Adventure of the month

All combined, I have lived in Amsterdam for two years- mostly in two month increments. I know the city well and love how much it has to offer yet I am aware that when most people think of Amsterdam, their thoughts turn to just two things- hookers and weed. This is understandable as this is home to the world's most famous red light district and finding glassy-eyed tourists coming out of coffee shops is as omnipresent as the relentless ringing of bike bells. Hookers and weed are no question a "thing" here, they are just not the only thing. It is because of this that when friends come to visit, the first thing I do is take them past the girls in the windows and if they are so inclined to procure some of the best weed in town. Once this is out of the way, then I feel free to take them boating on the canals, to world-class museums and to the many hidden spots that make this city so wonderful. One of the newest attractions, having opened in late 2016, is the A'dam Tower...

Every five years, the city of Amsterdam hosts a massive maritime party, with tall masted ships from all over world docking behind Central Station for a crazed rowdy party. The event is called Sail Amsterdam and it lures over three million people into a city whose population covers around 800,000. In short, it is mayhem and a wonderful time to be in the city. The whole thing lasts five days, which is a good thing because had it been a full week, I may have died.  It is both a FOMO sufferers grandest dream and worst nightmare.  There are dozens of events crammed into every day, into every hour so to even begin scratching the surface you need to put in 18 hour days and be willing to hustle.

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 no...

All animal lovers have one species that they adore above all others. For me, it is cats. I find their elegance and independence inspirational. In a few days, I am setting off to Kenya to try to see, for the first time, a leopard in the wild. But I have not done this yet. So, that brings me to my second favorite animal group, primates. (Note: If anyone takes it upon themselves to read this to my two beloved shih-poo's, or more alarmingly if those deceptive bastards have been hiding the gift of literacy from me and are reading this for themselves, what I really mean is dogs #1, then cats, then primates. 'kay.) A couple of weeks back I had the chance to visit a place so cool that to call it a zoo would be to do it a disservice. It is a nature park, one that just so happens to have over 30 species of primates. One that was started by a photographer and owner of two tamarins, 40 years ago, who hit upon the revolutionary idea of letting his growing brood of monkeys run free with...

Orange bitter liquor...it's what's for breakfast Clock him with an egg and win 20 euro April 30th is the day when the Dutch (and the tourists that love them) manage to outdo the usual everyday bacchanalia that is Amsterdam. Ostensibly, it is the celebration of the Queen's birthday (although it is actually the birthday of her mother, since the current Queen pragmatically realized that changing the holiday to her actual birthday in December would probably put a damper any outdoor celebrations and had the good sense to leave well enough alone). So now as before, in springtime, everyone dresses up in orange (the royal family is known as the House of Orange), drinks orange liquor, walks arounds streets strewn in orange debris and in general sleeps off an orange hangover come May 1st. Or was that just me?

Once again, it looks like I will be spending most of my summer in the ultra-cool city of Amsterdam, only difference is that this year, I made it in time to see the much heralded tulips. They are gorgeous, they are amazingly colorful and they are simply everywhere. Yet even with this level of omnipresence, I have calculated that there has got to be a 5 tourists to 1 tulip ratio at play. Hotels are all booked solid, tour busses are clogging every street and may the gods help you if you decide to take a city bus to the Keukenhof , the world's most famous flower garden. It is tulip mania around here. I have posted a small percentage (seriously!!) of the photos I took at the flower parade and the garden itself to show why people from all over the world are flocking for flowers.

Just as I was celebrating putting this Netherlands thing to rest, I realized that I had not posted nearly enough photos of Amsterdam itself. This had to be remedied.