What Visitors Should Do in Amsterdam

I've been having a lot of visitors lately, and they always want to know where to go and what to do while they're in town. In my opinion, these are the places and things to do that make Amsterdam unique, listed in no particular order. Yeah, it's biased as hell, but if you disagree, make your own list!

I recommend that you don't show your visitors this list, especially if they are only in town for a few days. It will just drive them crazy, thinking of all the things they won't be able to fit into their trip. It's kinder to ask them probing questions about what they like and don't like and then tailor their experience accordingly. For example, if they prefer beer over cocktails, then take them to the Brouwerij 't Ij and don't even mention Door 74. If they prefer impressionist art over realism, take them to the Van Gogh and confide to them that the Rijksmuseum is overrated. Then they can leave Amsterdam with the comfortable feeling that they saw everything worth seeing (although of course we locals know better!) and having had an amazing time doing only the things they most love to do. They will also have had a real vacation, having being freed from the need to race from museum to museum in a mad attempt to cram in every "must-see" in their guidebook. I'll bet they'll then remember Amsterdam as the highlight of their multi-city trip across Europe. Well, except if it rains during their entire visit, which alas could easily happen.

[] Febo, preferably in the middle of the night after going out drinking.

[] Foam, if there's a good exhibition

[] Wynand Fockink combined with a walk around the Red Light District

[] Brouwerij T'Ij (the windmill brewery)

[] Belgique or Gollem or de Elfde Gebod (if they are not also going to Belgium during this particular trip)

[] Door 74 for pricey cocktails and a priceless entrance

[] Maoz, if the visitors don't live where there's already a Maoz (i.e., Philadelphia, London, Barcelona). My favorite Maoz is on Ferdinand Bolstraat: they have tables, good music, and sometimes even my favorite salad bar item, roasted cauliflower!)

[] Doner kebab or Turkish pizza

[] Anne Frank Huis combined with lunch or dinner at the Pancake Bakery (definitely order a savory pancake & try it with stroop)

[] Van Gogh museum, preferably on Friday night, combined with restroom stop at the Cobra Cafe (remember to lock the doors!)

[] Night out at Boom Chicago, preferably for half-price (keep checking www.lastminuteticketshop.nl)

[] Bike trip to Java and KNSM island for futuristic architecture, combined with a stop at the cafe at the top of the public library

[] Heineken Brewery

[] Rijksmuseum, but only if the visitors are into old Dutch masters like Vermeer, Rembrandt, Jan Steen, and Pieter Brueghel

[] Rent or borrow a bike!

[] Bike to Broek in Waterland, Marken, or Monnickedam (Marken is 40km away, so a 8-10 hour bike ride; have done it on an electric scooter, rentable from the American Hotel, which was easy and fantastic. If you make it to Monnickedam, be sure and watch the clock tower on the hour. The angel in the blue short-shorts alone is worth the trip. If you make it to Broek in Waterland, be sure to eat at the pancake house.)

[] Bike along the Amstel and stop along the way in Oude Kerk for an appeltaart

[] The Dampkring coffeeshop, if the visitors smoke weed and are into Brad Pitt or Oceans 11, combined with trip to the Belgian frites shop a few doors down

[] Bouchon du Centre, the French restaurant across the street from me, during lunch on a nice day when you can sit on the terrace

[] The Paradiso main room for a concert

[] Zaanse Schans, by train or car (best bets: visit the first Albert Heijn supermarket, buy real Zaanse Schans mustard to bring home, taste cheese at the cheese store, and visit the clog museum)

[] Raw herring at one of the herring stands on the street, with pickles and onions. I heard that a very Dutch way to eat this is to bring it home and have it with old jenever (Dutch gin) that you keep in your freezer, but I haven't tried this myself yet.

[] cTaste blind eating, but only if they don't mind paying 40 euros for their meal and they don't live in a city where cTaste is already available

[] High Tea at the Amstel Hotel (gorgeous setting but it's very expensive, so only if the visitors have never had the high tea experience & love sweets/tea)

[] Droog (design store, especially rolling around on the dish plates by the front door), Beestenwinkel (if they have kids), and Puccini's (yummy chocolate bonbons)

[] Pianola museum: definitely one of a kind. Especially good during Museumnacht.

[] MC Escher Museum in Den Haag

[] Bakkerswinkel, specifically for scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam.

[] New King in Chinatown

[] Any Amsterdam Beat Club event in town, especially if it's at Maloe Melo or features the West Hell 5, the Anacondas, the Phantom Four, or burlesque side acts.

[] Sex Museum on Damrak 18

[] Casa Rosso live sex show

[] Koan Float

[] Moeders, especially if your mother is in town. If you bring a framed photo of your mum, they'll hang it up on their walls for the next time you visit. Your mom will love it. The food's good too, and you can order a Dutch version of rijsttafel.

