Your flight gets you in Schiphol at 6am. The train to Amsterdam puts you into the Central Station by 7, and you still have two hours before the museums open. What to do for two hours? You can simply walk the downtown, waiting for Rijks to open. You can get a coffee in one ofContinue Reading
Amsterdam is the same size as Columbus, Ohio. It has less than a million people. It is at the same latitude as Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. If one wants to spend a weekend in Europe, there are larger, older, richer, and southern mild-climate cities to see in October. But it’s not the size or location that makes AmsterdamContinue Reading
As you get into Schiphol Airport, get the 4 Euro ticket, and take the train to the Central Station. The train runs every 10 minutes, and it takes less than 15 minutes to cover the distance to Amsterdam’s main train station. The instant you step out of the Victorian style Central Station, you step inContinue Reading
The adventurous life of Rembrandts’ Night Watch It might be the most expensive painting in the world. And one with an adventurous past. In 1715, a curator decided to trim the paining in all four sides, so it fit the opening between two pillars. Trimmed not a few inches, but two people taken out ofContinue Reading
My first apartment, a rental in one of Bucharest proletarian grey apartment buildings, was a whopping 422 square feet. You get new skills when you live in such a small place: I am absolutely sure that whoever started IKEA lived in that very apartment. And after that invented the Walkman, and then went on toContinue Reading
