days 2&3

My second day in amsterdam got off to a late start, still dragged down by the jat-lag...sky and i took the tram to the star-pad on the other side of town. the plan was for me to hang out with willow for a few hours while they had some precious, star family adult time. willow is such a sweet and fun kid, and it was great to get a chunk of time with him. we headed over to nearby osterpark (east park), where he chased pigeons around for awhile with glee and abandon...then we went to the giant and luxurious playground there. it has an amazging suspended swinging teetor toter, a giant rope climbing structure, bike powered merry-go-round, huge sand-box, swings, slides...and a tennis court. the dutch really know how to make playgrounds. we hung out there for awhile, til it started raining and then headed back to the pad for a snack and some homeschooling.

later that evening, we all ventured out to a nearby anarchist squat for a showing of "The Battle in Seattle", a holywood-esque version of the WTO protest there in 1999. there was a big pot of soup and some bread there, and the room filled up with mostly black-clad and chain-smoking internationals. The film was certainly dramatic and had some live footage, though folks who were actually there have some criticism of this fictionalized account.

Heading home after some post-movie decompression with pax and hawina, we ended up staying up for a couple more hours with robin and anu back at casa robino. robin is the house papa/host and anu is a long-term guest there. The house is part of a hospitality network called bewelcome, "a culture crossing network that lets you share a place to sleep, meet up and help others on their way." There's a whole subculture of these hospitality networks, including couch-surfing....they had a spirited conversation about couchsurfing's increasingly corporate bend.