[] Gartine, for a pleasant breakfast or lunch with organic Dutch ingredients by the Spui

[] Turkish breakfast at Bazar: it's served all day and it's yummy

[] Kruller-Muller museum, sculpture garden, and biking in the Hoge Veluwe national park around it

[] In-line skaters: Friday Night Skate, part of a worldwide network of Friday night skates, yet unlike any of the other skates

[] Snowboarders and Skiers: Snowworld in Maastricht, the largest indoor snowboarding dome in the world, according to Wikipedia

[] Sailing on a boat built around the 1800s around the Markenmeer or around the islands up north (sorry, not that easy to arrange if you just drop into Amsterdam as a tourist, but it's worth mentioning because it's such a unique non-American experience!)

[] Hikers: mud walking up north

Places/Things I Think Visitors Will Enjoy but I Haven't Tried Yet Myself

[] The Vodka Museum

[] Mike's Boat Rides (via Boom Chicago)

[] Red Light walking tour

[] Amsterdam Marionetten Theater

[] Flower Auction

[] Maurithuis

[] Delft

[] Bikers: biking the dunes at night on a full moon between Haarlem and Bloemendaal

[] An hour of canal biking (an hour's probably good enough!)

[] Bike to Durgadam & have lunch at the brown cafe

Special Times of the Year:

[] Museumnacht (November 8)

[] Queens Day (April 30)

[] Pluk de Nacht (usually in late August)

[] Silent movies outside at the Filmmuseum (summer)

[] World Pillowfight Day

[] World Press Photo exhibit (May)

[] Keukenhof (April), preferably on a sunny day and biking first through the tulip fields from the Leiden train station

[] Sail (every 5 years, next one is in 2010)

[] Torontotunnel rave: they prohibit traffic into Amsterdam for the Dam to Dam every year and a few clever promoters decided that this would be the perfect time to hold a rave in a traffic tunnel. Note that Dutch DJs are world famous, so this is a pretty good party right in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.

[] Rocket Cinema Festival (last weekend in October): what an absolutely brilliant concept. Take a famous older movie, have a live band create a new soundtrack for it, and show it in a venue appropriate to the subject of the film rather than in a movie theater. I saw King Kong vs. Godzilla in the City Archives Building, with a surf rock band playing along and then Jaws, while floating on a tube in an indoor swimming pool, with a DJ who snuck in snippets from the Beach Boys, the A-Team theme song, and the Titanic love theme at just the right moments. It's hard to do justice to the festival in writing. Trust me. Just go.

Overrated, in my opinion:

- Floating Flower Market (skip it and go to Keukenhof or the flower auction)

- Wagamama (AVOID at all costs; absolutely terrible place)

- Indonesian rijstafel or Surinamese food (it just never seems to taste as good as dim sum or Thai, sorry!)

- Stedelijk (I love modern art museums, but this one always disappoints me)

- boat tours in the glass-covered boats (do the Boom Chicago open boat tour instead)

- any Japanese, Mexican, or Indian food here (it just can't compare to what's available in the major coastal cities of the US)

- Keuken van 1870 (yes, it's traditional Dutch food, but it's so bland; I think it gets written up a lot because it's cheap)

- d'Vijff Vlieghen (love the name of the restaurant, but it's just not a good value; would recommend Van Vlaanderen instead for contemporary Dutch cuisine, which is a lot like French food except with slightly different ingredients)

- Vollendam (full of overpriced kitsch and tourists)

Amsterdammers: feel free to weigh in with your suggestions!

Amsterdammertjes

I always thought they looked phallic, both in color (maybe J Crew would call it "Engorged") and shape. Amsterdammertjes are the metal posts that are used to block cars from entering pedestrian areas. Also very funny for me when I first arrived (though I'm used to it now) are the triple-Xes that appear on them. XXX is apparently symbolizes the City of Amsterdam, and has a very very long history that predates Jenna Jameson.

Anyway, I was recently amused by an article I just read in Het Parool, which described the City of Amsterdam's history in press relations. Here's an excerpt, roughly translated:

"San Francisco (2005). In 2005, Amsterdam politicians and artists traveled to San Fransciso, with the intent to represent themselves there as hip and creative. Unfortunately, the mayor of San Francisco could not attend the reception. Therefore, in his place, his press secretary accepted the traditional gift from the visiting city: a half-transparent Amsterdammertje with a light inside.

'The woman tore the paper open and stared right at its little head,' wrote [the Het Parool reporter] 'As if there were 220 volts on that thing, she pulled her hands off. The presenter tried to explain that these poles stood everywhere in Amsterdam, but the woman looked at it as if she had just received a giant dildo from the mayor of Amsterdam.'

On Community

I'm stuck at home sick with the flu today, which is so frustrating, because Saturday is the only day that most of the shops are open on the weekends, and it's actually sunny. I consider it a great sacrifice to stay at home, because now that I found out my friend has Sudafed and is willing to deliver it, I could go out and get my errands done without anyone realizing that I am secretly infecting them with my germs. Ugh. But no, I'll be a good citizen, stay indoors, and write in my blog.

Anyway, today I have been thinking about community. Yes. Community.

