You get two sorts of rice and twelve or seventeen or twenty-two different dishes to go with it. Rijsttafel for two put a pretty good dent in our budget and started me thinking about tax write-offs. The weather cooperated on Sunday, our first full day in the city which, incidentally, was founded 700 years ago when a dog threw up. We began with a stroll through the Vondelpark, Amsterdam's most centrally-located green. Amsterdam's like Venice.
Water is everywhere.
You head to Vondelpark or out to the suburbs. The park's a haven for cute kids, cyclists, dog-walkers, duck feeders . . . This chilly Sunday I was warmed by the site of a young lady named Sarah, who was teaching a group of locals the basics of inline skating. I even photographed her, thinking her face in my story might give me an in with her later. It's a good face.