Canals, diamonds and red lights – an Amsterdam getaway COMPLETED - Page 16 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
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We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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More great pictures. Enjoy your day in France. Jeez....visiting another Country for the day and you make it sound so normal. That is why I would love to live in Europe. Around here visiting another state is .......well not the same.
I do agree "I'm off to the next state this weekend" doesn't quite have the same ring. Well, if you will have such a big country... You see, we may be small, but we have some bonuses being small....
Friday 10 February – part six: into the Green Light District...
When we got to the Centraal Station, we got off and got some photos of this beautiful building.
We also saw all the work that’s going on with their extension of the subway in the city. At the moment, the subway is of little use to visitors, as it doesn’t really cover much of the city centre with the tourist attractions in, but with the new line, that may change....
We got some photos of the St. Nicholas church, which was a beautiful place. Completed in 1887, it replaced clandestine churches which had grown up around Amsterdam, but more of that in a minute...
First, we had to go through the Green Light District. If you can’t work it out, these photos of cafes may give you a clue....
I didn’t get a photo of them, but there was a couple in this cafe who looked a bit high, shall we say!
We found another canal, with various birds looking very sorry for themselves...
Our next stop was Museum Our Lord in the Attic. It’s on the edge of the Red Light District and, after Amsterdam officially became Protestant and Catholic churches were banned, this ordinary looking canalside house became home to a clandestine church.
When we walked in, I was gutted at first to see that they’re undergoing a massive renovation, with a lot of the works of arts removed. I couldn’t believe our luck. However, as it was free with our Amsterdam card, we went ahead and I’m glad we did.
We got a free audioguide and it started off by saying that actually we were visiting at a unique time and would get a glimpse behind the scenes that most visitors would never see. Now once they put it like that, I suddenly perked up and realised they were right.
The first room you come to is the room that would’ve greeted guests to the house. I was fascinated to learn that everything was symmetrical in the room, including a false door, just because there’s one on the other end of the wall!
There was another room in this area:
Next: exploring the hidden church... under renovation
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Off to France for the day....*sigh* My favorite place on earth
I love the pics of the table settings, I'm kinda obsessed with those. I have a rather large selection of John Maddox Bombay collection that i LOVE. I'm sure they aren't but,why does it look like plastic forks and spoons? What were they?
Off to France for the day....*sigh* My favorite place on earth
I love the pics of the table settings, I'm kinda obsessed with those. I have a rather large selection of John Maddox Bombay collection that i LOVE. I'm sure they aren't but,why does it look like plastic forks and spoons? What were they?
I thought that, too! They really look like plastic!
Off to France for the day....*sigh* My favorite place on earth
I love the pics of the table settings, I'm kinda obsessed with those. I have a rather large selection of John Maddox Bombay collection that i LOVE. I'm sure they aren't but,why does it look like plastic forks and spoons? What were they?
Well, we didn't spend much time in France.... Trip report starting shortly so you can find out more....
You're right - those were plastic forks, knives and spoons. I'm guessing it's because they didn't have the right cutlery to go with it, so to complete it, they put those in, but I am guessing here....
Friday 10 February – part seven: exploring the hidden church... under renovation
It’s a bit of an odd arrangement, as you see a couple of rooms, then you have to go back to the start and head up another set of stairs to actually see the church. My goodness though, it’s worth all the climbing and, despite the fact that a lot of stuff was missing, it was still stunning. Interestingly as well they’re stripping this back to how it used to be when it was a church, having spent more than 100 years as a museum.
The confessional And how it used to look before the restoration
I couldn’t believe it when they said that the restoration work started 350 years after work on the church first started and that restoration work will finish 350 years after the construction work finished. How spooky is that?
We both thoroughly enjoyed seeing this place and, if we come back again after 2013, when the restoration is finished, then we’ll have to come back and see what it looks like. As the audioguide promised, it was certainly a fascinating journey behind the scenes of an amazing building.
We walked along the canal when we came out, getting a few more photos...
... and quickly found the Oude Kierk or Old Church, so in we went. As we did, we were greeted by the wonderful sound of a choir singing, which seemed so appropriate and so beautiful as well. I wandered that way, taking photos of this lovely church as I did.
they’re doing restoration in here as well!
When I got there, I stopped to listen to one of their numbers. Their voices were just perfect and it took me back to school days of being in a choir. Sadly, I don’t think we were ever that good though...
I'm a little bit behind, but I have to say that the South American etc costumes from the museum look remarkably similar to the costumes our Mardi Gras Indians make by hand every year! The photos of Amsterdam are just gorgeous. I'm glad you decided to stop a the science museum as the photos of the whale exhibit are great. I love the Church shots--and I'm so glad you decided to go in--I'm slightly obsessed with the insides of Churches--I'm a recovering Catholic and I'm sure I've told you that I have a degree in comparative religion and I love visiting different churches to see what they look like around the world. (My favorite is The Church of the Bones)
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Very interesting to have caught the museum in the middle of the restoration work and be able to see both sides. The Old Church looks like it was really cold inside-- the poor choir!
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I do agree "I'm off to the next state this weekend" doesn't quite have the same ring. Well, if you will have such a big country... 
You see, we may be small, but we have some bonuses being small.... 
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Pixie Dust
However, as it was free with our Amsterdam card, we went ahead and I’m glad we did. 
The church/museum looks interesting! 
the stained glass windows that have the ships on them. Quite a nice change.
Green light district 
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