Miffed now.

Next time he's in town, I was thinking we should do a small meetup for een pilsje at Noorderlicht (what better place for a Making Light meeting?)

Crazy(and only a couple hours' away from her dear hubby's old stomping grounds)Soph

And, now I want to go to the Netherlands. So I'll just add that to
my list of countries I have to somehow make time (and money) for...

I highly recommend it. For a long time I was going back every year;
now it's devolved to something closer to every other year, on average,
but not for lack of interest.

I figure I just have to keep going back until I finally get around
to seeing the Rijksmuseum. Or, rather, the collection; I did a hard hat
tour of the renovations a couple of years ago. That was fun. :) (Plus,
I surprised myself with how much I understood of what the guide was
saying.)

I've been trying for years to convince my father he should go; he'd
really like it, I'm sure. The funny thing is, one of the reasons he
balks at my suggestions that he go to Europe is fear of the language
barrier. It's a fear he's finally getting around by joining me for part
of my UK trip this August/September, yet I'm pretty sure he'd have less
of a language problem in the Netherlands. Particularly since we'll be
spending a good portion of his time in the UK in Edinburgh.

*sigh* Now I'm really, really craving cheap supermarket speculaas.

(We made it over to Amsterdam Noord once, but Cafe Ot en Sien was closed)

*sniff* It's like... civilization.

Must go back, must go back, must go back . . .

How do you DO that?

I was halfway through writing them in normal prose when a rhythm
crept into my head and wouldn't leave. On further examination, it was
from Jo Walton's fantastic Three Bears Norse.

So then I went back and added all the alliterative bits and heroic
nomenclature. It was the middle of a pretty bad time at work, and I
needed to do something gloriously and magnificently useless.

I'm glad you like it.

"Who's there?"

"Amsterdam."

"Amsterdam who?"

"Amsterdam door - I'm knocking."

One of the pleasures of having guests is watching their heads
explode (no helmets, either, which helps the visual effect) when they
really get it. It reminds me once again how fortunate I am to live and
cycle here.

-----

* But is Scottish. It's complicated.

Patrick's reaction was typical. He went from being a little too
aggressive on the road, asserting space the cars were perfectly happy
to cede him, through a stunned acceptance of the natural order of
things on the Dutch roads, and back to crogglement when he caught
himself trusting cars to give him precedence. Then he realized that no one was wearing a helmet, and reached his own personal Singularity.

Amsterdam,
through fresh eyes, is also more of a wonder than I had remembered.
It's a good city for goshwow moments, if you're entranced by layered
cities. Unlike Edinburgh, where all the layers are for the same modes
of transport, Amsterdam
is a city where you cycle over a bridge while a boat is passing
underneath. The class separation makes the geographical separation seem
more dramatic than it really is.

As for the "high-level meta-blog gossip", we exchanged slow and
lofty counsel, like Gandalf on a visit to Tom Bombadil. Wise words were
spoken in measured tones. Deep arts were discussed. Then the four year
old came in and turned upside down on the sofa, revealing rather more
of her tights than is common in the counsels of the wise.

And Patrick plays a mean guitar.

And Susan @ #7, where in Japan were you? I'm assuming Tokyo/Kyoto?
Those two cities alone are worth a thousand pictures (thus a million
words, I guess?)

I don't know that I've ever seen a more beautiful urban sight than
the walk down Sarphatikade during and after a late-August sunset.

The "Paradise" picture is going on my desktop to drool over.

If you ever try walking in Amsterdam
(or any other Dutch city), be careful of the flip-side: many cyclists
are so used to getting precedence, that they behave as if they always
have a right to it. Even if this poses a danger to pedestrians (cycling
on a busy pavement, for instance; it's illegal, but that doesn't stop
them).

Still, even with the bicycles, I think walking is the best way to
see the city. And I invite you all to visit the lovely city of Utrecht
as well.

When I saw how close the Hague is to Amsterdam, I rented a bike in Amsterdam and cycled. Except I went somewhere a little out of the way to make it a two day trip instead of only one.

Hanging out with people from alt.fan.pratchett, walking around
whatever city I happened to be in, and, er, seeing musicals. My
priorities are a little...peculiar.

In my defense, it's only these last two trips (on one of which I did the hard hat tour) that I was actually staying in Amsterdam at any point. And the second of those, I was only in the city for two days.

Now I know I must see it for myself to know it, but the sense is more immediate.

She also says you play a mean guitar.

#14: Magenta, if you think all of Iowa is flat (and, yeah, sure,
most of it is), you’ve missed the Quad-Cities on the eastern border--
where the Mississippi runs west and it looks like Iowa took a bite out
of Illinois. We’ve got some serious hills, valleys, and bluffs around
here.

In fact, come on over in July and try the annual Bix 7 road race,
which winds through some of the prettiest—and steepest—scenery I’ve
ever limped past. It starts at the foot of Brady Street Hill, which is
about a half-mile stretch at a 12% grade—you don’t need cleats, but it
does do a number on your calves!

Slinking back into lurkage now. . .

Workflow is a constant problem.

nb to one and all. The baby (I am acting as nanny for a newborn much
of the time of late) hates you. It seems my chuckle (a deep, loud,
almost evil-overlord sort of thing, so I am told) is frightening to
him. You make me do it too often.

Happily Irish drinking songs (a rebel songs) are pleasing to him,
even when I am singing them. Now if only my one-handed typing were
better.

