Plucky Survivors See Europe Day 68: Amsterdam

Gotta say, lovin’ Amsterdam.  It’s a beautiful city, the weather it perfect (mid-70s today), and there is so much to see and do that you couldn’t possibly ever get bored.

I knocked out a bunch of stuff on my tourist to-do list.  Buckle in…

My first stop was the Canal Museum, an immersive experience that traces the history of Amsterdam, how and why the canals were built, the careful consideration that went into the expansion of the city, how canal houses are laid out and furnished, and much more.  It’s all done through audio and visual technology.  For instance, one room has a table that represents a meeting of city planners talking about how the city can grow.  Through light projections and audio actors, you discover how they took a measured approach, starting small-ish and leaving room to do more as both money and demand warranted.

It is fascinating and very well done, but much like the Quake attraction in Lisbon, it is not a go-at-your-own-pace experience.  You are herded into a room and forced to sit (or stand) through the entire program on whichever subject they are presenting and only when it is done are you allowed to go to the next room.  I’m not good at being forced to follow someone else’s timetable – that’s why I have driven around Europe for the past 10 weeks by myself.

And also probably why I’m still single, but that’s probably a discussion for another time.

Interesting side note… to keep the canals from getting foul, the dredge and clean them every year and pull more than 1,000 bicycles each time they do it.  

Next, I went to the thematically adjacent Houseboat Museum.  It’s on an actual houseboat, the Hendrika Maria, a former cargo ship built in 1914 and converted to a home in 1967.  There are bedrooms, a kitchen, living spaces (mostly done in a loud 1970s orange and brown motif), a bathroom, and lots of audio guides that explain life aboard.  The most interesting part to me was how houseboats started as a cheap way of living but now are one of the most expensive in Amsterdam.  A decent one on a good canal in the heart of the city will cost you well over one million Euros.

Amusing trivia… many houseboats have distinctly feminine shapes and there is one that is so, um, voluptuous, that they call it the Kim Kardashian.  Amsterdammers are funny.

My next stop was something I felt I owed to the weekend of World Pride.  A lot of what happens at an event like this is loud, celebratory, often hedonistic, and usually quite boozy.  So, a visit to the Homomonument seemed like a good way to balance that out.  It was created in 1987 as a memorial to the gays and lesbians murdered during the holocaust, but has since grown to symbolize the overall gay rights movement as a whole  The sign says that it was designed to inspire and support lesbians and gays in their struggle against denial, oppression, and discrimination.

The monument is three large triangles – the symbol gay people had to wear in concentration camps – but they are doing a bunch of construction in the area, so only the third, leading down to the canal, was easily visible.  I took a picture and then took a moment.

Of course, nearby I found a sign that read “Being queer is like glitter… it never goes away” and if you think about it long enough, it basically says the same thing as the Homomunment.  And since my theatre company has operated out of a drag club, I can attest to the veracity of the statement about glitter.

Getting back to the Amsterdam of it all, I next went to the Tulip Museum, a seed and bulb store that has a multi-room history of the flower and how it came to Holland.  Yep, it is not a native plant but indigenous to the mountainous region where China, Russia, and Mongolia meet.  It made its way west during the Ottoman empire and flourished The Netherlands area to the point where it has become a national symbol.  The museum itself is small and a little dry, but informative. 

Almost right next door is the Amsterdam Cheese Museum.  You know I love me some cheese so this was a must visit for me.  Like the flower shop, this is an active cheese shop with a small museum about mostly about how cheese is made in the basement.  It’s not the best or most entertaining museum about cheese I’ve been to – the one in Paris was great – but it’s free and you can sample a bunch of cheese in the shop upstairs when you’re done.  I bought a peppery gouda that is as close as I’ve found to my beloved pepperjack since I’ve been here.

It was lunchtime – yes, I did all of that before lunch! – so I went to a little café that served sandwiches, soups, Dutch pancakes called Eetcafe Roem.  I got some French onion soup – good, not great – and a delicious sandwich of chicken, aged Amsterdam cheese, tomato, and chicken on focaccia.  It was more expensive than it should have been, but it was very good.

I needed chocolate, so I did some Googling and found a store called Puccini Bombani, renown for the handmade bon bons.  I got mint and raspberry bon bons, dark chocolate “crispies,” and dark chocolate with sea salt.  Eating them as I type this and very happy with my purchases, although speaking of being more expensive than it should have been…

From there it was back to the hotel to work for the afternoon, passing by Dam Square with its Royal Palace and National Monument.

I also took a quick wander through Oudemanhuispoort, a covered passage near the university that has second hand book vendors, artists, and more.

Then, right by the hotel is the Flower Market, a long row of every flower imaginable but heavy on the tulips.

When dinner time rolled around, I was being fussy and couldn’t find anything that sounded good through my online research, so I wandered around a bit and still couldn’t commit.  I finally gave up and went back to the hotel, which has a fancy burger place called Ter Marsch & Co.  It has won a bunch of awards, so I figured I’d be able to have a good meal there.

Wrong.  The service was terrible.  Nobody came to take my order for a solid 20 minutes and while I waited, several different servers came up to my table with food and tried to give it to me.  When I said I hadn’t even ordered yet, they looked around confused and wandered off.

I ordered a small Caesar, a fancy burger with cheese and pancetta, and fries.  The server tried to take it to a different table, but I literally waved my arms above my head to flag them in the right direction.  The only thing missing were the orange cone lights those people use to guide airplanes into the gate.

The burger was supposed to be medium but was just this side of mooing, the fries were cold, and the salad was lettuce and parmesan cheese that someone had waved a bottle of Caesar dressing over the top of.  Worst meal of the trip by far and that includes the crap I ate from rest stops.

But I will shake it off because there is still a lot to do in Amsterdam.  The plan is to visit a couple more museums tomorrow and then head to the World Pride March.  Three days of Amsterdam left and then I fly home!