The Amsterdam Central Station..This would be pakdokter's third trip to Amsterdam. The first trip was way back in 1978. Pakdokter went on a 2-months back-pack holiday in Europe with pakdokter's life-long partner. It was our honey-moon! Amsterdam was one of the last stops, after having trekked and 'train-ed' all the way from Prague ( it was still under the communist regime, then) to Paris, on to Spain ( where the train tracks were blown up by the Basque rebels forcing us to walk back all the way from the Spanish town of San Sebastian - Basque country - into France to continue on the next leg along the French Riviera into Italy, then the Switzerland, up the Black Forest into Germany, cruising up the Rhine before taking the train again to Amsterdam.
the canals of Amsterdam..With the little money left, we checked into a 'dingy' hotel ( must be at the red light district!) near the Amsterdam Central Station. Pakdokter's memory of Amsterdam of that trip was the 'red light district' for which Amsterdam is famous for and of a black African peddling 'hashish' to pakdokter from across the street. Pakdokter's partner remembered that our hotel bed was not that clean, with strands of pubic hair on the blanket forcing us to sleep without changing into our 'jammies'.....So, it was only a one-night stop in Amsterdam for us then!
The second trip to this city of tulips was in the 90's en-route to New York and New Orleans where pakdokter attended the Annual Convention of the American Psychiatric Association. With a little bit more money in the pocket then, pakdokter remembers some of the nice restaurants we dined at in Amsterdam, the Riijsk Museum as well as the canal cruise that we took during that cool autumn day.
But what made that trip more memorable was the fact that we were pulled out from the queue while boarding for the North West plane to New York at the Schipol Airport by the security officers and were interrogated by them on why and what our previous trips to Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan were for as evidenced from the visas pasted and posted in our passports. And true enough, a year or so later, the terrorists struck the World Trade Centre when we were driving in the Cappadocia of Central Turkey. I guess the Americans had already got wind of the terrorists plans even then and were on the lookout for any suspicious-looking characters going to the USA. Being Muslims, probably was the reason that made us being picked out by them.
This current trip to Amsterdam was en-route to Edinburgh. Pakdokter's daughter, Raena, had completed her MSc(Econs) at the Edinburgh University and we were going to attend her university convocation. We chose to re-visit Amsterdam as we had not gone there for quite a long time.
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