Blog: Now With More Amy! omg Sequel!

Tuesday Robert and I went on a boat tour of Leiden!  We rented a little row boat and row-row-row'ed our way through the little canals that crisscross my town.  Such a cool trip!  So many beautiful things to see.  And everything familiar to me was seen from a new perspective.

Wednesday we went to Amsterdam and wandered through the city.  We didn't really go for any reason, just wanted to see it.  It's actually a pretty nice place.  I had a really rather negative view going in.  Red light district. Pot.  Neither is anything I'm interested in.  At all.  Plus I had heard beaucoup horror stories about being mugged and chased through the streets by drug dealers.  Mom and I went to the Van Gogh Museum while she was here, and so all I had seen of Amsterdam was the one tram line it took to get there.  I thought the town was crowded and confusing.  Loud and touristy.  And, I suppose it is.  No getting around that, maybe.  But it didn't bother me this time.  Maybe I saw the logic of the place from the ground.  Either way, I really enjoyed it, in spite of myself.

Yesterday Robert and I were in a grumpy mood thanks in part to the grey, drizzly weather.  So, we went for a walk around Leiden.  Which is to say, away from the center.  First of all, we got rained on.  This was nice.  Secondly, we found where the real people live.  Residential sector.  I am SO in love with Dutch houses.  They're tiny, and cute, and covered in flowers!  They're very skinny and deep, but not very wide.  And everyone has a tiny little lawn, with a tiny little fence, and as many GORGEOUS and HUGE flowers as can possibly be stuffed into this tiny little space.  Also, there are cats.  Lots of strange looking cats.  I have never seen so many wildly beautiful cats.  They all look like they just strolled out of the darkest jungle just to grace the sunny front windows of the Dutch.

Also, there were a bazillion slugs.  (Naktschneke or "Naked Snails" in German, which I find hilarious.)  But no seriously, they were everywhere and they were HUGE.  Not quite as big as banana slugs, but much bigger than your garden variety Tennessee naked snails.  They are also the color of brick.  They sort of freak me out.

Anyway, Robert and I also stumbled upon this rockin wetland/mini-geyser field.  This place was nuts.  There was this windmill, see.  And, if I read the sign (which was in Dutch) properly, when the wind blows, the windmill does its dance, and pumps air into, I dunno, pipes under the ground.  These in turn cause these 7 man made mini-geysers to spurt water all over the place, thus watering the field for moss to grow.  Or something along those lines.  Most importantly here are the mini-geysers!  We didn't see them geys, but I totally want to.  Must happen.

This wetland area was painfully beautiful.  I mean, painfully.  I suppose now I understand how so many famous artists came out of such a cold, grey, rainy area.  You just don't notice the weather while you're walking around.  I have never seen a more exotic landscape.  I don't know why it was so foreign to me.  So new.  There were trees that had been cut down, but they weren't dead.  They were growing back.  So they had this very Dr. Seuss quality about them.  There were reed beds and the water was covered with lily pads and those tiny tiny green plants that turn rivers green.  

Birds were everywhere!  In particular there was a huge swan, who swam all alone through the canal.  But he did so with such assertiveness that you had no doubt who owned the area.  At one point he took flight and flew over the canal toward us.  His wings swished loudly.  I couldn't hear anything else.  And then he landed again.  Sliding over the water.  Ah, such a beautiful beautiful walk.

I don't have pictures of that.  Robert does, and I'm sure he'll send them to me as soon as he gets them off his phone.  (Hint Hint Hint)