Thanksgiving

My Thanksgiving dinner consisted of Potato and Leak Soup & Beef and Guiness Pie at an Irish pub in Amsterdam. To make it a little more festive, I had a local hard cider with it. But eating amidst the Christmas decorations which festooned every empty place on the floor, walls and ceiling, I began to realize the importance of this holiday. It was good, and the person I was with helped make it more of a holiday, but it still wasn't the same as eating till I puked on turkey, stuffing, and potatoes.

Amsterdam was (from the minute we got into town) decked out to the rafters with Christmas decorations. It was really quite beautiful since Amsterdam is one of those cutely large cities. With canals and row homes, it has what America would consider "Old World Charm" but around the corner is a city of 800,000 people. So, decorating for Christmas was just enough. Luckily, the person I was with was kind enough to allow me my one peeve and let me count down until 6pm Amsterdam time on Thursday before we began shopping and speaking about Christmas. For those of you who don't know why, the reason is simple: 6pm here is 12noon there which is the moment when Santa Claus (every year without fail) crosses the line at Macy's making it the official (for me at least) Christmas season. So, in a country where everything had already been decked for Christmas (for some time it seemed) I wanted to wait until official American Christmas Season.

Anywho, otherwise my weekend was nice:
Thursday: get in, walk around, dinner, Red Light District (no trip to Amsterdam is complete without it), Erotic Museum (it was cheap, it was there, we went), movie attempt #1
Friday: Anne Frank House (just as moving as it sounds), Van Gogh Museum (surprisingly small, and without as much "van-gogh-i-ness" as one would think), movie attempt #2
Saturday: Torture Museum, Sex Museum, Amsterdam Dungeon (s sort of Halloweeny, scary, Salemmy, trp through Amsterdam history), dinner, Mass (which is slightly more confusing in Dutch) movie attempt #3...success! Crappy movie, but good for the cold, raininess that it was.
Sunday: up and out...home by 5.

Now to get back down to work before my weekend in Paris.

Ciao,
RomanTraveller

p.s. two notes: (1) No, I did not indulge in Amsterdam. Not really my thing. (2) I didn't explain any of the museums since they are all pretty straight forward.