Leaving Switzerland behind, we made our way through field after field of rainbow tulip farms to Amsterdam. First line of business...rent a bike. We weren't going to settle for just any bikes...we hired 2 cadillacs of canal cruising, with big, cushiony seats that you can actually rest both butt cheeks on. Having so much fun zipping through designated bike lanes, passing businessmen and priests along the way, we hardly noticed it took us 45 minutes to ride the mile and half to our hostel. And because the streets and canals are oriented in a semi-circle around the city...it wasn't uncommon to ride for a half hour making turns every couple of blocks and end up on the same street we started from, except on the other side of town. Our hostel was situated perfectly between 2 of Amsterdams main attractions, the Museumplein (with more museums any history or art buff could digest in a week) and Vondelpark (the bohemian city-park where a day spent relaxing to music in the sunshine or reading a book in some shade is a day well spent). And we are now well equipped for jamming our iPods wherever we please as Reto, our friend from Switzerland, sent us off with a small pair of speakers. Needless to say, this new addition to our travel gear is in continuous use, and non-stop rocking is now possible. Nothing but sunshine during our entire stay in Amsterdam, and we took full advantage of it as we spent 2/3 of each day relaxing in a park, or cruising around on our fly 2-wheelers. If I had to pick a single highlight sight of Amsterdam, the van Gogh museum would take my vote hands down. His use of color, light, and paint texture in his classic paintings such as the sunflowers, wheat fields, and self-portraits possess a transcending ambiance when viewed in person. Despite his troubled life, it seemed to me van Gogh grasped the emotional beauty of life and landscape in his art more vividly than most dream of.
Taking a reccomendation from a couple of Dutch girls we met in Barcelona, our next adventure took us to a lesser known island of Texel in the northern Netherlands. I revelled in the early Spring silence and solitude of the island as we were 2 months early for the peak summer tourist season. Our tent and camping gear has been getting good use in all of Europe, and saving us money in accomodations. Our closest neighbors on the island were the boisterous, territorial roosters with their harem of hens on every nearby sand dune peak. The simplicity of the less travelled destinations is what I love lmost...you get to know your neighbors, the grocery store clerks, the local shortcuts, and all the best restaurants in town (because there are usually only 6 to choose from). Our daily schedule in Texel went something like this: Wake, breakfast, beach hike, lunch, read, nap, 2nd beach hike, pasta, campfire, sleep, repeat....in the meantime I even managed to practice and teach Jake some yoga. Yeah, life was pretty hectic in the Netherlands.
