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In the spring of 1999, I visited my sister in Warsaw, Poland for a little less than two weeks. Until recently, that was my only trip to Europe. Somehow, that just didn't seem right.
Because I'd enjoyed the SAS leg of my trip to Poland so much more than the KLM/Northwest leg, and because while spending a few hours at Schiphol I was struck by how much people in the airport looked like and sounded like my family, I decided I wanted to return to the Netherlands and try to find some of my family. I knew my aunt had visited some relatives, so first I sent her a letter asking for their contact information. Much to my surprise, I discovered she had found, not distant relatives, but her own cousins. I sent them letters, and was pleasantly surprised to promptly receive e-mail in return, inviting me to visit them in Friesland. I originally intended to visit Paris and then go down to Italy, but decided to spend longer in Amsterdam instead, to allow for flexibility in spending time with relatives.
My flight left late (due to bad weather at the destination). Because of modifications to SeaTac post 9-11, the Thomas Cook exchange wasn't where I expected it to be, so I didn't change money until I arrived in Amsterdam.
Because I lost 9 hours flying east, and started on an evening flight, I arrived in Amsterdam in the evening. A lot of Western European airports, including Schiphol, had been closed when I left Seattle because of snowstorms. It was below freezing when I arrived. I successfully caught the train from the airport to the city center and walked to the hostel, after misunderstanding the scale of the centrum repeatedly and overshooting where I was supposed to turn. Small, small, small city center. The nineteenth century largely bypassed this place. Since I was able to send e-mail from the airport to let people know I'd arrived safely, I didn't venture out again that night. I chatted briefly with Jess, a friendly woman from Korea.
Breakfast with Jess, who then went on the Museum Boat, which combines a canal boat ride around the centrum with the option of stopping at numerous tourist locations along the way, plus discounts at those locations. Ideal for a short stay in the city. Because the flight from South Korea to Europe is both very long and very expensive, a lot of travelers from that country work hard to make sure they see as much as possible as quickly as possible. This strategy often meets with contempt from travelers from other countries, which strikes me as both bigoted and unfortunate.
I walked down to the Rijksmuseum, or, if one wishes to pass as local, the Rijks. Once again, I misunderstood the scale and arrived early. I walked in the garden behind, which isn't particularly exciting when frozen in winter. After I'd been inside for about an hour, I ran into a young man who I recognized from checking in the night before and introduced myself. Rowan and I agreed to meet up again in a couple hours and get some lunch. As with all pictures that are overhyped, The Night Watch does not survive its publicity. It was great to see other pictures in the genre, however, to better understand why Rembrandt's version is considered unusual.
We had lunch at a bruin cafe, and then went to the Stedelijk. On the way there, we ran into Kate and Emma, acquaintances of Rowan's from home in Melbourne, Australia. While I didn't make any effort to remember them, I did see them again in Europe. The modern art at the Stedelijk, as one might expect, was somewhat weird, but they did have some Mondrians. After dinner at a thai restaurant in Nieuwmarkt, I went to see Tea. The story is unusually stupid, even by opera standards, but the costumes were lovely, the performances uniformally good and the music was compelling. I nodded off a couple times, because it was warm and I was sitting down, but not for too long and I don't think anyone noticed.
After the opera, I found Rowan and we went to the Red Light District (De Wallen) to have a look around. My strategy when walking around areas likely to attract trouble is to keep moving at a steady pace and not let anyone brush against me. Rowan, not unnaturally, wanted to stop and take a good look around. On one occasion, at an intersection, I played along and a gentleman reached out for my purse. Before I had consciously noticed, I had blocked the grab and started walking again, sharply saying, "Come on" to my companion, who was still flabbergasted that someone had tried to grab my purse. That was easily the most excitement of the entire trip, with the possible exception of a short sequence of events just outside the Chateau d'Eau Metro Station in Paris. The barkers outside the "live sex shows" seem to find it amusing to tell me that it's a family show, I should come inside and see for myself.
After an hour or so, we go get some vlaamse frites, which survive their advance publicity. Much better than a typical fry. It's well below freezing, but I took my gloves off to avoid getting ketchup on them, and got to a point where I couldn't feel the fry in my fingers, but it burned the roof of my mouth when I ate it. Weird. A couple of (Rowan thinks) young Dutch men strut past us yelling that McDonald's is better, before entering the McDonald's. Hmmm.
