Amsterdam

We arrived in Amsterdam early last Thursday morning after having slept on our first overnight train. The family of 4 Italians joining us in the sleeper car had already settled in. They seemed very sweet (2 sisters and their daughters) and before we shut the door to go to sleep, one of the women pulls out a huge chain and padlock to put around the door. Yeah, we were in lock down! JJ tried to explain that there were already locks on the door, etc. etc. – but the Italian women would hear nothing of it and so we slept locked up real tight! In the morning, we headed from Amsterdam Central to Camping Zeeberg and met a huge crowd due to the Gay Pride Festival happening in Amsterdam over the weekend. Of course, we were completely unaware that this was “the biggest event” in Amsterdam the whole year, but we were excited for the party! After settling in next to a goat and chicken pen they had at the campground and JJ making friends with all of the farm animals, we headed out to wander the streets on the Central Area. We walked through the Red Light District and wandered the streets getting our bearings. The highlight of the walking was a few of the really cool furniture and design stores they had set up in the area. For dinner, we found a nice quiet restaurant called Soup Enzo. I had some sort of mustard and barley soup that was so good and well spiced! The bread was fresh and delicious and so was the salad we also ordered. We were very happy with our healthy and very tasty meal. We also stumbled upon the equivalent of Whole Foods in The Netherlands, “Markt” or something like that. We sampled tasty breads and got a complimentary cheese lesson from an employee at the store. We decided on a whole grain bread with pistachios, walnuts, raisins, and figs and a chunk of gouda with cumin seed (my favorite!). After eating more chocolate than we probably should have, we traded directions for chocolate from a nice girl and headed out the annual Amsterdam open-air independent film festival. We arrived at a huge open air field with a large screen set up. We grabbed two very comfortable lounge chair and rented warm wool blankets to watch the sky turn darker as we waited for the film to begin. We could not resist getting some fresh crepes and beer in the mean time. To our surprise, the movie (usually with English subtitles) was in Italian with Dutch subtitles – so the locals were all out in force and very pleased! We left at Intermission in order to avoid the challenge of understanding the rest of the film and because we were tired after a nice full day!

The next morning, we decided to take advantage of the location of our campground (right on the water) and rented a double kayak for about 3 hours. We cruised around the area of Amsterdam known as Ijburg and saw very interesting homes (all with very modern IKEA looking architecture), lots and lots of water fowl, and a so-called beach. We stopped for a break and ate our bread and cheese from the night before and then headed back out, passing a very cool bridge we found out later is known as the “iron bra.” After cleaning up, we headed back into town in the direction of the Van Gogh museum. On the way, we stopped at a side café for a sandwich (or so I thought). When we were about to order, JJ saw someone pick up what looked like a waffle covered in chocolate sauce with a side of vanilla ice cream. Of course he (we) could not resist this and got 2 of them! They were incredible! We happily entered the Van Gogh museum with full tummies. We have learned a very helpful trick in museums, which is to ask what way to best go through the museum before we begin! We were directed over to a movie theatre where we watched a very informative film about Van Gogh’s life and influences. As we wandered through the museum, we were truly enthralled with his work. The paintings are so vivid and colorful. After having viewed many of his paintings in Paris also, I can honestly say that he really was painting the light he saw on things instead of what they appeared to be. JJ and I learned so much about his work, influences, and the tragedy of his depression. Although he may have been misjudged when he was alive, it is clear to me that he was a man of genius in his art. Okay obviously he is my favorite painter if you did not already know that! When we left the museum, JJ was able to pick up some wi-fi signals and found out that he got invited for two interviews! We had to celebrate and went out to dinner at the busiest, most un-touristy restaurant we could find about a half mile from the Van Gogh museum. We had the pleasure of being heckled by 2 elder Dutch men as we ate, although they took some nice pictures of us (they sent via email) and suggested good beer to try. We left dinner and walked through the streets of the Central district, coming across a huge pre-party for the Gay Pride Fest! The streets were jam packed and people were dancing everywhere! We had a great time and slowly made our way down the street and towards the Dutch pancake booth JJ must have sniffed out! (JJ writing-They were amazing pancakes, silver dollar made in a metal pan with half circles and then served with butter and coated in powdered sugar.)

The next day, we decided to rent bikes and as soon as we paid for them, it started raining! We had plans to bike into town for lunch, but stopped at the Science Museum (NEMO) instead. Just to give you a hint of how much fun the science museum was for us their motto is “it is forbidden NOT to touch!” We spent a good part of the day there, making bubbles, testing our brains, and learning about how hard drugs will make you act through this very weird computer simulation program. We only left just as the museum was closing and then headed out to ride into the main part of town. As we got to the first canal, we heard a crazy party going on! We quickly realized that the “party” we heard was actually coming from the floats going through the canals full of gay people having the time of their lives in the pouring rain! The music was live going to a “disco” and people were going nuts! – This was the gay pride parade! After watching the floats and dancing to the music for an hour, we parked the bikes and walked to “party central” and danced to live “disco” performers for about an hour. This dance spot happened to be right around the corner to the same pancake place from the night before and of course, we could not resist. At that point, I decided to get some real dinner at a popular pita place. We had a fantastic and very memorable bike ride back to the place we were staying, ringing our bike bells non-stop! It sounded amazing!

We woke up the next morning to very weird weather and decided to take the morning as a down day. We headed out again around 3pm and went straight to a close brewery under a giant windmill, called Ij brewery – their mascot was an Ostrich. We had some amazing beer and within about 5 minutes of sitting down at these large, long picnic tables in the front, an old blue Mercury Cougar pulled up and a 3 piece rock band set up their stage from inside the car! The signer on the hood, the drummer on the back seat and the bass player on the front! They sang only American rock songs from the 1960s and we had a blast singing and dancing along! After the band packed up their car and drove off, we had a nice rest of the evening talking with a Dutch girl, a Polish girl, and a few Italians. We headed out with them to find “the best fries (frites) in all of Holland” with this big group of people. When I went to get my bike unlocked, I couldn’t work the key into the lock – so after several people tried the lock, we concluded that it was broken from the inside and it was not coming off. Of course at this point, the rental place was closed, so I spent the rest of the evening riding very carefully on the back of JJ’s bike getting the most intense abdominal workout of my life! No wonder those Dutch people are so thin, try riding on the back of a bike (they have been doing this their whole life) and see what I mean!

The next day we went to Brussels, Belgium! We are here now and actually heading to Bruges on the train. I will write a re-cap of Brussels and Bruges tomorrow while we are on our very long ride to Berlin, Germany! We send our love and hope you are all great. Love, Julie and JJ