Hank: Good morning John.

Amsterdam is very good, I wanna have a lot of different thoughts from this place – thoughts about tulips, and financialization, and economic bubbles, and genetics. Thoughts about how some clogs seemed quite big! Until I saw others and then… this … Wow! Thoughts about how there’s a freaking fair in the middle of this town right now, sharing space with four hundred-five hundred year old buildings and fair food is pretty much the same everywhere.

I asked for American sauce – Cause I figured it would be ranch dressing, but it’s not… I do not know this flavour.

But of all the thoughts I could have from this place, guess what I spotted while casually Google mapping around to see what there was to do. Oh, a bench! The Fault in Our Stars bench on Google Maps, with 75 reviews and an average rating of 4.3 which is just as good as the Van Gogh Museum. John, I assume that you are equally as fascinated to find out what people say, when they review a bench. Which is why this video is going to be mostly peoples reviews of the TFiOS bench.

It’s just a bench! It’s a bench!  Honestly, it’s just an ordinary bench – though apparently that was worth four stars. It’s… bench. That’s it.

Some don’t even think that it’s a particularly good bench. Milena, in a two star review says it’s extremely uncomfortable and she doesn’t know how Hazel and Gus did it and Dominika remarks on the bench’s aesthetics I think more than it’s cleanliness when she says that people need to treat it better. It does appear to be the opposite of the largest ball of paint in that many tourists seem to remove paint every time they go, rather than add it.

But of course, there are lots of great reviews of the bench. Marciano says that there are a few promise locks which have apparently multiplied substantially in the last 8 months because this is more than a few. Maharlika says that it was really fun to try to recreate the famous movie poster and suggests that you take a picture from the other side of the canal, which is how they did it in the movie. That is an excellent tip!

Katarina deeply disagrees with all those remarking on the bench’s lack of comfort saying, ten outta ten, would sit again. Joanna agrees saying best free attraction in Amsterdam, visited twice in one day, five stars. Though to be fair, there are no other free attractions in Amsterdam.

Now, none of these reviews really encapsulated my experience with the bench, so John, I left my own review, here it is:

My brother wrote a book, that made a bench, famous enough that is has seventy-five, now seventy-six reviews on Google. That’s really weird and also amazing. If you’re just wandering around Amsterdam, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re going to accidentally come across this bench, it’s a fine bench, but ultimately it’s just a bench that is in no way special, except because of what people bring to it. I guess that’s like most important things, and also people. We aren’t much unless you know our story.

I sat by this bench for a long time watching people come up and take pictures with the bench, some of them didn’t seem to care that much and were just looking for something to do between events, but others were clearly excited to interact a bit with a physical space that was important to them, or to their relationships. There were a lot of friend groups and a lot of couples. It made me happy. My brother is a little bit obsessed with road side attractions in America and it is very cool and very weird that he unintentionally inspired a canal side attraction across an ocean. Each person brings to this thing, their own stories and their own connections. Each person, makes it a little bit more than it was ever meant to be. Again, maybe a little bit like all of us.

John, I’ll see you on Tuesday.

(crowd yelling): Good morning Hank it’s Tuesday!