2011 edition [revised]:
Some musings from Amsterdam:
When you know you have arrived [as in being a local or at least looking like one]: when tourists and locals ask me for directions or information and I can actually handle it. This happened twice within 2 minutes after writing this 15 minutes earlier and going out into the streets.
How is it that I establish a daily stam cafe [neighborhood bar] every visit here within the first day and do not go out at all or rarely for a beer or wine in Santa Barbara?
In Holland, all women have more fun. They`re [mostly] all blondes.
It`s nice that English is their 2nd language, but makes it tougher to learn Dutch which is difficult enough.
Being on vacation in Amsterdam, holiday as it`s called here and throughout most of Europe, is different than any other place especially from our usual and customary in Santa Barbara. Get up at 8-9 am, leave for breakfast, my preference, at noon when the restaurants open up, beers at the stam cafe from 5-7 pm and dinner afterward at 8, early for Hollanders, but our preference.
As in Belgium and as it should be, each special beer is served in the beer glass designated by the brewery as the type that showcases their beers the best; just as with wine.
Theres only one true pancake in the world and its not from Aunt Jemima and it`s called pannenloeken and served with everything under the sun. Pancakes are not just for breakfast anymore.
Although I love warm maple syrup, theres one predominant sweet topping here [other than powdered sugar] and its called stroop [similar to black strap molasses].
Interestingly, I come to the Netherlands and drink only Belgium beers, the best on the planet. They`re so good, they merit tasting notes.
My current fav is drafted unfiltered Palm, 4 weeks old and only available at one place in Amsterdam, my stam cafe, de Engelbewaarder [the guardian angel]. The owner, Guus, has befriended me and each year delights in turning me on to the Old Masters beers he selects, all from Belgium.
The drink of choice amongst the locals is jenever, a juniper-flavored and strongly alcoholic traditional liquor of the Netherlands and Belgium, from which gin evolved. Traditional jenever is still very popular in the Netherlands and Belgium. European Union regulations specify that only liquor made in these two countries, two French provinces and two German federal states can use the name jenever.
Like all other hot, high alcohol drinks, think grappa, a little goes a long way.
Amsterdam is so unique and unto itself, it just happens to be in Holland and Holland is comprised of 2 parts, Northern and Southern which are 2 of a total of 12 provinces making up the Netherlands.
One of my top 5 cities in the world [Paris, Venice, Brugges and San Francisco], Amsterdam may be #1 after these 2 weeks.
Theres talk about the Dutch building a 10,000 ft. mountain. If anyone can do it, its the Dutch. The mountain could even be made on land recaptured from the sea. YES!
Although we had a stretch of really great weather in the mid 70s for 1 week in Paris and the first week here, it`s now doing typical Holland weather= intervals of rain and sunshine amidst gusty winds that produce a wind chill like winter in northwest Arkansas.
The Netherlandss have to have more bicycles [fiets] than any other country on the planet. Theyre everywhere at all times. And, creative too. They have every conceivable means of carrying bags, groceries, kids and pets and whatever else needs to be transported. The bakfiets, are bikes that have big, usually wooden baskets on the front and/ or back end. Originally used by bakeries to deliver their breads, thus the name, bakfiets.
There are over 100 canals and 1,000 bridges in Amsterdam.
What a treat to be in the bars and restaurants and not have to deal with cigarette smoke. The country passed a law almost 2 years ago to prohibit smoking in all public places and it was received with joy and compliance. There is no question, fewer Amsterdamers smoke cigs than Parisians.
I love windmills.
Proost [cheers]
2012 edition [revised]:
During our annual visits in September and October, I find the weather to be usually on the cool side for a Santa Barbara native. It`s almost always windy, some intermittent rain and mostly cloudy skies.
As with the locals in the mountains at ski resorts, these locals are dressed in tee shirts and short sleeve shirts while Im wearing a tee shirt under a long sleeve shirt or sweater under a jacket and a rain coat if its raining, all with a scarf.
For a city built in circles, the challenge is to get from point A to point B in as straight a line as possible. Good luck.
Is there a more difficult language to learn than Dutch? Fortunately, most in this city speak English, but you have to be careful with the words they use; they often have different meanings than intended and what one may interpret.
Amsterdam is in the conversation for our favorite cities in the world. Venice, Paris, Brugge and San Francisco are still the top 5.
We do not have a neighborhood bar in Santa Barbara. Here, we have 2. Called Stam Cafes, we visit them almost daily/ nightly and have been welcomed into the scene as locals.
How you know you have been accepted as a local in the Stam Cafe is when you walk in and your favorite beer is already waiting for you when you sit down.
Museums change their themes from time to time; a must visit is to the Amsterdam Museum, Kalverstraat 92, which has the fantastic history of the city from its origin. It includes the fascinating construction of the canals, population growth over the last century, etc. There`s a separate showing of 105 photographs of pop stars visiting Amsterdam by the world renown photographer, Claude Vanheye. These include the Beattles, the Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Alvin Lee, the Bee Gees and many more.
Is there anywhere on the planet that has more bicycles? Always look both ways before crossing a street, bike path, anything on which a bike could be traveling.