Today, Jess is off to Antwerp and Rowan is off to Den Haag this afternoon for a late New Year's Party at his employer of the last few months. It was nice to have a couple faces to look for the last day, but I suppose I will find more. After breakfast, Rowan and I go to Rembrandt Huis with low expectations, because Jess saw it off the museum boat and was not impressed. In the event, we had a very good time. It's like a historical village, but limited to the contents of one house. The focus is primarily educational, rather than aesthetic or entertainment, and the exhibit of modern engravings at the end is good.
After Rembrandt Huis, we walked over to the Beurs van Berlage, an attractive building with a gorgeous room inside. Think convention center + office services center (Kinko's, vaults, space to engage in papershuffling) from a hundred and fifty years or so ago. You can climb up the bell tower, which is some steep stairs and then an iron ladder, mildly terrifying when icy. Because Amsterdam is so flat, the view is amazing. Rowan was not too impressed, saying that when I climb up other buildings in Europe, I'll be more amazed (I wasn't, but that says more about Paris air quality than anything else).
Rowan is studying architecture, so he was a good companion to see a Le Corbu exhibit with. I, personally, only like one church that Corbusier did. Everything else strikes me as ugly to begin with, and not inclined to age well. Of course, history supports the functional argument quite nicely.
I don't have a picture of Rowan, because I hadn't bought film yet. I didn't want to try to bring any through new US airport security. I did collect his contact information and he has since been in touch. I hope to visit him on my trip to Australia, hopefully in the next year or two at the most. I walked him to the station, and then returned to the hostel to nurse my aching feet and, worse, my aching knee, write postcards, and sleep. I skipped dinner, because I was just too tired to bother. I don't know how the Koreans do it. (Note to self: place feet more carefullly! Amsterdam is paved irregularly, often with bricks or cobbles and if you thump along carelessly, you can do a surprising amount of damage to the knee, considering it's all basically flat.)
While hanging out in the dorm, talking to myself and trying to assemble receipts and other bits of paper and figure out where the money was going, I met Sandra, who is Dutch, from South Holland. As is typical of people staying close to home, she doesn't seem to be aware of the vast quantity of hostels in Amsterdam, only one other and that one of the Christian ones.
I headed to Amstelkring, the Catholic church in the attic (complete with organ). It is beautiful, and I have now learned the minimum Nederlandse needed to engage in a transaction successfully without using English. You do have to say A.U.B. when offering money, or they know you are a fraud and in fact will take you to task for it. The lockers in this town are wonderful. Usually ample enough to hold a daypack and a layer or two, they even give you your money back when you retrieve your stuff.
The Amsterdam Historical Museum was my favorite museum in the city. I got in successfully using only Dutch. Woohoo! Organized chronologically, but easily navigable in other ways, it contains a combination of interesting artifacts from the city's past (some carefully handed down from century to century, others found in the canals or dug up when renovating or building anew in an old location), art which supplies a glimpse into the past and unusually good electronic displays that illustrate growth in population, city size and modification of the location and size of the area's water bodies.
I had walked past an Albert Heijn on the walk and picked up some groceries. Since I was no longer walking around with someone, I figured I should start using the kitchen downstairs. By the time I was back at the hostel cooking at around 1 p.m., management in the form of Phil, walked in with three brand new nonstick pans and wooden utensils to go with. Wow. The omelette and roll (with incredibly strong mustard) suitably fortified me for a wander through shopping areas in the west part of the center. I also visited the Eyeglasses Museum. It's in a very narrow canal house, and the stairs are quite cramped. The cards describing the history of eyeglasses are nestled amongst countless old spectacles and other reading aids, collected by several generations of opticians.
Today I discovered that someone stole my other five brown rolls. Food, in general, tended to disappear from the kitchen. I didn't mind when people borrow my cooking oil (and I thought it was sweet that the Belgian left a note thanking me for it), but I only got one of the six rolls before they were lifted. After today, I started keeping edible-without-cooking food in my locker. I think possibly some people are wandering around with little money and a severe case of the munchies in the wee hours.
As it is Sunday, I went to Westerkerk for services. They aren't open in the winter for visitors, so it seemed like my one chance to get a peek at the inside. The printed liturgie enabled me to stand, sit and sing along (quietly, as my Dutch isn't that good, and only the words, not the music, are supplied). I'm a little bummed I couldn't follow all of the sermon, because at some point in the middle, it diverged from the main theme of the flight to Egypt and President Bush was mentioned. At the end, a woman turned around and remarked something to me in Dutch, and I was forced to admit ignorance. Apparently she was merely noting that it was awfully cold where we were sitting (it was, but I was so grateful to be sitting down and looking at things, instead of standing up, that I didn't much care).
