Amsterdam

1ST JUNE - in transit to Amsterdam

exercise & school

highway drive 3-4 hours to Amsterdam with co-ordinates for Zeeburg camping

cows (+ whiff), power lines, cars, people, flat, brown water everywhere

campsite welcoming,all colours,buddha fountain near reception,large lampshades hanging from ceiling, blue & white windmill tiles on desk facing,  fluent English & thick ubiquitous whiffs of pot.

Dutch border

Trephina poktjie (tomato soup with pasta, sausage, kidney beans, onion) with German white sausage for dinner.  VERY yummy.

2/6 LOTTE, LOTTE, SWEET LOTTE, LOTTE in the Dam

school and ‘do as the Dutchies do’ - on the bikes to explore!

scary, mad bike ride 15kms into zentrum along famous congested red paths that accompany EVERY road. Kel was understandably terrified and required lots of reassuring & positive tracking about her early impressions of A’dam.

Bridges & steps have naffy narrow side furrows to slip the front wheel into allowing one to push the bike up any obstacle.

Sobering inbound scenery with dense brick 4 story heavily graffitied apartment blocks, their bases fringed by piled up black junk heaps of old bikes, most perfectly functional & others corpse-like or partly dismembered.

Highly populated country so well managed.  Impossible to imagine if every 1-2 bike riders were driving cars!

Slowly, we come into more beautiful old Amsterdam (originally Amsteldam after the main river, Der Amstel) with ornate roof tops and Dutch colonial facades and then into the green “heart”, Vondelpark  where we plan to meet our Lotte.

What a thrill seeing her bouncing up, all hippied-up in purples, silky paisley bag over her shoulder, perfectly synchronous with her surrounds on an old black bike greeting friend and fellow Dutchie in her rolly-polly native tongue.

Lotte has generously thought out a bike tour starting with the high house she is renting whilst here. Typical of inner city abodes, it is 4 stories high, battle-axed to another behind & renting about 3 people to a squeezy floor. Outside are rows of bikes chained to trees, benches, poles as well as dedicated bike racks.  Access is via the steepest staircase with a gradient no less than those in the medieval towers behind some of the old Swiss villages.  We saw her tiny but airy room, GOT THE PROMITE (& teeth - thanks darling Mike) and climbed to the roof with a view over a sea of other residential roof tops.

Boats and Bikes

crazy hippie cyclist

We then make for her brother’s for a welcoming great coffee, and a chat together with his gorgeous partner. They’ve put together a package of Dutchie contraband - chocolate sprinkles, salty licorice and sticky biscuit.

PeterPaul and Wilhemja

Then we head off with Lotte’s Bike Tours through old Urodam along numerous quirky canal streets lined with crooked old houses that sag in the middle (A’dam is sinking!). She points out the room her & Steve shared ‘in the day’ acknowledging all over again the amazing love her showed adjusting to tiny spaces, cold weather and a very different new culture. We stop outside the Anne Frank House, view the narrowest (1m wide) house in A’dam, follow more canals over bridges and stop for a tradition of slippery raw haring (herring) coated with chopped raw onion -mmmm. Jeff not coping so I get a double serve - WOO-HOO.  He’s good to go out with!  

Back into screaming bidirectional bike traffic, scooters & motorbikes on bike lanes, angry bell-ringing, expletives (thankfully in a foreign tongue,) whilst following Lotte’s distance purple dot just cruising across 4 way intersections cluttered with trams, buses, cars, bikes, pedestrians - feels like Asia. She reckons one needs Dutch courage and must then simply take charge! What a cultural experience… and strangely quite addictive.  We pause from the throngs of fast moving objects with a beer at the Roof Top Skylounge overlooking town.  Once again, we’re delighted with old majestic European spires and high building decorations that are often quite brightly coloured and gold plated.

We all enthusiastically remount our treadlies (even Kel, who is now weaving, bell ringing and taking charge with the best of them!  Immersion therapy  - go Kel!) looking forward to the fun and madness of an even wilder ride as the streets are now bulging further with dope & alcohol-filled soccer supporters and bewildered (dopey?) tourists.  We sneak into a dark, charming narrow side street to Steve’s fave drinking hole to sample genever at Wijink and Fockink. The place is going off but the two delightful, ex-ballet dancers gesticulating barmen take their time, welcoming and entertaining their customers allowing tastings and photos of the initial meniscal slurp.