I'm someone whose mother is Japanese and whose father is Taiwanese, but who was born in the United States and thus grew up mostly only knowing English. I'm someone who went to high school with kids who were predominantly black, Jewish, and Korean. I'm someone who has changed addresses at least 20 times in her life, lived in 8 different states, and now in 2 different countries. I'm someone who has never belonged to any church. In other words, for most of my life, I have never experienced real community. In fact, for most of my life, I've been an outsider, a tourist, an observer, a visitor.

That is one reason I appreciated snowboarding so much. Previously I had only experienced community in small doses -- during freshman year in college, a fall internship in D.C., the summer after college, in graduate school, and during a 4-month internship in Atlanta. Though I made some good friends during these years, these communities were built mostly on proximity and dissolved quickly once its members moved to different locations.

Snowboarding was my first taste of real community after 4 years of living in California (I lived there 8 years in total), and the only time I've experienced community based on a shared passion. Every season a group of us would rent a house in South Lake Tahoe, buy season passes, and then spend most weekends from December through April in the Sierras. It's not as luxe as it sounds. The whole season usually cost me about 1500 dollars, which is not that much more than a week's holiday here in Zermatt. The fun usually began ahead of the season, with gatherings to meet new house members, and with excursions to the latest Warren Miller film, pre-season sales, and Icer Air. Then during the season, there were carpools, group meals, parties, and of course, snowboarding and skiing together on the slopes. You get to know people really well when you spend 4-12 hours in a car with them, and all day riding the lifts with them. There's lots of time for conversation, and you also become familiar with their various little quirks when you share a home with them, just as you become familiar with the quirks of your housemates or live-in significant other. We were all usually quite different from one another, but because we shared a passion for winter sports, often that was enough to bridge our differences. And year after year, the circle of friends and acquaintances grew wider and wider, until spending a day on the mountain was a bit like taking a stroll down Main Street in a small town with all its plusses and minuses, where you are constantly bumping into people you know and where conversations revolve around the latest doings of other people you know.

I didn't really think I would ever experience a similar sense of community here. It's not that I don't appreciate the great things about Amsterdam, such as the pretty canals, the centuries-old buildings, the bike culture, and the legality of a lot of things that I feel should also be legal everywhere in the U.S. I just don't have a strong sense of connection with the majority of people here, however nice they are. We are too different, or maybe I've just lived in California too long. I think there's some truth to the idea that nature can shape your personality. Here, the elements are so harsh. There have been days with hail, rain, snow, and sun appearing in sequence and then starting all over again, the wind blowing each of the weather patterns through the city faster than you can say "mijn godverdomme paraplu is kapot" (my damn umbrella is broken). We're closer to the North Pole than I've ever been in my life, which means that on the longest day of the year (fast approaching on the 21st of December), the sun will rise at 8:48am and set at 4:29pm. By comparison, on the same date, the sun will rise over the Berkeley hills at 7:22am and will set over the Golden Gate Bridge at 4:55pm. Daily life here occurs 5-18 feet below sea level, depending on which internet site you would choose to believe, with most Dutch aware that if the dikes holding back the North Sea were to break, then we would all be swimming in ice cold water and rusted bicycles. And many of the Dutch have also seen Al Gore's movie "The Inconvenient Truth", as it aired on television here a few weeks ago, which showed that if current global warming trends were to continue, many Germans would have beachfront property and most of the Netherlands would be no more. On top of it all, the Netherlands is among the 25 countries with the highest population density in the world; and of those 25 countries, only South Korea and Bangladesh are larger in size.

So it's no wonder that the Dutch are generally stoic, practical, and cynical. They believe in honesty and hard work. Given their lack of natural resources and especially space, they are gifted at making the most of what they have. They, more than any other group I've met, seem to prize the virtue of "keeping it real", and I'm not just saying that because they are generally credited with (or blamed for) inventing reality television. Among their most commonly used expressions are "doe maar gewoon" (just do it in the usual way) or "doe normaal" (be normal). This is quite different from the California way of life, which encourages weirdness...(cough, cough)...I mean, individuality. Great dreamers, entrepreneurs, and inventors come from California. Everyone I knew there had ideas under development, if only in their brain; everyone had a plan for early retirement, even if they were too busy snowboarding, rock climbing, creating puzzle hunts (ex-boyfriend), challenge square dancing (ex-coworker), building an airplane in their garage (ex-housemate) and otherwise indulging in their grand passions, to put it into action. On the other hand, great designers, engineers, and financial wizards (making money from money is probably bred into the population when you come from a small country)come from Amsterdam. To put it in Myers-Briggs terms, I've arrived in a land of mostly ISTJs and I've come from a land of mostly ENTPs.

