{"id":177,"date":"2009-10-31T15:04:21","date_gmt":"2009-10-31T11:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisabrounstein.com\/blog\/?p=177"},"modified":"2009-10-31T15:04:21","modified_gmt":"2009-10-31T11:34:21","slug":"no-such-thing-as-personal-space-in-amsterdam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/?p=177","title":{"rendered":"No Such Thing as Personal Space in Amsterdam"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"stopMaybe it’s because everything is packed together and everything is small but it seems there is no such thing as personal space here. \u00a0 When we had dinner at Tabac the other night. \u00a0 We sat at the end of the bar as the 5 tables in the restaurant were over packed with other diners. \u00a0 It was the perfect spot for me, I thought. \u00a0 Since I was at the end of the bar and there was a table a couple of feet behind me I figured I would be out of the way of the other people as well as the wait staff. \u00a0 But like I said, there is no such thing as personal space in Amsterdam. \u00a0 For part of our meal, a man stood nearly leaning against me drinking a beer. \u00a0 Sure, the restaurant is tiny and it was busy. \u00a0 There just isn’t a consideration that he shouldn’t have been leaning on me. \u00a0 When he finished his beer he literally put his glass down next to my dinner plate on the bar. \u00a0 I said to Ben, “Really!?” \u00a0 He just smiled and moved the man’s glass to the inside edge of the bar.\"amsterdam<\/p>\n

The other night we were walking near the Amstel to go to the Italian restaurant. \u00a0 It was a lovely night. \u00a0 It was Thursday so it was late night shopping here in Amsterdam. \u00a0 Most of the stores usually close between 5p and 6p but on Thursday they are open until 9p. \u00a0 So, the streets were thick with shoppers and tourists and people getting off work. \u00a0 Rather than say excuse me or step into the street to avoid me a man literally walked into me hard from behind, grabbed me, gave me a bit of a rub and a squeeze as he walked by. \u00a0 My little purse was up under my coat so it wasn’t like he was a thief. \u00a0 It was a pretty obvious what he was doing. \u00a0 The funny thing about it was he was in a very nice suit. \u00a0 As I have said, I am definitely the largest person I have seen here so maybe I am like steak to a starving person.<\/p>\n

\"smallestYesterday, I spent the day walking around the city while Sima worked. \u00a0 It was so lovely. \u00a0 I saw the smallest home in Amsterdam. \u00a0 I was on a search for a yarn store so I walked through parts of the Jordaan I hadn’t yet seen. \u00a0 I found myself in a little square. \u00a0 I sat on a bench and people watched for a little while. \u00a0 A walking tour came by so I cocked my ear towards them and listened. \u00a0 That is how I knew about the smallest home.<\/p>\n

I sat across the street from Sima’s salon at a little cafe called Festina Lente and had sparkling water and watched the world go by. \u00a0 When Sima got off work we went back over to Festina Lente and had a beer and bread with dip. \u00a0 Can you smell the garlic? \u00a0 \"dingy\"Wow. \u00a0 It was this beautiful crusty bread served with garlic aioli, sun dried tomato pesto, and an olive tapenade. \u00a0 Then we walked over to a friend’s house. \u00a0 They live in a beautiful restored building that was originally a sweets factory.<\/p>\n

Later in the evening we met Ben over at some other friends. \u00a0 As we were walking and walking and walking I was again very grateful that John and I started walking weeks before I came here. \u00a0 The practice has made all the difference in the world.<\/p>\n

\"redAround 11:30 we walked over to the Red Light District. \u00a0 What a fascinating place. \u00a0 All kinds of women in the windows. \u00a0 For 50 Euro you can have the woman of your choice. \u00a0 Some of the women were very beautiful. \u00a0 Some, well, not so much. \u00a0 Black women, white women, asian women, homely women, blond women, brunettes, red heads, some with glasses, some smoking. \u00a0 Then there are the windows that have the blue lights. \u00a0 The blue lights indicate they are transexual. \u00a0 So, you have these beautiful women in tiny lingerie with outrageous figures busting out of their bras and a penis outline under their g-string. \u00a0 We walked around for hours. \u00a0 You aren’t allowed to take pictures of the women so I tried taking some long exposure images with my little camera of some of the streets.<\/p>\n

I have much to do to get ready for tonight’s Halloween party. \u00a0 Will post details and pictures tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe it’s because everything is packed together and everything is small but it seems there is no such thing as personal space here. \u00a0 When we had dinner at Tabac the other night. \u00a0 We sat at the end of the bar as the 5 tables in the restaurant were over packed with other diners.… Continue reading No Such Thing as Personal Space in Amsterdam<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trip-to-amsterdam","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}