Donde Esta La Biblioteca? Otra Vez

Amsterdam is a strange place. As any 7th grade delinquent can proudly tell you, lots of interesting things are legal here. The city sits on a half circle of canals radiating out from the central train station. Abundant trams, huge bike lanes, and easy walk-ability render cars useless. There are almost as many enlightening museums as there are glowing red ladies of the night. On your way to pay somber respect to a famous victim of the Holocaust you will inevitably catch a whiff of something that is normally blown your way at a Stubb’s show. It’s hard to acclimate to such widely divergent circumstances, and I came away from Amsterdam not knowing what to think. On one hand it is a stunning, laid back city rich in history, culture, and art. On the other hand parts of it are crawling with unsettling characters attracted by the lure of drugs and sex. Either way, it was fun experiencing such a unique and legendary place.

Speaking of luring characters, guess who joined us in Amsterdam? Yes, this was to be the final episode of the Super Amazing Tricycle Adventure starring Lauren McAuliffe, co-staring Myself, and featuring Andrew Vickers. We’ve had our ups and downs, been together through thick and thin, but Amsterdam was the staging point of our last hoo-rah.

First we got a disconcerting taste of life under Nazi occupation at the Anne Frank House and the Dutch Resistance Museum. Both brought to the foreground what we’ve previously only experienced through textbooks and Hollywood blockbusters. The Anne Frank House is a straightforward museum that doesn’t have to try too hard to really stir your emotions. Dutch Resistance does a good job of illustrating the progression of Nazi rule from the seemingly innocent beginning to joyful end while highlighting everything the Dutch did to defy their invaders. One exhibit I thought was cool was the handmade radios disguised as cigar boxes and match tins illegally made and distributed by an especially crafty Dutchman. Radios were illegal under the Nazis who didn’t want their subordinates listening for broadcasts from British and Allied Forces.

While waiting in line at the Anne Frank House, Andrew was approached by a wandering poet (he attracts these people like flies) who offered his poetic services for a small donation. The first poem was actually pretty good, but the second one Andrew got suckered into was obviously made up on the spot. I don’t think the poet was prepared for some chump to go for a second dose.

The Dutch woman in front of us in line who had shielded her kids away from the Andrew’s sketchy poet friend was nice enough to talk to us after he left. She overheard us speculating as to why there were tons of little kids dressed up as jesters with black faces all over Amsterdam. She explained that in most of Northern Europe the Santa story is a little different.

There’s no Santa Claus as we know him, but instead skinny Saint Nicolas who looks like a pope with a beard. Saint Nicolas has a jester named Black Pete who does all the important work. Black Pete is the one who either throws your gifts down the chimney if you’ve been good, or steals you out of your bed and takes you away to his home in Spain if you’ve been bad (oh no! not Spain!) The important part of Christmas occurs on December 6th, Black Pete’s birthday, instead of the 25th.

We peeked into the genius life of Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh at the Van Gogh Museum. It’s inspiring for anyone who enjoys a good underdog story; van Gogh is like the Rudy of art. Most big shot artists started studying at academies as soon as they could. Picasso was basically painting in the womb. Vince didn’t even touch a brush until after many other failed careers when he was in his late 20s. He ignored the conventions of the self-righteous artists around him and did what ever Vincent wanted to do. Although today no one can deny that his art is outstandingly exquisite, he only found fame after his tragic death.

At night you could find us either eating delicious Indonesian food, chilling at a chill place called Rookies, or walking along the canals on our long but worthwhile trek to our rented “apartment.” The sheer number of diverse components assembled in one place is enough to make Amsterdam one of the more captivating cities we’ve visited. We had a blast checking it out with our partner in crime, Andrew, who has a special talent for ensuring the deficiency of dull moments. Who knows, maybe there will be a Super Amazing Tricycle Adventure reunion…

With a couple days to spare between Paris and Amsterdam, we went to the little Belgian town of Brugge to stay with Servas hosts Luk, Lieve, and their 3 kids. It’s unreal how many cultures are crammed into Europe. Brugge is only 3 hours north of Paris by train, but it couldn’t feel more different. French changes to Flemish, croissants to waffles, crepes to chocolate, and secular wine to sacred beer.

After a nice orientation by Luk and Lieve, we set out to explore their “Venice of the North.” The city depends mostly on tourism for its industry so you can imagine how cutesy everything is. We joked as we were looking down on Brugge from the top of the bell tower that everything looked exactly like those ceramic house scenes people buy as Christmas decorations.

We saw one of the few Michelangelo statues to ever leave Italy during the Renaissance at the Church of Our Lady. Like the Renaissance wing of the Louvre, it too was surrounded by crowds of Italians. We also toured a local brewery and learned a lot about Belgian beer. A few things I learned that I used to just pretend I knew is the difference between abbey beer, trappist beer, and dubbel, trippel, and quadruple malts.

Abbey beer is brewed in an “abbey,” which nowadays means that a big company interested in heightened marketability has purchased the name of a beer that used to be brewed in an abbey, but now brews it in regular commercial breweries. Trappist beer is more legit. It’s brewed by trappist monks in a monastery the way it has been since back when beer was the only liquid safe to drink. That’s where dubbel (Flemish for double,) trippel (triple,) and quadruple come in. Single malts were for peasants, or “for when you are just thirsty” as Luk put it. Dubbel malts use twice the amount of malted grains per ounce of water than single malts which means there is more sugar for the yeast to turn into alcohol. Thus, they were more expensive and reserved for the clergy. Trippel means three times the malt/alcohol/expense so only nobility could touch those. Our guide jested that the quadruple brews went straight to the Pope.

Most Belgian beers are dubbel or trippel that start out ranging from 6-9% alcohol and it only goes up from there. We saw some brews that got up to 12%! You Oklahomans may have won the Red River Shoot Out, but that 3.5% beer you were drinking during the game is what they serve the kid’s table at Belgian celebrations.

Luk and Lieve are by far the most traveled of all the Servas hosts we’ve had (or maybe the most traveled people in the world.) They dissected every continent except Africa during their 2-year trek around the world back in the early ‘90s. That wasn’t enough, however, and after a year break they set out again for another 9 months. More recently they un-enrolled their 3 kids for a semester and spent 4 months traveling as a family in South America. We talked at length about all of their experiences and they even dug out the old projector and screen to show us the slideshow of their incredible journey (which was 2 hours long.)

Luk and Lieve are also very involved with Oxfam, grow a good portion of the food they eat, and use only bicycles and public transportation. If they lived in the US they would be flamboyant hippies, but in Belgium/Northern Europe they merely blend in with the crowd. It was hard leaving the comfort of their 100-year old house and delicious vegetarian cooking, but we had to continue north to meet up Andrew Vickers for the last time in yet another entirely different world: Amsterdam.

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