Amster, Amster! Dam, Dam, Dam!

I preface this description with the explanation that our hostel was about an hour outside of Amsterdam by train (two other branches of the same hostel were located in downtown and uptown Amsterdam).  So I never saw the true nightlife of Amsterdam, but the day-life was quite enough for me.  However, I do apologize for being unable to recount stories of true debauchery.

Day 1 

We arrived in A-dam on Monday evening and searched out the downtown branch of our hostel, so we could stow our stuff for a few hours and travel the town.  We found it easily enough, and when we walked in we were assaulted by the smell of pot smoke.   In our quest to find the luggage room, we found that the elevator was occupied by a pair of waaaay-out-of-it guys.  The elevator doors opened, they stared at us and giggled slowly and pushed the Door Close button.  So we took the stairs. 

The beauty of Amsterdam took me by surprise.  It had been a nice, partly-cloudy day, and we came through town just as the sun was sinking.  The reflections in the canals were impressive.  We found a small restaurant, got some warm mozzarella and pesto sandwiches, and said our goodbyes to our traveling mate Nikki as we caught the shuttle to the beach. 

    

In the shuttle we met a guy from Damascus who had grown up in Arkansas (turned out he and I have mutual friends at Hendrix College) and had studied at St. Louis University (he’s a fan of Imo’s Pizza and the super-cheap Jack-in-the-Box tacos).  Small world, I’d say!  (In Rotterdam I met another guy, this time from upstate New York, who was familiar with and had been to Conway, Arkansas.) 

At the hostel we collapsed, in preparation for waking up early and heading back downtown.   

Day 2

Amazing spinach soup.  Lots of wandering.  A visit to the local post office, where there are four different slots for various types of mail.  I picked the far left one.  Dad, I hope my postcard still gets to you!

We spent a nice, long time canal-watching.  Who couldn’t stare mindlessly at something this beautiful?  After about an hour of silent reflection, we headed toward the nearest bagel shop, where Mandi and I shared one sesame seed bagel with pesto and tomato cream cheese and one cinnamon raisin bagel with maple syrup, banana slices, and powdered cinnamon.  Whoa.  Whooaaa. 

As yet unsatisfied, we walked a bit farther and encountered a grocery store.  Part of our plan included cheese, and at the cheese counter we encountered one of the most interesting locals of the trip: a young woman (about my age, I’d guess) who proceeded to tell us the bulk of her life story, punctuated with, “I’m really not sure why I’m telling you this, but …”.  Mandi and I heard her family secrets about divorce and sibling rivalry and some stories about the dangers of living in Africa and how it changed her life and taught her that even when the cheese slicer cuts off pieces of her fingers, life is still good.  Of course it’s always nice to talk with locals, but there was something seriously odd about that interaction.   

After eating the cheese and passing through the Red Light district, we headed back to the train station and back to the beach hostel, where we very unexpectedly encountered our Scottish friends we’d met in Belgium.  Nice. 

Day 3 

The final day we headed back bright and early to visit the Van Gogh museum.  The first floor, the permanent collection of Van Gogh’s works, was stuffed to the brim with tourists making pilgrimages to see the great European works.  Far and away my favorite part was seeing one of his self-portraits, a work that I copied full-size in oil pastels as part of my Basic Art class in ninth grade.  Having studied and replicated those strokes, it was fantastic to see it in person, just inches from me.  The work was a lot lighter, less gray, than the copy I worked from.  The brushstrokes were also a lot smaller and finer than I had realized.  Photography within the museum was prohibited.  This image does it no justice.

The second floor, much emptier of visitors, featured a rare look at Van Gogh’s sketches.  Because the drawings are on very sensitive paper, they are usually stored away and very infrequently displayed.  My favorite were Van Gogh’s sketches from a how-to-draw book, from when he was learning how to draw figures.  It’s a close replica, but definitely imperfect.  It’s a good thing he placed higher value on showing the personality of a place or person than representing it with complete technical accuracy. 

