I Should Be Going Dutch

....and the start of a long weekend, that I should have been spending in Amsterdam! But, thanks to an inconsiderate Icelandic volcano with an unpronouncable name deciding to erupt and spew an ash and debris cloud into the prevailing winds that now hover over Europe, not a plane is safe in the sky. I'm going nowhere! Such is life, ash happens....that sort of thing. But what would I have been up to if I had made it to Amsterdam?

Apparently, I could have expected to see anything in a city where everything goes....like perhaps a dude rollerblading down the main road in just a G-string (at least, this was the delightful sight that greeted my friends when they first arrived in Amsterdam on a freezing cold winter’s day... and they claim they hadn’t yet had chance to visit any “Coffee Shops” [1] that may have induced such visions!)

What would I have done if I'd encountered an almost butt naked man on the street, paused for a breather between rollerblading? Well, I’d have had to “Pass The Dutchie” on the left-hand side, [2] of course...because, like most of mainland Europe, the Dutch drive on the right. That is on the rare occasion that they do get into their cars, as almost every Dutch person has a bicycle and there are twice as many bikes as cars. [3]

I might have stopped and taken a sly look back at the rollerblading dude since, as well as being the tallest people in Europe, the Dutch are reputed to be the best looking. But apart from people watching, what would I have been doing in Amsterdam? Well, I may have taken a stroll around a museum or two... Amsterdam boasts more museums than any other city in the world. [4] They cover every sort of weird and wonderful topic, from famous painters (like the Van Gogh Museum) and famous diarists (the Anne Frank Huis), to museums on the history of sex and marijuana. There’s even a museum of cats...hardly surprising in a city of feline lovers, where there is a house boat known as  De Poezenboot, a home for stray cats.

I think I'd probably have passed on the clog shopping

One thing’s for sure, I’d have spent a lot of time on or beside water, exploring Amsterdam's lively canals. [5] Maybe I would have spotted one or two of the thousand original working windmills. I planned on visiting the famous floating flower market and feasting my eyes upon the tulips at the Keukenhof Gardens. While my budget wouldn't have stretched to shopping for diamonds, [6] I definitely wanted to rummage through the Waterlooplein flea market, and I had hoped to sample kaas (Dutch cheese), patat (potato chips with mayo) and pannenkoeken (pancakes), and have a meal in one of the city’s famous Indonesian rijsttafel (‘rice table’).

And I suppose no visit to Amsterdam would have been complete without a quick stroll through the Red Light District, to see the world’s oldest profession in action, so to speak. [7]

Ah, well...another time, perhaps. Have a chillaxing weekend y'all!

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Useless information in the shape of footnotes you probably won’t read:

1. After Scandinavians, the Dutch are the world's biggest coffee drinkers...but coffee is not the only thing you can buy at a “Coffee Shop”. Amsterdam has over 300 coffee shops that can legally sell up to 5 grams of soft drugs to each person.

2. "Pass the Dutchie" was a song recorded by the British group Musical Youth from their 1982 album The Youth of Today. The song was a cover version of the song "Pass the Koutchie" by The Mighty Diamonds, which deals with the recreational use of cannabis, "koutchie" being slang for a cannabis pipe. For the censored cover version, the song's title was changed to "Pass the Dutchie" (a dutchie being a cast iron cooking pot) and all obvious drug references were removed from the lyrics. The term "dutchie" has itself now become a drug reference; it refers to a blunt rolled in the wrapper from a Dutch Masters cigar.

3. Amsterdam has over 1 million bikes but only 700,000 Amsterdammers, and there are over 15,000 km of bicycle lanes in The Netherlands.

4. Measured per square meters. There are more than 40 well known museums in Amsterdam, 70 in The Netherlands in total.

5. The Netherlands has more than 4,000 km of navigable rivers, lakes and canals. With a quarter of the country lying below sea level, guarded by dykes and dunes, and nearly a third of the land having been reclaimed from the sea, Amsterdam will be one of the first cities to get flooded if global warming causes the sea levels to rise.

6. The world famous Koh-I-Noor diamond was cut in Amsterdam.

7. While prostitution itself is legal in most countries, soliciting in a public place ('street prostitution'), running a brothel, being a pimp or exploiting prostitution by taking money from prostitutes as a third person, is illegal. The Dutch government saw the existence of brothels as a given fact and decided therefore on a practical, realistic approach. If brothels are taken out of the underworld, they can be under supervision, they have to pay taxes, they have to accept regular visits by health inspectors and they can lose their permits if they employ minors.

Where In The World Wednesday: Paris

It's Wednesday and that means it's time for Where In The World Wednesday again, hosted by the lovely Classy in Philadelphia. Why don't you take part too? All you have to do is post a picture (or many like I do!) of someplace in the world. Don't forget to use the WITWW button in your post, and to visit Classy in Philadelphia later to post a comment on her WITWW, so that other participants can visit your blog too.