Genever slurp

Back on the bikes toward the cafe precinct.  We share a slow, tasty dinner with Lot and then ride home fast at 2130 in the fading light of the day.  Teeth and bed at 2230.

3/6

Written by Wil

When we woke up it was raining, very disappointing. I think we’ve had our share of that this year.  But… it allowed us to sleep in and READ. 

We had a usual breakfast of milk-soaked muesli and chai latte followed by a fun, not too challenging block of maths.

When maths was done it was time for lunch already, owing to our waking up at… 10:30?  Lunch consisted of nutty bread with PROMITE!!  A first since we left!!!   It brought back awesome memories of promite on fruit toast (I know, a weird combination. You should try it!) and me grumbling over having to make Dad’s for him.  The days of glory.  We also tried a Dutch tradition of chocolate sprinkles on bread!  Interesting, but not to be continued.

After lunch we set out on a trip on the tram to Centraal Station (as written in dutch, I am sure you can guess what it means), and walked to NEMO(NOT the fish), an awesome but crowded and noisy science museum.  

Mum didn’t like it, so she hung around in the Cafeteria and looked at internet stuff about Anne Frank and the Netherlands (did you know in Amsterdam there are 1.5 million people, and almost 1 bike per PERSON, so almost 1.5 million bikes!), while Kel, Dad and I had an amazing experience in which we travelled through a cell in a 3D movie, lifted ourselves using pulleys, used static electricity to capture styrofoam balls, learned about a Fuel Cell (did Mum mention those a few posts back?), controlled a waterway, pedaled through space, skipped over a section about puberty etc. etc, not going to elaborate because there might be young ones listening, built a bridge and gaped at an elaborate and intricate water clock. We then made our way to mum and decided we would have a coffee out and go home.  As we were finding a coffee shop, we passed through Amsterdam’s Red Light District.  There were some quite obscene pictures on display.

We found a cosy little café with two women working flat out churning out coffees and sandwiches and hot chocolates.

Mum and Dad both had a HUGE coffee, and Kel and I had a HUGE and DELICIOUS hot chocolate with a mountain of cream.  After we had finished (we dreaded the moment) we walked back to Centraal Station and boarded the tram back to Zeeburg, where our camping site is, and settled down for a lovely dinner and a movie.

on reflection.....

Camping Zeeburg

4/6

Run in the rain (gee we’re good) along the broad never-ending dijk with my rocket man, snoozing babes back in bed. 

maths tests x 2 - go kids!

tram, bus to airport. Great opportunity to watch local life. They grow them so big here.

Lotte and her family meet us at the airport.  Poor Paul wearing his heart on his sleeve but acknowledging that she is happy and partnered in life with a great man, Stevo the Devo!

SAA success finally! Our flight back home is mostly (hopefully) organised now for Dec 29 out of London and Jan 7th out of Jo’burg.

Tram back to central station and monster walk through town past ladies in windows, cheese shops,that “sweet smell” that Wil’s noticed & over some of Amsterdam’s 1,300 bridges to the Applestore in a characteristically grand and palatial building to exchange my defective iPod.

Apple staircase

Tram home with tired kids.

‘Stick’ salad (with crushed pretzel sticks as topping), kids to bed whilst we do the blog and loads of washing.

5/6

Back along that dijk with Roadrunner Jeff!  Healthy rabbits everywhere. The still, ubiquitous swampy water mirrors the sky and adds an ethereal dimension. The no-nonsense, pragmatic Dutchies whizz about  economically on their bikes to work/study despite the freezing wind and persistent drizzle.

Pack up & to the shops for food.  Our first supermarket in Holland, Albert Heijn where the stand out observations are how many isles of great bread there are (nuttier, softer and sweeter than the dense, often sour German bread), even more aisles of sensational dairy products (by far the best in Europe)… and rows of various types of peanut butter despite peanuts not being a local crop!

Next stop, Zaansa Sancha, an old industrial windmill town near Zaandam where awfully cute thatched roofs insulate (& decorate) oil crushing, wood saw and chalk grinding mills.  One can experience them in action & imagine an industrial centre of old.

The best bit though was the co-located clog factory.  What an engaging and attractive item. There was an extensive, informative display of the original highly practical trade shoe clog used to walk on the dirty, wet, cold peat which was mined for building and heating.

Then came the Sunday clogs, the dress clog, the personalized clog and ultimately, the wedding clog.  Kel & I struggled to not haggle Jeff to purchase delightful soft slipper clogs.

too big!