Day
1: From Los Angeles to Amsterdam:
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Joy Brandt and I became friends in 1997 over the Internet when we were
both on a Urantia Book email list called UBstudy. She helped me edit the
first edition of How I Found The Urantia
Book, and because of other common
interests, we soon became good friends. As a frequent flyer I’d earned two
round-trip tickets to Europe, so I
suggested to Joy that we take a month and “do” the eastern
Mediterranean, to visit the places Jesus went. With some time off
between teaching jobs, Joy readily agreed, and we booked a flight
leaving Los Angeles on November 13 and returning December 11, 1998. Our
destination of Athens included an overnight stop in Amsterdam. As I was
born in Holland and still had cousins there, this gave me a chance to
have a quick visit between flights and simultaneously show Joy the
sights of Amsterdam. We
spent months emailing each other with research on where we would go and
what we would bring, and the day prior to our flight Joy flew down from
Portland so we could leave together from Los Angeles. Diary:
Joy and I left Los Angeles Friday, November 12, at 4:20 p.m. on a
direct KLM flight to Amsterdam and arrived the next day at 11:30 a.m.
local time.
Joy:
In the plane over to Amsterdam we each took a tranquilizer to help us
sleep during the 11-hour trip (so we'd be chipper when we arrived the
next morning), but instead of falling asleep, we got energized. We
laughed and talked loudly through most of the plane ride while everyone
else was sleeping. Saskia may have caught an hour or so of sleep
during the flight, but I was so excited I don't think I slept at all. Saskia: It was now Saturday, November 14. From the airport we took a train to the RAI station, where my cousin Els picked us up and brought us back to her apartment on the Roompotstraat in Amsterdam Zuid. Even though we were fatigued from our sleepless flight, after a short visit and a cup of coffee the three of us walked to the nearby Albert Cuypstraat, a popular daily outdoor market selling everything from vegetables to clothes. With my new video camera we took in the sights and sounds of pedestrian Amsterdam. It was cold but not unbearably so.
Els left us at a tram stop to continue on to Centraal Station from where we found the famous “coffeeshops” selling marijuana legally. Inside we examined the goings-on up close and Joy took some pictures of pot smokers (all of whom were English) sitting at a table getting high.
From
there we walked over to the Voorburgachterwal where prostitutes sit
advertising their wares in large display windows and wait for business.
It must have been quite amazing for an
American to see for the first time!
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