Review: Rederij Plas canal tour in Amsterdam

There are at least six companies offering boat tours of Amsterdam's canals. My family chose the one offered by Rederij Plas, at their dock just off the Damrak (across the street from the Sex Museum). I wish we had chosen differently.

There was nothing awful about this one-hour tour, but the recorded narration
– offered in Dutch, German and English – was rather thin. It noted, for example, that a particular house formerly belonged to a particular Amsterdam businessman, but failed to tell us what was notable about him.

A tour boat view of one of Amsterdam's canals

A lot of the tour had no narration, so there was clearly room to expand what they offered. I'm sure a decent historian could come up with many colorful stories about a city that has such extensive history as Amsterdam.

And frankly, the concept of a single narration tape in which the same thing is repeated in three languages seems antiquated. Wouldn't this be a logical venue for using individual headsets, so passengers could choose the language they want and get more detailed information?

I can't complain about the price of this tour – 9 euros ($12) for adults and 5 euros ($6.65) for kids. Still, I'd suggest trying a different one.

Also, read these articles:

• Review: Sharm Hotel in Amsterdam
• Review: Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam
• What's the deal with breakfast in Amsterdam?

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Review: Sharm Hotel in Amsterdam

The Sharm Hotel in Amsterdam is a very basic hotel in an excellent location. If you just need a place to sleep while you're visiting the city, but don't need any special comforts, it might work for you.

The Sharm won't work for you, though, if you don't like to climb stairs or you're bringing heavy bags. The first thing you'll find is that you have to ascend an incredibly steep flight of stairs just to reach the check-in desk, and then one or two more equally steep flights to reach your room. We were huffing and puffing by the time we reached our top-floor room – and we were only carrying two modest backpacks.

Our room was small, and the bathroom even smaller. You could practically sit on the toilet, wash your hands in the sink and take a shower all at the same time.

There was no air conditioning, which probably isn't a big deal most of the year, but we happened to arrive on one of the hottest days of the year and our room was quite warm and stuffy.

Still, the room did have a TV and working Wi-Fi. The beds were small. The pillows were quite good.

The Sharm's big strength is its location. It's just a 15-minute walk from the Amsterdam Centraal train station and just a 2-minute walk from the Anne Frank House. You're close to Dam Square, and there are plenty of restaurants and shops in the area. It's pleasant to stroll along the canals in the neighborhood.

There's no automated way to reserve a room through the hotel's website, but there is a contact form. I made our reservation through Booking.com, and we ended up paying $191 for one night in our four-bed room. I consider that really expensive for this sort of accommodation, but all the hotels in Amsterdam seemed to be high-priced in the middle of summer.

Also see these articles:

• Review: Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam
• Review: Rederij Plas canal tour in Amsterdam
• What's the deal with breakfast in Amsterdam

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What's the deal with breakfast in Amsterdam?

When my family visited Amsterdam recently, we were pleased to see a pancake restaurant near our hotel. The restaurant, located in the Western Canal Ring neighborhood, looked like a good place for breakfast.

But the next morning, arriving at about 7:45, we were surprised to discover that the restaurant didn't open until 8:30. That seemed odd for a breakfast place, but we didn't dwell on it as we headed down the street to a bagel and coffee place. But that shop also was closed, and didn't open until 9:00 a.m.

Looking around, we found some several other cafes or coffee shops, some with the word "breakfast"  prominently displayed outside. None of them were open. None opened earlier than 9 a.m.  We ended up eating breakfast at a quaint Dutch place known as ... McDonalds. It was the only place open.

In the United States, breakfast and coffee shops are open at least by 6 a.m. (if they're not 24 hours). A restaurant that didn't open until 9 a.m., well, wouldn't be a breakfast place.

So what's deal in Amsterdam? It's not like there weren't any potential customers. As we strolled the streets at 8 a.m., there were plenty of people on bikes riding to work (this was a Tuesday), and small groups of tourists out, too. Even if locals don't eat breakfast out, you'd think the market for feeding hungry tourists would be ripe.

