While my wife had grown up in Berlin, I had never been in Europe before, so I found our first day of wandering around through Amsterdam, full of new sights and sounds. We ambled down the city streets with the tall skinny Dutch buildings on one side of us and canals on the other. We visited an open market, and bought some cheese and apples for lunch.
While walking in Amsterdam one has to be very attentive, because of tremendous number of the bicycles that are zooming by on all of the streets. Amsterdam has long tried to discourage automobiles, encouraging its residents to use bicycles, buses, and trams.
Regular bicycle lanes often run adjacent to the sidewalks, and while I was used to watching out for vehicular traffic, I was often caught off guard, not noticing the bicycles speeding toward me, immediately beside the crowded sidewalks. Several had to “jing-jing” their bells, to get the unobservant tourist out of the way.
View my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
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