After services, I returned to the hostel for lunch, then went to the Bible Museum. I was most interested in the models of Solomon's Temple, but the display of past translations of the Bible into Dutch was also very interesting. I am somewhat familiar with the history of Bible translation into English, why various translations were created, sponsored by whom, how they influenced the language and so forth. It was enlightening to see the exact same process at work in another country, another language. The temporary exhibit was of design materials for Chagall's stained glass for a synagogue in Jerusalem, which was much less interesting to me, but also a lot more crowded.
After leaving the Bijbel Museum, I walked over to the public library, where I got a half hour free internet access, then stopped into the Athenaeum to buy a book. I got Geert Mak's history of Amsterdam in translation. I was mostly through the transaction successfully in Dutch when I was confronted with the question (I figured this out later): Is 't een cadeauje? Or, is it a gift. I didn't hear it (like most people new to a language, I need people to speak slowly and clearly, and Amsterdammers aren't known for either trait), and so raised a hand to my ear, which apparently was interperted as yes (literally, lekker, but in any event, an affirmative), and wrapping paper was brought out. Whups.
I also walked along Hoogstraat (High Street), window shopping. I bought a copy of Eten bij van Buren (Eating with the Neighbors). Each chapter is an interview and a recipe with someone in the Netherlands who came from elsewhere.
Hanging out in the hostel dining room that evening, reading my book, a young man from Korea offered to share some of his noodles. This was the first time I'd had anything spicy-hot (other than that mustard, which isn't the same thing) since arriving. I hadn't realized just how much I'd missed it. He also drew me a map, recommending the hostel he'd stayed at in Paris, but without much enthusiasm for the hostel itself.
I took a day off from seeing the sights in order to catch up on life. I did laundry, made a Thalys reservation and bought my ticket to Paris for the next day, caught up on sleep and read my book. Hanging out at the hostel meant that I met more people. A businessman from India, travelling in leather goods, was cooking a large, elaborate meal which he intended to share with a colleague staying at a local. There was a friendly Australian couple who act in a way that Americans are often stereotyped as acting: friendly, loud, insensitive to feedback and in-your-business. I overheard a conversation involving a young man who had recently seen Tea and thought the story was abysmal. I chimed in to confirm that it was bad, even for opera, which he seemed to appreciate. But best were Barbara and Cathy from Manitoba, here to check out Brussels, where Barbara's dad was during the war. Next stop: Morocco and points south, including plans to ride a camel in the desert, then up through Spain and Portugal, ending in Paris before returning home. They are young-looking grandmas, out larking about leaving the family at home. I hope I can one day be so cool.
I did go for a longish walk in the afternoon, south west of the center. I was looking for Mateloos, a shop which carries Anna Scholz. I had wanted to buy some of her clothing since first seeing it in Grace a while ago. No stockist on the West Coast, and by the time I got to Mateloos, I was on the small end of size 14. A quick look around suggested that this (really very cool) Adammer version of Lane Bryant was not going to work for me this year. There are worse tragedies.
I took the Thalys from Amsterdam Centraal to Paris Gare du Nord. Investigations in my Paris map (the truly amazing Michelin by arondissment spiral bound) suggested there was a decent hostel a short walk from the station. Once I was settled there (very unhappily -- no security to speak of, tiny lockers, no lock supplied and my lock wouldn't fit), I went out for a walk to get dinner and look around a little. I ate cheap Chinese, and failed to find an open branch of the Paris tourist office (this would be a theme the next day as well).
I talked to the Korean girls in the 4-bed room. Lee and Choi clued me in to the patterns I was seeing in Koreans traveling in Amsterdam. The women tend to travel during the long winter break between terms in their 2nd or 3rd year at university, so they are 20 or 21. The men can't get passports until after they finish military service, which happens in the middle of their university studies. They tend to go when they are 25, before returning to finish school. The women may or may not travel with other women. The men tend to travel alone. As noted above, because of the expense of the plane ticket, their style of travel is designed to maximize what they see.
The other bed in the room was occupied by a Frenchwoman, 29, who said she lived in Paris, which struck me as anomalous -- why stay at a hostel if you live in the same city? She had a ton of stuff, and scattered it all over the room. Like the Korean girls, she was out of toothpaste so I made mine available for general use. She was about to start a new job at an Indian restaurant, and did not pay in advance for the next night, so the bed was booked by a German woman named Connie, in town on business, but staying over additional nights to have some fun seeing the city with a sister who was going to meet her. In the middle of the night, the Parisienne returned and swearing ensued. I found out later that she got a bed in another room, but when she retrieved her things the following day, after the Koreans had left for Stadsdoelen in Amsterdam, and while I was out of the hostel, she also took my toothbrush and toothpaste. Management was kind enough to help me retrieve it. After doing some additional reading, I hypothesize that the Parisenne is one of Les Exclus, unable to find regular work and therefore regular housing, and so hops from friend to friend, hostel to hostel, catch as catch can.
