Out and about in the wilderness of Life

I saw this quote this morning from Mark Twain and it seemed to touch me in a special way.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”
-Mark Twain

I was very fortunate as a child to travel with my parents. We had an RV and took extensive trips around the country every year. And while I did not travel that much outside the country when I was young, the South Pacific and Canada were it, I am trying to make up for that as an adult.

But even travel in the US in my formative years taught me many life lessons and definitely gave me a wider range of cultures. I think this spurred my inquisitive nature that helps me to this day in dealing with other people.

And I pride myself to live up to Twains quote…live without prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness. I let people prove to me if they are the type of character that I want to be around without any suppositions on my part. People tend to prove themselves very quickly when you go in with an open mind.

Here is the blog I was reading where the quote appeared, I do recommend it and would love to see my friends with children try and instill this concept early on. Oh, and travel if you can…its easier than you think.

The Art of Manliness

I got a new cell this week, the HTC Fuze. My last phone died due to an electrical spike. So far this phone is showing its superiority in many ways, but i still miss my old Tilt.
This one does have a better camera though. This one was taken from my car at the Bull Run Battlefield.

Okay, I have posted all of my pics from the trip now, you can access them in my gallery:

Amsterdam 2009 Vacation

They are in chronological order, so please check them out!

Our last night in Amsterdam. Tomorrow morning we fly back to the USA.

Have we done a lot? Yeah, we have accomplished much but at the same time not enough to be tired/exhausted. Are there things that I did not get to do? Yeah, I wanted to go to the Van Gogh Museum. I also wanted to go to the Keukenhof gardens and maybe the flower auction house. But I guess that just leaves things to do when/if I get back here sometime soon.

Amsterdam is a great city, lots of things to see and do. It is a cultural hot bed and yet has what we would consider a sinful side to it. The Dutch are a pleasant people, very friendly and accomidating. We really saw no homeless people in any of our travels through the country so they must be doing something right with their social system. There was no language issue, and anytime we hit a wall with no English translation, it was almost fun to try and decipher what was written out.

I wouldn’t mind coming back when its later in spring or summer, perhaps in the next couple of years. I would probably go an even cheaper accomidation route and stay closer into town, just to have the option of staying out later (tram ran to our hotel till midnight).

But for now I raise my glass of Heineken and say ‘Prost’ to a great trip!

Our first stop in Leiden is at the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, the museum of Ethnology. This museum has been collecting treasures for almost 200 years from Dutch explorers and academics.

The collection was quite impressive spanning the worlds cultures. They had a nice interactive display system in Dutch and English. The section on North America dealt with the Native American tribes as well as the tribes in Alaska. It was interesting seeing a different countries slant on our own history.

The Molenmuseum “De Valk” is another working windmill like the one we visted in Sloten. The big difference is that this in not a water mover but instead a grain mill. In fact you can purchase the flour after the tour of the museum.

But not today, today it is Sunday and it is closed. Oh well, still nice to look at from the outside.

Leiden is a smaller city than Amsterdam and about 30 miles west. Criss-crossed by canals it also has several working windmills. This was a good choice for a quite Sunday morning.

Today we are hopping a train to Leiden. We have some information on this historic town but really are just heading out to see the Countryside by train just as much.

As I have commented about earlier, the Dutch love to ride their bikes. It is very efficient with the small streets and since the landscape is generally flat there is not a major problem with getting worn out.
Even with this in mind, I was still caught off guard by the Central Station area. In the US you see multi-leveled car parking garages near large transportation hubs. Here you see a three level bicycle parking garages. Thousands of bikes in one spot, its actually very cool.

Upon our walk back through the small town of Sloten, we ran into the same man that gave us some history tips on the town when we first went through. He was gracious enough to invite him into his home for a few minutes.

As we found out, Mr Rijnierse is 80 years old and has lived in Sloten for the last 50 years in the same home. It was small but very efficient, even had the same gas stove for cooking that was originally purchased with the house. His English was good, though perhaps rusty at times…we only ran into problems a few times when he would laps into Dutch for a few minutes. I think it came more from age than anything else.

His wife was there also, but she was resting at the time. She had just recently came home after 2 months in the hospital, but was doing much better. He told us about his travels to the United States, he had been to Washington, DC many years ago and he had rented a camper in 1989 to travel around the west part of the country.

He had a few antiques around that he told us about, a lovely china cabinet from the 19th century, a wall mounted grandfather clock and a hand stamped fireplace made of copper. He also had a nice chair that he explained was Italian, going further to show the difference in the fabric colors behind the seat, essentially showing that it was a fake. He then turned to us and said ‘Never trust an Italian’. We all laughed as it was so out of character.

Later…he spoke of the war. He was young during WW2 and saw it through the eyes of a child. He saw the starvation of the major cities as Germany attacked and the people fled into the smaller towns and villages seeking food. He was on a farm near Sloten and his family had to turn away people constantly. He almost broke down into tears a few times, but held his composure well.

The one thing he asked us to bring back to America was his thanks, thanks to the US and England for keeping his country free. It was quite touching and even I started welling up listening to his stories.

This short time in the small town of Sloten is probably my favorite part of my trip. Seeing touristy things is nice, and certainly cultural aspects of a country makes for an enlightening trip. But its not till you connect with someone local and learn through their personal stories that you really find out about a people and a culture.