July 8, 2003

Before I left for Europe, while I obsessively scheduled and re-scheduled my trip, Bruges was the big sticking point. How much time did I really want to spend in this tiny Belgian city, the blip on the map between the behemoths of Paris and Amsterdam?

I wanted an extra day in Paris, and I wanted more than a day in Amsterdam. Something had to give, and initially, I thought it was Bruges. But then I spent my bonus day in Paris, fell for Bruges and selfishly kept a second day there, and suddenly my visit to Amsterdam became an eight-hour pit stop.

After drinking until 2 a.m. at my hostel in Bruges, the same night on which I became an enemy of Botswana, I snagged four hours of sleep before hurriedly packing and catching the bus to the train station. My ride to Amsterdam was leaving at seven, and I needed time to grab a Diet Coke -- er, Coca-Cola Light -- and a pastry at the train station so I could settle in comfortably for the roughly four-hour ride.

An hour -- and a long wait in the ticket office -- after arriving at the Amsterdam station, I stepped outside at noon, my backpack and my night-train ticket safely in a locker. The major pedestrian thoroughfare from the train station to the main plaza could be of any town, anywhere. Shops are crammed together, as if to maximize the number of tourist stops per square inch of real estate, and neon signs hang vertically from the buildings to alert you of what's inside. It's also an early and constant reminder of the city's famous, prurient side: There's the Sexmuseum, into which I saw a mom go while her daughter sat on the curb outside and put her chin in her hand, pouting furiously and with a hint of a blush; there's the Prostitution Awareness Center; and every gift shop sells penis- or marijuana-themed memorabilia. I picked up some pot socks for Lauren and continued on my way.

Dam Square managed to be so urbanized that, although the individual buildings are each pretty and carry a specific old-world charm, the area as a whole is not pretty. All the narrow roads spiking out from the center of the square are as crammed and neon as the strip up which I walked, tram tracks and lines criss-cross all the open space, and on this day, a merry-go-round and small street fair had set up shop and was blaring aggressive music. I was headed to the Van Gogh museum, almost a straight shot south from the train station, so I chose the narrow thoroughfare I needed and strolled slowly toward my destination.

As I walked, the city changed. The urban dank gave way to alluring town homes along gentle canals that encircle the city. The funk and bustle vanished, replaced with amblers enjoying a day in the sun, and the air turned sweeter, fresher. Its seedy urban center is wrapped in the calm of a suburbia that, for a second, felt like a sister city to Bruges -- bigger, but with the same heartbeat. Amsterdam isn't one city, but two, a bipolar metropolis that can charm you with its quaint canals and abundant art culture and then tantalize you with the loud, neon titillations of its renowned red light district. The fingers of the left hand reach for and twine with the right, and to walk between them and watch one become the other is to realize that there is, oddly, a sensible flow to these separate and distinct entities. They grip each other neatly and almost without seam.

The Van Gogh Museum amazed me -- an entire building dedicated to the life and the work of a complex artist, plus an exhibit featuring more modern paintings that clearly, explicitly draw upon his influence. What's most interesting is that, despite the innumerable portraits and self-portraits, no one has a complete, firm sense of what he looked like. Each is different enough that none can be considered definitive; they're all more informed by technique and experimentation than by a desire to recreate reality.

I stopped for lunch at a pancake house that tempted me with the curiosity that's called a Canadian Pancake. It's more or less a pizza made on a crust that's the texture and thickness of three crepes stacked atop one another, and it's topped with ham, cheese, onion, bacon, mushrooms, and� curry. Who knew that comprised the Dutch image of the Canadian culinary personality.

The most important culinary lesson I learned there, though, is this: The Diet Pepsi equivalent in Europe tastes good. Which begs the question, if Pepsi can make a tasty, satisfying diet beverage, why does our Diet Pepsi taste like sewage laced with syrup? It didn't taste like Pepsi One, nor our Diet Pepsi; it was its own entity, this Pepsi Light, and I liked it. I'm no convert from Coke, though, far from it. But it did baffle me that I could drink a Pepsi overseas with something akin to satisfaction, yet ask me to choke down a Diet Pepsi on this side of the pond and I'll fight you every gulp of the way.

Incredibly, between the walking and the gawking, my time had already expired. I'd avoided the red light district because I figured it would easily eat up a lot of my precious time in the city, and that it might be best enjoyed with a traveling companion. I don't regret it, either; looking at my accordion map, I covered a surprising chunk of the city on foot, and that's my personal favorite way to put my mark on a city: leaving my prints on its sidewalks. That's the best way to get around, the prime time to people-watch, and it invariably leaves me with a real sense of ownership of at least part of the city.

As I walked back up the pedestrian promenade toward the train station, I looked up at the building for the first time and realized one of the loveliest buildings I'd seen in Amsterdam was the one in which I'd started. The red-brick station is impressive, with spires and a regal clock, more a university building than a center for transportation. I took a deep breath, snapped a photo, and looked around me at Amsterdam for the last time that day. The city seemed at once familiar and strange, and I knew then I hadn't seen enough. I'd gotten a superficial sense of its dual personality, but hadn't had time to attack it with gusto. For a second, I felt silly. I should stay. But then I remembered I had a gem of Eastern Europe ahead of me, and that my trip as a whole was as much about where I was going as where I'd been, or where I was standing. The point was to sample everything, fall in love a little, and plan to return a lot. My first day in Amsterdam, I knew, wouldn't be my last. With a smile, I disappeared inside the station and I didn't look back.

Someone got here by searching for: Tulsa backwards Resolving: To finish writing about my trip -- I know it's sickeningly late, but this is something I really want to finish just for myself, so I have two written records of what I did. Thanks for putting up with it, guys. Promising: A photo entry, eventually.