The Netherlands

On the train from Hoek van Holland to Amsterdam I got my first impressions of the Netherlands: narrow roads, green fields, rabbits, horses, sheep, cows, chicken, and lots of graffiti. As I started hearing more Dutch, I had the strangest feeling I was hearing British English. Some Dutch has really similar vowels and prosody to British English, but once you listen to the words you realize it's foreign. This is especially strange considering in London I kept thinking I was hearing a foreign language whenever someone spoke with a thick British accent.

Eventually we got off at Amsterdam Centraal. Amsterdam is a very strange city. It's beautiful in that it has a lot of older architecture and narrow alleyways, but it has a strange spirit. And I don't think it's the smoke coming from the "coffeeshops". As I found out later, there's a thriving underground art and music scene there, but the only signs you see on the surface are bits of interesting design here and there and some wonderful graffiti. Most of what is immediately visible caters very heavily to tourists.

In the late afternoon I found a bed at a Christian Hostel ironically located in the middle of the red light district. The first time I walked past all the scantily clad women with blacklit auras it seemed outrageous. Later I realized it's a lot like going to the beach in California. Kind of.

It's interesting to see what happens when a city decides to legalize prostitution and ignore all the marijuana. Most of the city is like most every other city. The red light district is weird, but that's fairly confined. There are a lot of people in the US fighting for different "liberties", and especially the legalization of marijuana. If the main side effects are just more hippies and laid back people, that's great. Everyone working on the "war on drugs" could focus on real drugs, and some sketchy groups of people would dissolve as their trade is usurped by standardized products.

The next morning a few things were vying for my attention: it had been a week so it was time to do my laundry, I wanted to see my friend Koen Mostert a little South of Amsterdam in Delft, and then there is the Van Gogh museum in Southern Amsterdam. And of course, I was still considering the possibility of staying another day or leaving immediately for some other city. While mulling over my options in the hostel hallway I ran into three girls who noticed my laptop and were trying to transfer photos from their cameras to iPods. We all ended up going to the Van Gogh museum together and I caught the train to Delft in the late afternoon. They were going North and I South, but we'll both be in Rome at the end of this month so I'm sure we'll meet again.

I met people on the train to Delft, as always:

• A mother, originally from Finland, who does customer service for Adobe in the Netherlands. We talked about the variations in different countries and languages. She says I'll like Copenahgen, and that I have to see Helsinki some day.
• An older guy from Haarlem who works for the telephone company in Amsterdam. Again, langauge is an easy target: I asked about the differences between Southern and Northern Dutch — and he smiled and told me how Northern Dutch sounds "ugly".

In Delft, Koen met me with a wonderful sign with pen and cardboard, reading only "Kyle" but in a great serif face he did by hand. We walked around Delft a bit before it started raining too hard to walk anymore. Pretty much immediately we started talking typography and generative art — it's nice to talk with someone you've never met face to face and still "know" them. Over breakfast the next day he told me about some of the posters hanging in his kitchen (he shares the house with a bunch of other people from his school). One advertised a "silent disco", which sounded amazing.

London to the Netherlands

After spending so much time at the Science Museum, I decided I'd visit the Natural History Museum the next day, before leaving for the Netherlands. Before I left, Basia took me over to see her mother. We only talked for a few minutes, but decided that when I came back through London we would all go to a pub and chat.

A busker playing Queen at Ealing Commons

Nearby the Natural History Museum is a restaurant called Daquise. I heard from Basia that my grandparents went there when they were in London, so I had some barszcz for lunch and soaked up all the Polish conversation.

The Natural History Museum had a huge line outside, but it moved quickly. Plus you don't really notice because the building itself is so impressive it keeps your interest. The Museum had tonnes of everything you can imagine. From birds to plants to dinosaurs. I was most amazed by this piece taken from a medieval trough that showed the work/rest days like tree rings. And of course there's the earthquake room, which is such a low magnitude I didn't notice the floor was moving until I looked at the walls. I guess California does that to you.

I still had some time until my train left for the ferry to the Netherlands, so I went to the British Museum — known best for its many "acquired" treasures. There were a few pieces I wanted to see, but it was closing so I could only get into the central area where I promptly began experimenting with the acoustics. Certain spots in that space have some of the longest natural delay I've ever heard.

Clapping at the British Museum

My train left from the Liverpool Street station, so I went over there and got dinner from Marks and Spencer. Marks and Spencer absolutely amazes me. It's really just a small grocery store, but every single product is "Marks and Spencer brand". Every product has the same design for their packaging — and it all looks very hip. I think their hummus is really good, too, but everything tastes good when you're hungry.

The only problem with buying food in the Liverpool Street station is that there are absolutely no rubbish bins in the entire station. The central area is two stories and bigger than a football field, and there isn't a single trash can. I looked for at least half an hour. If you find, let me know where. I'll give you a gold star and my empty yogurt cup.

From London the train went to Harwich (though no one knows where "har-witch" is, only "hair-itch"). There was a beautiful sunset followed by some staff leading a few passengers through a surreal empty train station onto a bus, which then drove into the ferry. It all seemed really sketchy, but then we took the elevator up and there were plenty of carpeted hallways and whatnot. The room was probably the nicest I'll stay in for a while. I got my first hints of a necessary bilingualism when the started announcing things in Dutch, and then English.

Inside my cabin, Harwich to Hoek Van Holland

We lost an hour crossing the timezones, and arrived at Hoek van Holland (Hook of Holland) at 7:30 in the morning. We had breakfast before disembarking, and I had a great meal with some sinaasappelsap. Somehow orange juice tastes better when it has such a ridiculous name.

There's plenty more to say about the Netherlands, but I'll save it for the next post — I'm still catching up on translating my short scribbles from the last few days into full sentences.