I would normally have posted this much closer to when we returned from Amsterdam, but between my social calendar and coming down with a cold, it just took me a bit longer than anticipated. I still wanted to post it.
I'll start with this: back in 2002, Gabriel went to Europe for, I want to say, three months? When he came back, as I recall, he spent weeks talking about how much better the way of life was over there than in the U.S., with our comparatively stupid culture—to the point that I found it insufferable: I
get it! Well? I've been over there now, and I actually do kind of get it. Now, both Gabriel and I are far older and more mature now, and I'm not as inclined to bring this up endlessly. But would I have been had I visited Europe for the first time in my twenties? Maybe.
I don't know how many countries Gabriel visited, but it was way more than I did, even back during his 2002 trip. I should ask him sometime soon if he even knows how many countries he's been to. I know he just added Japan like a month ago when he and Lea took Tess there, which would mean he's added Asia as a continent to his list. So he's been to at least three continents—but, so have I: North America; Australia; now Europe. That said, adding the two newly visited countries of The Netherlands and Belgium to my list this summer only increased my number of visited countries to five. Previously it was only the United States, Canada, and Australia.
That's likely to change pretty rapidly over the next couple of years. If Shobhit and I fold in both Hong Kong and Singapore to our next trip to Australia like we are currently contemplating, that'll add Asia to my list, and thus four continents. When we go to World Pride Cape Town in South Africa in 2028, that'll make five continents, leaving only South America completely unvisited and unplanned. I really don't care if I never go to Antarctica, that's not important to me. I feel the same way about Alabama, though to Antarctica's credit, they have no oppressive laws for me to resent.
Anyway. I've thought a lot about Amsterdam in particular being far and away the most socially progressive city I have ever visited, and in all likelihood that I ever will visit. And I mean specifically in terms of both sexual openness and queer acceptance and inclusion, but in all likelihood in terms of drug use as well. I never did mention in any of my travelogues the number of "coffee shops" we saw in Amsterdam that were really weed shops, packed with people inside just hanging out and smoking. It's easy to imagine the countless pot shops in U.S. States that have legalized marijuana, but these only sell the product, and we have no cafes where you can sit inside and partake. I walked into one with Shobhit one time and we not thrilled by the air thick with smoke; we left it quickly, but Shobhit went back to one later on his own, only to be told that they could not accept American credit cards. We never carried any Euros in cash anywhere at all (though we did carry $100 in American cash each, just in case of an emergency—which I re-deposited into my bank account after returning home), so he briefly thought there was nothing he could do. He did ask at another shop later, and they quite inconsistently told him they
could accept an American credit card, but still he never bought anything. You could even buy mushrooms at some of these shops, which Shobhit briefly considered buying some of, but I very much discouraged this, as neither of us had any idea how much might be too much for him, and I had no interest in dealing with a husband on an overwhelming trip in a foreign country.
All that said, the people we met there were almost uniformly kind, and people I met at nude events at gay bars (I never did hang out at a bar there when it was not a nude event, now that I think about it) and at bathhouses were, I'll say, very friendly—even the ones who were clearly not interested in me physically. (I may never forget, or at least I don't want to forget, the very young, unbearably gorgeous, possibly French guy with the sweetest smile and nearly indecipherable accent I met at Sauna Nieuwezijds who chatted me up a bit after learning I was American, just to tell me, "I don't like Trump." He said this with a smile that melted my insides. I was like, "None of us do!") It's easy for me to imagine getting wistful about this trip more quickly than I do about most of our travel.
Combine all this with the staggering history of Amsterdam—or any part of Europe, really—that makes the "history" of any American city look like a joke by comparison, and I am left with what, in retrospect at least, seems to have been a quite magical experience. The Canal Belt is packed with tall (as in, generally 3-5 floors), narrow houses that are literally stuck to each other, with a wide variety of designs and many of them beautiful. It was especially fascinating to learn during our visit to the Museum of the Canals that
all of those houses are built on pylons first installed as foundations into the swampy land beneath them centuries ago—an estimated
11 million of them.
I loved staying in the Canal Belt in Amsterdam, otherwise regarded as the City Center; their combined 62 miles of canals exceeds the total in Venice, Italy (thought I would still jump at the chance to visit there as well) by 37 miles, and the concentrated ones in the Canal Belt within a roughly 1-mile radius and, where one can be drawn (because they arc facing the IJ River), a diameter of about 2.4 miles. Where there are streets, they are very narrow; between that and the ubiquitous canals, plus the very flat terrain (one reason I still would not want to live there—I would miss my snow capped mountains), it makes sense so many people there rely on bicycles (more than anywhere else in the world, to be clear). Many of the cars are also
very tiny for this reason, but I was kind of astonished by the number of regular-sized cars people drive through that area. The Canal Belt is also incredibly walkable, and we were happy just to walk everywhere, or use their also-very robust public transit system, especially once we figured out that paying direct from our credit cards at readers on trains and trams was actually cheaper than buying tickets at station kiosks.