The woman who supervises the free breakfast, as advertised, won't let you have more than one roll, more than one OJ, etc. It's hard even to get a second cup of hot water for tea, never mind a second tea bag. Irritating. I walked to the Eiffel Tower, noting the line at the Musee D'Orsay, which I had no inclination to see. Later I would kick myself for missing the opportunity to see such a fine example of early 19th Century railroad station architecture. Oh well. I walked up to the second level of the Eiffel Tower, and decided not to ride the elevator to the top. It was so smoggy/foggy/misty/cloudy it was hard to see much more at the second level than at the first. It was hard to believe going still higher would improve matters. I ran into Kate, Emma, acquaintances of Rowan, and their friend Michael walking down as I walked up. I also saw a stair runner. Typical. The central tourist office on the Champs Elysee was open, so I got a three day museum pass, and then headed straight to the Louvre for lunch in the food court. I was sufficiently frazzled that I got a beer, a Tsing Tao. It was so crowded I had to stand to eat lunch. Ack. Since this is a Wednesday, the Louvre is open late. I tried to pace myself, mapping where I had been on the floor plan as I walked. I sat whenever something looked appealing. There were the predictable crowds at the Mona Lisa, and a lot of kids running around filling out homework assignments.
The oddest thing I saw was the placard for a painting of two dogs. (Pontel Bassano 1548, Deux chiens de chasse lies a une souche -- there should be accents on the e in lies and the a) If I am not mistaken, it excitedly (this is unusual in placards at the Louvre, which tend to be extremely short descriptions of what you are looking at, with no commentary whatsoever, e.g. Mary nursing Jesus Oil Painting ca. some date or other) described this as either the, or one of the earliest Occidental paintings of just dogs -- no religious theme, or allegory, just dogs, and went on a bit about another one like it at the Prado, and how the Louvre hadn't had any paintings of this sort until acquiring this one recently and so on. Bizarre. The "open air" sculpture exhibit is gorgeous.
I found a couple of artists I had not previously been aware of that I liked a lot. Domenico Zampieri, Le Dominiquin, who did a lot of landscapes with messages, but really they are as close to just being landscapes as the patrons of the time were likely to allow, and some 19th Century landscapes of rocks by (I think, but my notes are far from clear) Pierre Henri de Valenciennes.
As the day wore on to evening, the outside of the Louvre started to look really good. At sunset, the dirt ceased to be visible and lit at night it is quite lovely. The school groups left, and the crowds dwindled to Asian tour groups, a lot of artists encamped in particular spots drawing or painting, and a bunch of loners like me. I quit at around 8, had dinner where I had lunch (but sitting down, thank god) and walked back to the hostel.
The Arenes de Lutece, technically the largest Roman ruin in Paris, doesn't look particularly old. It's hard to say if that's because it was protected by dirt until the 19th Century when an omnibus company wanted to raze it and use the stones to build a stable, or because the ensuing subscription to preserve it went a little overboard and actually rebuilt it completely. The Histoire de Paris sign wasn't particularly forthcoming. They rarely are, if outright gore isn't involved. Everywhere I go in Paris I see joggers, women with baby strollers and older women with those covered, wheeled shopping carts. Of course the characteristic sound of Paris is the police siren, and the characteristic smell is car exhaust. I think Americans and the French love to hate each other because it's so easy to project our worst traits onto the other and pretend we're not nearly as alike as we are.
After the Arena, the Pantheon, which is quite new as things in Paris go, and in dire straits. It is falling apart, because the iron supports embedded in the stone are rusting, expanding, and destroying the rock. They are studying it, but the signs don't suggest that anyone has a solution, and I for one can't imagine one short of rebuilding it anew piecemeal. I tried for a photo of the Curie crypt, but it did not turn out. Then the Thermes/Hotel de Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages. Famed for its tapestries of the woman with the unicorn (the touch one is highly amusing), I found the museum has a whole delightfully creepy. Lots of funerary monuments and in general the whole place felt thrown away and dead, right down to the old statues from Notre Dame taken down and tossed when the facades were removed and replaced. It was great to see some of the glass from Ste Chapelle, post-cleaning, pre-reinstallation, altho as usual it never looks right disassembled on a stark, plain wall.
