Just a quick post to say that Lisa and I have returned safely from Amsterdam. Wow. What an fascinating and unique city! Canals, bicycles EVERYWHERE, trams aplenty, hash-serving coffeehouses (none of which I investigated, I must admit) and tons of interesting architecture. Lisa and I took a little excursion with the linguistic group to a fishing village about 25 miles north of Amsterdam. When Lisa saw that she could be in the lush, bike-path strewn rural areas of the Netherlands after only a 15-minute train ride from central Amsterdam, I could already see the wheels in her head spinning -- "Okay, how soon can we move here?"
There are certainly worse places to end up.
I'll post more on the trip later, but I will leave with this thought: Dutch looks like a kid's made-up language. On the public phones that take credit cards, the monitor says "Steek Kaart in." On the way to the fishing village was a sign to a town called "Krabbensplaat." There were many other examples that made me and Lisa both crack up. But if I end up having to learn Dutch, too, so be it.
3 comments:
Golly, it would be torture having to visit y'all in Europe. I refuse to learn German, but I am thinking of learning Norewgian (or possibly Icelandic, closer to Old Norse, and I guess between French Englis and Russian I wouldn't actually get lost. You might do some good for the "ugly American" image. At least you wouldn't order Budweiser in the bars! --YLS
Oh, Norwegian's easy.
I say, knowing Norwegian, and knowing it's nearly useless. >sigh<
Except just for fun, of course.
Actually, I DO order Budweiser in bars. This, however, is the REAL Budweiser, which is a REAL pilsner brewed in Pils, Czech Republic. And it's goooooooooooooooood!
Post a Comment