Anne Frank

Here it is my final day in Amsterdam. Our meetings finished up sooner than expected, so I had most of yesterday and all of today to do as I pleased. We've been galavanting around Amsterdam shopping, sightseeing, riding on the canal and even took a quick jaunt throught the Red Light District (gasp! don't worry, it was fast, we were only looking and I had my eyes closed most of the time.) I have a lot to catch up on in the blog from the past 2 days. The first of the week was pretty boring, unless you want to hear all about the inside of a Nike conference room in Hilversum. I hope to break it all down in a series of blogs when I get home, because I don't have much time to sit down and type while I'm here. I did want to get a bit down now, though.


Today we had the opportunity to visit the Anne Frank house as it's only a mile or so from our hotel. We walked down after breakfast and were able to walk right in to the museum. You enter the museum from a few buildings down, watch a few brief little videos then progressively work your way through the warehouse below then into the offices above and Secret Annex beyond that.

In reading and studying the Diary of Anne Frank in school, I always pictured their hidden area as a small little room tucked into the attic of a little row home. I was quite surprised at the size of the space they had to hide in, but then I related back to the fact there were 8 people and they couldn't leave. They also don't have any of the furniture in the space. I know my apartments have always looked bigger until I moved in.

It was a humbling experience for me to remember back to the story of Anne Frank and to be in the spot where it actually happened. I was able to look out the window she used to peek from and look down to the street where she saw many of her friends carted away. I saw the original wallpaper she had pasted with pictures of movie stars to help brighten her mood. I was able to look into the gardens at the actual tree she used to look at to lighten her mood. I saw the concentration camp registration cards of her family and the Van Pels.

It's one thing to learn of the Holocaust and read of the atrocities that happened. It's entirely another to be in the place that it happened, to see the yellow "Joden" star, to see the photographs of the SS carting away real people and be standing on the very street the photographs were taken on.

Canals...

...are usually one of the first things that come to mind when one thinks of Amsterdam. For my first few days here canals were the only thing on my mind, but unfortunately they were of the root variety. I awoke early Saturday morning to intense pain in a tooth I've had problems with over the past year. The filling has fallen out multiple times and I've been reluctant to have the same dentist fix it again. So when the filling fell out a couple weeks ago, I put off having it fixed until I could find a new dentist.

Murphy's law struck and I found myself in the chair at my old dentist having a partial root canal the morning I was supposed to leave for Amsterdam. I hopped from the chair at 9am with a temporary filling, a promise the infection was taken care of and a reassurance that I didn't need any special painkillers or antibiotics. I cruised home, grabbed Becky and the kids and headed to the airport.

The novicaine was wearing off right about the time we took off and I was managing the pain with Advil just fine. As the evening progressed the pain grew worse. I kept myself occupied by watching the inflight movies (The Simpsons and Evan Almighty) and reading a couple magazines I bought at the airport. Once the stewardess found out about my situation she was an absolute lifesaver and kept me in a steady supply of ice. The flight from Portland to Frankfurt was a bit uncomfortable, I didn't sleep much, but it was still somewhat enjoyable and uneventful.

We arrived in Frankfurt and I was still fairly comfortable and managing the pain. The connecting flight to Amsterdam is where things went south. The smaller plane pressurized quicker than the larger plane and ascended quicker. By the time we were descending into Amsterdam I thought my head was going to explode the pain was so bad.

Once the plane depressurized I was able to manage the pain, but it would still come in waves. There were a few times Monday and Tuesday that I almost vomitted it was so bad. Then Tuesday evening we were at dinner and I got a small piece of food in the offending tooth. I used some floss to pull it out and a piece of my temporary filling came with it. INSTANT RELIEF! My dentist is soooo fired when I get back.

I still have some pain, and the infection is still there. All in all it is very manageable now. I've heard antiobiotics are available OTC here, so I'll check that out this afternoon while we're out and about.

I suck...

...at writing. Just ask my mom how much I wrote while I was in New Zealand for 2 years. As such I've been avoiding the whole blogging craze (apart from the occasional fluff post on my favorite gaming site). Now I sit here on the eve of my first official business trip as a "grown-up" and need a way to keep in touch with my family and share the excitement with them. I have blog space on MySpace, Facebook, 2old2play, and a million other places on the web, but I thought it'd be nice to start anew here.

I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon to spend a week at Nike's European headquarters in Hilversum, Netherlands. I'm heading over with a small contingent of imaging operations folks to discuss apparel imaging as it relates on a global scale. I was chosen to go based on work I've been doing around imaging automation and data consolidation. Quite flattering that a low-level illustrator jockey like me be chosen for such a trip.

Nike definitely does things right. I'll be flying Lufthansa business class direct from Portland to Frankfurt, Germany then a quick hop to Amsterdam. We'll be staying in the heart of Amsterdam at the Amsterdam American hotel, so the evenings after work should be fun exploring (don't worry mom, I'll stay away from the red-light district and hash bars). We also have plans to visit the Rijksmuseum and see original works by Rembrandt, Vermeer and my favorite, Frans Hals. Hopefully we can make it out to the Frans Hals museum as well so I can see my favorite piece, the Archers of St. Hadrian.



I'm taking my camera and laptop, so keep an eye out for updates here.