Got your passport ready?  We're about to land in Europe.  Thanks for coming along ... did you forget anything?

It's still Friday, July 16.  The Stena Line ferry takes you into the port at Holland de Hoek (the trip is less than an hour) where you catch a train to Amsterdam, passing Rotterdam in the process (less than an hour).

We get into Amsterdam Centraal around 7 and go directly to the Marriott Hotel.  We never had the time to find a cute gay hotel as we had planned.  But this works to our advantage, as it’s a modern and clean facility.  Just what we needed; and the view is great.

We immediately go out for a walk, ending up on Reguliersdwarsstraat (a common gay joke translates it as  “regular gay street”) which has the highest concentration of gay bars.

We stop for a drink at the yuppie-ish April (part of a trio of businesses on the street, including the restaurant Havana and the nightclub Exit) before settling on Saturnino (number 1017, telephone 020-6390102) for dinner.

Ah, real Italian food from real Italians!  Bryan has a shrimp cocktail followed by an artichoke salad; I have mussels marinara and chicken fra diavolo.  Plus a couple of vodkas and a half carafe of house white; the bill is FL 91.50 plus FL 16 tip.  The restaurant is open from noon until midnight.

Then it’s back to April for another drink and a walk through the plaza, surrounded by “coffeehouses” (hash bars), and a street of flower markets.

At a small bar nearby, we meet Pol, a Norwegian submarine officer on leave.  Yes, my friends, the Norwegian armed forces do not care what your sexuality is, just as it should be.  After another drink, we all walk back to the gay street to Soho, where we leave him, and then to Exit, right next door.

By 2 am we walk back home, grabbing a slice of pizza at – New York Pizza!  And it does taste like it, too.

Saturday, July 17, the real world intrudes.  On CNN, we see that John F. Kennedy, along with his wife and sister-in-law, have disappeared while flying his private plane to Martha’s Vineyard.  Even if this is read in the future, I don’t believe I need to elaborate on this news story and the eventual outcome.

On a lighter note, from noon until 2 pm, we go shopping, getting souvenirs along with a pair of very nice silver sunglasses for Bryan (he left his regular pair back in London) and a “Pisa” clock for me.  If you’ve ever seen my Italian clock where the dial revolves around the pointer, this is the same method.  And as I’ve never seen another like it, I have to have this one.

At 2:30 pm, we hop on the Canal Boat; it’s basically a sightseeing tour that you can get on and off, like the double decker buses of NYC and London.

Getting off in the Red Light District (it’s even marked that way on the maps), we skip the various sex shops but do check out the Tattoo Museum, look at the various stores devoted to the cult of cannabis (including a museum - and no, I didn't indulge) and buy a new suitcase for our various purchases.

Then it was off to find the Homomonument.  Yes, Amsterdam has a memorial area for us!  From their brochure:  "Karin Daan's design ... is the situation at the site:  a bend in the quay-wall of the canal.  Here she designed a triangle out of pink natural stone.  The pink triangle is the sign which homsexuals had to wear in the concentration camps....  Aside from the triangle on the water there is also a [slightly raised] 'podium triangle' and a 'memorial triangle' at street level."  The triangles are 10 meters on a side, forming a larger triangle 36 meters on the side.

It’s close to the Anne Frank House, but the line there is very long so Bryan winds up at a shop full of incredible ceramics.  But just when he’s about to finalize his purchase, the shop owner reveals that it’s cash only!  And despite his advice, we find no cash machines in the area.  Oh, well.  We also see an incredible Art Nouveau sideboard in a store nearby, but it’s already closed.  So much for shopping.

We take a break at the hotel around 7 and then go for rijsttafel at Sampurna (Singel 498, 1017 AX Amsterdam).  This is a form of Indonesian dining with lots of little plates of food, exactly my style of eating.  Plus, it’s directly opposite the flower stalls (“op de bloemenmarkt”) that Bryan likes.  We take one of the two outside tables and start eating incredible food.  Now, the owners here are the first to say that local ingredients will make it different than eating in Indonesia, but it’s good nonetheless.  Total is 170, of which the bottle of pinot blanc is one quarter and the per person fee is another quarter each plus a final quarter for vodkas and dessert.

By 10 pm, we’re walking around again, past the lovely Hotel de Europa (we almost decided to eat there but I’m glad we tried Indonesian for the experience) and back to April for drinks.  We actually eat again around 2 am, at Venezia for prosciutto and melon followed by an Italian style pizza (very thin, brick oven crust).  Yes, it’s almost 4 am when we crawl into bed.

Sunday, July 18, the original plan was to take the 10 am train to Brussels but we decide to stay later as Bryan would like to try to get back to that ceramics shop as the owner said he’d reopen at 11 am.  So I’m up at 7 am with an uncooperative concierge, forcing us to shower, have a continental breakfast delivered to the room, and high-tail it over to the train station.

Of course, it’s no problem changing to the 2 pm train so now we have time to kill.  We take the Canal Boat to the Ann Frank House; since it’s so early, there’s virtually no line so we get right in.  This is what I can tell you:  I don’t believe in ghosts, but I feel that the vast numbers of people who have passed through this house in the last fifty years have left traces of their emotional sadness.  One’s heart weighs heavy while going through here.

Going back to the ceramics shop, we find that the owner (who lives in the shop) isn’t there, and even though we go out for sandwiches he still doesn’t return by noon.  So Bryan leaves his business card there and at the place with the sideboard; we’ll see what happens.

In researching these notes and trying to find a good picture of the Homomonument, the search engine came up with her delightful diary notes (taken, I believe, with her boyfriend/husband).

