So after waking up from delayed sleeping pills, which had been recommended to me by some French friends, we lumbered out to catch our train at the Gare du Nord in Paris. We got to the train station at 5:45 and our train left at 6:25am. After our 3 hour train ride we arrived at the busy and beautiful central station in Amsterdam. Is there any big city that I have felt so at home? I like the way they talk, I love their style, they have great comfort food, they are 'the' bike people, ecofriendly, and easy going.
Amsterdam is also called the Venice of the north, complete with open plazas filled with pigeons, surrounded by beautiful gilded stone buildings, high fashion shops, cafés and this Venice is a bustling one. Zoom! three heavy black bikes go by brushing beside you with the ring of their bells, stop! there's a tram coming through, wait! there's a car going down the road, watch out! for the rickshaw, make way! for the horse carriage, and even the occasional keep an eye out for that ambulance. The bustle makes Amsterdam fun and full of energy but it also means you really need to stay on your toes. It makes bike riding for the newbie a bit intimidating; especially after watching one guy crash into an electric scooter, flip over his handle bars, to stand up looking befuddled with blood dripping down his face and a broken nose; let's go biking : )! Maybe that's why we heard so many ambulances.
The shopping is great, Amsterdam has lots of sleek designers both graphic and civic. You can find small artsy companies along with lots of second hand vintage shops if you head to the Jordaan neighborhood which has a great modern Scandinavian feel. The beer is great and if you like vodka or whiskey the Dutch make a drink called 'Jenever' which is in between the two. Remember that g's and j's are pronounced like h's. So it's pronounced something like [ hey-NEY-ver]. We ended up going to one of the oldest bars in Amsterdam called Wynand Fockink and got to try the stuff. You need to look around a tad if you actually want to drink coffee but there are some great places to go to and handy hint if you order your coffee with milk you basically get a cappuccino, yum. The streets are filled with great stores: book shops, bike shops, home furnishing, secondhand clothing, specialty food shops, bar/cafés, and amazing grocery stores. The words organic, family owned, and local permeate the city.
I love being mistaken for being Dutch here; basically it's have slim blue jeans, scarf, parka, leather sling purse will travel (with blue and beige overtones). It doesn't hurt if you are a tall, blue eyed, dirty blonde either. The women seem to wear little or no makeup or jewelry. I am so impressed that they can so effortlessly slide back and forth between Dutch and English. I mean really everyone we met spoke fluent English. I enjoyed trying to read the signs or understand the tour guide in Dutch. And I figured out a few words in our three days here; met, voor, het, huis, straat, gesloten, abbreviations for days of the week, and that a lot of English German root words can have [ge-] as a prefix and [-en] as a suffix (I think that might make it plural) to be made Dutch, for example geboren->born.
It's my type of place. I like to remember the smells of different cities; good, bad and ugly; for instance to me Avignon smells like perfume and wood fire smoke with hints of cat pee; Amsterdam smells like pot, linseed oil, fried food and motor boats. It's stylish but practical, cold but friendly, man-made but natural; it's a city filled with all kinds of weird people but anyone can find a place to fit in at in Amsterdam. A quiet restaurant on Kattenburgerplein, shopping in Jordaan, drinking a pint at Heineken, frites eating adventures near Dam Square, touring The Van Gogh Museum or biking en masse on Raadhuisstraat. (which does not mean red house street but in fact town hall street)
-Een grote knuffel to my friends in New York (Wade & Jane) and anyone else who might be reading from Bethel and please tell any friends you might have in Holland that I say hello. Dank u
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