But back to the idea of community. As I sit here typing and coughing away, I await my friend who has offered to drop off some NyQuil from the other side of town (NyQuil, DayQuil Sudafed, and Extra-Strength Tylenol are all hard-to-get commodities here). Last night, I ordered in some Thai food from www.thuisbezorgd.nl, which I discovered via a tip from another expat friend. The expats here are unbelievably supportive of one another, and there are a lot of us (almost one-third of Amsterdam residents were born outside of the Netherlands). We notify each other when we'll be in the States, so that we can place special orders for things expensive or hard-to-find in the Netherlands (last time, I brought back Halloween costumes and Trader Joe's chai latte powder mix). We care for each other's pets. We lend our couches to other expats in need of temporary housing or to visiting friends of friends. We give each other tips on where to find English-language books and American-style pancakes with crispy bacon and real maple syrup. Via the expat grapevine, I found out how to register to vote overseas and even how to check whether my registration actually went through. On November 4, I went to an all-night election party, where the singing of the American anthem actually brought tears to my eyes for the first time in my life, because I really wished I was back in the States to see Obama elected, but at least I was with fellow Americans who felt the same way. Again, I feel as though I'm part of a close community, held together by our shared experience of being foreigners in a country that let us in, but keeps us at a distance.

So, these are some conclusions after almost 2 years of living here. I've made some sweeping generalities throughout this post, so feel free to comment if your experience was different. And now, maybe I'll take a NyQuil-enhanced nap. It's 3:56pm, the streetlamps will soon be lit, and this ENTP is hoping that she will be well enough to enjoy seeing the Gotan Project tomorrow night.

Fiets-ing

I love that the Dutch word for bike is fiets (pronounced "feets"). It's like a cute way of saying "my bike is an extension of my body".

Ever since I moved here, I’ve been tempted to spend an afternoon in a café somewhere just to take photos of fietsers. But now I just found out that someone else has already gone and done it. His blog post is fantastic, as are the comments that follow it. Check it out: 82 Pictures of Bicycles Taken in 73 Minutes

There's still room for a sequel though, as he took his photos in a tourist area on a weekday, and I think there's more potential if you sit along Weteringschans on a Saturday afternoon. That's when everyone does their shopping by bike. I've seen people trying to bring home their new beanbag chairs, floor lamps, and houseplants. Most of the time, they seem to manage it with no problem at all (and anyway, I assume that the ones who are struggling are expats).

Just today, when I was biking home from work, I wished I had my camera around my neck to capture the guy biking in front of me. He was wearing a blue pinstriped suit and top hat and had the beard of a Hasidic jew. His bike panniers were crammed full, and he had a set of skis (or perhaps golf clubs? or pool cues?) slung across his back. There was also something very wide laid across his front wheel. As I got closer, I saw that it was a baby carriage basket. And as I passed him, I saw that the basket held a big brown droopy-faced dog.

It all confirms my belief that, if people-watching was a sport, then Amsterdam is the Olympic stadium.

Herring Hunt

I'm feeling guilty that I haven't posted anything in months, even though I must have thought at least a hundred times: "I should put that in my blog". So my new plan is to submit shorter posts more often.

This post is to announce that apparently both Hollandse nieuwe haring (i.e., "new herring") and Celine Dion will be arriving in Amsterdam this week. I can forgo Celine, but I will definitely be on the lookout for a herring stand.

Herring (usually salted and frozen, but not cooked) is considered a delicacy here. According to DutchAmsterdam.nl, the Hollandse Nieuwe is the "best herring" and is only available during a narrow time window (usually mid-May to the end of June). For 2008, no herring may be sold as Hollandse Nieuwe unless it was caught on or after June 3rd, has at least 16% fat, and was frozen for at least 2 days; those that break this law will be fined €10,800. So yep, the Dutch take their herring seriously.

You're supposed to hold the tail of the herring in one hand, tipping your head back to dangle it over your mouth, and then bite off the head first, before chewing towards the tail. Yum!

Also on the agenda for this week:

- Replace my mobile telephone which mysteriously expired last night

- Replace my computer speaker which is not quite dead yet but is emitting a static-heavy drone that will induce in me a nervous breakdown if I allow it to continue

- Go to a cocktail bar to try fancy Italian aperitivos

- Bike from Amsterdam to Haarlem

- Read further in my Dutch grammar book and the Namesake

- Make large batches of ginger lemonade

- Activate my first euro credit card

- Plan what to do with my remaining vacation days

- Cook something insanely delicious

Almost One Year in Amsterdam

February 20 is my one year anniversary in Amsterdam.

I was just thinking that tonight reflects how much Amsterdam has become a part of me in the past year. I biked home from work and met up with my apartment cleaner. He's from Brazil and doesn't speak any English, so we communicate in broken Spanish. Then I ordered some Thai food in my kindergarten Dutch, biked over to the restaurant to pick it up along with some flowers and chocolate from the night market down the street, and continued on to the hospital to visit my good friend from Australia, who just broke her leg in a bike accident.

A year ago, I didn't know anyone in Amsterdam. I didn't speak any other languages besides English. I didn't think I would ever ride a bike here, let alone ride across town at night dodging taxis, trams, and pedestrians with take-out dinner and a bouquet of flowers poking out of my saddlebags.

It hasn't been 100% easy, getting to this point.

There have been humiliations and frustrations galore. Work is more stressful. I have a longer -- and generally wetter, darker, and colder! -- commute to the office. The last time I remember 5 days in a row without rain was last spring (everyone still refers nostalgically to "those great two weeks in April"). And I still have yet to drive a car here, or drink a tall glass of whole milk at lunch, so I guess I'm still far from being Dutch-ified.