And although we take a long walk back to the train station, we find nothing else to buy and so at 2 pm we hop on the Thalys train to Brussels.  In our first class “salon” there are three other people:  first is a young American, living in Cancun, just returned from a “love” festival in Berlin; also a married couple, Sadri and his wife Munira, who spend half the year in India and half in Canada.  And what a conversation ensues.

Would you be surprised to find that I eventually lecture the young (actually 30, he should know better) man on his new agey ideas of poverty?  His simplistic assumption that education solves everything doesn’t take into account those too poor to ever dream of it, especially when malnutrition has destroyed their brains.  Sadri and his wife, of course, know from poverty, seeing it everyday.

Eventually, all of us find our way out of the salon, leaving it to the American to accost an unwitting middle-management employee of Chevron who gets on later in the journey.  Perhaps we just should have accepted second class as they’re almost as nice as the first class accommodations on Thalys!

We arrive in Brussels around 5 pm and check into the Novotel Off’Grand Place [sic]; it’s a clean and efficient business-style hotel.  While I unpack, Bryan goes for baguettes; we then go window shopping as the stores have mainly closed (although I do get my requisite white t-shirt).

The hotel suggests Vieux Bruxelles (33-35 Rue des Bouchers - and there is a "Petit" Rue as well, so watch out) for dinner.  It’s on an “alley” along with scores of other small restaurants, all with maitre d’s cajoling customers.  Along with a nice Pouilly Fuisse (about forty dollars), we get two shrimp appetizers (about $18 each - Bryan’s with garlic, oil and vegetables and mine grilled with a red peppercorn and cream sauce); this is the best part of the meal.  The entrees don’t fare as well; Bryan’s steak ($25 - “medium rare or well done, monsieur?” should have tipped us off) was somewhat bland and really required the use of the bernaise sauce served with it and my order of duck breast ($21) was tough and thick – I actually thought it was the steak when it was served to us.

Back at the hotel, we watch Loose Cannons, a movie with Gene Hackman, Dan Ackroyd and Dom deLuise about a stolen film of Hitler’s last hour.

Monday, July 19, the morning from hell.  Bryan has decided to pass up going to the very large and famous Flea Market on the edge of town in favor of laundry.  But through a comedy of errors (then why doesn't it ever seem funny?) the front desk woman never gets us to a laundromat.  We had planned on pumping a considerable amount of Belgian francs into the local economy from last night’s window shopping.  This is Brussel’s loss (and ours, considering the extremely favorable exchange rate on that date).

One good thing, however.  Passing by a “Q” (their version of McDonald’s), we see they’re giving away a set of four water glasses with Keith Haring paintings on them!  And although it’s too early to buy the special meals to acquire them and since the boss has yet to arrive, the girl behind the counter (a dead ringer for Winona Ryder with her black glasses) gives a set to Bryan after seeing his Haring tattoo.  Thank you, dear!

Leaving Brussels, the Thalys train to Paris takes only two hours, reaching a top speed of 183 mph (they even announce it).  Plus the complimentary meal on board is quite tasty, the wine superb.

Before saying anything else, more than anything is the presence of the Eiffel Tower as these various pictures attest.

At 3 pm, we check into the Hotel deCrillon on the Place de la Concorde.  It’s a five star hotel although not quite the Villa Cora in Florence in terms of space and service.

Nonetheless, it’s quite grand and they make us feel quite welcome.  Bob at Turner World Travel has arranged for a dozen roses and a bottle of Taittinger champagne in our room which is quite nice.

We also make dinner reservations in their restaurant, considered by many to be the finest in Paris.

From 5 to 7 pm, we take a double decker tour bus down the Champs Elysees, around the Arc de Triumphe, the Eiffel Tower, Louvre museum, Notre Dame, over the Seine and then the Latin Quarter followed by a walking tour before dinner.

Then it’s back to clean up and put on our Sunday best for dinner at Les Ambassadeurs.  The most minor complaint:  I believe that waiters should know more than you do, they just shouldn’t show it.  (Insert here all the normal zingers about the French, their cleanliness, their arrogance, their complete refusal to play the language game regardless of how well, or even if, you speak French.)

After a complimentary glass of Taittinger rose champagne and cucumber chiffon, the wine steward suggests a 1989 Chateau Trottevielle St. Emilion to go with dinner.  Bryan has the lobster and asparagus salad followed by a simple chicken entrée; I had smoked salmon and caviar followed by duck breast (done correctly this time).  We skip dessert in favor of just espresso and head off into the Paris night, so beautifully lit (as Bryan says, “Paris is a giant museum”).

By midnight, two very tired boys climb into the huge bed (although, and this is odd, it’s actually two full-size mattresses made up separately) and lo, and behold, the television is showing the 1965 documentary “Ladies and Gentleman, Mr. Leonard Cohen.”  You do know that I'm a fan and that I bought his first album when it came out in 1967 and have all his subsequent works.  Famous for songs like “Suzanne” and “Bird on a Wire” this is about his life as a poet in Montreal before his life as a singer.  For me, this is found treasure!  Yes, I sleep well and although I miss the beginning of the documentary, it’s just beginning again as we wake up on …

Tuesday, July 20, coffee is brought to our room at 8 am and by 10 we’re packed and in a taxi to Notre Dame where I light a candle as my mother’s representative (I do this wherever we go as she really doesn’t need any more tshotches to dust).

We stroll through the Latin Quarter, getting our traditional t-shirt and refrigerator magnet, and have a simple lunch at a small brasserie.

After walking along the Seine, we check out of the hotel at 1 pm and arrive at Gard du Nord for the Eurostar “chunnel” train.  I have a croque (really a grilled ham and cheese) and Kronenburg beer while Bryan writes postcards.

Now, if you're ready to leave Paris, click on the Eurostar link and we'll go back to London.