I took day trips to Delft and to see William of Orange's palace at Het Loo, and Walter Jon Williams and I made a long, train, bus, walking trip to visit Kinderdijk
that has nineteen windmills all built around 1740. As we stood looking
across the canals and fields Walter mused "Hmm, the eighteenth century
version of the Very Large Array."

Amsterdam
was a lovely city, and the museums were first rate. I wish I'd had more
time. They also have great dressage horses in the Netherlands. A
personal interest of mine.

One additional thing to mention is that the Dutch truly understand
french fries. A really fresh hot fry with satay sauce is better than a
coffee house.

Driving up from Minneapolis, we decided that the Earth doesn't even
curve from Grand Forks to Lake Manitoba... One can dig a hole three
feet deep, jump in, and still see for hundreds of kilometers in every direction...

On the other hand, as we entered Winnipeg, we noticed two things: It
was without question the cleanest city we have ever seen, and they
serve vinegar for your fries at McDonald's, which is how we've been
eating them ever since. Teh YUMMY, nom nom nom!!!!

Thanks all for the suggestions, now I have some ideas on what to do for the upcoming weekends!

"Will this plane Netherland, Sasha?"

"It Canute."

What I hold it most in my heart for: having decent food, finally.

In France, we could have any food you liked, so long as it involved
eggs and ham. In Italy, we ran into alas weak Italian stuff.

But Amsterdam,
we happened across a place with real food: like a Mongolian barbeque,
you got to pick your meats and veggies and sauces and noodles, and they
cooked it up for you. Incredibly tasty. And you got to sit at a bar
watching tourists head towards a square full of rappers and
coffeeshops, with occasional streetcars plowing their way through...

Like the English, seems that the Dutch brought home good food from their empire. Really helps.

Also, it was pride week when I was there, and while I didn't see
much going on, I did get some excellent colorful flashy umbrellas (and
managed to get them back intact, a rather difficult thing on foot with
a zillion plane transfers).

I guess when I was there I saw Amsterdam
more as a city to live in than a city to visit. It reminded me of home
in the Bay Area. Except with much better bicycles. And bus drivers that
didn't drive away when you were pelting towards them at top speed. And
more trees and brick roads that smelled nice.

Oh! At the train station there was a huge mass of bicycles in a
bicycle parking garage... It was hairy with them. Fascinating!

Blindly handing Serge rag to clean up...

And restaurant cats in a pizzeria on the main drag away from the
railway station. Later, we found a restaurant about a block away from
our canal-side hotel that had been there about 400 years--and looked
it. The food might or might not have been the Dutch equivalent of a
"menu turistico", but we didn't care; the room looked straight out of a
Rembrandt interior. The next morning, the most civilized hotel
breakfast buffet I've ever enjoyed. I'd just come from several months
in Venice, and the canals seemed ridiculously wide, not to mention this
nonsense of allowing cars on the canal-sides.

I'm having a little trouble getting my head around your comparison
to SF; the thing that has always struck me about The City is all the
hills, particularly every time I climbed one.

(2) There is apparently an agricultural protocol for reclaiming land
that was once seabottom--a series of specific plants sown for specific
periods--that pull the salt out of the soil. I asked about this after
remembering that the Romans salted the site of Carthage to prevent
anyone rebuilding. It would be fascinating to know how that was worked
out. Strikes me as right up there with the discovery of fire.

Is there a Unicode alphabet for Sherlock Holmes' Dancing Men code?

"What's on the meownu, today?"

But cats in pizzerias? Just think of all the pussibilities; for one: no anchovy* pizzas.

*Please. I am not a fan of anchovies, unless they're alive. My pizza has ham and pineapple on it.

Simon Schama's tome on the height of the Dutch Renaissance
reproduces emblems of the national spirit as a sort of combined
gardener and civil engineer, wearing the Phrygian cap of liberty.
(Which is an interesting emblem of freedom, since it contains the idea
of having once been a slave.)

Perhaps it felt that way during times of Austrian or Spanish rule.

(Which is an interesting emblem of freedom, since it contains the idea of having once been a slave.)

My guess is those who have a history of oppression against them are
the ones most likely to be willing to work for freedom. In some ways
it's true that a life of comfort is the enemy of liberty; not knowing
better a person may be willing to give up much not to lose the
accustomed life.

Are the streets that well-kept? (I ask because the closest I ever
came to getting seriously hurt on a bike was from a pothole that threw
me by twisting my front wheel 90 degrees in an instant, rather than
from a car.) I don't recall so from a few hours in Amsterdam before Confiction, but the downtown may not be the best sample.

Jo: Sasha's line is wonderful, but mutes the contribution of
millions of common-level people. It looks from here like a mutual
shaping between humans and their environment; sufficiently impractical,
ceremonial people could not have survived at all, but the requirement
for reality led to people who \would/ extend their methods to clear
more land once they had the first bits under control.

"I've never had a way with women, but the hills of Iowa make me wish that I could."

--Dar Williams.

#62: Dar William's lyrics beat the Iowa Corn Song by a mile. Tune's not bad either.

The Bay Area as a whole, though, does have some flat spots. :) I was
mostly referring to the city feel I got, though. Mix of cultures, wide
variety of little restaurants and stores that had arty things in them,
nice climate, visible water, creative people, public transit...