Amsterdam!
Amsterdam with a capital DAMN! This is just abut the coolest city in the world. I know a lot of you have been here, some of you have even lived here (a feat I can't imagine as I don't think half of our furniture would even fit through the doors of the houses here, let alone my fat-ass self). There is a bar every 20 feet (the tour guide said that was because the water in the canals was suspect and alcoholic beverages were relatively safe...whatever, pour me another). Here's something I didn't know: Some guy from here (I don't remember his name) from the West India Trading Company bought Manhatten for a string of beads (that part I remember from 5th grade) and named it New Amsterdam. I guess the British came along after that and named it after a drink I like. Anyway here are some pictures I took of Amsterdam and a really cool car I found outside a bar I was drinking at.
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The Island at the Center of the World is a really cool little book (by Russell Shorto; out in paper) about the Dutch colony in New York area, their contribution to the development of the culture and government of the city, the state and (according to the author) the United States and how, in standard history-written-by-the-winners fashion, it was papered over by their British successors and their descendants (Washington Irving’s witty dissing of the Dutch was still a mandatory part of the school curriculum when I was a kid—in New York.) Factoids from the book: the word “boss” is Dutch, and the Springsteen name is a suggestion that Mr. Irving did not necessarily get the last word.