Amsterdam Saturday December 4th 2004

I am sitting in De Jaren...deemed my favorite cafe in Amsterdam. It is a placial modernist place, sprawling over two floors next to the Hotel D'Europe and with floor to celing windows looking onto the River Amstel, for which Amsterdam is named. Multitudes of people fill the place with a constant buzz of conversation in a full array of languages. The warmly lit multi tiered open space with a huge two story bar can be clearly seen with all it's splendour from outside and the environment is nothing but warm and inviting,. It seems so democratic with people of all ages and from all places filling it's small modern twosome and communal tables - such a mirror of this place. Still free - still open - despite a darkening shadow of xenophobia and fear.
I love Amsterdam for it's low key classiness and this openness. And the Dutch are overall a beautiful people; seeming almost universally bright, with their astounding command of the English language, the quality of which strikes me as better than many places in the States. Everyone and I mean Everyone speaks English (usually along with German and Frenc) and that is probably one of the reasons I think these people (along with the Danish, probably) as a whole are the most linguistically sophisticated in the world.
Drinking tea, looking at the other cafe goers, this place is always a great great stop.

It's been a crazy week for us at TOA, with travel abounding and many new potential prospects - I managed to break my own record for travel going from NYC to Pittsburgh and back and then on to Paris and Brussells all in the course of less than 24 hours. And within 12 hours of that on to Amsterdam. The enormously increased pace was due mostly to the feeling of urgency of the end of the year and the need to conclude it with a bunch of new prospects on the table. And I think that we did that nicely. Three new potential clients on the table in France and in Belgium made the coming of this weekend a much needed but greatly deserved time. Next week on to Germany and the UK.