June 21
Amsterdam really is a wonderful city, so clean and perfectly working. Seems like I spent hours last night riding around on the trams, watching the sights slide by. Even though it was the weekend I forgot to prepare, high season and hotels were mostly booked last night but I found space just around the corner in the Tourist Inn 'Budget' Hotel, very nice in comparison to the Brian, flat-screen TV but non-free internet in the lobby, plus more variety at breakfast.
This morning via Metro to the Amstel Station and the Eurolines bus, the lost-cost alternate now to Continental train travel. Our pair of drivers chattered away in Russian during the four-hour drive to Düsseldorf, which was interupted at the border for a security check. I thought this was a thing of the past in Schengenland (but there was a notice in the bus station about long delays at the Italian frontier...) I spotted the border, which had a pullout like a rest area with several official vehicles parked, but as the highway traffic just continued on I thought it was going to be ignored like on the train: no stopping, no checks, no nothing. But instead, a moment later, the bus pulled into an actual rest area right behind a parked police car, from which two border guards emerged wearing the familar gray Grenzpolizei uniforms (but these were both young women). They seemed to be giving someone in the back a lot of attention (this bus's final destination: Croatia), and they even asked to look inside my backpack. The first time ever, for me, entering Deutschland. Achtung, baby.
Now I'm ensconced in das Hotel Rheingold which is too expensive but great because I have a little back porch with a view out onto a triangular courtyard. In the nearby Telesurf internet cafe, I'm inhaling too much second-hand smoke (welcome to Europe) made even more annoying by the one-sided chatter of a couple of Sype callers. Earlier I was exploring the Japanese stores along the Immermannstraße -- did you know one of the biggest expatriate communities from that country calls Düsseldorf home?
All the residents are all watching the big game again tonight and German flags are flying everywhere here, along with a few gutsy Turks. They even have pairs of 'em mounted on their cars, their shafts protruding like insect antennae, just like the patriotic yahoos do back home.
Kind of a rip off; being here for less than 48 hours -- so often cold wintry or rainy autumnal are the weathers I experience when visiting Düsseldorf, but now in the warm sunnyness my presence is all too brief. I return to this town again and again 'cause I like its semi-newness: flattened in the war, it's all no more'n sixty years old. Tomorrow, back to Mainz, a more traditional place (very close to the Frankfurt aerodrome), home of Gutenburg, where I broke my leg stumbling off a curb on a last day of my 2004 visit to Eastern Europe.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Three Amsterdam Observations
June 20
- The police patrol in pairs on bicycles, without helmets, bare-headed. Once I saw a mounted patrol, both women -- they were wearing helmets (and I'd want to also, if I were to fall of a horse).
- The Euro Cup is happening, so many places are festooned with the Dutch national color of orange, and soccer balls, amnd the legend "Hup Holland!" Their big game is tomorrow, with Russia, but I'll be gone by then, and Germany's big moment was last night, when people were staring intently at TV screens everywhere.
- They have an outdoor used book market at that little Spui Plein maybe every Friday, at that new location of the American Book Centre, with many great used English titles available. In fact, I visited about a dozen bookstores yesterday, most of which have their English section conveniently located right by the door.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Understanding Amsterdam
June 19
After yesterday's balmy weather, awoke to a dreary morning whereupon I discovered my umbrella's gone missing, but so far unnecessary -- dodged the showers until afternoon, when it cleared up and became sunny again. Today, the trip's first museum, the Historical; and I now (finally) have an understanding of this city's geography, and can picture its early growth. A political/historical term learned today was Batavia, along with the Batavian Republic of the 19th Century.
Stores fondly remembered and revisited today included the American Book Centre, which has moved into a nice new space; and the shop of things Japanese called Winkeltje. (I've also seen a Tibeten Winkeltje.) So much fun relearning all the sights and my way around this town.
Tomorrow, a new hotel, and then a bus-ride to Düsseldorf.
After yesterday's balmy weather, awoke to a dreary morning whereupon I discovered my umbrella's gone missing, but so far unnecessary -- dodged the showers until afternoon, when it cleared up and became sunny again. Today, the trip's first museum, the Historical; and I now (finally) have an understanding of this city's geography, and can picture its early growth. A political/historical term learned today was Batavia, along with the Batavian Republic of the 19th Century.
Stores fondly remembered and revisited today included the American Book Centre, which has moved into a nice new space; and the shop of things Japanese called Winkeltje. (I've also seen a Tibeten Winkeltje.) So much fun relearning all the sights and my way around this town.
Tomorrow, a new hotel, and then a bus-ride to Düsseldorf.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Europe!
June 18
Flying all night, no sleep, and after an hour's wait in the Dublin aerodrome (my first time in Ireland), the short flight to Amsterdam. Now I'm in the Hotel Brian. Casual and inexpensive, its tiny , 40€ room works for me (with free internet in the family-room lobby). I've traditionally stayed a little further from the Central Station, down near the Heineken Brewery; it's more fun up here, closer to the action.
