Greetings From Amsterdam:
I knew there was something wrong with going to northern Europe in the winter and southern Italy in late spring. But, if you’re going to spend Christmas in Paris, it pretty well forces you to do the northern swing when it’s cold. Monday, December 30 in Amsterdam has been gray, cold and windy. And, as it got dark around 4:45 pm the rain started to come down. I believe the high today was slated for 45 degrees, so it shouldn’t have felt that cold, but the wind did us in.
Some idle thoughts before they drift away. Reflecting back on Paris, we never took the Seine River cruise on our last evening. Everybody seemed to be too cold and my assurances that the boat was enclosed didn’t seem to really assure anyone. And, I mentioned Sophia was getting half of her hair dyed blonde. Well, you may have noticed from the photos (if you got past her non-smile) that she has no blonde hair. At the last moment it was decided to gas the blonde and go with a caramel color. I believe the clarifications are the journalist in me.
Day #8 – December 29 and Day #9 – December 30 –
Marlene was the first to make the observation. People are taller here in Amsterdam than they are in France. A good observation. The folks here are a heartier group. Many look more German and the Dutch language has, to our ears, a German-like sound. As you know, we’ve observed the French to be good looking and well groomed, especially the younger generation. If you let “heartier” infer that French women are good looking, you’re on the right track, and we’ll leave it at that. Speaking of language, since we trained through Belgium, I was curious about their language. I looked it up. They speak French in the north and Dutch in the south, with a bit of German in the southeast.
How long do you think I can go without mentioning food? You’re right, not much longer. We found the food in Paris to be much more appealing than the food in the south of France. There seems to be a sameness or lack of variety in the south. Paris was terrific. There were restaurants that had diverse menus and the food was much better than the south. Here in Amsterdam the food is terrific. We walked the old, center of Amsterdam last night and found a zillion restaurants of many types. Lots of Japanese, Indian restaurants and Argentinian Steakhouses. A sensational food court in a department store that had all the qualities of being in the United States. Anyway, we stopped at an Italian restaurant (no recommendation) and had better pasta dishes than any we’ve had around Aix-en Provence. And, we tried the pizza, which had its shortcomings, but it was better than the pizza in Paris, which was already better than the pizza in Aix. No olives on pizza. In Aix there are four whole olives on every pizza made. Still on the food trail, Marlene and I ended up in a lively square late this afternoon (in the dark and the rain) and went to a stand and had a bratwurst. We’d never dare try it in France, but it was really good. No thought that it tasted different than something you’d have in the U.S. We went to another stand with Dutch donuts (fried dough with powered sugar – you’ve had things similar). We’d take it over any pastry we’ve had in France, though we are becoming fond of cuisants (kwa-sants).
We really like Amsterdam. Keaka says it’s his favorite, along with Sydney. We got on the Hop-On-Hop-Off boat today, which got us around the canals to see plenty of the city. Touring the canals by boat brought to mind Venice. Marlene and I had the same though – we liked Venice, but find Amsterdam to be more appealing. We went to the Anne Frank house and met a long line in a cold wind. We decided to put off the visit until this evening. Just moments ago the evening visit to the Anne Frank house was cancelled. Too cold, too windy and too rainy. We had lunch in a “real” restaurant in the neighborhood near the Anne Frank house. It was jammed and it was great to have choices on the menu, from eggs to pancakes, to pasta, to meat dishes, to sandwiches......we thought we were in the U.S. Marz had a bacon, egg, tomato, cheese and lettuce sandwich on American-type break (never seen in the south of France). Sophia had tuna salad on American-type bread. Keaka had spaghetti with tomato sauce, while I actually had a delicious ham and cheese omelete with American-type toast with jelly (no breakfast in France, so finding a bread product with jam or jelly is unknown). Oh, and we noticed that between 3 and 4 this afternoon most restaurants were full. We love people who eat whenever they want to! There’s that terrible four-letter word again! Getting away from food (again), as I was saying, we enjoyed the boat (glass-covered and heated). When we got back to our hotel, the kids wanted to stay in (surprise), so Marlene and I jumped on the #5 tram. Trams everywhere with bicycles (a few taxis and some cars), and they have a one-line underground Metro (subway). As we’ve found so many places, the mass transit is jammed at virtually any hour, even with only 5-minutes between the trams or trains. Amsterdam just keeps yelling what we hear everywhere --- MASS TRANSIT, MASS TRANSIT. Again, downtown Amsterdam is large, with canals and small sreets. No high-rises and housing above retail up and down every street and every canal. People walk, walk, walk and walk before they jump on the mass transit. Our #5 tram trip took us out of the inner city. Amsterdam turned into a more American city, with wider streets (still not many cars), and multi-family housing everywhere with land in between. Most buildings were in the 5-to-7 story range, generally acclimated to the mass transit stations, with some first floor retail, but nothing like in the older part of the city. Amsterdam is totally charming and electric (hey, it’s a Monday). Marlene is trying to figure how to come back here again while we’re living in France. Think about it, coming on the heals of Paris and doing well in a comparison is pretty impressive.
Check out the photos, which have no particular story beyond trying to give you a feeling of Amsterdam. The big building is the Amsterdam Central train station upon our arrival and there are a couple of photos of our hotel room. They took three old buildings and combined them. We’ve on the top floor with a loft area. We’ll have more on Amsterdam (plenty of photos) later.
The Wilsons
