Race, Rembrandt and Roaming

Another brisk, bright morning greeted me as I headed off to participate in the Amsterdam race. Unfortunately, this past week I was given a diagnosis of "moderately severe" osteoarthritis in my right knee, so it appears my running career is over. My dreams of competing in the London Olympics next year are dashed!

Luckily, I was able to convert my registration from a half-marathon run to a walk in the 8K. There weren't too many ambulating stragglers like me, but I forged ahead.

I was impressed with the organization of this race to efficiently handle so many people: 15,000 in the full marathon, 15,000 in the half marathon and 5,000 in the 8K (about the size do the Butte to Butte).

The other thing I was impressed with was how efficiently they addressed the biological needs of 35,000 racers. For the first time, I saw freestanding, open-air urinal quad-pods. Yup, that's right! Next to the usual unisex enclosed porta-potties were 6-8 urinal units that could address the needs of 4 guys simultaneously. At first, I thought it was the hand-washing station, but there no spigots and only a hole in the bottom of a basin with sides that flared out for privacy. And, yes I could tell people were using them because these units only stand chest high. These Dutch racers are not a shy group, I guess!

The race was tight going through Vondel Park, which is large and multi-functional like Central Park in New York City.

Then it thinned out along the canals,

which allowed me to catch a woman who had just been enjoying the Sunday morning sun with her neighbor in the next balcony. I could just see my mother taking a moment like that with her friend.

I strutted to the finish line remembering all the wonderful, challenging, painful, agonizing, energizing, and significant races I've run in my life. All of it inspired by my father's love of running.

So, as a symbolic gesture, I left my old Sauconys on the track...

...and walked away from that phase of my life. Thank you for the gift of running, Dad.

By the way, here's the winner of the marathon finishing a few minutes after me. Wilson Chebet from Kenya won in a blistering 2 hours, 5 minutes.

After switching gears, Rembrandt's house was next on the agenda.

It was so impressive to be in the studios, the storage rooms which held his artifacts, and the drawing room where he sold paintings. To experience the environment in which he created such great works of art left us inspired.

We saw demonstrations of how he created his etchings and how he mixed his paints.

Makes you want to take a piece of copper and start etching!

After we closed the museum down, we took to wandering the streets like any good tourista, getting lost and going in circles. It doesn't help that the city center is a maze of half-circles. We kinda went like this trying to find the well-known Dam Square, at the site of the dam on the Amstel River:

And we imagined Dam Square would look this:

But it looked like this instead:

Wild Billy's Circus was in town for the marathon weekend! It seemed a tad incongruous, eh?

More shots of our roamings:

Even though these are abandoned bikes, it's considered theft if you touch one!

Is this a shoe-in for Stupid Tourist Photo of the Year?

The steps down to a beautiful basement floral shop.

A shot from our little deck.