holland, small motorcycles, scooters and these small cars can go
anywhere pedestrians go.  Makes things interesting.  Also there are
periodic metal semi-enclosures with holes in the ground.  These are
for men (or very brave women) to relieve themselves.  It makes it easy
for men, but women are unfortunately out of luck.


The pictures below are neat.  The first one is a big rusted metal
ribbon erected in honour of Canadians who fought to liberate Holland. 
The Dutch people are still very thankful towards Canadians because of
what they did during world war two.  Still today, it is easier for
Canadians to get work visas than for people of other nationalities. 
The second pictures is the Amsterdam Hilton.  This is where John
Lennon and Yoko Ono started their "Bed Protests" and they wrote all
over the walls "Hair Peace", "Give Peace a Chance" and all that. 
They've apparently left it up on the walls!  We could see it from the
ground, although this picture doesn't really show it.  Theirs was the
third or fourth corner room down from the top.  The picture on the
right is the only outside sculpture carved by Picasso.


Anyone speak Latin?  "Homo Sapiens non urinat in ventum".  This was
etched into the top of a large city building.

Yes, indeed.  It *does* mean "People, don't pee into the wind." 
Ironically enough, I had to hold mine in when I found out what it
meant.  What kind of a crazed culture feels strongly enough about this
to carve it into the top of an elaborate stone structure.  Apparently
the Dutch.  I love these people.

We also went to the hidden part of the house that Anne Frank and her
family hid in during the second world war.  It was very emotional and
really described well the brutality of the Nazis.  Pre-war there were
over 100 thousand Jews in Amsterdam, afterwards there were virtually
none.

We weren't supposed to take pictures, but I sunk one off sans-flash. 
It was very dark and small, with all the windows covered.  It
illustrated pretty well how tough it would have been to be hiding up
there for years without ever being able to go out under fear of being
shipped off to concentration camps, while your non-Jewish neighbours
went on with life almost as usual.

Because Amsterdam is a brick-covered swamp, many of the buildings are
leaning because their footings were not properly built.  It's
interesting to see these structures.  They also intentionally lean
their buildings out into the road to make moving in and out easier. 
How does this aid in moving in and out your might ask?  Because their
stairs are so insanely steep (more like a slightly inclined ladder),
they move their furniture into their houses by throwing a rope over a
hook attached to the top of their house and pulleying things up and in
through front windows.  Our tour guide said his refrigerator went
through his neighbour's bedroom window accidentally.  Apparently their
house wasn't properly slanted.  Check out the flight forward lean and
the hooks at the top of these houses.


Another interesting thing is that "XXX" is the flag/symbol of the
city-state of Amsterdam.  It's become synonymous with pornography in
North America and around the world, because Amsterdam used to make it
and sell it long before it was legal in other places.  They didn't
really advertise that it was from Amsterdam by putting "XXX" on their
products, this was done by the Mafia in Chicago when they got into the
Porn business.  They did this to try to make their inventory look
semi-legit and disguise the fact that it was illegally made in the
USA.


Amsterdam was great, we'd recommend it to anyone.  Ignore the
misinformation you hear from some about it being a bastion for crime,
excess and unsavoriness. In my opinion places like Las Vegas is way
more unsavory than Amsterdam.  The Dutch just "roll their own" when it
comes to whats right and wrong.

Two more weeks and we're off to Prague!  Thank goodness we workers in
the UK get a minimum of 5 weeks vacation per year.

Again, Here
are all the pictures.