But do I have regrets about moving here? Sure, although they mostly center around things like not buying a multi-voltage food processor while I had the chance. The move itself, I'll never regret.

All managers at my company are put on a 5-phase management improvement program. Phases 2 and 4 involved intensive off-site training for 4 days in Noordvijk and 2 days in Siena respectively. It's the best training program I've ever attended, and along with the on-the-job experience I had this year managing a larger group in a different department, makes me feel that taking this position would have been worthwhile even if it had just been to a place down the street instead of a place in another country.

But since I did move to another country, I'm learning a lot outside of work too. My overall language skills have improved (although half the time I'm saying 'ja' when I mean 'si' or 'oui' or vice versa). In the past year, I've been to France three times, and am heading there again in a month. I've been to Italy and London twice. I spent two weeks in Spain, including Christmas, New Year's Eve, and my birthday. There were also visits to Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and in next week I'm going to Portugal. While it doesn't compare (in my own twisted, snow-obsessed mind!) to a season of weekends in Tahoe, all this travel is still a nice consolation prize.

The travel did include some snowboarding of course -- 6 days in Cham, 2 days in Switzerland, 2 days in Austria, 6 days in Les Deux Alpes, 4 days in Sainte-Foy, 1 day at SnowPlanet, 1 day on the conveyer belt (see my previous post: "Snowboarding IN Amsterdam"), and I have an upcoming week in Cham. So that makes the count so far 25 days, compared to roughly 35-40 during a typical Tahoe season. Not too bad, except when you consider that only 5 of this year's days involved riding powder.

By the way, here are some things I learned about snowboarding in Europe:

1. Indoor snow is like cold sawdust.
2. You can only survive an avalanche if they find you within 15 minutes.
3. Glaciers have crevasses that are hidden under a layer of snow.
4. Drag lifts are appropriately named.
5. You must be aggressive in lift lines (NB: Unlike in the USA, the liftee is not there to organize the lines. He's there to help Americans get on the drag lift. Otherwise, he's in the booth smoking a cigarette).
6. You need to buy supplemental health insurance for snowboarding trips, or you won't be covered at all.
7. Health insurance is a good idea (see points 2, 3, and 4)
8. Guides are expensive (350 Euros/day to hire "Fred" in Sainte Foy), but worth it.
9. Helicopters are expensive (120 Euro/person for a 10-minute ride to the top in Switerland), but worth it.
10. When I'm pulling my snowboard bag around the airport, the person who asks "you got a body in there?" is invariably British.

Well enough about lessons learned...

Whenever someone asks me how long I'm staying, I say another year or so, maybe a little longer. It's never once crossed my mind to actually live here. Then again, right now, it's hard to imagine going back to my old life too. It's hard to imagine owning a car and having to fill it up with gas, and not being able to bike anywhere in town within 15 minutes. It's hard to imagine not walking on cobblestones and not seeing canals every day. It's entirely possible that someday I'll miss Amsterdam as much as I miss San Francisco now.

Luckily, I still have at least one more year to figure out my next move and it should go by fast, with more travel and lots of visitors (at least 8 already confirmed from Feb-May). Once I quit my job, I'll probably put off looking for another job right away. What the hell. 2 years has always been about my limit for being a corporate slave. And then maybe by the time I actually make it back home, I'll be able to afford to buy more than a shack in the Bay Area.

I bought a Lonely Planet book called "A Year of Adventures", hoping it might inspire me. So far, it's convinced me that I should look into airfares to Corsica and the Sinai Peninsula. But the book is a bit too hardcore for me. For instance, I've already decided that I'm NOT going to do the Ironman Triathalon (p. 164), swim the English Channel (p. 111), climb Mount Everest (p. 156), or visit Chernobyl (p. 126). I haven't ruled out flying into outer space (p. 50), though; in fact I'm definitely going to do so as soon as I have a spare $102,000 in my pocket.

My research into possibilities continues, and ideas are welcome. Maybe I'll have some more epiphanies to share this summer...

A Tribute to the Amsterdam Public Library

Last week, while I was visiting my parents on the East Coast, I spent a few hours browsing through the 20 pounds or so of Time, Transworld Snowboarding, and Travel and Leisure magazines that my mom conscientiously saved for me while I've been living in Europe for the past 9 months. Catching up on my US-centric news made me feel as though I had just arrived in the future via a time machine. When did Al Gore get the Nobel Prize? Who were the Jena 6? And Dog the Bounty Hunter had to apologize for using the N word? How come none of my so-called friends have kept me up-to-date with this important piece of information?

Also: buried on page 78 of Time's special issue on the Best Inventions of the Year was a blurb titled "Reinvented: The Hand Dryer". It stated simply that "[b]y forcing unheated air through a narrow gap at more than 400 mph, the energy-efficient Dyson Airblade dries hands in just 10 sec. flat". Well, finally, a piece of news that I actually knew about before the readers in America did. These are the hand dryers that can be found in the basement restroom of the main branch of the Amsterdam Public Library.