There was also a special exhibit about how Van Gogh learned to use color the way he did.  He read many texts about color theory and the color wheel (i.e., contrasting colors make each other appear brighter).  However, having only really seen Dutch art, he applied the theories incorrectly.  Poor guy!  Once he got out and traveled, he improved a lot. 

The third floor featured some Monets, Gaugins, and Seurats, as well as some very impressive paintings by names I didn’t recognize.  Three floors worth of works and three hours of absorbing artistic genius made me a little less bitter about the 10 euros I paid to enter.  But only a little. 

For lunch we found a sandwich shop run by a friendly Egyptian man.  We each paid for our own sandwich, leading me to realize that we had just “gone Dutch.”  Dutch treat.  Get it?  Ok, lame pun. We then headed for the famous Botanical Garden, but with an entrance fee of 6 euros apiece, Mandi and I decided to take a nap on the lawn instead.  I’m not quite sure how Mandi snapped this photo of me without me knowing, but it’s a cute one. 

To wind up the day, we headed by a supermarket to pick up some Heineken.  (What’s a visit to Amsterdam without Heineken?)  An interesting side note is that the supermarkets in northern Europe are infinitely more American and pre-packaged than those in Spain and Portugal.  Check out this adorable display of easy-to-make meals.  It’s a four-step process: Noodles/Rice/Potatoes + Vegetable + Meat + Sauce = Dinner!  The supermarket also sold individually-wrapped red peppers, for whatever reason. 

Beer in hand, we strolled through the Red Light district as the sun began to dip in the horizon.  Sex shops abounded, some more offensive than others.  I quite enjoyed window shopping at the Condomerie, although the store had already closed.  Check out these themed condoms. 

And the prostitutes?  Well, they were half-naked, sitting in front of windows.  Many of them were quite a bit less attractive than I expected – one looked like she could be your aunt, and most had a lot more pudge than you’d ever see on a porn star.  It really made me realize that they’re regular women.  To me, perhaps the most difficult part would be trying to look sexy, hour after hour, without getting bored.  (Ok, well that would actually probably be the second most difficult part.)

I never saw a man go in, but I did see two come out (of separate doors).  I also saw several children walking by with their parents, to my great surprise.  Oh, to have heard what the parents were saying to their children!  Were explaining prostitution to their kids, or had they mistakenly thought that Oudekerkstrasse was the way to the zoo? 

After a visit to a piercing parlor where the man advised that, should I pierce my nose, I pierce the right nostril, we headed back to little ol’ Noordwijk on the train.  There we grabbed blankets and beers and sat on the beach, alternating between listening to the iPod and listening to the waves crash.  Here’s a picture from the next morning.  It was actually quite a beautiful place.  It was almost a shame we spent all our time in Amsterdam.

 

Baby It’s Cold Outside

And so ended the warm half of the trip.  The cold half, which sort of started in chilly Barcelona, commenced in earnest when we exited the night train in Bern, Switzerland.  When we pulled up to the station at eight in the morning, the sky was grey and all the locals were wearing winter coats and scarves.  That was August 10^th.  

To be honest, I’ve been wearing the same pair of jeans since that morning.  With several Febreezings, they’ve managed quite nicely – a blessing, since they’re my only pair of long pants.  I’m also blessed with one long-sleeved shirt and one thin sweater, plus a pretty little pashmina the thickness of cheesecloth.  Brr!

So, bundled up in my jeans and sweater, I walked around the city of Bern with Mandi.  We found this statue atop a fountain: an ogre consuming helpless babes.  Yum?   

An elephant act had been planned as part of a street festival that afternoon, but the weather was too cold for the elephants to handle.  Later that evening, dozens street performers ignored the chill as part of Buskers Bern, a three-day street festival.  We stopped awhile and listened to a hammered dulcimer player.  (I had an unusual interest in dulcimers as a child, so there was some nostalgia.)  We ended the night watching a group of three truly creepy acrobats.  Mandi deemed it one of the best poi shows she’s ever seen, but the performers’ bizarre costumes and eerie background music (plus the unseasonably cold weather) made it feel like Halloween. 

