►re Than Tulips
^^ounters, though, because the Dutch have
m such a liking to American hot dogs.
<cx_>iDutch lady told me that hot dogs and
cheeseburgers may soon replace raw her
ring as a favorite Dutch food. Now me,
I'll take raw herring any day.
Didn't figure it was worth while stand
ing in the cold so I went on up to Amster
dam. There is a real soldier town.
Amsterdam has beer, women, song,
English language movies and dozens of
night clubs, all designed to make you
think you're someplace else. We stopped
in the Gay Paris, the Gay London, the
Gay Old Vienna, andniie Gay Old Rome:
I think you have to go to some other
country to find one called Gay Old Hol
land.
The town was plenty gay. GIs here tell
me that they don't talk about Amsterdam
much back at their bases because they're
trying to keep it all for themselves. But
somehow the word's leaked out. Which
makes touring U. S girls, now beginning
to arrive in profusion, that much happier.
GI escorts always add something to sight
ing.
n^fhe night I was there it was the
Queen's birthday. Just like any woman,
she wouldn't tell the Dutch which birth
day it was, but that didn't stop them from
celebrating.
I met a soldier from Germany who
comes up here on all his leaves and claims
it's the celebratingest place in Europe.
If they're- not_ having a party for the
I even went past one place called Canal
Street that had all sorts of girls sitting in
windows, but I don't think it was an auto
mat.
One GI from France told me that he
and a lot of his friends come to Holland
just to eat a Dutch breakfast. It makes an
American breakfast look like roll and a
cup of coffee.
By the time a serviceman wades into a
plateful of bread or rolls, butter, jam,
cheese, ham, sausage, eggs, bacon, milk
and coffee or Dutch cocoa, he doesn't
have to buy any more food for the rest of
the -day - He- cam use the- money he-saves
for beer.
I went on one of those bus tours for
tourists where almost everyone was an
American serviceman. I could tell they
were Americans because they all "had
hangovers from the Queen's birthday
celebration. The Dutch people are so used
to that type of thing that it didn't bother
them.
Americans also get used to bicycles
here. One out of two Dutchmen has one.
We had a guide who explained about
everything in eight languages as we rode
along. Only trouble was by the time he
got around to languages we could under
stand, the thing he was talking about was
12 miles behind us.
We went to a Dutch seaside village
called Volendam and a nearby island
called Marken. They aren't very far from
Amsterdam, and all the people that live
there wear their old traditional costumes.
But you can hardly see them without fight
ing your way through a mob of camera-
toting tourists.
The old folks look picturesque, but it's
the youngsters that steal the show. Every
time you give one of these tiny tots some
money to pose for a picture he goes run
ning off down the street yelling to his
friends in Dutch. Whatever they're yelling
probably means, "I've found some more
suckers, fellas," when it's translated.
Then we went to a farm in Edam,
where they make Edam cheese. Can you
imagine that? They had a big row of
cows lined up to show the visitors just
where their cheese came from. And the
way they're personalizing everything these
days, you'll soon be able to ask for
cheese from a particular cow.
Besides, it was the first time that I ever
knew cows give cheese. I thought it was
goats. {Continued on page A)
Queen's birthday, they'll have one be
cause it's only 51 weeks away.
In fact in Holland, the Dutch claim
that the Amsterdamers do so much party
ing that the) never have any money in the
bank. They say the policemen are so poor
ly paid that they're armed with bows and
arrows. Meanwhile, the Amsterdamers
just claim that the rest of Holland is
too conservative and down another beer.
There are a lot of reasons why the GIs
like this town, but one of them is because
it's so Americanized. In fact the Dutch
b*ve about the only automat restaurants
seen outside New York. They seem
A be crazy about automats and little glass
windows. They put everything in win
dows.
Music is as much a part of the life of the Burghers of Amsterdam as their herring
and their cheeseA horse drawn pipe organ sends its lilting tones across the quiet
canala common sigki in the streets of Holland9s capital.
