After spending the last couple weeks perpetually soaked in sweat, I'm now wrapping my Zanzibari scarf around my face as buffer from the wind. What a transition! Leaving the hot, dusty, and colorful for the frozen earth and grey palette of the Dutch winter. Nobody tries to sell you things on the street here, in fact, almost no one even makes eye contact. I'll definitely miss the African color and light and warmth.
Yesterday I woke up early to see the sunrise, forgetting that the equatorial consistency of days doesn't apply here. By 8 AM the city was still dark and pretty quiet. The sun never did rise, really, it just became less dark.
I walked through the Liedesplein down to Vondelpark and over to the Van Gogh museum. The temporary retrospective on Naturalism really slaked a hunger, so I made my way to Albert Cuyp market to munch on pickled herring and frites and browse the fish mongers and cheese stalls. Near there, I hopped a boat for a canal tour, drinking fine Belgian trippels with a couple South Africans as we cruised the city. It's always nice to see a new city from the water level, especially with a beer.
Back on shore, I walked up the Prinsengracht to the beautiful Westerkerk church, and the Anne Frank house. Even though it's been many years since I read that book, the house seemed so familiar to me. It was an intense experience to walk through there, and by the time I reached Anne's bedroom I was weeping. The pictures she glued up are all still on the walls, as well as the pencil marks her father made to track the girls' height. It is so heartbreaking to think of such an extraordinary young woman's life destroyed by madness and barbarity. And all the countless others whose stories were never told. The same sort of thing has happened so often in Africa. Just two days before my visit to Anne Frank Huis, we found ourselves sharing a breakfast buffet with the son of Idi Amin, the notorious butcher of Uganda. While Otto Frank channeled his pain into the creation of a museum dedicated to overcoming hatred, Mr. Amin is devoted to rewriting history to
cast his father in a better light.
Now the sky is getting lighter, there's time for one more ramble through the streets, then an airport reunion with K, and Ahmom's by dinner.