The next morning we took a train to Brussels, one of my favorite cities of the trip.  After some unexpectedly large expenditures during the first half of the trip (i.e., a first-class night train), we had been keeping our wallets very, very closed.  No restaurants, no alcohol, few museums, eating only enough to live.  In Brussels we finally chilled out, spending the extra few euros to try the famed waffles, chocolate, french fries and beer.  Check out this greasy, greasy wrapper from the waffle.  Eww.

Between our gastronomic delights we perused the town, finding some fantastically quirky shops and a bar called L’Homo Erectus (“the erect homo”).  We also found this little guy, Mannekin Pis.  He’s possibly the main tourist attraction in Brussels.

The best thing we found in Brussels was the company in the hostel.  Two great Scottish girls, two friendly Swedes, a group of peppy Britons, a Slovenian gal, and a super-nice graphic designer from New York.  We paired up with the designer, Nikki, the next day, since we were both headed for Amsterdam.  Together we toured the last brewery in Brussels that uses wild yeast and doesn’t micromanage the fermentation process.  Their unique style gives the beer a sour, acidic, but enjoyable taste.  We also found a great flea market, where I found a two-euro little white clutch purse.  (Compact and cheap.  The best travel purchase ever.)  Then we found the train station and took train to A-dam. 

Amsterdam, as many will attest, is a magical place – and not just because of its mushrooms.  I left Brussels having forgotten to get the e-mail addresses of the Swedes and the Scottish girls.  What are the odds, then, that I ran into one of the Swedes two days later outside of the Van Gogh museum?  Even weirder: the two Scottish girls booked the same room in the same hostel as we did.  Even weirder: the hostel is an hour outside of Amsterdam. 

Amsterdam was so weird that it actually deserves its own post.  So I’ll end this one here, with the side-note that Amsterdam is indeed cold enough (and windy, and rainy, and windy) to merit inclusion on the list of unexpectedly cold cities we visited during the second half of the trip.  (It’s also on the much-too-long list of places where I wore the same pair of pants.  Don’t judge.)

 

The Real Adventure Begins

This post was written about four days ago, but I was unable to post it before the WiFi cut out.  Oops.  In the intervening days we’ve traveled to Bern, Switzerland; Brussels, Belgium; and Amsterdam, Holland.  More on those later.

Mandi and I are in Barcelona, after three days in Madrid, two in Lisbon, one in Porto (home of the heavy-hitting Port wine), two in Santiago de Compostela, and two in Madrid.  During that whirlwind week-and-a-smidge, we managed to miss two trains, and we came much too close to missing a third yesterday.  Here are the highlights of what else we did:

In Madrid, we visited the Thyssen museum, where there was an exhibit of Van Gogh’s last works before he walked off into the woods one day and shot himself in the chest.  Apparently he knew the end was near, because he was absolutely churning out art at the end of his life – something like 70 paintings in as many days.  We also visited the Reina Sofia, home to Picasso’s Guernica, Salvador Dalí’s El Gran Masturbador, and a really interesting set of self-portraits using costumes as disguises. 

Afterwards, we found a small grocery market with “granadillas” for sale.  Since “granadas” are pomegranates and Mandi and I love pomegranates, we bought the granadilla and ate it.  It looked like alien eggs about to hatch and tasted like slimy grapes.  It’s surely my last granadilla.

That evening, we went to El Parque de el Buen Retiro and found the absolute coolest playground ever.  Mandi and I had no qualms about waiting our turns in line behind five year olds, and it was worth it.

In Lisbon, we took a local train to the town of Belém, as suggested by Rick Steves.  Gorgeous, old, red-roofed buildings, laundry on the line.  Amazing pastry shop.  Nice shoreline.  And in the local cathedral we stumbled upon the tomb of Vasco de Gama, world-famous explorer!  Thanks, Rick!  Then, we returned to historic Lisbon and got completely lost in the maze of tiny streets.  We ended up in a very sweet, rather poor, residential neighborhood, where a pair of incredibly kind 60-year-old locals directed us back toward our hotel.

