The first time when I visited Amsterdam was November 2005, more than 5 years ago. And since then, I had countless visits. But, whenever I was here, it was in winter or almost winter.
Always, the sea gulls were flying high and low, and cutting through the chilly winds over the canals. Sometimes, the sky was so blue and brought the frozen air from the broad empty blue to the ground, and of course, on the surface of the canals. Many times, the sky was with full of thick clouds, and was so gray. But the canals in winter were deeply dark, so the sky gray looked like quasi-bright white line on them.
Still I remember what I saw on the occasion of my first visit in here. I certainly remembered the man in his late 30's or mid-40's from Luxembourg whom I met in a business conference. This is not because we had a difficult business between us, or he was so brilliant and impressive on the conference. This is because after the day of the conference, I happened to met him again in a hotel restaurant in the morning, and took the same table for breakfast. When I saw him, quite naturally I said to him, hey, good morning, and he replied with smile.
Our conversation was mostly about our common business, but at a certain point, I happened to ask him when he came here last time. He said, that was in 1980's. That's quite long time ago, I said with a surprise. He told that he was in his late teen or 20's, and he drove his old VW with then-his girl friend, now-his wife, and came all the way to Amsterdam. That was the first time and he thought at the time that it was the last time to came here, because he had no reason to come again.
Then in winter 2005, he had a reason, a business.
Here was Amsterdam, without reasons, I was/am/will be here, maybe in winter.
I saw a few bats flying under cover of night in Nice. The night breeze was basically warm in April here, sometimes I felt a little bit cold flow of the air, which certainly contained the smell of the sea, a part of the Mediterranean Sea.
But with this flow, the breeze was nice, so nice.
I heard the sounds of waves, cars on the roads, and rustling leaves of palms. Moreover, the breeze brought me whispering of several juveniles on a beach. They were just in front of the shoreline, and talking, laughing, throwing a stone into white waves, and even running with each other like 100m sprint. Here was Nice, I just kept walking on the Promenade des Anglais.
The sky was blue like water color, and always high. The light clouds gathered like a wide thin layer of a haze, just try to cover the blue, but still fail to climb up. The breeze was not enough for me to be nice, but I understood that it was part of a good summer day here.
It was in the summer 2008. I was on the top of the hill and looking down at Schloss Schönbrunn, where I was on the heavy, white snow day, 8 years ago. Same place, but for me, it's different. Totally, different.
Different? I understood what I felt different did not come from the summer blue sky and strong sun shinning, or winter white snow and chilly north wind of 8 years ago.
To say honestly, I felt that the difference came from Schloss Schönbrunn, which maybe had been there for more than two or three hundred years, I guess. Schloss Schönbrunn in my memory on the winter day was, actually, bigger and brighter than what I saw on the summer day.
I remembered that the ceders with full snow on its each branch and twig in the garden were so tall that I thought they were a quasi-snow wall for the solemn place in here. On a summer day, I looked up the blue sky between the branches of the ceders, and the birds in there sang a song like chatting. Here was Wien, Austria.
Looking up the Chateau de Vianden, I walked down the main street or main slope of small Vianden village. The summer sun sometime was shinning, and sometimes hiding behind the streaks of thin clouds, which did not look like a typical series of feelings of summer.
I was looking for a cafe or brasserie that could offer cheap or reasonable lunch, in short, sandwiches, but could not find the typical appropriate one I was imaginary looking for. When I stopped in front of the casual and stylish cafe, which did not look like the cafe around this country area, the girl in the cafe smiled to me, as if she said, come in and be relax in here.
I asked her if the cafe had lunch menu. She said, unfortunately, there was no sandwich here, but kept telling me that I could buy a pretty good pizza in the pizza-shop next to the cafe, and bring it to the cafe. She added that inside the cafe, customers was able to enjoy a quasi-theater with a huge, wide screen.
Of course, I went to the pizza-shop and came back to the cafe with a pretty good vegetable pizza, and I ordered an iced cafe-latte. Waiting for the latte, I looked at the big quasi-theater screen, which showed the animation, Tom & Jerry.
Here is Vianden, Luxembourg.
The first time when I visited Amsterdam was November 2005, more than 5 years ago. And since then, I had countless visits. But, whenever I was here, it was in winter or almost winter.
