I was an inspiration

Monday, July 13, 2026

A day or so ago, our guide Rob said he would be taking us on a walking tour of Amsterdam. I asked if we would be going to see the world’s shortest escalator. He had never heard of it. I told him I had done no research – it was not world famous – but there was a department store in town with a 4-step escalator that I like to ride up and down a few times each trip. He came back a while later and said he had been thinking about it and he knew of two other interesting escalators in Amsterdam and that he should probably put together an escalator tour. I told him I would go on that tour.

Last night he said he was excited about the escalator tour and was offering it to everyone after the city tour. Twelve of us took him up on his offer, and everyone agreed it was about the best thing we did the whole trip.

First escalator: Primark very short escalator. I don’t know how many times we went down and up and down and up and down and up, but it was a lot.

Second escalator: A metro stop with displays of things that were excavated while building the metro there. The displays were on both sides of the stop, so we rode down, crossed over, rode up and down, crossed over, and up again. Then we went down again to take the metro.

Third escalator: There was a famous cabaret singer from Amsterdam named Ramses Shaffy and they made art of him above an escalator at another metro stop. Sometimes there is nothing. Then little colored lines appear, one by one. They represent metro lines and also important people in this guy’s life. It ends up with his picture. It was so much fun to keep going up and down as it appeared above us.

This should be the picture of the day, but up and down pictures don’t always come out right. Here is a bunch of people loving life.

I love escalators.

Everyone on our tour was just having a ball – it felt like we were discovering something that no one had ever done before. We went to a street market to find lunch before taking the metro home again.

I love beads. Lots of beads shining in the sun is irresistible.

Becky is a tremendous photographer, and I try to take her picture some times – because the photographer isn’t usually in the pictures. I told Becky and Sally I am just taking the pictures they can’t take. They have started taking my picture in return. Here is when our city tour groups ran into each other.

Dinner was in a little castle-y building that was once the main gate into the city. Everyone coming in had to go through the red doors. We had a wonderful watermelon, arugula, burrata salad, then they tried to serve me a big piece of fish. I said no thank you. I did join in on the dessert – a raspberry filled profiterol with chocolate gelato.

We went on a canal tour after dinner. Nothing like looking at Amsterdam from the water side. We sat on the back ledge instead of inside, because outside is always better.

They said this was going to be our only chance to get a picture of a view of seven bridges. I couldn’t see anything much through the tunnel, but I took a bunch of pictures. It was only after I took about eight pictures that I realized I was really taking a picture of Scott’s hand. I had such a great laugh about that.

I saw a kitty in a very high window.

I saw a doggy in a boat.

I saw an elephant hard at work.

Here are some pictures from our city tour.

And Kevin and his new duck.