A Collection of Daily Wisdom by Dennis Sylvester Hurd since September 2003.

As of today, I've got 1634 images online. This puts me right on track, if not a bit ahead of schedule. My goal is to have about 2000 images available by July which will be my first anniversary using Flickr.



Uploading while on last fall's European vacation was easy from my notebook. After returning home, I made a Flickr set which includes 136 photos in total. The continuously-updated data provided by the website, allows me to identify the number of views of each photo. The image above has been the most-viewed from that trip. Eighty-six people, not including myself, have seen this digital photo of a canal in Amsterdam.

Labels: Amsterdam, Flickr

Tonight's the second evening that I'm writing and saving as a text file. As soon as we moved to the upgraded room, I lost the free internet connection. I'm still getting several but they are secure.

Last night we finished Amsterdam by walking around most of it. The famous 'red light' district was pretty in a neon glow.

Today, we got up very, very late. We didn't get down to the breakfast until 10:15. After that, we walked to the Rembrandt museum. Although interesting, I just think a few lucky artists got good PR. Some didn't even manage to achieve fame in their own life. It might also be that those who create a large enough body of work cannot be forgotten. The modern equivalent might be the Beatles, or perhaps Madonna. In order to be a deva, one just needs to weather enough years.

Jay called a pen-pal that he's had for over 15 years. The guy lived in northern Holland, so we took a train up for a visit. The distances are short here and the rail system very good. We flew past many cows, sheep, geese, and canals. It was a very nice visit an only an hour each way.

We didn't finish until almost 10:00. Since we want to get an earlier start tomorrow, we'll not be doing anything tonight. We will head south on rail tomorrow and end up somewhere.

Labels: Amsterdam, Eurotrip 2005, train

(Jump to Sunday the 11th.) Jannie, hadn't changed a bit. She came in at eight o'clock and we proceeded to to the central Amsterdam, after-hours tour. Most things don't get started until 11:00 but we were finished by midnight. Everybody eats and drinks till wee hours of the morning. We ate a Mexican restaurant .. and silly me, I had a Corona in the land of Heinekin. We slept right through till nine in the morning. It's okay as the 'continental' breakfast in the cafe section of the hotel doesn't get going until eight thirty anyway.

We were only able to book two nights in Amsterdam. There's some sort of conference going on and that combined with weekend-Euro-party people seemed to fill every reservation in the city. We packed as if we were to leave and then checked at noon to see if there was anyone who had cancelled. We were able to get another room although a bit more expensive. This means we won't have to spend the weekend in Rotterdam or somewhere else in the Netherlands.

We ate a leisurely lunch and after we got key at 2:00 pm, we took the tram back to Central Station. That's where all the canal tour boats leave from. We got on one and saw the city from canal level.

Nap time was short today. We'll play it by ear and see what happens later ...

Labels: Amsterdam, Eurotrip 2005

I couldn't believe that we didn't even wake up until 9:00 am this morning. That ended up changing our plans of going to the city of Alkaram to see the cheese market. After breakfast we did get back to Central Station, then we went by train to Koog Zaamdijk. We walked to Zaanse Scans with is like an area where some have been kept. We crawled up a working one. Coming back into town, we walked around Dam Square and eventually ate lunch at 3:30 pm.

Tonight, in an hour, we're meeting a woman that taught with me in the UAE. Jannie is Dutch and married to an American guy. We've not been in contact at all for 10 years. I remember her as practically a child.

Labels: Amsterdam, Eurotrip 2005

The plane got in at 3:00 but by the time we got out of the airport and into the city and finally in the hotel it was 6:00. The Air Transat flight was on time but boy they don't have very large seats. Imagine not having wiggle room for nine and a half hours of flying time. I'm so tired now!

Labels: Amsterdam, Eurotrip 2005

Jay went to Thomas Cook in order to pick up a few Euros. We'll need the change to buy transit tickets from Schiphol to downtown Amsterdam next week. Having a little cash is always convenient. We will be able to use them up in Belgium, Luxembourg, and France too. We should be able to get rid of most during those couple of weeks. If not, we can always change the remainder to Pounds when we head over to London.

It made me think of old currency I had kept. I've got bills from every place we've travelled and even donations from fellow collectors. When I was last in the Netherlands in the early 1980's, I saved this note.



Isn't money a great invention? I can earn it by teaching a class then take some and purchase whatever I desire --- globally. This sort of goes hand-in-hand with my amazement that wherever I go, there are always people ready to give me a meal and provide a bed for sleeping. All I need is a little cash. A few slips of paper are so much more portable than keeping wealth, say, in cattle. Cows don't travel well in one's luggage and they don't divide easily.

Labels: Amsterdam, money

I should've been correcting final examinations yesterday. Instead, we drove to Lougheed Mall, visited the Flight Centre, and purchased air tickets to Europe. We're leaving during the first week of September and returning the last. We'll fly into Amsterdam and back from London. It will be fun deciding on an itinerary with Jay.



Twenty-three years ago I returned for a summer in the US after teaching in Kuwait. I flew via Amsterdam. I found this fuzzy photo. The fact I can post a .jpg on this blog shows the miracle of a good scanner and graphics-editing software.

Labels: Amsterdam, travel planning