The next day in Lisbon, we skipped the 10 Euro aquarium for the nearby Pavilion of Knowledge.  There were rides that made me really, really jealous to have already grown up.  One was a harness that let you bounce as if you were on the moon.  The one pictured below is a Velcro suit that kids could wear and jump onto a Velcro mat on the wall, and they’d stick there!  Jealous!  We made up for it by riding this bicycle across a tiny wire stretched dozens of meters above the floor.

In Porto we pulled another Lisbon by getting lost in the residential area of town and taking photos.  It’s an incredibly nice way to spend an afternoon.  We spent the evening at the hostel drinking Port and talking late into the night with folks from Canada, Poland, Switzerland and Texas.  We spent the morning pissed off that we missed our train back to Spain.  Oops!  We took a bus instead, where the man next to us insisted that we could not possibly be twins.  Hmm.

Santiago de Compostela was full of Christians from all over the world who had just made their pilgrimage to the holy city.  It was also home to dozens of clown troops from all over the world who had assembled for the annual FestiClown festival.  With the church bells clanging ominously in the background, we watched one clown bounce on a trampoline and flip over the head of an innocent audience member.  We also met a nice local woman and her dog Pin (pronounced “peen”).  She said he’s the second dog she’s called Pin.  The first had the full name Ping Pong, and the current one is named Pink Floyd.

Santiago de Compostela was also home to an interesting food pyramid sign that had dedicated the lowest, largest rung of the pyramid to beverages.  A compelling thought, but the illustrations showed pictures of water, juice, and — to any nutritionist’s shock — soda cans.  It turned out that the pyramid, which was taped onto the display window of a pharmacy, was produced by Coca-Cola.  Sketchy!

Back in Madrid we spent nearly two hours trying to send Mandi’s gigantic (22 kilo) suitcase to her host family in France, so we didn’t have to tote it around everywhere.  Small problem: none of the boxes were big enough to fit the suitcase.  Answer: after much thinking, the postal workers used two boxes, some packing paper, and a TON of packing tape to cover it.  Bigger problem: we didn’t realize that the suitcase weighed 22 kilos until AFTER we had it all wrapped up.  France will only accept packages that weigh less than 20 kilos.  Oops!

The postal workers cut the box open, we took some heavy stuff out, and then we sealed it all back up and packed another box with the heaviest goodies.  The postal workers (Miguel and his compatriots) were the most amazing I’ve ever dealt with.  In the United States, there is nothing like that.  They told us it helped that we were pretty young ladies.  Thank god I had showered that day, or we’d never have gotten it sent!  As it was, we arrived to the train station five minutes after our high-speed train to Toledo left.  Oops again!

We waited two hours in an incredibly long line and got new tickets to Toledo.  Although most of the museums were closed because it was Monday, we were still glad to have persevered.  During the course of our four-hour stay, we spoke with two local artisans, a paraplegic Spanish woman, and a pair of ticked-off Israeli Jews.  We learned how the typical Toledan jewelry is made (teensy gold threads are pressed into soft steel, and then the piece is heated until the metals fuse).  We also learned that the thin, hilly, cobbled streets of Toledo are less than ideal for a woman in a wheelchair.  Lastly, we learned that if you come all the way to Spain from Israel to see the Sephardic Museum in Toledo, you want to come on a day when it’s open – a.k.a. not Monday.

Yesterday we missed another train to El Escorial, and instead of waiting for the next one, we decided to camp out in the airport, recharge the cell phone and computer, reserve all the train tickets for the rest of the trip, and book hostels.  A quick metro ride back into downtown Madrid for some dinner almost cost us our fourth train, but we made it!

In Barcelona, we spent the day largely passed out in the hotel, after an overly bumpy night train from Madrid.  We also indulged in some pizza — the first hot food I’ve had in days.  Our usual m.o. is to buy nectarines, apples, bread, peanut butter, and whatever else looks cheap, tasty, and easy, at local super markets.  It’s cheap and pretty healthy, but it’s not momma’s cookin’.  I miss you momma!  I miss you all!