Yesterday in New York, I wandered around Molly's temporary neighborhood of Greenpoint, Queens; which to my surprise is a Polish area. I got to utilize the tourist expressions recalled from my 2004 trip there.
Flying all night, no sleep, and after an hour's wait in the Dublin aerodrome (my first time in Ireland), the short flight to Amsterdam. Now I'm in the Hotel Brian. Casual and inexpensive, its tiny , 40€ room works for me (with free internet in the family-room lobby). I've traditionally stayed a little further from the Central Station, down near the Heineken Brewery; it's more fun up here, closer to the action.
Yesterday in New York, I wandered around Molly's temporary neighborhood of Greenpoint, Queens; which to my surprise is a Polish area. I got to utilize the tourist expressions recalled from my 2004 trip there.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Day after Father's Day: New York!
June 16
Father's Day spent with family: got to visit parents, sister and all my brothers. Now (early AM, Monday) it's into DC to catch a Chinatown bus up to NYC, where my transatlantic flight will be departing tomorrow, at around 6PM.
Father's Day spent with family: got to visit parents, sister and all my brothers. Now (early AM, Monday) it's into DC to catch a Chinatown bus up to NYC, where my transatlantic flight will be departing tomorrow, at around 6PM.
- later that day
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Airports, Metro, and Maryland
June 14
First flight left Oakland late, but no stress at DFW since my connecting flight into DC was also delayed. Some concern about the final leg into suburban Maryland but I'm aware how the Metro trains now run late Friday night, into the wee hours. Spent my time at DFW eating tasty BBQ at Dickie's, which I remember from previous visits. My flights were all in the stylish new Terminal D but I spent a lot of the time riding around on the automated Skylink people-mover, which travels at refreshingly rapid speeds to connect the various terminals. I know this airport well, as it was our test-bed when I worked on Air Traffic Control software (during a memorable business trip there around '98, I got to experience the scene from up in one of its towers). Finally, back into another cramped S-80 for the flight to my hometown, then a dash to the Metro station at National. Finally, bro Andy ferried me the final mile to my parents' house, from the mall locals have called the Plaza since it opened, just before we moved here in 1960.
Today my parents were off at a wedding so I didn't do much but knock around the house, making phone calls. (Some irritation since a parcel I shipped home via FedEx has gone missing, possibly stolen off the front porch.) Later, they returned and we had dinner at a local Orthodox church's Greek Festival.
First flight left Oakland late, but no stress at DFW since my connecting flight into DC was also delayed. Some concern about the final leg into suburban Maryland but I'm aware how the Metro trains now run late Friday night, into the wee hours. Spent my time at DFW eating tasty BBQ at Dickie's, which I remember from previous visits. My flights were all in the stylish new Terminal D but I spent a lot of the time riding around on the automated Skylink people-mover, which travels at refreshingly rapid speeds to connect the various terminals. I know this airport well, as it was our test-bed when I worked on Air Traffic Control software (during a memorable business trip there around '98, I got to experience the scene from up in one of its towers). Finally, back into another cramped S-80 for the flight to my hometown, then a dash to the Metro station at National. Finally, bro Andy ferried me the final mile to my parents' house, from the mall locals have called the Plaza since it opened, just before we moved here in 1960.
Today my parents were off at a wedding so I didn't do much but knock around the house, making phone calls. (Some irritation since a parcel I shipped home via FedEx has gone missing, possibly stolen off the front porch.) Later, they returned and we had dinner at a local Orthodox church's Greek Festival.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Departure
June 13
My journey began yesterday after placing the last of my possessions into the storage unit, closing out my apartment, and dropping of my car at a teacher-colleague's house in San Jose. Her husband drove me over to the light rail station: after a few stops I transferred to an express bus to Fremont, the BART station at the end of the line. A few stations north to the East Bay nowhere of Hayward, where I checked into the Days Inn and, shifting immediately into travel mode, washed some clothes in the sink just after taking the room, hanging them up to dry before heading out to find something to eat. Later, on the TV, I watched some Sci-Fi channel "Twilight Zone" before retiring. In the morning, I'll walk back to the BART station and ride north to Oakland, for the first of my sequence of ten flights east.
My journey began yesterday after placing the last of my possessions into the storage unit, closing out my apartment, and dropping of my car at a teacher-colleague's house in San Jose. Her husband drove me over to the light rail station: after a few stops I transferred to an express bus to Fremont, the BART station at the end of the line. A few stations north to the East Bay nowhere of Hayward, where I checked into the Days Inn and, shifting immediately into travel mode, washed some clothes in the sink just after taking the room, hanging them up to dry before heading out to find something to eat. Later, on the TV, I watched some Sci-Fi channel "Twilight Zone" before retiring. In the morning, I'll walk back to the BART station and ride north to Oakland, for the first of my sequence of ten flights east.
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