After a few more days on our return trip to Amsterdam from Paris, some additional musings:
Amsterdam has now achieved my/ our #1 most favorite city in the world if it had not already occupied that position. And this is after a week in Paris. Lots of reasons- gentle attitudes, peaceful, quiet, safe with discretion, far less car traffic, far less noise, air and water pollution, equally as great a bus/ metro system, great local, country and international train system, ease in speaking English and much more.
More on the water: The tap water is very good and it is not necessary to buy bottled water. I`m told there are no fluorides and fewer chemicals and additives than any other city in this part of Europe. This is unconfirmed, but the pleasant taste and absence of odor suggests quality. Even the local microbreweries who are committed to using only the purest of products and ingredients use Amsterdam city water.
Want to start up a new business here? Do umbrellas [paraplus]. There are graveyards on just about every major street with broken frames, frames without the covers [think skeletons] and lost covers without the frames. For us tourists, get the kind that are wind resistant and do not reverse direction and die from an updraft.
My passion for wine is usurped by the great beer here and the absence of great wine except for a few wine shops and fewer yet good wines in restaurants where prices are outrageously high.
For a city that is not known for its fine dining, there sure are a lot of decent restaurants and most are not Indonesian.
A 40% chance for rain means it will rain about 40% of the day.
The big awareness: we shall stay for no less than 3 weeks any time we come here [done in 2013 and projected for 2014].
The big challenge: how to make 2 trips to Amsterdam every year from now on.
Proost
2013 edition: [with pictures of our apartment building from near and afar; a windmill outside Amsterdam]
One of the many reasons I love Amsterdam has to do with a freedom of being who you truly are and not who others think you should be. Interestingly, Rembrandt contributed significantly to some of this philosophy.
In an article by Russell Shorto in the New York Times on 9/27/13 entitled " The Ghosts of Amsterdam", he stated:
"Rembrandt figures so thoroughly in Amsterdam, I think, because he is intimately associated with the city’s greatest achievement. Amsterdam in his era pioneered many of the concepts embedded in the term “liberal,” which I mean not in the sex-and-drugs permissive sense (though that would come too) but, more deeply and broadly, as a philosophy based on the individual and individual freedom: the essence of what makes us modern.
Amsterdam led the rest of Europe away from the dogma that all authority came from monarch and church; rather, this new philosophy held, truth was based on reason — in the words of the Frenchman René Descartes, who also lived in Amsterdam — on “the mind and its good sense.” Central to this was a new awareness of oneself as an individual distinct from the group. And an outgrowth of this awareness was a sudden fascination with the human face — with portraits."
A must do museum to visit is the newly reopened Rijksmuseum after 10 years of renovation. It has sections of its 4 floors dedicated to periods of centuries starting with 1100 AD and moving up to the present. Rembrandts “Night Watch” is included along with many other of his masterpieces, Van Goghs self portrait and others of his collection, Jan van Scorels Mary Magdalene, Jan Willem Pienemans “Battle of Waterloo”, Johannes Vermeer`s “Het Melkmeisje”, Frans Hals, Willem van de Velde and even a Monet. There is so much more including sculptures, hand crafted furnishings, weaponry, inventions, model ships, etc. Truly fascinating.
One of my favorite wine shops is Charbrol, located on Haarlemmerstraat 7. They have a great Champagne selection especially and a friendly, knowledgeable staff. They`re pricy, as all are, especially with the current Euro vs. US dollar conversion at 1.36 to 1.
My stam café remains de Englebewaarder and the unfiltered Palm on tap is consistently my go to beer and all else is 2nd fiddle. This is particularly significant in that this beer is only available at this place in all of Amsterdam and possibly the Netherlands as the owner has an exclusive relationship with the brewery and there is not that much of this beer produced in the first place.
We are so accepted here and have established close friendships with the owner and many of his quality staff folks, most of whom have specialty college degrees and are still working here while awaiting a break for employment. One of our staff favs is planning her first trip to the US including a stay with us early next year.
Our late night go to stam café is t Mandje located on the Zeedijk. It was a notorious original gay bar established in 1927 and has a rep and a story to behold. It closed in 1983 when the lesbian owner, Bet van Beeren, died and was reopened in 2008 with everything repositioned as before. Part of the story goes that she would snip in half the ties worn by the men who frequented there and hang them from the ceiling. There are hundreds of halved ties now and reproduced pictures from early on covering the walls. What we love most about this place is the music. They play lots of Dutch sing a long tunes with an emphasis on songs from the Netherlands and Amsterdam in particular. Its a hoot and a great night cap stop.
We have been blessed with great weather this trip= lots of sunshine, in the mid 60s, very little rain; I`ve yet to open an umbrella in 3 weeks and only carried it on one day; RARE.
We now have discovered an organic produce market on Saturday at the Nieuwmarkt which is close to where we stay. Incredible choices and quality across the board including fresh bakery items, cheeses, vegetables and fruit juices and food stands.
I know about the “Bakers dozens” being 13 eggs, but what gives here? At the most, you can buy 10 in a carton. The “Dutch dozen”.
The street traffic pecking order: Bikes first and always, then pedestrians, then cars and the rest; the rule of thumb is: if there is anything coming that`s bigger and with more momentum, YIELD.
Proost
To be continued in 2014