Today, I'm going to tell you about a long weekend we spent in Paris back in January 2004. It was my 30th birthday treat and my first trip on the Eurostar, back in the days before St Pancras International was built, and when the trains still left from London Waterloo...I always thought it was slightly cheeky but rather funny of the Brits to remind any French passengers arriving in London by Eurostar that "My my, at Waterloo Napolean did surrender" (yip, a childhood in the 70s/80s means I do have ABBA lyrics on tap).

As might be expected in mid winter, it was absolutely freezing and raining quite a bit of the time but we did get some good breaks of sunshine, hence my pictures of the Parisian landmarks are just a bit hit and miss....

Notre Dame in the gloom

Sacre Coeur in the sunshine

Behind Sacre Coeur

Tour Eiffel by night

The greatest challenge of the weekend (apart from trying to use my schoolgirl French on the world's rudest waiters/shopkeepers/ticket vendors/hoteliers) was getting up the Eiffel Tower...not because we tried scaling it like cat burglars or anything as exciting, but because ze gods seemed adamant that we would not get to the top! The first morning, the iconic symobol of Paris was completely shrouded in mist, then when the weather finally cleared later that afternoon, the tower was closed because of a Chinese New Year celebration parade taking place along the Avenue des Champs-Élysées....I'm not too sure why this would impact on the Tour Eiffel, but as they say in Paris with much shoulder shrugging and mournful lower lip protruding going on....."Je ne sais pas pourquoi"!

Finally, we made it up the tower on the Sunday afternoon with just enough time to get back down again and catch our train back to.... "Waterloo! Promise to love you forever more!"

Avenue des Champs-Élysées from the Tour Eiffel

Looking down from the top of the Tour Eiffel

The day after we got back from Paris, I had an interview for what would become my first medical writing job...the job that would get me out of the lab and into a new career field, and would mean moving out of London, presenting the opportunity to buy our first house. So, I always look back on that weekend in Paris as one of the turning points in my life, and not just because I hit my 30s.

Getting Pissy

Picture found HERE

Way back when I first started throwing random mutterings together into one place and calling it a “blog”, I wrote a piece inspired by a conversation that I had with my hairdresser, a lady who definitely wears the trousers in her household, insisting that her man sits down to pee as she cannot abide the “Splash Factor”. In that post (Just Taking The Piss), I mentioned that while many men are quite happy to be “dudes who pee like a lady” in the interests of keeping the pee-ace at home, there was a group of feminists at a Swedish university who were taking it a step further. They’d been campaigning to ban all urinals from campus, “because a man standing up to urinate is deemed to be triumphing in his masculinity, and by extension, degrading women." I thought at the time that the feminists had missed a trick, because now, thanks to the SheWee, we girls can indeed stand up and pee too.

I have long been toying with the idea of acquiring said urinary aid, mainly to avoid having to sit on less than desirable public toilet seats on my travels both at home and abroad, or peeing onto my shoes while I attempt to hover over squat toilets (which are surprisingly more common than you may think....for example in parts of Italy!). I could have really used a SheWee when snowshoeing recently in Norway...having to strip down to just a base layer in subzero temperatures in order to get my pants down was no piss in the park, I can assure you. The wind chill on exposed butt cheek is sheer torture! No such need for public indecency with a SheWee, just unzip like the boys do, position the SheWee, and write your name in the snow...

Anyway, I have finally stopped pissing about and bought my very own, hot pink SheWee Extreme, complete with extension pipe and solid travel case. I figured the last thing I want to be doing, when hiking in the wilds of Canada in June and nature calls, is to be baring my sizeable butt to the elements or, in particular, to a hungry grizzly with a preference for white meat.

Friday Fear Factor

We all have things that we’re afraid of, but I think I’m above average when it comes to racking up the phobias. Here are just five of the many things that freak me out...

1. Flying
I am utterly terrified of flying. It kind of spoils the travelling lark, but I try to use legal pharmaceuticals to not completely freak out and scream hysterically every time the plane hits the slightest little bit of turbulence. I think my fear stems from a bad experience when I was quite young. I was on a flight to Australia and was walking back from the toilet when the plane hit the edge of a cyclone over the Mozambique Channel, and dropped like a stone. I fell in the aisle, and whacked my face on the floor. The overhead lockers popped open, hand luggage fell out and hit some passengers, and the oxygen masks flopped down...even the air crew were shitting themselves! Since then, I’ve had the delight of an aborted landing in heavy fog over Heathrow and a flight from hell back from the States, when the turbulence was so bad that the crew spent 7 of the 9 hours strapped in their seats.