Unlike every other city I've been in, the area around the University of Paris/Sorbonne is far cleaner than the rest of the city. I got good, cheap chinese, with a pot of tea and a carafe of tap water, sitting down and hot sauce on the side. Very happy feet. My back was to the wall, my bag was in a corner with no one nearby and I had a history of Paris to read that I had bought at the Moyen Age. Wow. I could almost like this city at moments like this. Oh, funny this: that slight hill walking up to the Pantheon is Mont Ste. Genevieve. Hysterical laughter.
Next is Notre Dame cathedral (Paris), where I walked up the tower and met Rafael, a 25 year old American in France for his grandfather's funeral. Nice guy. I pointed him at the extremely good archaeological exhibit in the crypt, perhaps the best thing I saw in all of Paris. It made sense. It looked real. It wasn't overcrowded. The employees were civilized. But next time, I'm bringing binoculars. You just cannot appreciate Ste. Chappelle without them. Gorgeous place. Weird experience, going through the police station to get to it.
This was my last day on the museum pass, and the one that caused me to seriously question why I bothered. The User's Guide for it lists a lot of stuff that it actually isn't good for. An icon of the pass is your only clue one way or the other, and while this was pointed out to me, it didn't fully sink in, because the first couple of days, everything had the icon so I forgot what it meant. Then I tried to go to a museum near the Parc Monceau, which should have been a clue. Unbelievably expensive looking real estate. The joggers in the park look normal (i.e. not insanely athletic), which I figure means they must have exorbitant amounts of money (how else to support a normal life in a city this expensive?). Rolex has some kind of non-retail building here. The park itself is gorgeous and has actual water fountains. Not too many shops, the streets are wide. And their own museum, 8 Euro to get in, listed in the guidebook but not actually accepting the card. Lord knows why.
So I walked over to the Museum Nissim da Camondo, which is lovely as a decorative arts exhibit, and also a fascinating glimpse into the background of some of the French Jews who wound up executed by the Nazis. Afterwards, I stopped at a McDonald's (I shudder to confess), because it was nonsmoking. The buns here in Paris are noticeably better than in the Midwest.
Then back to the Louvre for the smaller museums. Unfortunately, the Fashion and Textile museum had an exhibit on Jackie Kennedy (which cost an extra 4.5 Euro). The other exhibit was the 60s, which was at least slightly better. The Decorative Arts museum had a middle ages theme, but not nearly so death-oriented as Themes/Hotel de Cluny. After, I caught the metro to Sacre Coeur and walked up to the tower. It had a self-pay machine to enter. Weird. The area around Sacre Coeur is densely populated by a bunch of aggressive men. Some try to get you to put your finger into some weird string scam/game. I don't know the details. Others seem to want to pick up unattended women and offer to show them the church. At least they keep their hands to themselves. When I arrived, the weather was gorgeous, but steadily deteriorated the longer I was there. On the bright side, there seem to be people in Paris who hang out in the Metro stations and help lost souls figure out how to navigate to their goals.
I was moved to write the following while at Sacre Coeur:
I walked the stations of the cross backwards. I think we all need to send a message about the inadequacy of the RC's response to priests abusing their trusted position. There's a heart in an urn downstairs. Creepy. The usual bones and gold stuff, too. I don't know which is more offensive: individual consumption to excess, commercial excess, governmental excess or religious excess. As a state church, S-C gets 3 out of 4. I may take that pictures down [referring here to a drawing of S-C my sister gave me years ago when she was living in Paris currently on a wall in my home].
I'm writing this during a mass, trying to work out polite behavior, so I stood for a moment during the blessing. Organ music, hymn and a badly miked priest singing [the office]. What is with the need to amplify everything. These places are designed to not need amplification.
I've been meaning to say for a while that Paris makes luxuries easy ([albeit] expensive) and necessities hard -- especially sitting down. The major exceptions are churches and bathrooms and even the bathrooms sometimes require money. The churches just ask for it. If you are rich, and know the place, I think an amazing life is possible here, hard or impossible to duplicate any other place (save certain similar cities). I think it is a failure to develop an egalitarian aesthetic, so the city that worships beauty is still elitist and tolerant of insane levels of discomfort. Partly they don't want their aristocratic past to "devolve" [that's from another history of Paris plaque, about a Hotel that had been converted to commercial purposes] to commerce -- they just want to keep buying and holding pristine from further trade more and more beautiful things, buildings etc. Maintenance is lowly. Very sad. I can't say I love the city, but I don't hate it. I disapprove of it, but recognize that what I disapprove is partly what makes -- and what is made by -- the beautiful stuff here.
