A cultural interlude
Amsterdam and its culture are built on more than 800 years of history and wherever you turn, there is some of it around you.
There's the Oude Kerk church, which was first the site of a small wooden church in the 12th and 13th centuries and is now a massive, stunning building originally constructed in the 14th century and gradually expanded. It's so big and so old, small shops and homes have been built into its sides like barnacles on a ship's hull.
Rembrandt lived here and you can visit his house and see his works, the most significant of which were painted in his first floor studio between 1639 and 1656. And, if you're feeling particularly frisky, you can also go see the Netherland's most successful musical star, Henk Poort, in the local hit, "Rembrandt: The Musical - The Unknown Rebel!" But hurry, it closes on December 10th.
Amsterdam is the site of the Anne Frank House, now a museum open to the public so you can see where Anne, her family, and two other people hid for two years until they were betrayed to the Nazis. I won't have time to visit it tomorrow before departing. Even if I did, I honestly don't know that I would be able to bring myself to go. I think it would be a tremendously upsetting though no doubt unforgettable experience and probably not the last thing I want to see before an 8-hour flight back to Boston. It looks like a very very quick visit to the Van Gogh Museum will have to be the last thing Ian, Jim, and I squeeze in before heading to Schiphol Airport and the welcoming arms of Northwest Airlines.
Everyone here rides bikes. Next to every sidewalk, there is a bike path, and special crossing lanes and lights for cyclists. But no one rides 10-speeds or mountain bikes. They ride single-speed, sit-up straight bikes, like Margaret Hamilton rode in "The Wizard of Oz" before she changed from Mrs. Gulch to the Wicked Witch of the West. And they're everywhere. Riders politely ring their bells as they pass, bikes are locked up alongside every building. We saw probably 50 of them stacked up, tumbled over, covered in leaves, next to the Haarlem Central Rail Station, almost like a secret elephant graveyard but for 1930s-era bikes and, well, not so secret.
This is where Mr. Kits, chief scientist, chairman of the board, and co-founder of KVH, served in the Dutch Resistance during WWII.
The trams here are clean, new, and always on time. The transit workers are also terribly polite. After going on an 8-hour strike today to put some pressure on the city during the lead-up to this evening's Holland v. UK football match (1-1 tie if you're interested) due to wage disputes, the transit authority then offered all rides for free this evening to avoid making anyone too upset.
Anyone who read "Band of Brothers" or saw the HBO film will be familiar with the region surrounding Amsterdam (By the way, I recommend the book and the movie very highly.) We're only 80 miles from Eindhoven, one of the cities that Easy Company helped to liberate (though apparently Eindhoven looks nothing like its pre-war self as it was flattened by Allied bombing and completely rebuilt following the war). While the movie was filmed on sets in England, based on what I saw during the train ride to Haarlem a few days ago as well as my walks through Haarlem and the older sections of Amsterdam, the producers did a remarkable job of capturing the sense and feel. There were moments when it would have been perfectly reasonable to see Major Dick Winters and Captain Ronald Speirs come running around the corner leading Lipton, Guarnere, Malarky, Randleman, and the others.
I'm 6'0 tall and feel very short here in Amsterdam. Apparently, the Dutch are now the tallest population in the world. After 4 days of walking around here, I believe it. Has someone told the NBA about this?
The city is starting to be lit up at night in preparation for the Sinterklaas Parade this Sunday (the traditional arrival of the Dutch equivalent of Santa Claus by boat). On December 5th, the Dutch will celebrate Sinterklaasvond, the traditional day of holiday gift giving though from what I've read, December 25th is taking on more of the gift-giving aspect now rather than just being a day of religious observance.
And now, boys and girls, here endeth the lesson until tomorrow, when we wrap this all up.
There's the Oude Kerk church, which was first the site of a small wooden church in the 12th and 13th centuries and is now a massive, stunning building originally constructed in the 14th century and gradually expanded. It's so big and so old, small shops and homes have been built into its sides like barnacles on a ship's hull.
Rembrandt lived here and you can visit his house and see his works, the most significant of which were painted in his first floor studio between 1639 and 1656. And, if you're feeling particularly frisky, you can also go see the Netherland's most successful musical star, Henk Poort, in the local hit, "Rembrandt: The Musical - The Unknown Rebel!" But hurry, it closes on December 10th.
Amsterdam is the site of the Anne Frank House, now a museum open to the public so you can see where Anne, her family, and two other people hid for two years until they were betrayed to the Nazis. I won't have time to visit it tomorrow before departing. Even if I did, I honestly don't know that I would be able to bring myself to go. I think it would be a tremendously upsetting though no doubt unforgettable experience and probably not the last thing I want to see before an 8-hour flight back to Boston. It looks like a very very quick visit to the Van Gogh Museum will have to be the last thing Ian, Jim, and I squeeze in before heading to Schiphol Airport and the welcoming arms of Northwest Airlines.
Everyone here rides bikes. Next to every sidewalk, there is a bike path, and special crossing lanes and lights for cyclists. But no one rides 10-speeds or mountain bikes. They ride single-speed, sit-up straight bikes, like Margaret Hamilton rode in "The Wizard of Oz" before she changed from Mrs. Gulch to the Wicked Witch of the West. And they're everywhere. Riders politely ring their bells as they pass, bikes are locked up alongside every building. We saw probably 50 of them stacked up, tumbled over, covered in leaves, next to the Haarlem Central Rail Station, almost like a secret elephant graveyard but for 1930s-era bikes and, well, not so secret.
This is where Mr. Kits, chief scientist, chairman of the board, and co-founder of KVH, served in the Dutch Resistance during WWII.
The trams here are clean, new, and always on time. The transit workers are also terribly polite. After going on an 8-hour strike today to put some pressure on the city during the lead-up to this evening's Holland v. UK football match (1-1 tie if you're interested) due to wage disputes, the transit authority then offered all rides for free this evening to avoid making anyone too upset.
Anyone who read "Band of Brothers" or saw the HBO film will be familiar with the region surrounding Amsterdam (By the way, I recommend the book and the movie very highly.) We're only 80 miles from Eindhoven, one of the cities that Easy Company helped to liberate (though apparently Eindhoven looks nothing like its pre-war self as it was flattened by Allied bombing and completely rebuilt following the war). While the movie was filmed on sets in England, based on what I saw during the train ride to Haarlem a few days ago as well as my walks through Haarlem and the older sections of Amsterdam, the producers did a remarkable job of capturing the sense and feel. There were moments when it would have been perfectly reasonable to see Major Dick Winters and Captain Ronald Speirs come running around the corner leading Lipton, Guarnere, Malarky, Randleman, and the others.
I'm 6'0 tall and feel very short here in Amsterdam. Apparently, the Dutch are now the tallest population in the world. After 4 days of walking around here, I believe it. Has someone told the NBA about this?
The city is starting to be lit up at night in preparation for the Sinterklaas Parade this Sunday (the traditional arrival of the Dutch equivalent of Santa Claus by boat). On December 5th, the Dutch will celebrate Sinterklaasvond, the traditional day of holiday gift giving though from what I've read, December 25th is taking on more of the gift-giving aspect now rather than just being a day of religious observance.
And now, boys and girls, here endeth the lesson until tomorrow, when we wrap this all up.
posted by KVH at 11:04 PM
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