Spatial relationships

Driving in the U.K. was difficult, because my brain has a model built up of what a car is, and the model includes everything from where my body should be in relation to side of the road, how to make a left turn, how to pull out into a gap in the fast lane, and everything else that is completely automatic about driving in my usual milieu. When plunked into a wide SUV on narrow roads with cars parked on both sides, and asked to drive on the wrong side of the road with the shift lever on the wrong side, my mental model breaks down, and I have to use brain power just to keep the car's position and velocity approximately correct. Brain power that is normally used for things like reading signs, navigating, talking, eating, or looking for cool stuff. It can be exhausting. After each long drive, I would ask when my next driving assignment was, and upon hearing that it was more than 12 hours away, I would crack open that first (refrigerated) beer. Glass to lips is another one of those automatic actions!

We drove from Fountain's Abbey to Newcastle to catch the ferry, and my toture was almost over for the vacation. Just one last exercise in navigation -- dropping off the rental in downtown Newcastle. So I asked a friendly bobby, and he pointed to a large entertainment building and said to follow it around, but don't go in the far right lane. So I did this, went straight, and then noticed that the building was fading off to my left. So, with the rental car place less than one block in front of me, and probably visible if I had been looking at it, I made the next left, and wandered around for a while. Finally, I pulled into a parking lot, and called the rental company. As I was describing where I was, I saw a sign down the hill with the the word Westmoreland in the name of a business. Since Westmoreland was the name of the street the rental place was on, I was happy. The employee said they were right across the street from that building. Once I dropped off the car, I asked where the train station was, and she pointed at this large building, when I realized -- Doh! -- it was only 2 blocks back to where I had asked the cop for directions. I also remembered the map that I had looked at on the web before the trip, when the rental location looked real close to the train station. So now I have a great, but probably useless mental model of downtown Newcastle.

We took a bus from the train station to the ferry terminal, and boarded the ferry. The security guys gave me the full frisk, but did not touch the rest of my family. Maybe my "angry liberal" attitude shows when I come in contact with papers-please-asking control freaks. Anyway, the ship was much nicer than we thought it would be. We were expecting something akin to the Scotia Prince, but it was closer to the Norwegian Majesty. Unfortunately, the casino was not as good as the ones on the aforementioned vessels. So, no poker for Daddy. I chatted with the potential child molester Kids' Club pirate character, making sure he wasn't going to take my daughter to find any "special treasure." I did this by juggling three balls to show that I could hold my own in any potential entertainer-vs.-parent battles. He said that his son is also a juggler, and they sometimes perform in Amsterdam, so I felt that was enough to leave them alone for a little while at least.

We slept like crap, possibly because we were so far down as to qualify as ballast in case the ship was riding too low in the water. I tried to determine whether we were under water, and I'm guessing that we were not. We were on deck 2, with just 1, engine room, bilge, and Davey Jones levels below us. I don't know, is it legal to have passengers below water level on a ferry?

When we got to Amsterdam, we dropped the bags at the hotel office, and went to get some lunch. We ended up buying the canal boat tickets for the day, up to noon the following day. When we got back to the office, the bitch who cheated me manager told us that our houseboat was unavailable! What the frickin' frick?! After some discussions, we ended up taking a 2-bedroom apartment for 200 euros a night. Not what we wanted, but who wants to go traipsing around Amsterdam with 5 people looking for rooms at 5:00 in the afternoon. Make that 17.00. Well, she will be getting a horrible review from me on the travel site where I found the Amsterdam House.

Our standard operating procedure in Amsterdam was to walk for an hour, then eat for an hour. Repeat until overcome by sleep. We took it pretty easy, as I only dragged the family through one museum. My wife was quite taken with the architecture in the city center, and also by the cafe lifestyle. I met her shortly after arriving back in the U.S. from having lived in Amsterdam for the better part of a year, and I would throw in Dutch phrases here or there, and regale her with stories of sitting around drinking biertjes or coffees outside at one of the pleins. Now she understands how cool it really is. However, it was cheap back then. A small beer was maybe 2 or 3 guilders, and the dollar was worth 1.8 guilders. Nowadays, a small beer is 2 or 3 euros, and the euro is worth 1.6 dollars. According to a friend, when they switched to euros, everything went way up in price, as they just erased the ­ ­ ƒ symbol and replaced it with the € symbol. So that's almost a tripling of prices in 15 years. Maybe that's not a lot, but it seems like it to me.

I was disoriented somewhat, because my memories of exact street locations and orientation of the major pleins are faulty. I still have the basic shape of the city correctly mapped, as I used to study the map for dozens of minutes per week. I used to be one of these young people casually avoiding getting run down by a bicyclist or taxi. But now, I'm just another tourist gawking at the buildings and people, and getting dinged at by said cyclists. I had the location of Rembrantplein right, but the British pub was in a corner rotated 90 degrees from where I remember it. It's very strange how memory can work. The school where I took Dutch classes now is missing the large set of stone steps that I remember on the outside of it (or maybe they were on the inside?)

My wife remarked about how good-looking everyone was, and I craftily told her I hadn't really noticed. She wants to go back, and I would not mind, as a starting point for a nice sabbatical in 2010. The funniest part of the trip was a small moment where I was in Leidseplein with my son, looking for a newsstand, and I wandered into the Bulldog, a famous coffeeshop. There were a couple of tables of potheads with fancy-looking marijuana ready to roll, and I quickly turned tail. Perhaps strangely to some, I didn't take a single puff, toke, or bong hit the entire time I lived in Amsterdam, although friends would regularly offer it. The Bulldog seemed to have moved to the other side of the plein, and I think the nearby McDonalds was in the same place, but turned into a Burger King.

On the last full day, we took the train to The Hague to meet a friend of my wife. We had some poffertjes, little pancakes with butter and sugar:



Here's what they looked like when complete:
I'm not too into the sugar, but the buttery goodness was irresistible. If you like both buttery and sugary goodness, then poffertjes are for you.

We walked right through the Dutch Parliament building's courtyard, with no security other than some anti-vehicle posts and some video cameras. That is in stark contrast to the metal-detector/buffer zones around the U.S. Congress and White House.

Then we did take the tram (which I mistakenly omitted from my previous post) to Madurodam, which is a miniature city covering a couple of acres, and comprising many famous buildings from many Dutch cities. At first I thought it was very lame, but as I wandered around, it kind of grew on me. The buildings are quite detailed, and there are so many of them. What is the mentality of a person who works on a miniature city? Do they stand in front of the real building for hours? Do they just work from pictures? Do they imagine themselves as small people standing in front of the small building? Does Elmo know? Does Dorothy know?