In retrospect, somewhat incoherent. But I can't say now how to make my point more clearly, and it continues to capture my ambiguous response to Paris.
I caught a train to Chartres. It was so foggy, I could not see the cathedral from the station (this is hard to believe, I know, but it was in fact true). I discovered Malcolm Miller was doing tours, so set about to kill an hour before the next one. I walked up the tower and took a few misty, foggy, eerie pictures. Then back down to stare at a couple of the cleaner windows and figure out which one is the west door. In the event, only two of us showed up for the tour, and Miller would have bailed on us (did, in fact, walk away from us, directing us to get the audio tour). But my boyfriend loved Miller's tour, and we went to hear him speak in Seattle a few years ago, so I was unwilling to give up. Fortunately a young man from New York felt similarly, and we agreed to offer to compensate Miller for the size of a more normal group (10). Miller seemed disbelieving at first, but was happy to take our money and give us a semi-private tour. Great stuff, as always, and he periodically parked us on top of the central heating grates to thaw out before continuing.
The young man from New York got us completely lost trying to locate the station again, so I got to see the tourist accretions in Chartres, which I would otherwise have missed. I had been surprised on the walk from the station, as I saw virtually nothing indicating people had been traveling here to see the cathedral for hundreds of years. He asked for directions from a Frenchwoman (Ou est le guerre -- she corrected his pronunciation and gave directions without so much as a pause). After I dropped him at his train, I returned to the cathedral via a shorter, less scenic route, and stopped in a cafe that looked populated by non-Parisian French folk. Bruno, my waiter, started talking English to me after a round or two of putting up with my french. I was full for the first time in days. I discovered after returning home, based on before and after weight, that I was shorting myself an average of 700 calories a day, but I didn't realize this at the time. Bliss to sit, drink a beer, and consume frites and a vegetarian sandwich. I wonder now if I would have enjoyed France more if I hadn't been so hungry all the time.
In any event, I returned to the cathedral, to trot back and forth between the installed plan and the windows. I bought the plan they had for sale at the cathedral, which unfortunately while prettier and more colorful than the one in the south transept, is much less detailed. Three small French children were running around the cathedral, which after a while pissed me off enough to grab one by the collar and hiss, Ne cours pas! at a couple of times. They self-enforced better behavior after that, and didn't cause any further trouble. I was impressed.
After I caught the train back to Paris, I took the Metro back to the vicinity of where I had eaten the night before, and started looking around for it. I got off at Chateau d'Eau, and almost immediately noticed someone was shadowing me. I slowed. He passed, which initially relieved me, but then I noticed about five other men on the street were paying a lot of attention to me. I continued walking, but while they weren't pacing me, more men as I walked along picked up where the once I left behind left off. Abruptly, one man jumped in front of me, shouting "Americaine". It wasn't threatening, as he wasn't moving towards me and he was just out of kicking range. I jumped, frowned, shook my head and kept walking on around him. Nothing further happened. It made me mad, but wasn't precisely scary at any point.
The next day, I caught the Thalys back to Amsterdam. It was running almost an hour late, and was split into two trains, one going just to Brussels, the other continuing to Amsterdam. The board was very confusing on the subject, and the announcements on the PA not much better, so along with everyone else, I trooped over to the train to Brussels when it arrived to ask. I started by asking, in French, if the Thalys employee spoke English and he replied sharply, but with a smirk on his face and nonverbals that said quite clearly, I am lying, what are you going to do about it, No. So I indicated the train and asked, in French, to Amsterdam? To which he replied, No, later, in English. So Dutch. Back at the hostel, I met a number of Australians who weren't still getting their first college degree. One is bumming around the world, working low-stress jobs as he goes to get enough cash to go to the next interesting place. The other two, Susie and Andrew, are from Melbourne, but worlds apart from others I've met from the same town. They're a couple years out of school, spending ten months with a round-the-world ticket, nearing the end of their journey. Wonderful people, they've seen a ton and thought about it carefully, rather than seeing the world and expressing contempt for a thousand different ways of doing things. They are both articulate, and so comfortable and considerate of each other as they make sure they take turns talking. I also met Arnold, a fantastic character who as near as we can tell, has travelled nearly everywhere (except Papua New Guinea) and remembers in some detail everything he's seen, right down to being able to give correct descriptions on how to get from one town to the next in a country he hasn't seen in fifteen years and get the intersections right.
