So we flipped a coin, heads or tails, north or south?
Heads. Train tickets north to Centraal Station, Amsterdam. Thank you, coin. First the kilometers of flat, green countryside. Black and white cows. Fields of bright flowers. Even a few windmills. But how did they keep the cattle in the proper fields with so few fences? Ah, there are water-filled gullies between the fields! Gliding by timeless landscapes in our 2nd Class cabin, filled with the awe of endless possibilities.
Stepping out of the main train station in Amsterdam, bicycles zipping by in every direction, the pretty miniskirted office worker on a break... what? rolling a joint?! Ah, now I see, they roll their own cigarettes. A colorful food stand selling....what? Ah, raw herring with onions, down the hatch. What a flurry of humanity. Yet everything felt like home. An instantly peaceful feeling.
This early afternoon, this sunny, late April day leading up (then unbeknowst to Bob and me) to one of the biggest holidays of the whole year, especially in Amsterdam, Koninginnedag, or Queen's Day. Lodgings were hard to come by, but our quest gave us the opportunity to do some exploring on foot. When one walks for five or six minutes from the Centraal Station, you arrive at the grand tree-lined canals. Singel, then Herengracht, Keizersgracht and then the stately Prinsengracht, all running in ovals from the railroad tracks along the north of the old "downtown" to the Amstel River.
Amsterdammers, predominantly, but by no means exclusively, tall and blond and blue-eyed, side-by-side with tourists from all over the world and the Indonesians, Surinamers, and other people of color, most from countries Holland had colonized in their Golden Age of presumed world domination. Getting something to eat and hearing the servers switch from French to German to English to Dutch as they pass from table to table. Heavenly.
And for the first time I feel that my differences make me interesting, as do theirs for me.
We felt at home, and though we made trips to Paris, to London, and even to Greece, Amsterdam was to be our home henceforth, for me through the 70's and most of the 80's, for Bobolink, forever!
Through the years, as I became a citizen and began to understand the societal problems of the Dutch, I inevitably had to give up some of my idealistic vision of the "perfect place." But I've never ceased to marvel at and appreciate a society that faced starvation and domination as a people, and who went on to reclaim the land from the sea as well as to reclaim their long tradition of tolerance and acceptance.
Ultimately I chose to return to California and my wonderful family. My parents loved Alva from Day One, as he was the one whose siren song was irrresistible to their peripatetic third-born. And when the time came to leave, I threw a party for all my friends and gave away all my possessions, so that I could return as I'd arrived, my knapsack on my back.
Just give me Amsterdam (geef mij maar Amsterdam ...). She gave so much to me and I will always love her.