Survival of the Fittest

8 weeks into Dutch living and I'm finally starting to feel normal again.  We, or maybe just me (ok, probably just me), had a tough time transitioning and learning to feel comfortable with the inability to comprehend anything written or spoken around us.  I've since resigned myself to being the "dumb" American, and now I just own up to my inadequacies.  I will point blank tell people that I don't understand what they're saying, and I ask for help whenever and wherever I need it, which goes against everything I am, thus the difficult transition.  Our most interesting experiences with my new communication strategy have been in Asian restaurants.  The employees understand their native language and Dutch, and we don't understand either one.  Menu selections have been made by pointing at pictures and nodding...but it just goes to show that we can still communicate, even if it's not with words.

We are also getting out and exploring a little more, which helps cure boredom.  A couple of weekends ago we went to Amsterdam.  The trip was not so much a sight-seeing excursion but more of an experiment to see whether or not we could figure out the public transportation system.  So 3 hours into what should have been a 1 hour trip, we finally made it.  But, hey, we now know how to travel via the Metro AND the trains (2 completely separate entities), should the need arise.  Score not 1, but 2 for the Crane family...woohoo!  And on top of that, there were some cool places to look at that were still open once we made it to the city. 

There is so much to see and do in Amsterdam that there was no way we could cover everything in one afternoon, but we should have no problem going back once we have another free weekend.  Here are just a few photos from that day...

This "bike parking lot" shown above was the first thing we saw as we exited Amsterdam Centraal, the train station located in the center of the city.  Three full floors of nothing but bicycles...

It was impossible to get a clear shot of this iconic symbol because people climb on it and in it and just sit so they can people-watch or take pictures of their own.  But we took a picture anyway because a trip to Amsterdam would be incomplete without it.

As the city is surrounded by canals, people seem to spend a lot of time in boats.  I was hoping to capture the picnic table and small grill in the boat below, but I was a bit too slow.  Natives sure know how to get the most out of small spaces. 

One of the cool places we visited was the Rijksmuseum (Rijks rhymes with "likes").  It is a museum that is dedicated to the history and art of the Netherlands.  We actually saw REAL Rembrandt paintings! The picture below is a little crooked because I had to shove my way through 50 people to get to it, and then I knelt down and took the photo between the knees of two folks who wouldn't budge.  But I got it!  (Sorry Michelle, we didn't make it to the Van Gogh museum before it closed, but there's always next time.)

As a former science teacher, I once covered the topics of natural selection and, by close association, the term "survival of the fittest".   The basic concept is that organisms that are best adapted to their environment are the ones that will prevail. It doesn't inherently mean that an organism must be in the best physical shape, only that the ability to adapt is available and used to combat adversity.  I suppose it's a good thing I wasn't in a life or death survival situation as I probably would've been eaten by some large reptilian predator by now, but I think I've finally got this.  Here's to more adaptation ahead! Cheers!!