Any news of plane crashes always grab my attention. With morbid fascination, I’ll trawl through the crash details, which will then get filed in my brain under “Resort to Nervous Wreck When On An Aeroplane Aids”, ready to pop up the next time I’m strapped into a plane seat, waiting for the roar of engines to signal the start of that race down the runway to take-off. That’s the point when I always feel trapped. I can’t stand up and shout “Let me off!”... well, I possibly could, but I would definitely piss off the other passengers, almost certainly be labelled a lunatic and probably be banned from flying... which would kind of get in the way of my travel plans. Suck another Rescue Remedy pastille, and dig fingernail stubs into B’s arm (if travelling alone, random stranger’s arm).

2. Spiders
If there’s one creature on this planet that reduces me to a shrieking, shivering wreck, it’s the creepy crawly eight-legged variety! I can actually pinpoint the source of my phobia to an incident quite early in my childhood – I can’t have been much older than about 3 at the time. Growing up in Africa, there were spiders aplenty, some pretty nasty ones too....like the baboon spider. This tale involves a harmless brown house spider. I was naturally curious about these strange creatures that ran silently along the walls and ceilings. I recall going up to touch one....then feeling the spider hop onto my hand, run up my arm and down my chest under my dress! By this stage I was screaming hysterically. My mom quickly pulled my dress off over my head and knocked the spider off me. And that was when it all started. I spent the rest of my childhood in living fear of spiders and the phobia has followed me into adulthood.

Baboon spider - photo found HERE

3. Cockroaches

Along with most other small things that crawl, scuttle, flap and fly about, I detest cockroaches...I’m convinced they are mini aliens sent to inherit the earth when humanity destroys itself in a nuclear war. Back in the days when we lived in Cape Town, we used to get gigantic ‘roaches in our flat...I’m sure this was thanks to the downstairs neighbours running an illegal takeaway joint from their home, as they were cooking the whole day long meaning there were always food smells to entice vermin to the vicinity. I’d go into the kitchen and there one would be...parked on the wall and leering at me with his evil eyes. Much as I wanted to crunch him underfoot, I just could not bring myself to do so. Typically, B would be out and therefore not around to play the role of Fearless Roach ‘Radicator , so I’d have to go around to my burly neighbour and lay on my feminine charms (this was of course back in the days when I had one or two) to get him to remove the awful creature. He had no qualms about grabbing it in his bare hand and throwing it out the window to fly away and terrorise someone else.

Roach - photo found HERE

4. Driving

I’ve always been a fairly cautious driver, but I became a lot more nervous after my car accident back in November 2008. It was nothing serious, mind, just a speeding dude collecting me on the side, but it was enough of a dodgem-car style bump, grind and jolt to now give me the heebie-jeebies every time another car drifts towards me in a tight roundabout. I am also very afraid of being in a car with someone else who is driving too fast or too close to other cars...it makes my stomach heave and I feel like throwing up, which is another great fear I have...

5. Puking
I absolutely cannot tolerate the thought or sound of anyone, but especially me, throwing up. I believe it’s quite a common phobia (emetophobia) but it means I live in fear of getting food poisoning or a stomach bug, and I’m nervous around small children who, let’s face it, are pretty much capable of projectile vomiting on demand! Eeeuuuuwww!

How about you...what things do you fear most?

Where In The World Wednesday: Arizona

It's Where in the World Wednesday time again, brainchild of Classy in Philadelphia. If you want to take part, all you have to do is post a picture of someplace in the world, then visit the comments section later on Classy in Philadelphia's post to see who else is participating, and leave your link so that other participants can visit your blog too. Remember to use the WITWW button in your post.

Back in October 2008, B and I did a road trip through the Western United States of California, Nevada and Arizona.

It was a fabulous trip and I will eventually tell you all about it, but for today I am going to focus on Arizona. I was really awe struck by the spectacular scenery and seemingly neverending desert landscapes of this state.

On the road

Saguaro cacti

We stopped at Montezuma's Castle, which is built into the limestone cliffs above Beaver's Creek. Once home to the Sinagua people, the dwelling dates back to the 1100s.

Remains of Montezuma Castle

Then it was on to the magnificent red-rock country around Sedona....

Red rocks near Sedona

We took a jeep ride through the red-rock canyons....

We spent the night in Flagstaff, and were up early the next day for the drive to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.....what a magnificent sight!

 

South Rim of Grand Canyon

 

Baby tarantula in Grand Canyon National Park

Our day included a helicopter flight over the edge of the canyon....

View of the Canyon from the helicopter

We left the Grand Canyon in the late afternoon, heading for the bright lights of Las Vegas....but I will tell you about that another day.

A Walk In The Woods

 

Funny Bunnies

Happy Easter!