Our son, Chris, his wife, Annabel, and their three sons moved from Portland, Oregon, to Amsterdam in the summer of 2013 on a job assignment for Nike. My wife, Diana, and I "reserved a room" at their home (they have plenty of family visitors as well as college friends in the summer) and spent a wonderful week. We brought sunny and warm weather with us, according to Chris, and the temperature ranged from 45-50 in the mornings to 65-72 in the afternoons. It just could not have been any more pleasant.
Street scene in the Canal District of Amsterdam. There are narrow, but functional streets on both sides of the canal, and you can see cars parked there outside the residences. Many people live on "house boats," which come in a crazy mix of luxury all the way to very old, worn in appearance, and "bare bones" versions.
One of our "outings" was a Sunday trip on a bus downtown with Chris and the three boys. We rented a small paddle boat in the canal district and this is a typical scene taken on the water from the "U.S.S Paddle Boat." There was a lot of canal traffic, and we sort of bobbed along paddling like crazy and at times we cowered in the wake of larger and faster canal traffic.
Another great neighborhood scene from the Canal District in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
I had the opportunity to take a guided tour of the Great Concert Hall, located at the edge of the "Museum Plein" (Museum Plain). The tour group consisted of only nine of us, and we covered the attic (up and down a crazy spiral staircase) and the basement in addition to the main concert hall and two additional, smaller venues. There was a big Rachmaninoff Concert that evening, and we saw the orchestra eating a pre-concert meal in their private cafeteria. A fantastic experience.
Jim and Diana by the River Amstel, approximately 25 miles from the center of Amsterdam. One of The Netherlands' famous windmills is in the background.
Diana (Nana) with "The Boyz," Dillon, Tyler, and Jackson (L to R).
Diana and Jim in front of the Rijck Museum. The "J" in Dutch is like a "Y" or an "i" so "Rijck" is pronounced "Reick," or "R-IKE. This museum is Holland's version of the Metropolitan Museum in NYC or the Louvre in Paris. It is just unfathomable in terms of scope. We did manage to see "The Night Watch," the famous painting by Rembrandt. In addition to the Rijck, two other great museums are on the Museum Plein: The Van Gough Museum, and the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art. The Concert Hall lies on the opposite end of the Museum Plein, so it's a world-class famous cultural center.
All in all, I can say Amsterdam is the most beautiful and comfortable city I've ever been in, and I've been to a whole lot of cities worldwide. The city includes wonderful canals, beautiful buildings, cultural centers, loads of cool, little neighborhood coffee shops and cafes, a Red Light District that is "world famous," lovely city parks, amazing mass transit, and wonderful people, all of whom speak excellent English. One can say that Paris has some of the most beautiful areas in the world, however Paris is huge in size and has blighted areas, plus people who definitely resist any other language but "the language of Heaven." I will agree that Dutch does not compete with French as a lyrical and lovely spoken tongue, but the cleanliness and friendliness of the Dutch make Amsterdam a world class winner in terms of a city and a people who "have it all."
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