After France I made a quick pit stop in Antwerp, Belgium for the only reason but to see Robbie Williams in concert. He is someone a lot of people in the US have heard of, but don't know much about because for some reason, his popularity never took off in the US. He is huge everywhere else in the world but the US. We are just odd. And because of that, he never comes here, but I know his music and have always wanted to see him in concert, so I stopped to see him. Belgium is nothing. I don't have any pictures of that country, also because I was there for about 24 hours before going to The Netherlands right next door.
And the obsession with phone booths continues! These can hardly be called
booths, they are just stands, if anything.
One of the main and many squares in Amsterdam. It's called Dam Square.
This is near the train
station and a main center of town when you first enter the city. From
what I saw, it was the biggest square in the city that I saw.
A miniature life-size chessboard, right near the phone stands. I was
wondering around back to the center of town from the Van Gogh Museum
and walked into a small square where people where playing with this
chess board. Quite interesting, you never see anything like this in the
US.
The language they speak in The Netherlands is nothing like I experienced
throughout the rest of Europe. They speak Dutch, which kind of sounds
like German and most people, especially the younger they are speak very
good English. If people in Europe known English they learned British
English, which is different then American English. Some of the words
are different and when they speak English, it's always with a slight
British accent, if you listen carefully enough. The people of The
Netherlands speak with a strong American accent, it was like coming home
for a few days, listening to them talk to me. I believe it is this way
from all the TV they watch. I saw so many American shows when I was there,
it assuming that this is where they learn the most English.
The city is not for the faint of heart and unlike any other city in
the world, as most cities in Europe are. Pot, clogs, prostitution and flowers fill
the streets of Amsterdam, yet it is a calm and peaceful city. It was beautiful
when I was there, very Venice-like, which has always been one of my
favorite cities there, but the weather in Amsterdam was more my speed
of it being a lot cooler and rain fairly often, even in the summer.
