Amsterdam is not for the slow.
Sue warned me before I left the US to “Look left” when crossing streets in London. You know, because the cars drive on the other side of road from the U.S. In London and if you don't look the right way--SPLAT. It was fairly easy to not get hit by a car in that there were warning signs painted on the road to either “look left” or “look right”.
Now in Amsterdam, which is the city of bikes, I have only almost got ran over about 100 times. Maybe more that I didn’t know of. The cyclists are very good at dodging us tourists. And, everyone walking has their face in their phone, most likely using Google Maps or GPS to navigate through the busy town. Besides that, the streets are cobbled and uneven making walking with Google even more hazardous. You have to move quickly to cross a street when 10 cyclists are headed toward you. And don’t forget to look both ways.
The day I arrived in Amsterdam, I went walking with my GPS to find the MOCO museum. Guess what, there was a Banksy exhibit. The MOCO is dedicated to modern art and displayed similar street artists from New York but also an Andy Warhol exhibit. I will post pictures of the installations. The installation in the basement was five rooms of light art. Rooms with different lights and mirrors. Pretty cool.
When I was leaving the museum, the dark clouds were looking very ominous. I wasn’t dressed for rain since it started out a warm day. I had about a mile to walk back to my hotel, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. Shoot, my clothes were still damp from the last rain dump. I started walking-fast to the route back to the hotel. The clouds were catching up with me. Gusts of wind started to pick up---I thought it was a hurricane or tornado. Dirt and tree branches were blowing across the road.
Suddenly, the cloud burst, rain was coming down, and there was no place to duck into. I was near a park and open area by a busy road. Wait, there is a taxi. I waved and the driver waved me in. Getting in the back seat of the taxi, I thanked him profusely, then noticed he had a paying fare in the front seat. I was now sharing a taxi ride with an older German gentleman who was okay with me taking refuge in his cab.
The taxi driver dropped of his fare (at a very nice hotel) and then started my fare to my hotel. Thank you to the German man for paying for some of my way!
Like I said, you can’t be slow here in Amsterdam.
Andy Warhol---Look familiar?
The basement was an exhibit of lights where you walk in to different rooms with different strobing lights and colors. The last picture is a selfie of me.
Tracey and I did not understand how the blog worked and thought you had not posted after London. Looking forward to reading these!
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