An aside for bicycles

Amsterdam is a beautiful, fascinating, and incredibly dangerous city. We wandered through idyllic avenues and wide canals. We sat under the greenest trees, saw some of the most incredible artwork, ate copious amounts of cheese, and had a near death experience about once every half hour. I will explain.

As Christine will surely attest to, the roads here are a little different. First of all, there are the trams. If you've ever been to San Francisco than you understand the unique pressures that trams add to the process of crossing roads. They travel fast, don't follow the same paths as cars, pop up where you don't expect them, and can be very... quiet isn't really the right word so much as they are sneaky.  Fortunately, they are big and easy to spot once you get some practice. 

 Second, street crossing isn't at all the same as in the States. There are crosswalks, but their use is purely optional. People cross at any point in the road that they think they can get across before getting flattened. The roads and sidewalks are also set up so that you can cross a third of the road or half of the road at a time and then have a safe stretch of raised land about two feet across to stand in the middle of the flowing traffic.  This is also relatively easy to get the hang of. 

The hard part is coming to terms with the idea of a city built around bicycles.

As you can see, there are more bicycles than people in Amsterdam. As you walk down any stretch of road you will see many many bikes propped against all surfaces. On the first day it was explained to us that any collision with a bicycle, be it by tram, car, or person, is never the fault of the bicyclist. There are more roads for bicycles than there are for anything else, and they aren't particularly well advertised. 

 As Christine exclaimed after almost being run down one afternoon, “they should really paint these a different color from the roads and sidewalks.” While cars and trams are at least big, bikes are slim and very hard to judge speed with. They don't just ride down the road, but in and out of parks, on and off the sidewalks, in and out of doorways, and sometimes it feels like they drop straight from the sky.

Simply put, Amsterdam has a bike culture in much the same way that Los Angeles has a car culture.  It's not that people make a conscious decision to ride their bikes everyday, its really just what you do and what has been done for as long as anybody is aware.  Bikes are even family vehicles

We never did get hit, but if you are in the neighborhood make sure you look both ways before crossing the street. And the sidewalk. And parks. And open doors. When you hear that characteristic “ring ring” its time to dodge and weave because in Amsterdam, any collision with a bicycle is your fault.  I think that just looking at us the Amsterdamers knew that we would never understand their bicycle culture.

Intermission

A new post with more info and all of my little observations will be coming as soon, but in the meantime Christine and I would like to let you all know that we are in Prague and it is beautiful!  The sun is shining, Christine doesn't seem to know what floor of the hostel we are on, and there is icecream on every single corner.  So don't change that dial, we will be back shortly :)

Somewhere in the Between

Matt talking with Christine adding bits in that look like this (C-words-C)

The past two days have been a blur. Flying went easier than anticipated; our planes left on time and the one stopover in Dallas was literally just short enough to grab a couple sandwiches and some snacks before we left for Frankfurt. We stumbled our way to the Frankfurt airport train station before 9am local time, figured out where to get international tickets, and booked the first train to Amsterdam just eight minutes before departure. We covered a massive distance in a short time with almost no hassle at all. It was bloody magnificent. After that we learned travel in Europe during peak tourist season would not remain so easy. You see, although it only took us eight minutes to get a train into Amsterdam it takes closer to three days to get one back out again.

We had hoped to spend two nights and then catch a night train to Prague but there were no trains available until the third night. Fair enough we said. We'll have an extra day to explore. And then we asked about getting a high speed train from Paris to Barcelona later in the trip and were informed that that train could only be booked from Paris. And apparently only with weeks of advance notice. Huh, allrighty then. How the #@?! are we supposed to manage that? I guess that's a question for a later date.

It took an hour, submerged in a dense jet lag fog, to actually talk to someone about those tickets and by the end of it we were pretty well worn out. Something like twenty hours of fast travel and light sleep takes a hell of a toll. To top it off we discovered that Amsterdam didn't adhere to the stated rules of heat and sunshine that were supposed to govern a summer Europe trip. It was rather distressing in fact to observe from the train north out of Frankfurt that people just gradually dressed in heavier and heavier clothing. Quite distressing indeed. As it turns out, it doesn't actually get all that cold here, even if it does rain on and off quite a bit. Oh, and we missed our tram out of the railway station and decided that we would simply find our hostel on foot somehow (C-It was a really sad look for us new tourists, we tried to get into 4 different doors and they closed progressively each time we attempted the next one-C). We had no idea in what direction it was. Or how far away it was. Nor did we have a map other than the one posted outside the train station. And ya know what? We found it anyway. Yes, we are that #@!?ing awesome.

(C-We went and took a 4 hour, woke up at 9 and because it was Amsterdam in the summer the light was still out! And we were able to get our act together and get food instead of going to bed starving. We found a little cafe with a funny waiter and great cheap food. Even better food for Matt when he remember he was going to eat meat on this trip and order a roast beef sandwich. We came back to the hostel and talked to some Canadians. We sent them though a bit of shock when we explained just how much public school was in America, and how much debt the average person keeps after school. One of the Canadians from BC had spent time in Quebec to negotiate and talk with the gigantic student protests. So tuition is a problem in Canada, and as we learned later the next day, a difficult thing for most students, it's just exceptionally bad in America.-C)

But that was all yesterday, before we had a solid nap plus eight hours of sleep. Today was a whole new ballgame. We got up at the crack of 8:30 and enjoyed a free breakfast of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and some tea/coffee. We finally got ourselves a map as well as the location of free walking tours. We decided to continue to travel by foot, made it across the city to the tour with just seconds to spare, and spent the next three hours being led by an awesome Irish guide who led us around a number of highlights and neighborhoods that gave us a confidence in where we were and where we were going. Also: free cheese! Cheese is big in this country as it turns out.(ha, when Liz and I went to Amsterdam, we searched for cheese on the advice of her aunt and never found it, I'm glad we found it this time. From what I can tell though the free cheese is something you can only find when not looking for it. Other travelers told us about it and were only able to gesture to half the map of Amsterdam. We found it quite by accident too-C) We found a cheese store that gave samples and offered a tasting with three glasses of wine for 12 euros which was promptly marked on the map for later usage. We later discovered a cheese museum with endless samples of at least two dozen different varieties of cheese which became a late lunch.

