curi·ous {Old French curios} Drawn to investigate, prick up the ears, ponder for the sake of pondering. Enticed by mysteriously labeled bottles.
vo·luptu·ary {Late Latin volupturius} A lass devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. An unabashed epicurean, hedonist, libertine, sensualist, lotus-eater.
Our nine days of wedding festivities were followed by four hours of honeymoon, otherwise known as a layover in Amsterdam on a journey that took twenty-six hours door to door. We made the most of it, stowing our bags in lockers and training in from the airport for a “breakfast” of beer and BLTs at [...]
The comparison was already floating through my mind, of Amsterdam with San Francisco. The cafes, the bohos, the acceptance of people as they are–and a certain air of self-acceptance that comes from living in a Mecca of so-called tolerance.
And, so I had read, Amsterdam even has it’s own refurbished Deco movie house, Pathé Tuschinski.
Then [...]
Before we moved to Europe last January, we considered several locations based on Ali’s business headquarters and such. A big possibility was Beijing, which I vetoed for a lot of reasons, oppressive architecture being the least on a list that included terrorist threats, a quasi-police state, apocalyptic air quality, and the 2008 Olympics. I lived [...]
WE LOVE AMSTERDAM.
Perhaps that’s all I really need to say. We love it, we’d move there, it’s fantastic.
And we didn’t even go to a hash bar or the Walletjes (Rosse Buurt, red light district). Which might be why we liked it–everywhere we went there were friendly, nattily dressed, bicycling Netherlanders, handing us snacks, charming our [...]