We took a train this morning to Amsterdam to visit Lynn Kaplanian Buller, a friend of Chan’s since Moscow days. Lynn has been a resident of Holland for forty-five years and owns the very successful American Book Center, with locations in Amsterdam and Den Haag. Willem and Lynn got acquainted, we had a lovely lunch, caught up, and solved all the problems of the world.

One thing I haven’t reported yet on previous days is that Willem got “busted” on the train platform on our first morning in Holland. The train platforms are all outside, but some are under partial cover. Willem was having a cigarette while standing under one of them, when a pair of fully armed railroad policemen approached him and explained that smoking was only allowed at the far end of the platform that is completely in the open. The policeman had a lengthy conversation on the subject and asked for Willem’s ID. Since our passports were in the hotel safe, Willem gave him his US driver’s license, which the policeman used to locate him in a database accessed from his smartphone. The database had a lot of information on meneer Offerman. Don’t know whether it was Interpol or some other source, but it was impressive and reassuring, as well as scary, to know how much personal data is so readily available. In the end, Willem got a stern warning instead of the usual 90 Euro (US$98) fine.

We have been using public transportation all week, and it is magnificent. The trains are convenient, comfortable, and punctual. The first photo below shows the double decker car that composes most trains. The second one shows a railway map with circles around the cities we have visited, and the third one shows an interior of a railway station with raised tiles for blind travelers. Picture number four shows an area of the train that is marked off for bike transport.

It is also interesting to note the different architecture and “feeling” of the various stations. The traditional feeling of s’Hertogenbosch comes through in the first photo. Ye olde Amsterdam is evident in the second. In front of the station, I got a shot of a poster in honor of Herdenkingsdag and Bevrijdingsdag, that proclaims in large letters, “Freedom Seems So Normal”; and underneath in smaller letters, “Thanks to May 4 and 5”.

Rotterdam, ninety percent destroyed during the war and rebuilt since, is the “millennial”, shouting out modernity and in-your-facedness.