I've already been raving like a lunatic about these hand dryers to all of my friends in Amsterdam. First of all, instead of rubbing your hands under the airstream to dry them, you stick both your hands into something that resembles a toaster oven. Then, there's the noise, like the sound of a jet engine revving up for take-off. In the meantime, the skin on your hands is being subjected to g-forces from the heavy duty vacuum-cleaner-like suction, which -- thanks to Time magazine -- I now know is what it would feel like if you stuck your hands out of a car window while someone was driving the car at 400 miles per hour.

When I described this to my friend Jim, he was appalled. "I'd never do it. Don't you ever watch horror movies? What if I pulled my hands out and instead of hands, all I had left were bloody stumps?!"

It's true that I had my reservations when I first tried it. But now I'm a fan. Ordinary hand dryers seem so pathetic now next to the public library Dyson Airblades¹.

In fact, ordinary libraries seem pathetic next to the Main Branch of the Amsterdam public library, which I also rave about. I'm not alone in this (although I seem to be somewhat alone with the hand dryer obsession, so far). This branch opened on 7/7/07, and I'm guessing that it is the nicest library in the world. Although I haven't been to the one in Dubai, and who knows? -- maybe that one has a monorail that takes you through the stacks.

The library was designed by the Dutch architect Jo Coenen, not to be confused with my photographer friend Jo² who took this gorgeous photo of it that Flickr won't let me download except in thumbnail size (click on the thumbnail to be linked to a larger photo).

There are 7 floors (or 10, if you also count floors 0, 0.5, and -1; yeah, it's a European thing). On the first floor, as soon as you walk in, there's a bank of television screens. Most of the times I have been there, the screens are displaying a video of swimming dolphins. This seems to be totally unrelated to the reading of books, although dolphins are supposed to be pretty intelligent. I just read in Time magazine that they have recently been observed using sea sponges to catch fish. So maybe the point is that we can strive to be intelligent like the dolphins if we read a lot of books.

All the librarians have nicely designed uniforms. I read in the newspaper that these were controversial amongst the librarians when first introduced; I quite like them though. At least they are not ugly, and it makes it easier to identify the librarian when I have a question and he is trying to sneak off to the restroom to use the hand dryer.

There are escalators and a futuristic elevator and lots of ultra-modern chairs that look uncomfortably like plastic, but are actually soft and fun. On the top floor, there's a La Place restaurant, which serves cafeteria-style gourmet food (or gourmet-style cafeteria food, take your pick) and offers tables on the terrace, with a fabulous view overlooking central Amsterdam and the Ij river. They have 600 computers for free internet usage, a concert hall that seats 270, and "pods" for individual private study. They also have a gi-normous selection of CDs, DVDs, and computer games, which one may rent for one euro per week. Books are free and may be borrowed for 3 weeks at a time, although this is all on top of the yearly membership fee of 23.50 euro.

Hey, you gotta pay for those hand-dryers somehow.

Note: I plan to supplement this post with photos eventually, though my camera has been a serious disappointment to me lately, and I have no plans to go to the library in the next few weeks. Now that the nights are cold and dark, I am definitely less motivated to make excursions outside of my neighborhood.
¹Although with a name like "Dyson Airblades", it's easy to make the mental jump to "bloody stumps". Someone in Marketing really should have thought of that.
²I think Jo's photos are brilliant. If you want to see more, click here and prepare to be AMAZED. I also have a permanent link to her Flickr photo site on my blog sidebar.

It's not just rain...

...sometimes it's rainbows!

After leaving my apartment this morning, I stepped outside and saw this. Of course, I ran back inside to get my camera. Then I biked to the metro station in a nice light drizzle, feeling very hardcore (from biking in the rain) and warmfuzzly (from the memory of "my" rainbow) at the same time.

Giant Disco Ball from Outer Space

I feel compelled to post about my night at the Sugar Factory, a club off the Leidseplein in Amsterdam. "Interactive Disco Opera" was the collaborative masterpiece of artist Eric Staller, filmmaker Miss T, and costumer Nepco. It was described as "Fellini-esque" in the paper, so I knew it would be surreal. But since I've never seen a Fellini movie myself, I wasn't sure what to expect. I will definitely go out and rent one now.

The theme of the night seemed to be alien B-movies from the 50s. When I walked in, they were showing the short film "Strip Tease on Mars", which was basically a gorgeous woman getting naked to 50s cocktail jazz on what seemed to be a desert planet, while eyeballs attached to long antennae quivered behind every rock. This was followed by a live saw harpist playing along to a film of vinyl records hovering above the Nemo & other obvious Amsterdam landmarks, a really clever localized send-up of the horrible special effects that make B-movies so fun to watch. Along those lines, I never realized what I was missing in life until I saw a cross-eyed Godzilla melting a toy windmill with his fiery breath in the wildly exciting action-horror short "Godzilla vs. Amsterdam".

