Do you know to expect me
I've never left something so unfinished as I will leave you
not having time to explore all the facets I have discovered that exist
beneath the original attraction.
You will draw me back to the places I have marked
and left untouched
Drawing me back invariably
to discover, always more.


It was all fairly spontaneous. Last minute. The tickets were reasonable and the idea was mouthwatering.
The Netherlands. The European step-child who is, tolerant of everything, and driving stuffy Great Britain crazy. You know the saying "Trust no one over 30"? It must be that no one there is over 30. Amsterdam: the land of culture. Shipwrights, artists, architects, engineers, writers, all kinds of culture and subculture. So we're on our way. Our first trip together, outside of decade old family trips to the beach where we drowned our sorrows in shrimp and liquor. Our first solo flight off and away. Just us 2 for 3 days.


Wake up, touch down, wander around
We, fitful sleepers, do not realize the light outside till pre landing when the opening shades startle us like the impressive turbulence that woke you. Or was it me waking against your shoulder grabbing lightly onto you to keep from squealing and gasping like so many other passengers?
The language up until now has been something Arabic, something Bollywood friendly. 7 hours of time change, 8 hours of mini culture shock followed up by another language more Germanic.
“Uitgang”
As time goes on I will learn to recognize a few key commands. But for now, like an untrained dog, I can only look quizzically on while I instinctually follow the maze and others examples.
We wander in circles at the airport looking for exits and trains. The airport maps are little help finding the ticket seller, who has been moved outside (due to construction), while the trains on the inside lower level.
“Ga binnen”
Down the stairs to the train; all the platforms look the same. I’m looking for number 4 but that’s the tram we’ll need later. Upstairs to look at the scheduled then back down again, this time a different platform. We wait as the double decked train pulls in, not opening till a woman pushed a button on the outside.
We have a club type car to ourselves on the 2nd tier. Looking out over the streets and stops wondering what kind of honor system they have since there was no place to slip our tickets in and no one to supervise us. “When do we know to get off?” I ask him, as he is all knowing to me. “It’ll say Central Station”. He replies and of course it will. What did I expect, a foreign language?
Some one comes by to take the tickets (disproving the honor system theory) and informs us we are in first class. We move but only have to wait one more stop.
Up and out of the station onto the tram. You buy your tickets in the back and yes this is the tram for Freidrikesplien. It starts up slow, touching electrical wires above. I’m always wondering when we get off. We just have to wait till we see a sign. Then it’s a walk in the park to the garden level red door.

Our appartment is on the 3rd floor of an beautiful old standard Dutch house. Tall deep and lean. Double french windows look out the front over the street and park and in the back, beyond a skylit kitchen below, a pattio and the city scape. We're there long enough to drop our stuff before we headed out.


He relies on a sense of direction, I rely on a map
He has great instinct.
I’m still so map dependant I’m not sure where north is.
Every time he gets the map out I try to figure out where we are. He usually finds our destination before I have time to gain my bearings. I would have put up at the nearest corner coffee house bar, sipping wonderful coffee that always comes with a cookie, till I figured out my directions. Then again the way everyone is so laid back and expects you to take your time I’d have figured it out before service and had wiled away an extra hour.
He walks in a zig-zag, flipping and finding where we are or should be. I look at all the architecture. Some of the best I’ve seen. Looking up I point out the cantilevers. The stairways are too narrow to move anything in or out of except the few that have been made over. You can tell by the smaller windows and lack of cantilevers.




Built Like A House
You wish to slip inside me, making me yours
Resurrecting a breath of history from deep within
Travel down forgotten hallways and open closed doors.
Something so familiar you’ve never explored before.

The hallways are narrow, forcing intimacy,
spinning suddenly vertical minimizing passage
You hold onto the support that’s offered with efficacy
Curves that lead you deeper in restrict baggage you claim is legacy

Halls traversed and doors explored without apprehension
Determined to remain, you look for some advantage
to hold out for the moment of suspension
Over coming the obstacles of prevention

You swing wide my windows and fill me with you
hoisting your essence carefully up and in
you took what was given and continued to pursue
My cantilever lover found a way through



The Ugly American Tourist
We lunched at an old church that had been turned into a restaurant. It still had the ornate chandeliers and stairway up to the balcony that ran the circumference of the church, but tables and a bar had replaced the pews. This was where I learned that the fare would be light but never hurried, the coffee always came with a cookie, and (when I asked how much is this) I learned that my “Dutch is good”.
We set out again through a market that took up several streets. Deviating from the merchant path we found a locals coffee shop, almost unmarked, down a side street to intrude upon. You always smell them after you’ve passed them. A college, concert, or party familiar smell that picks up your head and turns your neck around craning for the source. While some played Dominoes the proprietor looked at the ugly American tourist with indifference waiting for us to choose from the menu. I don’t have any paraphernalia so I order a joint. “No, nothing comes pre rolled, but anyone in here could roll it for you.” I’m too timid to ask anyone, besides at this point R. has expressed too much faith in me. So 11 euro, 2 grams of award winning Blueberry, and a poorly rolled joint later wander back to the streets. The trusted map was brought out once again before we left…I think. We cross a street then another and find ourselves confronted by a huge building. It’s the Rijksmuseum. It’s so huge we walk through the arch running through the middle that leads to the gardens. Drawn in by the amazing tile and overwhelmed loudness of pidgins we never made it in but thru there we look out over the garden and head towards the Van Gogh. We walk around the almond shaped new wing never finding an entrance. We look along the distant street thinking that a lone standing parking garage elevator might be the entrance. No. Or maybe the parking garage 10 yards down, or the building next to in, or…. It sounds like an idiot adventure, except time is not moving as it should by now. Though this has NOTHING to do with not being able to find the entrance. After about 40 min of walking the area and a bathroom break was necessary. The museum would have worked if we could have found our way in. But with lack of facilities, shops and restaurants are use to people using facilities for a price. So the ugly American tourists barge into a tiny upscale restaurant to use the facilities and leave. I think this was one of the only times I didn’t pay to use a toilet in a public place. The Zoo, the Old Church coffee shop and bar, the 3 Sisters restaurant all charged between 15 and 30 cents.

Van Go in
When we’d walked around the glass and steel oval. Looking down into granite glistening with a thin layer of running water across the bottom and “Go to the museum as often as you can” running across the inside directly across from us in innumerable languages “I guess this is art too” I said and then went on to mock the art students sitting on the ground with pad and paper, or walking along in the introspective artist fashion. It was right behind us, but we were drawn on by the white of the pavement. Then off into the grass turning in circles in the midst of nothing, finding no entrance. Sitting on the ground, the silver oval beyond his shoulder and a building a bit further on it was right over your shoulder. We kept walking and looking. It was only on our return trip towards the building we saw the lettering on the building across the walkway where I was mocking the art students. Van Gogh Museum.
One side is a 3 story building all white and glass from the inside. Then through a tunnel to the new wing (no wonder you can get in). We could see out the window where the water ran along the ground. A dark feeling in spite of all the windows on this 2-story building. Some of the plaques are in 3 languages. I read them scanning for them to break into English but frequently hit the end first having recognized only a few words. I finally found a Van Gogh I love. After all these years and all this time it took a trip to Amsterdam to fall in love, though there were other artists too. One who’s impressionist painting seemed picture perfect. Some of the art had a surprising 3-D effect. As an arm jumped out of one and a broken broomstick pointed back at me from another. Maybe they hang them lower because Europeans are shorter, maybe I’d just never seen quality this close, maybe I just had the perfect perspective for the first time. Slightly altered, very impressionable.