Leaving Amsterdam

We’re on the train to Paris and we are a little sad about leaving Amsterdam. Funny that we should be missing a place where so many things went wrong, the weather, the hospital, never seeing E***, the rail strike stranding us for another day…you’d think that we would be glad to be rid of the place, but K**** told me this morning that she could live here for a year.., .and I could see why.

The city is beautiful and interesting with many parts that we didn’t get to see, or only saw fleetingly through a tram or canal bus window. Each canal bridge we crossed provided a sublime view of peaceful water, trees, boats and bikes…always the bikes.

While the city is busy, with people always riding their black and white bikes somewhere, there is not the hurried and frantic feel that we feel back home. The shopkeepers, waiters and tour guides we met were all friendly, helpful and patient. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they know that so few people speak Dutch., or perhaps it is just that they are more relaxed and less focused on money and status and wealth.

Perhaps I am romanticizing them because I am on vacation and relaxed myself. But this is a welcoming city for us, and we have already decided to come back somehow, perhaps for the marathon next year…perhaps as just a dream because it took us so long to get here this time…but it is a dream that is so wonderfully real.