I met a few Americans at the hostel today. I learned recently that people don't have some magic sense of who is American. The Australians, Canadians and apparently Commonwealth citizens in general are regularly mistaken for Americans. But Dan and Kaila are genuinely from the US, New York State. She has a Dutch friend, and so has been hanging out with locals, going to parties. In general, I took the day off and read my new book about France in the last decade or so, which was enlightening.
Reception helped me figure out how to get to Veenwouden to visit my relatives in Friesland. While they were waiting for the computer to cough up a suggested itinerary, Phil said (I got the exact words later): Het is zo traag als dikke stront door een trechter. Translated: It is as slow as thick shit through a tea strainer. Colorful.
I went to the Begjinhof, and saw the chapel and the wooden house. I also went to Nieuwe Kerk to see the Stroganoff exhibit (not the beef dish, the Russian family). The Hermitage continues to look for space to exhibit all that stuff that'll never fit on the walls of their main location. I think they've even got stuff in Las Vegas right now, but they'll be opening up a permanent exhibit location in Amsterdam in about 2007. In the meantime, drop by the Nieuwe Kerk, as they'll be cycling through Russian stuff until the new location is open.
It was senior citizen day at the exhibit. Someone in line asked to borrow a pen, and I had to excuse myself (in Dutch) and asked if they spoke English. They repeated, I handed over my pen with an AUB, and everyone around me in line was incredbly sweet and mildly amused thereafter.
Arnold is leaving tomorrow, and seems to be bored out of his mind, so we walked over to look at the outside of the Greenpeace building, a good example of De Stijl. Quite remarkable use of a small corner lot. It's taller than the buildings around it, but not in an out of scale way, and as you walk away from it, it just looks better and better (don't fall into a canal gawking).
I got to Veenwouden at the time I planned without mishap. Yay! Jan picked me up at the trainstation (I was the only person to debark, so easy to identify each other). Ali is my father's cousin. They are both very kind and welcoming, and I had a fabulous time in Friesland with them. Their English is great. They have two children, one living in Amsterdam, another in the UK, and four grandchildren. And they have endless stories to tell.
When I was a child, my grandfather (paternal) was Sam. My father made sure we all knew that Sam and his wife were both Dutch, and of course they had wooden shoes in the house (decorative ones). My father took us to Hiram Chittenden locks and made sure we understood how they worked and that Sam came from a country where locks were normal, not unusual. We knew that Sam also spoke a language other than English, and that it wasn't Dutch. We also knew we were Frisian, but not exactly what that meant, especially since we heard that Sam came from the Netherlands to the US when he was 17, and he came from Rotterdam. We also knew that Sam's brother Harry also came to the US, before Sam did. Sam had intended to travel on to Australia, but Skagit Valley reminded him so much of home he settled there (along with a lot of other people from the Netherlands).
When I was young, being Dutch was a relatively important part of our family identity. One of my mother's parents was Dutch (this is the subject of internal debate, currently), so we were 3/4s Dutch. Some time in high school, this all seemed much less relevant, although around the same time, I learned that some of what I had known about family history wasn't precisely true. Sam, for example, was actually Simon. His brother Harry (I would later discover Hein) told him to change it when he got to the US, as the American mangling of the Dutch pronunciation was a touchy word in English.
I never knew anything more than the above about my father's family, until his sister and her son stopped in the Netherlands to look up family while on their way to visit her other son, a missionary in Georgia, in the former Soviet Union. I had heard about this trip through the family, and that is how I got in contact with Jan and Ali.
In the event, my aunt and cousin only spent a few hours one afternoon with Jan, Ali, Minne and Atty (Minne has since passed away, unfortunately), so correspondence was sketchy thereafter. Jan and Ali were kind enough, and I was lucky enough to have time, to get to know each other and compare what we knew about family on either side of the world
They told me numerous humorous stories about Sam and Harry's sisters Sibbeltje (I have a cousin named, I think, after her) and Dirkje, who never married. Also their brother Sjoerd, Minne and Ali's father, the children in my parents' generation (Minne did the Elfstedentocht in (probably) 1947!), and their children in my generation. Jan and Ali also told me stories of their adventures. They've been all over Europe, the Caribbean and to the United States. They pulled out old photo albums. When Sib died in 1976, Sam and Ali exchanged letters, and Sam relayed Harry's daugher's address and pictures of his children and grandchildren (so Jan and Ali have a picture of me when I was 7).
Today we drove to Assen to visit Atty. She has a beautiful home, and took us to lunch and for a walk around the town. There's a park in the middle with deer in it. I saw pictures of Minne, their four daughters, and the granddaughters. One of Atty's daughters made a quilt for her parents' wedding anniversary, using pieces of fabric from family and friends.
