Amsterdam 7th May 2013

So! Lesson one of the Internet in Europe: I apparently have to use Blogspot in Dutch while I am in the Netherlands. Google uses geo-location to determine the country I am in based on my IP address and then redirects me to blogspot.nl rather than blogspot.com. This is frustrating, and I can't figure out how to circumvent it. For those of you interested, "nieuw bericht" is Dutch for "new post." In other news, Dutch is an incredibly vowel-happy language.

Anyway, hello from Amsterdam! I am exhausted. A combination of jet lag, lack of sleep (I never could sleep on planes or in cars), and hours of travel has taken its toll. If I were not trying to stay awake to kick the jet lag fast I would already have gone to sleep. And it's only 1610 (4:10 PM, since I know many of you will object to my use of the entirely rational 24 hour clock. Get with the times!)...

That said, Amsterdam is a pretty place and the people have been friendly and speak excellent English. I expected as much. From my arrival at Centraal Station (the vowels! Centraal is a triumphant and extravagent train station in downtown Amsterdam) to my wanderings through narrow streets between listing buildings (Amsterdam, like Venice, is built below sea-level and sees similar subsidence), I have seen today the nature of "Old Europe." This gives me hope that my travels to the cities Opa passed through will indeed help me capture the essential feeling of each place and better enable me to write this story.

The city is arranged, again like Venice, with a series of canals flowing throughout. On either side of these canals run narrow one way streets, chaotic with incessant pedestrian, bicycle, and automobile traffic. This setup allows for picturesque scenes where buildings sit directly on the waterfront, leaning inward to create a canopy of sorts for the boats that float here and there, mooring themselves to the street when their passengers wish to come ashore. Benches dot the canalside; I sit on one as I write this.

The people in the city are varied, as in any major tourist destination, but there is a significant presence of Asian food and curio shops, a legacy of the Dutch colonial past. I ate Indonesian food for dinner (an early dinner, remember that it is roughly 4 PM now, I'll be hungry later...), it was not my typical choice, but I figure I should expand my horizons while I have this opportunity.

A casual (in truth, accidental: I was lured by an interesting-looking church) walk through the Red Light District in the daylight convinced me not to go back at night. Some things are a bit too much for my sensibilities, even if I do consider myself fairly progressive.

I made my first Eurail reservation when I arrived at Centraal: I will depart for Vienna at 8:00 AM local time on Thursday and arrive, eleven hours later, at 7:00 PM. When I arrive I will have to be sure to reserve a seat for my return trip from Vienna to Brussels. It wouldn't do to be stuck in Vienna with a train ticket but without a reserved seat!

Tomorrow I intend, most likely, to wander my way to the Anne Frank House Museum. Though Opa never came to Amsterdam himself, there is much Jewish history to explore here and I will devote much of tomorrow to that pursuit.

If this post seems to ramble or have little point, I apologize. As I said, I am tired. I have hand written this prior to posting it in the hope that I may catch some errors during typing (turns out I made no mistakes... I am great...). If I miss any, please accept my apologies!

Until tomorrow!