There was also the Burka Boogie Woogie Band, where women dressed in burkas played in a band, with the burkas strategically fastened so that the shapes of the trumpet, trombones, bass, and other instruments poked out from the sides. One of my favorite pieces involved 4 women just standing still on the balcony in the darkness wearing beauty parlor helmets with lights that blinked in rhythm with the music; they looked like deep sea creatures. And there was a bizarro film featuring pink plastic breasts each moving separately, and then you were gradually made to realize that each breast was actually a woman wearing a huge plastic ball and a hat resembling a nipple. The grand finale, which was truly magnificent, involved 4 beautiful women in white glittering leotards, high heels, and disco ball helmets dancing around a shivering mass of silver, which eventually jelled (to the tune of "Last Dance") into an enormous disco ball man, about 3 times my height in diameter and at various times seeming about to roll off the stage into the transfixed audience.

Now that I'm typing all of this out, I realize...well...you really had to be there. There's just no way to describe it in a coherent way. It was abso-#$%@-ing incredible. I'm so going to all of Eric Staller's future disco operas. And you should too, if he ever comes to your city.

I can also highly recommend Hans Eijkelboom's photography, which is on exhibition now at Foam. Not nearly so dramatic, but also very interesting.

Ooh Naked People!

I didn't hear about this until after it happened. Not that I'd get up early to get my picture taken naked in a parking garage.

Check out more photos and a press release here and video here

And if you want to be immortalized as a work of art and you're not shy like me, you can sign up to be part of future Spencer Tunick events here.

I wish I could title this post "Only in Amsterdam", but it looks like Mr. Tunick has already been to Bruges, London, Lyon, Melbourne, Montreal, Sao Paulo, Newcastle/Gateshead, Vienna, Barcelona, New York City, and Mexico City (where he somehow persuaded 18,000 Mexicans to voluntarily strip in exchange for nothing but a signed photo).

He hasn't hit San Francisco yet though. I figure it's only a matter of time. However, given that saran-wrapped nudists running in Bay to Breakers is ho-hum now, maybe no one would blink an eye at 5000 naked people blanketing the Golden Gate Bridge.

Purchases

I bought a omafiets (grandma's bike) and slaapbanken (sleeper couch) right before my mom's visit.

The bike has no gears and no hand brakes; you brake by cycling backwards -- a very weird concept, but surprisingly not that hard to ingrain. I bought the bike from a legitimate dealer, used, for 119 euro. I also bought two heavy-duty bike locks for 65 euro. I could have bought a bike from a junkie for 10 euro, but I decided that at least my first few bike purchases should not support the bike thief industry. People tell me that I might change my mind after I've had my bike stolen more than 4 times though.

Last week I biked to and from work for the first time. It took me 45 minutes vs. about 35 via public transport. The bike paths are great. I hardly have to cross any streets and my route is mostly along the Amstel River. I won't be truly Dutch until I can do it in a skirt and high heels, in the rain, balancing my umbrella in one hand and talking on my cell phone with the other.

Did I mention that no one wears a helmet here? And they would definitely laugh and point if you wore black cycling shorts with butt pads. I've seen people cycling with a friend sitting side saddle on the back tire, or a rolled up rug on the front handlebars, or a bass violin strapped to the back. Today I saw a guy slowly biking with three beautiful dogs leashed to his wrist and trotting along beside him. One of these days, I'm going to spend the whole day sipping coffee and just photographing the bicyclists as they ride by.

As for the couch, it's comfortable. Come visit!

Uitje

"Uitje" literally means "little out" in Dutch, or in other words, "an outing". Every year the head of our site plans an all-employee team building day. It's always a surprise. In previous years, they drummed, painted, did a scavenger hunt in the center of Amsterdam, and went to a shooting range.

This year, we all piled into a bus and ended up at a charming cottage restaurant in the woods. From there, we biked to the beach and built a bridge made out of bamboo rods and rubber bands. Then we split up into groups to learn how to power kite and compete with each other in sand sculpture building, volleyball, shotputting, and javelin throwing. I don't think this is really a "Dutch" thing. But I just find the photos kind of funny. So these are the sports alternatives I have available to me here in Holland! You know, I could possibly get into the power kiting. Once I've mastered that, I'll only be 4000 US dollars away from a kite boarding kit and the opportunity to injure myself on the water instead of snow.

Oh and I'll go ahead and answer the inevitable question now: sorry to disappoint, but there are no photos are available of me in the blue space suit.

Scary Bridge Crossing at Keukenhof

Click on the photo to view the web album.

My mom was just here visiting for 4 days (my first US visitor!) and on Saturday we took the train to Keukenhof, which is a huge flower-themed park in Lisse. It was much more fun than I expected. I thought we were just going to see some pretty flowers, but the park designers were creative. There's a windmill, funky sculptures, a giant chessboard, a kickass English garden maze, a petting zoo, and all kinds of other good family fun. We took about a hundred photos between the two of us, but my favorites are of each of us taking turns to cross a roller-coaster shaped bridge over a pond. Hmm...Mom's probably not going to like that I posted these on my blog!

Oh yeah, there were pretty flowers too -- so I threw in some photos of these at the end, in case anyone wants new wallpaper for their laptop.

Go Orange!

click photo to view web album

Queens Day is off the hook! (yo...)