Today, Jan and Ali took me to Achlun, the village where my grandfather was born. We took a look around the church and the graveyard. Then we continued on to Franeker, which has a lovely Planetarium built into a canal house. Then we went to Harlingen, a tourist town around a port where you can catch a ferry to the islands (like Ameland and Terschelling). We had a wonderful fish dinner, and then drove back to Veenwouden, pausing briefly in the town Jan was born in.
I returned to Amsterdam, sorry to bid my newfound family goodbye again so soon. I caught up on a few errands (bought some presents for people back home, and a small bag at Albert Cuypmarkt, a daily street market which sells everything from produce and toothpaste to luggage and rice cookers. There was no way everything was making it on the plane in my backpack).
I went to Zaanse Schans, a historical village like Sturbridge in Massachusetts, in that they moved a bunch of buildings from around the area here to preserve them, but the overall context is not collectively all that historical, nor is any effort made to evoke a specific time (200 year range represented, and that's a low ball estimate). Like Williamsburg, Virginia, it has a strong theme park atmosphere. It's quite small, as historical villages go.
I broke one of my rules (never hook up with someone you meet on the street) today. I met a young Korean man named Lee on the train. We were obviously going to the same place, so we spent a few hours wandering around together. Lee was the first Korean I met to admit to frustration at being exhausted by their style of travel, but feeling compelled to do it anyway, because it was a unique opportunity, and he had an obligation to justify the expense of the plane ticket. I also finally realized how incredibly hard it must be to go to museums and make any sense of them given the languages involved. When a museum screws up an English translation, I can be amused and puzzle it out from the French or Dutch. Doesn't work in Korean.
Since I didn't want to bring undeveloped film back through airport security, I found a card for a one-hour place at the hostel and got my first roll developed. Today is the first day I started understanding questions asked me during transactions (do you have a bonus card, at the supermarket, and do you live here, at the film developing shop), other than do you have anything smaller. Nice feeling. While waiting for the film, I wandered around the southern end of Kalverstraat, and bought a children's dictionary for Dutch -- pictures and very simple, easy to understand definitions.
Upon returning to the hostel, I unhappily discovered the hostel bar/cafe was closed, due to employee illness (I suspect a massive hangover, in fact). I hung out in the dorm room, and met a lovely young lady from Terschelling.
My last full day in Europe. I had intended to side-trip to Den Haag or to Utrecht, but instead I decided to hang out with my new friend. We went to Anne Frank House, the Resistance Museum (which I can't seem to find a website for. Odd) and the Hortus Botanicus. That last was particularly amazing. You have to look fairly hard to find Jews in Amsterdam who were protected in the war, and almost as hard to find resistance fighters, particularly early on. It's a bit depressing to see those museums and monuments as a result. But the Hortus has an amazing collection, intelligent organization and some spectacular individual specimens. Lots of fun. If you live in Amsterdam, get an annual membership and spend your lunch hour here. It's an incredible place.
We hung out at the hostel bar until about 10, when my friend decided sleep was going to happen, wherever she was, so she might as well be horizontal. I eavesdropped on a conversation while I read my book. Michael, a young man from Northern Ireland, and I chatted for a bit, and when the hostel bar closed, we went looking for internet access and additional alcohol (last night in town for me, after all). He was supposed to meet a friend, who had failed to show, or contact him. After hitting a couple of bars that closed at 1 a.m., we found Duivel's, and stayed until almost 3. Great place. They play good music from the U.S., although not the latest stuff. We apparently only export the crap, judging by what I've heard on this trip. I learned a new word (dandering: to walk or wander about with no particular destination) and eventually got some sleep.
Today I returned home, after getting my second roll of film developed, and panicking because my flight was cancelled and I was rebooked on the only other one from Amsterdam to Copenhagen on SAS that day, and which was scheduled to leave about five minutes after I learned of the rebook. I went to the airport with much foreboding, but they delayed the other flight until the scheduled departure of mine (pity those folks -- three hours late). The trip was largely uneventful, beyond the scary oddity that I got onto the first leg of my flight without anyone ever asking to see any ID at all for me. This is apparently what comes of looking and sounding Dutch when checking in at Schiphol. On the long leg, I got three seats in a row to lay down. I was randomly selected by customs for additional search, but the guy was nice, and we chatted a bit about the Netherlands and relatives and so forth. Good to be home, but I miss the Netherlands already.
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Copyright Rebecca Allen, 2002.
Created January 30, 2003 Modified February 21, 2003