Saturday, July 19, 2008

Don't make me over...

There are a few details that didn't make it onto the blog, and I truly think they have their place.

In Amsterdam the paid ladies room was labeled "DAMES". On the men's side there was a large woman taking Euros and admonishing the men "Only peen, no cubicle. Only you peen here."

I hope they got a discount for being in the standing-only section.

Some of the street signs were humorous. Here's one:

Once you get past Haarlem (not as exciting as the NYC 'hood, not a pimpmobile in sight) and go one street over from the A'dam -Noord sign there's one for A'dam West.

Holy Dutch street signs, Batman!

On the first flight I sat on a plate of tomatoes and buttered rolls that had ended up on my seat, most likely with the help of a small person.

On the second flight I ended up wearing the complimentary champagne glass of highly pulped orange juice, definitely with the help of Thomas. This is before the plane even started to make it way over to the runway. I am sure this made a fabulous impression upon the flight attendants, all of them tall, blonde and beautiful Dutch women who likely posed for cocoa containers as children. They were extremely kind to me, as one would be to someone with limited intelligence and resources.

I also managed to slip on a plastic-wrapped life jacket on the floor, tried to catch myself on the armrest, which opened and summarily dumped me on the floor. I got a bruise out of it, but Mike had a good laugh. You know, the kind where you have your hands over your mouth and are trying to apologize for laughing as you howl.

Lastly, it has been interesting to try to post on Blogspot here, because the header task bar has mysteriously been converted to Arabic (pretty sure I flagged the blog as obscene trying to figure out which one said "new post") and the spellcheck is British rather than American-spelling based.

Grey coloured favourite tea cosy. See what I mean?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your friend in Seattle , we sat togeter at lunch on the SNC picnic and watched Thomas eat the biggest cupcake I ever saw!
I read all and just got worried you left out the slip on the plane and you wearing butter but you got it here!
Good job!
About the relocation person you spoke of, my sister does that in South Africa for Germans and French ladies relocating from top firms in world and does she have stories to tell, she has to help them shop for there homes in Congo in the best shops in Johannesburg. Bathroom fittings and linnen .She get to take them to lunch and show them wonderful mansions and so on, get snacks for the kids and tell them where to shop.
She used to be a school teacher and now do this! She does get paid , not like at private schools but she gets to do what she loves.
Visiting my library after talking to you ,I stumbled apon a publication Aramco world magazine. This will be "your cup of tea". The one I got has the cover of a Koran and the editors (John Lawton for one) are presenting a few jewels of the Topkapi Palace Libary in Istambul, Barry Hoberman,student of Islamic and central Asian history, added articles of earlier libraries of Middle East . This is a bi monthly published in Washington ,DC.
On the cover it has: Po box 2106 Houston, Texas 77252 (Printed in Netherlands ).All over the map!

This March April 1987 Vol 38 no.2 I liked best, but they had more. If they still publish you might be able to lay your hands on some. This one has the history of writting and art and enougth "backwards" writing (Arabic), to make your head spin in a nice way!!! S

Anonymous said...

Sorry did not check, my "together"!
As luck has it,in the first sentence! How do you edit for the "hasty" ones ?!
S.