Amsterdam as seen through a Yellow Filter
August in Amsterdam without enough consecutive days off to do anything other than a day trip. What to do? There are the museums, the plethora of summer festivals, the renting of boats, the joy of simply relaxing with friends at a canal-side bar- I partook in all of it and loved every minute of it. But there was still plenty of time to fill, so I decided I would take a class of some kind. I considered taking Dutch lessons but- no offense to the kind people of Holland- that language is nothing short of an auditory assault. It is so bad that it makes German sound lyrical. There is a part of me that is ashamed of the fact that I have now spent the equivalent of 14 months living in the country without learning the language. To be fair, I have reached the point where I can engage in very basic niceties, read a menu or tell off a bicyclist with some adeptness but, sadly, I have not pushed myself to progress beyond that. And this summer did nothing to change that. Sorry. Het is een