This was the same in Brussels, by the way, which we stayed in for only three nights, as compared to the combined 13 nights in Amsterdam (8 before and 5 after Brussels), being the place we chose for a detour the week in between Amsterdam's World Pride Canal Parade and the World Pride March. The differences between the two cities that I noticed immediately were that Brussels had far more beautiful, middle-age architecture, but overall I preferred the vibe in Amsterdam. Amsterdam had more litter, but Brussels had more visibly unhoused people sleeping on streets. (It's worth noting that our time in both cities was mostly limited to just one area of the city.)
I will say that Belgium has a far more fascinating history, particularly on a linguistic level, with a dividing line
dating back to an Ancient Roman road, people speaking Flemish Dutch in the north and French to the south (with a few districts in the east speaking German, thereby explaining the country's three official languages). Even more specifically, the Brussels Capital Region is officially bilingual, yet 80% of its population speaks French as their native language, but its special zone is actually technically in Flanders, the Flemish-speaking section in the north, albeit very close to the aforementioned dividing line. This meant that, while most of what we heard in The Netherlands was Dutch when people were not speaking English (and Dutch was the predominant language of signage), most of what we heard people speaking in Brussels was actually French. Although, interestingly, the Muntpunt Central Library we visited in Brussels, quite close to our hotel, was actually a primarily Dutch-language library, which I did not realize when walking through it.
Brussels is also fascinating as the de facto capital of the European Union, though the seats of power there are actually spread between Brussels; Strasbourg in France (formal and legal seat of European Parliament, even though most of the work takes place in Brussels); Luxembourg (where the judicial and administrative hubs are located); and Frankfurt (location of the European Central Bank). Touring the European Parliament Hemicycle in Brussels is one of the things I am most grateful we got to do, and that
very nearly didn't happen.
Back when we took our
trips to Australia, the only other trips I have taken of comparable scale and length (though this one was by one day the
longest trip I have ever taken), I organized my photos within each location-collection by day. But, because there were too many things I would want to organize within other collections unto themselves (for example,
Libraries), these days I organize my photos albums separated by activity or points of interest. For the Netherlands and Belgium 2026, I wound up with my 1,993 photos spread across a total of
58 albums, which I sort chronologically by when we did or saw things—for the most part, anyway. I still have to come up with at least one album that is kind of a "general" dumping ground for random shots that don't go in any of the other albums, and generally I do that with the photo album created for each of the hotels we stayed in—three total, on this trip. By and large, if the photo was taken in the same neighborhood or area as the hotel, then it went into the hotel album. If it was taken on the way to some point of interest or event, it would go into the album for that point of interest or event.
I actually have the entirety of the 58 albums for this trip organized in a couple of different places:
here with all 58 albums in a single collection, under the header of "
Longest Vacations (Ranked by Number of Days)." They can also be found under "
Extended Vacations," of course (the criteria here being a trip of five or more days, including travel days), here organized into
four different collections:
The Netherlands & Belgium 2026: All Albums (again, 58 total)
Amsterdam 2026 (two collections within this:
Amsterdam 2026 (31 albums, not including Pride); and
World Pride Amsterdam 2026 (6 albums))
Rotterdam & the Hague 2026 (predictably two collections here:
Rotterdam 2026 with 7 albums, and
Brussels 2026 (11 albums)
In a small percentage of cases, photos will be cross-posted between different albums, but by and large they are organized separately. I considered organizing Zandvoort separately, perhaps in the collection with Rotterdam and the Hague—I took an NS train to get to all three of them, after all—but in the end decided to keep Zandvoort categorized in the "Amsterdam" collection because it's still part of the Amsterdam metropolitan area, whereas the other cities are not.
Let's see. What other themed Flickr collections have any of the albums from this trip been cross-referenced to? Certainly . . .
Observatories as well as
Observatories outside Seattle (10 new from this trip; I count rooftop bars here)
Libraries (6 new from this trip alone)
Rooftop Bars and Restaurants (5 from this trip)
And then of course there's
World Pride Amsterdam 2026, adding . . .
a third World Pride to that collection, and one album each to . . .
World Pride Parades - all cities
World Pride Marches - all cities
All Pride Parades (I have now been to 40, in 9 different cities; only 2 of these, in the late nineties, did I not take any photos at)
Pride: Random Hot Guys (now 32 of these albums from different Pride events since 2005)
[posted 9:13pm]