I spent the morning shopping (city turns into a giant flea market because sales permit requirements are temporarily suspended), the afternoon dancing (city also turns into a giant club, with a new DJ around every corner, and quite a few in the boat parade as well), and a lazy hour with my feet dangling over a bridge watching all the boats passing underneath.

I couldn't believe all the great stuff I bought for cheap -- including my entire Queens Day outfit, orange pants, orange t-shirt, and orange high-top sneakers with fur lining (3 Euro or about US $3.50 total, sorry no photo of the complete look!).

It was a fantastic day, especially since my apartment is a block away from a major Q-Day location and I could go back home whenever I needed to drop off purchases or use the loo. But now as I type this, I am looking out the window at some poor guy with his head in his hands, suffering from what is widely known as Amsterdamage.

I feel for you man...

I amsterdam, what about you?

The tourist bureau here has a new advertising campaign (well, new since I was last here, more than 5 years ago) based on the slogan "I amsterdam", where the "I" and the "am" of "Amsterdam" are always shown in red, and the rest is always shown in white.

So I wonder what it means "to amsterdam". Perhaps I was amsterdamming today, as I took the tram over to the other side of town to look at a bike (it was too tall). Or maybe I was amsterdamming when I stopped for cheap Indonesian food in de Pijp (pronounced "de Pipe" -- it's in between the neighborhoods de Bong and de Joint). Was I amsterdamming when I took a nap on the grass in the Museumplein, surrounded by other nappers, tourists, football...er...soccer players, volleyball players, a bunch of guys having a loud conversation in Italian, and a couple making out like they were on the couch in their living room?

Speaking of which, I have begun my hunt for a sleeper sofa.

And a cleaning lady my landlord recommended came by this morning to discuss a regular schedule and prices. I think my jaw dropped when she told me the cost. 10 Euro per hour. She is going to come by every 2 weeks.

Bjork

I'm going to see Bjork! In July! In Amsterdam!

A Classic Bike Through the Tulip Fields

Leiden to Lisse

If you click on the photo, it will take you to a Picasa web album.

Excellent weather, excellent company! And the biking was brilliant. The bike only had three gears and most of the time, I stayed in 3rd. Never thought someone who loves the mountains as much as I do would see any advantage to all this flatness. Now I understand why you can bike without a helmet, in a skirt and high heels.

And I am starting to collect countries (via new acquaintances) the way my brothers and I used to "collect" states (via license plates) when I was a kid. This group was from Australia, New Zealand, Spain, the UK, Scotland, Italy, Singapore, the Netherlands, Canada, and Germany. There was one other American. I love it!

Terrible Sex

Today I roller-bladed along the Amstel River with some new friends from MeetIn Amsterdam. They are from Estonia, Germany, India, and the UK. I learned that the word for "cheers" in Estonian is "terviseks". Or you can say "terrible sex" and that works just as well.

"terrible sex!"
In the evening, I went to a dinner with a lot of French people (plus one Italian guy who is moving to French Congo in a few months). At this dinner, I discovered that I have forgotten all of the French I learned in high school. C'est la vie...

Chinatown

Until yesterday, I'd never heard of a Chinatown in Amsterdam.

Then my coworkers took the Americans there for dinner and what a revelation! I love Chinatown (which incidentally, should really be called "Chinastreet"). It's small but oh so cute. And I just got a great half-hour massage there for 20 Euro. These Chinese massages are way different from Swedish. Besides actual massaging, there's also a lot of slapping and pounding and shaking involved, even some pinching. Wacky yet somehow effective. I'm definitely going for a full hour next time.

And to continue my obsession with menu English and weird food here: a few doors down, the section of the menu subtitled "Vegetarian" listed dishes with translations "vegetables with pork", "vegetables with beef", "vegetables with fish", "vegetables with duck", etc. Well you get the picture. Of the 15 or so dishes listed, only one was truly vegetarian! It was "vegetables with tofu".

All-American

Today at the local sandwich shop, I noticed that the special was "broodjes filet americain" for 3,50 euro. I figured what the hell, I'm an American so I'm sure I'll like it. I was imagining it would be a hamburger patty or something with velveeta. Instead I got a french bread roll with a rusty-orange colored goop inside. I've seen the same sandwich before in my office cafeteria but have been afraid to try it. The texture of the goop is not unlike diarrhea. I couldn't guess what it was, even after I had eaten the whole thing and liked it. And I certainly have never seen it in the good ole U.S. of A!

I asked my coworkers about "filet americain" later, and they told me it was pureed raw meat. None of them knew what gave it that weird orange color though. Maybe paprika? Wikipedia says that it's especially popular in Belgium, France, and Switzerland.

Perhaps it's called filet americain because the burnt orange color is like a sunburned American tourist? Any other theories?

Last week, a work colleague came to visit and ordered a "Hamburger American". This was the largest burger he had ever seen, and when he took the top bun off, he found a fried egg underneath it.

Then yesterday at work, someone told me that I dress very European. I said "how's that?" "Well" she said, "you don't wear your trousers up to here". She indicated somewhat around chest level.

I have to conclude that Europeans have some funny ideas about Americans. They're right about Bush though.