Same Time Zone, Different City

ON THE MOVE

Amsterdam was an interesting city, with a casual atmosphere that denied its status as a city, not just an interesting outpost of a city.  We liked the fact that you could get anywhere rather quickly, that the transportation was available in so many forms and in so many places and that there were coffee shops on every other corner.  We did not like the fact that transportatation was expensive, in fact, things in general were expensive.

The people were friendly, mostly all spoke at least passable English and many were so proficient as to be truly bilingual.  I was disappointed that there were not parks with flowers, but maybe they exhausted their flower budget on tulips in the spring and therefore the rest of the year the place looks a bit barren.  I read that the city has a budget of more than $2M for flowers, so I was expecting to see something.  Never the less, many private citizens stepped into the breach and provided colorful and lovely flowering plants at their windows, balconies and doorsteps.

Today we said goodbye to our houseboat lodgings and to the city of Amsterdam, knowing that we would probably not return.  Here is Larry outside the houseboat, baggage ready for the walk to the Metro station.

It seemed like a long walk to the station, mostly because we were dragging our bags behind us over the brick and cobble stone streets.  We found our way to Metro which quickly became crowded with morning rush hour foot traffic.  We got off at the bus station and just barely made the one bus of the day leaving to drive to Paris.  The driver spoke only French, so we had to rely upon other travellers to translate for us.  The drive was quite interesting (to me, anyway) as we drove through the Dutch countryside.  We saw windmills of both the old and the new varieties.  This windmill was facing the other direction. 

We also saw several wind farms along the way, not to mention a cooling tower for a nuclear energy plant.  I told Larry that that was where Homer Simpson worked, and he actually understood what I meant.  I was surprised.

We entered Belgium with a simple sign marker stating "Belgies 1 km".  That was it.  We zoomed by, the border being non-existent.  Whereas the countryside in Holland was full of canals, cows and sheep grazing and an occasional small city, the countryside in Belgium was undistinguished.  Mostly, it was hidden behind high berms lining the highway, making it difficult or impossible to see anything ever from our seats on the upper deck of the bus.

In three hours time from central Amsterdam, we were in the center of Brussels.  This is one city that I had always romanticized as being such a lovely old world city, one steeped in history and gorgeous architecture.  And, this is how I found the city:

It is a very modern city.  It looks like a financial hub of Europe with branches of all of the major international accounting firms prominently displaying their logos atop their buildings.  It has a lot of public art on display, mostly in the form of sculpture and water sculpture.  I found absolutely nothing interesting about this city at all.  It had no character, just sweeping glass buildings and office parks.  One advantage of taking the bus (aside from the much lower cost) was that we got to see other places along the way.  I cannot imagine ever wanting to go to Antwerp for example.  It is a huge over-grown shipping city, and very unattractive.

After a half-hour stop in Brussels for lunch and restroom breaks (40 cents!) we got back on the bus for the next and final stop -- Paris.  Dear, sweet Paris. 

It seemed like quite a long stretch before we got to the French border, but when we did, we were stopped by the border patrol, or whatever they are called in France.  The Police boarded the bus and asked everyone for identification.  For our troubles of digging out passports, we could at least have had them stamped.  This is technically our third country so far, and not a stamp yet.  That's a lot of money with nothing in the passport to show for it.  The Police must have been looking for someone because they seemed to be pulling cars over, all of which had very dark skinned men driving them.  I'm not sure what that might have been about.  Happenstance, maybe.

The French countryside was like driving through Kansas -- cornfields, cornfields and, yes, more cornfields.  Some of the corn had been harvested already and the rest was soon to follow.  In quite a few places, it looked as if there was a second crop planted, but I could not tell what it might have been.  Great time for an afternoon nap.

Finally, we drove past Charles DeGaulle airport and I knew that we could not be too far away -- about 30 miles or so.  After the airport, the suburbs started, then the city limits and voila', we were at the bus terminal.  The trip was not done because we still had to negotiate 2 subway lines and the Montmartre autobus to get to the corner of the street where we are staying.

The streets and shops all seem so familar from our last trip here three years ago with Jared and Evelyn for Heather and Chris's wedding.  It is very nice, indeed, to be back in Paris.  I vividly remember our first trip to Paris several years ago:  I stood on the Pont Neuf with tears of disbelief in my eyes that I was actually here in Paris.  I had never thought that possible before.  Now, this is our 5th trip. 

Our neighborhood for the rest of the week  -- Montmartre.

Tomorrow, croissants and coffee in our studio apt and then a day of visiting favorite places.


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