http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/opinion/sunday/the-dutch-way-bicycles-and-fresh-bread.html?_r=0

Fresh food is one of my favorite aspects of Amsterdam.  It's driven by a lot of things, but a puny pantry, four flghts of impossibly steep stairs and buying your groceries on a bicycle are the most important.  The first shopping excursion I had I went a bit overboard... buying four bags of groceries, laden with beer, a few bottles of Proseco as well as other heavy items.  After riding over the drawbridge, across the tram tracks and through traffic, I decided I should lighten my load going forward.  The result is shopping nearly every day, which means that what you eat is generally only a day or two old.  Better food!

Ok, so I never watched the whole video on Amsterdam that Janet has posted on FAQs.  Don't worry, it's not really 31 minutes long, so if you have the time, it is a good watch.  Anyway, Kai has asked us 50 times why the stairs in Amsterdam are so crazy.  I guess he didn't like our flimsy answers, so he keeps asking... either that, or he is 10.  Regardless, the video says that property taxes used to be calculated on the width of a home, so the Dutch made their rowhouses as narrow as possible!  From that design came the ultra tight, ultra steep stairs that we know and love.

As somebody that is constantly pushing my architect to cram as much stuff into as little space as possible, I totally get it.  Maybe that is the 1/4 Dutch in me taking over?  Either that, or I'm cheap. Janet probably has an opinion there...

Some success on a few fronts today! J and I rode across town to register Marmot Properties Amsterdam.  We first needed to print some stuff for the application but the printing business across the street never opened so we headed to the Centrum.  On the way we found an office supply store and bought a little travelling printer... perfect for our little apartment since you can stash it in the closet when not in use!  We also found out that HP, true to their conspiritorial and anti-consumer nature, has created US-only inkjet cartridges so if you bring a printer from the US, you have to stock up on ink there or else it can't be replaced anywhere else in the world! Their plan was thwarted, however, by my purchase of a mobile printer that uses both US and Worldwide ink.  All ready now to get shiznit done...

At the Chamber of Commerce, super helpful Linda walked us through the process.  It turns out that opening a new business is pretty easy but opening a branch office brings on a paperwork blizzard.  We don't like blizzards in September so we went the other direction.  Got the biz registered which is required to get a bank account.  In the Netherlands, people frown upon credit cards and cash and don't even know what a check is as everything is done electronically.  You need a bank account to pay rent, utilities, buy a tram card, grocieries, gym membership, etc... With the biz registered, we FINALLY got a bank account.  Phew.  Now, we wait for a week until it is officially opened but once that happens, Janet and the kids are happy.  

I have to go now and pick up Kai and Sping.

Paris Road Rage: That was funny. This guy slammed our bus then screamed at the driver. We had to jump out and change busses, but they have a great jump-on, jump-off system, so it was a piece of cake.

October 28, 2013

So the kids were out of school last week during their Fall Break and we took a trip to Paris to visit the Reeds.  We had the pleasure of hanging out with the Kirklands as well who had popped into Amsterdam but then continued on to France.  Apparently, all of Europe has the same Fall Break, so when we tried to book train tickets, the pricing was totally crazy.  So, we rented a car.

I consider myself a fairly experienced driver, but I have to admit that Paris at rush hour was a true test of my nerves of steel.  Cars, scooters, busses, pedestrians and bikes all cramming onto small streets, ignoring any common courtesies and pretty much doing whatever they wanted, preferably at high speed.  It took us 6 hours to get to Paris city limits.  At least a half hour of that was due to unannounced road construction projects that, for example, closed bridges but lacked any kind of signed detour, and at least another half hour due to my not checking the "tolls" button on the GPS.  The latter resulted in our travelling through French villages at 25kph, wondering why everyone else was at 130kph on the freeway next door.  Luckily my wife guided us onto the tollway and we made it to Paris.  Then the fun began.  A full hour to go 5 kilometers through Paris rush hour.  Needless to say, I was a bit frazzled.  Luckily, when we pulled up to the hotel, Janet jumped out of the car and promptly returned, announcing that she had "the best news that I could ever hear".  Yes, valet parking.  Good bye, car.

Paris was really nice.  Great weather. Great hotel. Great family.  We saw Paris from the Reeds' point of view as an expat family.  We extended our stay for a day to enjoy a second fabulous dinner and a really nice cruise around town.  We then moved on to Brugges Belgium, which is a medieval village with canals and a multitude of 800 year old buildings.  We really enjoyed it and I would highly recommend it to anybody.  Oh, spectacular chocolate and even better beer.

So my wife has outed me on this blog as somebody that prefers gypsy fights, taxi cab crashes and crazy food to museums and old churches... guilty as charged!   I love museums and culture and history, let's get that straight.  However, I also love to see, taste, smell and experience the unusual.  Is a fight amongst two competing Gypsy ladies hustling tourists at the Eiffel Tower unusual? For me it is! For Janet, it was an opportunity to get pick-pocketed and I wasn't allowed to watch the whole thing.  Boo. How about a taxi cab driver that rams your double-decker tour bus then proceeds to scream at our driver in staccato French?  Excellent! Giant escargot? Check.  Mystery meat on toast? Sure, why not. Street food? My favorite.  Flea markets, fish markets, hole-in-wall pubs, pigeons eating seeds off your head, bag ladies feeding feral cats spaghetti in Rome, getting lost on trams...   Yes, I do love travelling!

Riding in Auburn with Darren Reed and Kendall Holback on my current trip back to the US.

January 22, 2014

I can't believe that I've been so remiss in posting to this wonderful blog!  A lot has happened since my last post... a trip to Berlin and Prague, a Caribbean cruise followed by a terrific two additional weeks in AmDam.  Good thing that Sabrina and Janet are on it!  As I travel back and forth, I am not with my family in Europe enough.  However, when I am there, we have high quality time.  Since I am stuck in two worlds, I have a good opportunity to compare and contrast our lives in AmDam to mine in the very American suburb of Somersett, but also the very urban Midtown neighborhood in Reno.  Of course, one of the striking differences is the bikes.

I am a bit obsessed with bikes, as many of you know.  I am also very interested in urban planning and how to make neighborhoods out of places.  I am convinced that enabling places to become more walkable and/or bikeable is the the key to making this happen.  Amsterdam is a good example of this.  I have been reading a book, "In the City of Bikes", by Pete Jordan, an expat that moved to Amsterdam to embrace his love of bicycles and urban planning.  It is a great tale that is part personal memoir, part history and a must read for those that like Amsterdam and its unique feel... a big part of which is the bicycle culture.  

Whenever I ask Sabrina and Kai what they love most about Amsterdam, they reply, "Riding my bike", and "The freedom".  I think those are interrelated as we adults tend to forget that our children can so often be tethered to us by both our reliance on cars as our sole transportation, and in our hyper-vigilant, helicopter-mom society.  In AmDam, our kids make many of their own decisions, the majority of those atop their fiets, (bikes), (which can be unnerving).  It has done wonders for their confidence but I think has created a whole new outlook for them and some habits that will last them a lifetime.  Of course, in most US cities, bike lanes are not common and cyclists are regarded by many a nuisance, so my preaching about a cycling utopia may seem a bit dreamy.  Anyway, the book is very interesting and documents the evolution of a city into what it is today.  For may places in the US, which share similar densities and topography, Amsterdam could serve as a blueprint of how we can shape our urban experiences and create places that become neighborhoods.