I honestly don't get it. Is there someone out there who can explain to me the mystery of the Amsterdam breakfast culture? Please put your comments below.

See also these articles:
Review: Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam

Review: Sharm Hotel in Amsterdam

Review: Rederij Plas canal tour in Amsterdam

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L.A. Fitness deal: $34.99 a month and no initiation

Visitors to my blog are reporting success in getting a good online deal at L.A. Fitness – $34.99 a month and zero initiation fee. True, that's not as good a deal as before –  $29.99/zero initiation – but it looks like L.A. Fitness doesn't offer that anymore.
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Update on this topic: Want a deal on joining L.A. Fitness? Call Paul
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Important update: See "How to Save Money Joining L.A. Fitness"
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Here's what to do to get this deal:

Go to the L.A. Fitness "Friends and Family" page.  You may find that this link only takes you to the L.A. Fitness home page. So you have to trick them a little bit.  At the L.A. Fitness home page, look for a "Join Online Today" ad to appear (it's one of the scrolling ads). Click on it. On the next page, you'll see a button that says "Join Now." Click on that.

You should then be looking at a page that says "Join Now Online" and "Find by State or Zip Code." At that point, come back  to this article and click on the "Friends and Family" link again. This should take you to the page where you enter a code.

As of Sept. 5, 2013, these codes work:

1902356

1921660

1958841

1958868

 
As of Aug. 2, 2013, these codes work:

1921655

1948719

1948777

  

If none of those work, try some other numbers in the sequence. Also check the comments below, my other pages, here and here, where helpful readers are posting tips all the time.

Keep in mind that L.A. Fitness sometimes offers other deals at its clubs, so you might want to see what they're offering. If they can't beat $34.99 a month and no initiation, come back here.

Update: See my post "How to get $29.99 per month and no initiation fee at L.A. Fitness"


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Movie review: "The Grey"

Marooned in the frozen Alaska wilderness, punished by a raging blizzard, and surrounded by a vicious pack of hungry wolves, a group of men have the same thought:

"Where's Bear Gryllis when you need him?"

OK, maybe they didn't think that. But I did, as I watched "The Grey," the 2011 movie starring Liam Neeson. This is an intense survival story, and if you're like me, you put yourselves in the characters shoes and wonder, "What would I do in this situtation?" And what would Gryllis, host of Discovery Channel's "Man vs. Wild," do?

"The Grey" isn't a great movie, but it's still good entertainment, especially if you like survival stories. The plot keeps you engaged throughout and has a fair share of surprises.

The story involves a group of oil workers whose plane crashes somewhere in Alaska. Most on the flight are killed, but seven survive, including Neeson's character, John Ottway, who becomes the group's de facto leader.

Things look bad for the group, especially when one of them is soon eaten by wolves. But they manage to make it even worse by squabbling and fighting among themselves.

Some of the men in the group are irritated by the way Ottway takes command, and so was I. Sure, he's the most capable and level-headed of the group, but he has a habit of spitting out directives ("We figure out which way is south and then start walking") without the slightest discussion. Maybe, just maybe, someone else might have a good idea?

Fortunately, we're distracted from Neeson's leadership qualities by getting the chance to hate the designated loudmouth jerk in the group, Diaz, played nicely by Frank Grillo.


Director Joe Carnahan is going for deeper meanings here, as Ottway muses on the nature of life, death and lost love, but I'm not sure it's needed. There's plenty of drama in a pack of blood-thirsty wolves circling your campsite.

Spoiler alert! I'm going to discuss the ending below.

There are two elements in the ending that bugged me.


Near the end, Ottway and another man end up in a river together and the other man dies in a way that's awfully similar to a scene in "Sometimes a Great Notion." I'm not sure if the writers really stole the idea, but it struck me as so similar that it disengaged me from the action.

Ottway then leaves this Alaskan river – where the water is certainly close to freezing – his clothes soaking wet. Anyone who has ever watched "Man vs. Wild" knows what he has to do immediately – strip off his wet clothes and build a fire, or he will certainly freeze to death. But he doesn't, and what's worse, he's not even shivering. 