We wandered all about checking out the different neighborhoods such as Jordaan where coffeeshops and a laidback atmosphere dominated. We wandered the redlight district in the shadow of the oldest church in town (where sailors used to get their sins forgiven even before they had committed them just across the street). We saw a statue of a really big head. We had the most awesome and interesting conversation with a few locals where we got to compare cultures and politics and schooling and everything else that just blew my mind. We got lost for two hours and probably gave the absolute worst directions to another traveler (yeah, sorry about that, its my first day). We saw canals and leaning buildings and drunk tourists and were almost run over by bikes and trams at least five times an hour. It was exciting and welcoming and a great way to start this trip.

(C-The big head was dedicated to an author who's name escapes me, but I remember what he did. He lived in Indonesia during its colonization. He wrote about the horrible abuses and the best part is he changed the minds of the Dutch people on colonization. In my South African class I learned that the same thing happened to the British people when they discovered the true horrors of slavery. I think this is very different from today in the information age. It is easy to dismiss earlier people as crueler then today, but the reality is they didn't know what was going on, while we do. It definitely made me rethink the fact that I still buy cheap clothes from stores that have a very bad reputation of child labor and other abuses.-C)

(C-We learned much more about the Dutch during the tour. The man that led us did his own research had some really well thought out words to say about the Dutch history. He taught us the “through the fingers policy” the Dutch idea that if you followed three different rules you get to be tolerated in Amsterdam. 1^St: Don't make a lot of noise, 2^nd don't hurt anybody, 3^rd be good for business. This changed in World War 2. The tolerance turned from a profit making endeavor to just the first 2 rules. Jewish Dutch were being beaten up in the street, and the other Dutch went out in a huge strike that got promptly stopped by the Nazis. The guide stressed the significance of this strike, despite the loss; they went to help the Jewish people because it was the right thing to do, not because it made them money. This morality continues today. According to our guide and our first day experience, the Dutch each have strong morals, but they let others have their own different morals without judgment. This is why marijuana and drugs in general are not criminalized. While hard drugs are illegal, if a Dutch person gets caught using one, he or she goes to rehab instead of prison. Under pressure from the EU The Netherlands are trying to force drug cards for people to use. But this is under protest in Amsterdam, because no one here seems to want themselves or others under a moral microscope. They are protesting because, even though most of Amsterdam does not engage in soft drugs, they don't want to force morals on other people. It is really radical to consider, especially coming from some place like America where drug use is so harshly punished.-C)

When we couldn't get a train out of Amsterdam for three days at first I felt a bit trapped, but after today I'm honestly sorry that we're going to be leaving this wondrous place in just two days time. Yeah, I know, life is hard. We're stuck in one amazing city with lots of free cheese waiting to head to the next awesome city where I'm sure we will meet more incredible people, eat more awesome food, and see more amazing things. Its almost two in the morning here and I'm pretty well wiped out so I think I'll let this come to an end but I think I'll be back before long.

-Matt & Christine

Embarking on a new adventure

The bags are packed, the course is set, the plane awaits.  Tomorrow begins a journey that has been in the works officially for the last four months.  Unofficially, I've been waiting for this opportunity since 2006 when I first experienced international travel under the tutelage of my aunt.  Little did I know at the time that a month-long trip to south-east Asia would ignite a need to see and explore the world.  That wanderlust has guided my life decisions ever since.  The perspective that only accompanies culture-shock has colored my world.  Tomorrow is the next step in the grand adventure of life and I am excited to share it with all of you.


Over the next nine weeks Christine and I are going to see the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey.  It will be a journey by land, sea, and air.  There is uncertainty built into this journey; from this uncertainty will surely arise moments of distress, anxiety, and maybe even danger.  At the same time I know we will find friendship, adventure, accomplishment, and pure joy.  Whatever the situation, I hope we can return to the present moment and embrace it for whatever it may be.  The end goal is Istambul, but the journey itself is the true goal.  It will be a snapshot of life with all it triumphs and trials and I wouldn't want it any other way.


My goal is to have this blog updated either every other day or every third day as possible.  We will both have our cellphones with us but due to the expense of using them overseas we ask that they be reserved for only important calls.  For anything else this blog will be checked regularly and facebook only slightly less so.  We will miss you all.  Send us your love and good vibes and everything else and we'll be back in LA on the 17th of September.


Oh, and in case you are wondering where the title of the blog and some of the posts draw their names from, they are derived from one of our favorite bands, Gogol Bordello.  I leave you all, my friends, with a parting thought from Eugene Hutz, the lead singer of that band: "There were never any good old days.  They are today, they are tomorrow.  It's a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow."

Embrace every moment as if it is your last
-Matt & Christine

No Longer Scarecrows in Hometown

No Longer Scarecrows in Hometown

 We are off to Europe in a few days!  We fly to Frankfurt, Germany on Tuesday 07/17 and will not be back until September 17th!  We wanted a picture to post on this blog that gives you all an idea of what we and our trip our about.  And here it is : ) -Christine