Episode 565: Window-shopping In Amsterdam

Today, we left Berlin for Amsterdam. One final comment on Berlin though: The public transport system there is so trusting. There are no ticket gantries at the metro stations. Instead, you have ticket validators, which people are supposed to insert their tickets into. Of course, the whole system is predicated on the belief that Germans would never try to cheat it, and for that matter, said belief is probably true. I just wonder how much revenue is lost to dishonesty. We stopped just outside Amsterdam to see Edam and clogs being made. In one of those bizarre intercultural things, the young lady talking about the cheese told us her name was Jamie, which is hardly a Dutch name by any stretch of the imagination. The reason? Her parents love the name. She, on the other hand, doesn't like it so much because she sometimes gets mistaken for a guy when people see her name on a list. The cheeses we tried afterward were nice, although I generally prefer cheeses with a softer texture, like Camembert. We took a short walk around the (in)famous red-light district, which made me reconsider how liberal I think myself to be. (I shouldn't need to clarify, but I do mean I'm more straitlaced than I thought.) Managed to get an idea for a poem out of it at least!