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Movie review: "The Dictator"

Torture. Terrorism. Rape. Decapitation.

What? You don't find that stuff funny?

These are just some of the topics for jokes in Sasha Baron Cohen's 2012 comedy, "The Dictator," an over-the-top film that fires its comics grenades so widely it's hard to imagine that you won't find some part of the movie tasteless or offensive.

Sasha Baron Cohen as "The Dictator"

But that doesn't mean it's a bad movie.

Parts of "The Dictator" are extremely clever and funny. One of the best is a scenic helicopter tour in which two characters (Cohen and Jason Mantzoukas) from the fictional African country of Wadiya trigger a New York City terrorism scare after inadvertently mentioning perilous words – "Porsche 9-eleven,"  for instance – in their foreign language conversation.


The plot centers on the despotic leader of Wadiya, played by Cohen, who comes to New York City, loses his trademark beard and suddenly find himself an average powerless person. The rest of the story follows him falling in love with feminist store manager Zoey (Anna Farris) and trying to get his power back. It's not a deep plot, but it keeps things moving.

"The Dictator" probably has the funniest torture scene – you're not going to hear that phrase very often – you'll find at the movies. Tied and bound, Cohen's character manages to frustrate his tormentor by pointing out that his torture tools have all been eclipsed by newer models.

On the offensiveness front, there's jokes targeted at nearly everyone – Jews, blacks, feminists, vegans, lesbians, Arabs, TV news hosts, and well, all of America. (Now that I think of it, there are no Mexican jokes. What's the deal, Sasha??)

Some of these jokes hit the mark, others miss so badly you might want to leave the room. There are cringe-inducing scenes involving a cellphone in a woman's uterus and the dictator's discovery of masturbation.

The question becomes: Are you willing to endure the bad stuff to get the good stuff?

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Movie review: "End of Watch"

Anybody remember "Adam-12"?  In that 1970s TV police drama, officers Reed and Malloy patrolled the mean mild streets of Los Angeles, politely settling disputes between spouses and neighbors, and outsmarting crooks while rarely firing a shot. And they did it all without a whiff of profanity by anyone.

"End of Watch" is the same idea -- two buddy cops fighting crime in LA.. -- except there's about 10 times the violence, 20 times the blood and 300 times the f-bombs.

Jake Gyllenaal and Michael Pena in "End of Watch"

This 2012 movie, directed and written by David Ayer, is a gritty, impassioned look at officers Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena) as they try seemingly single-handedly to shut down the gangs and drug cartels of South Los Angeles.

In the world of Taylor and Zavala, even routine traffic stops or a seemingly benign visit to the home of an elderly woman turn into life-or-death drama. Is every house in South Los Angeles filled with drugs, bodies or a deeply disturbed criminal?  You would think so from this movie.


Ayer accentuates the realism of his scenes by choosing to show some of the action from the perspective of video shot by the participant, giving the film a semi-documentary feel.

It's an engaging and dramatic story, and Gyllenhaal and Zavala are terrific in the lead roles.  For a movie with so much action, the dialog is surprisingly important and Ayer's script succeeds in building a believable relationship between the two officers.

Still, the movie follows a familiar story arc, and you can see the ending coming a long way off.

Also, amid the flying bullets and obscenities, it gets hard to discern the point. Is "End of Watch" simply a portrait of two cocky but all-too-human policemen? Or are the filmmakers making a broader point about the hard work of law enforcement officers everywhere? Or is the film intended as a way to shed light on a criminal cesspool in South Los Angeles?

A movie like this that attempts to capture "reality" leaves me with some questions:

Do Los Angeles Police officers stick together as partners for years at a time? Seriously, I would like to know. I would think that they occasionally rotate who they patrol with, but in this movie Taylor and Zavala are always by each other's side.


How often, really, do officers in this neighborhood become involved in a violent situation?  How often do they shoot their guns?

Are the drug gang members of L.A. really such bad shots?

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