Decon_IV

Hollywood is about an hour and a half drive from where I sit, yet I’ve been there less than 3 times in the past 4 years. The Hollywood strip, with it’s Sidewalk of Stars try to bring the glimmer and hope of the skies to eye level. Hollywood hopes you keep your eyes to the ground and disregard the tattoo parlors, the head shops, and David’s Shoes’ (not a typo, sadly, no longer there). Mann’s Chinese Theater got an update, it’s no longer the famous theater of old (only the outside has changed). Raymond Chandler’s version of Hollywood of the 50’s and 60’s surprisingly tells the future of Hollywood, smog and all.

Rent a car if you come to visit. Actually, scratch that. If you come and visit, try to find a friend to cart you around. You wouldn’t want the stress of trying to drive 5 miles in 3 hrs. Bring your patience too, the city could use some.

This is a big small city. One of the things you’ll notice when stepping off the short ride from the Schiphol Airport to Amsterdam central is the massive amount of bikes. After that, the leaning buildings. Surprise yourself by walking down the main streets and taking a big whiff of the local air. That’s not the smell of the canals, that’s the city’s unofficial seedy underbelly poking it’s head up and making itself known. MJ is not technically legal in Amsterdam as much as it is tolerated. Get too much or try and take it out of Amsterdam with you and I almost guarantee you’ll think twice about the whole free love hippy drug.

Tolerance of low class drugs isn’t why I would recommend the city though. Tolerance of another sort is why. In my every day, I don’t really think much of race. In my travel, it’s become at times, almost blatenly obvious that I have some sort of pigment. Amsterdam, doesn’t matter. Black, White, Asian, Gay, Straight, Transgender, whatever…doesn’t matter. It’s not a hippy town, but it’s definitely a place that’s trying to make the city a city for everyone. Walking down the streets, people were helpful to the bumbling Americans who couldn’t read street names, kept looking in the wrong direction for traffic and, in slight emergencies, ran while everyone else walked or biked. Tolerance rocks.

Oh yeah and the Heineken brewery is in Amsterdam. Just make sure you get there before 3pm. Trust me, it’s worth it. Myself, I’ve never been, but I’ve heard. Other than that, I don’t remember much. Hehe.

Anne Frank and her family hid in Amsterdam after running from the Nazis in WWII. There are famous works of art from Master Painters and a whole museum dedicated to Van Gogh, highlighting his journey from tortured young artist to tortured not so young artist. There’s a pancake house that serves meat pancakes, AND you can even drink the water!

My favorite drink happens to come from Ireland, Dublin in particular. Guinness has many uses, from an addition in cakes and stews, to a Black and Tan or an Irish Car Bomb recipe. One thing I didn’t think of is Guinness as entertainment. I had planned many things for my trip to Ireland and Amsterdam…seeing the countryside and learning about Ireland, it’s culture, it’s history and where it’s headed for the future. One of the things I completely missed was that the Guinness factory was located in Dublin.

Oh how lovely it was, to walk down single lane, cobblestone roads and come across a very, very large gate with “GUINNESS” emblazoned on it. Such is the entrance to the Pearly Gates, as I see it at least.

What followed was amazing…7 stories of Guinness….how it was made, how it starts out on the bottom floor to the amazing view at the top which overlooks all Dublin. It surprised me the level of support it gives to the community around. I saw little 5 year olds with a Guinness supported jersey (yes, they actually played football international/soccer), and old Guinness billboards painted on aging buildings.

Next time you’re in Dublin, marvel at this city’s mix of old and new, of pubs and gathering places and it’s politics….and have a Guinness for me!