Although it’s really the second day since I arrived in Amsterdam, I didn’t do much yesterday because I was exhausted. So today, Monday, really counts as Day 1.
And oy, did I sleep last night! After chatting with my host and a few people connected with my visit, I took at nap at about 1 p.m., but was restive and woke up without much sleep at about 6 p.m. But then the serious sleeping began. I crashed at 7 p.m., woke up 5 hours later, at midnight, checked my email (there’s a seven-hour time difference from Chicago), and then went back to sleep, waking up totally refreshed at 5 a.m. I got at least ten hours of deep sleep, something unknown to me!
It was too early to make noise or disturb my hosts, so I crept downstairs—two flights of the steepest stairs I’ve ever seen in a house, for Dutch houses are high and narrow. There I found a copy of yesterday’s New York Times, a local map, and a note that there was Balinese food in the fridge from the nearby restaurant (rated one of the best Indonesian places in the city). What could be a better breakfast than Indonesian beef, green beans, other veggies, and chicken atop a bed of rice and heated in the microwave. I read the NYT as I dined, noticing that Bret Stephens’s column on the U.S.’s poor treatment of Israel was on the front page of the paper edition—something you wouldn’t find in the U.S. (column archived here).
While I finished my food and perused the Times, a wonderful event occurred: a beautiful fluffy and shiny black CAT wandered into the kitchen. In less than a minute we had made friends, and in 2 minutes he was on his back, allowing me to give him belly rubs. (I have a way with cats.) I later found out his name is Toon. Here he is:
As you see above, Toon soon jumped up on the sink and looked expectantly at the faucet. Could it be, I thought, that he wanted a drink? I turned on the faucet lightly, and Toon went to town. First he stuck his paw under the flow until it was wet, and then licked his paw.
Here is a video:
But then Toon put his back under the faucet, too, and then licked the water off his back! Granted, he did use his mouth to drink from the faucet, too, but preferred licking water off his back and paw.
The Back Lick:
After 90 minutes my host came downstairs, taught me how to make coffee with the machine, and we had a cup and chatted for an hour or so until she went to work. (I’m staying with a married couple, but the husband is on a work trip for a few days.)
Here’s Toon with a post-lick blep:
After breakfast I had a leisurely walk around the area (I’m staying in a lovely part of town, a half hour walk from the Museum District). My host had also having furnished me with a tram/bus/train pass, but I needed a morning constitutional.
I walked to the Museum area, hoping to get into the Van Gogh Museum, one of my favorite museums in the world. (I love the later van Goghs.)’d been told that you have to reserve tickets in advance, which I didn’t have to do the last two times I visited here, and, sure enough, when I showed up everyone had reserved tickets. I asked the guard how long I had to reserve in advance, and he replied “About two weeks.” Oy! But he added that if I went online right at 5 p.m., I may be able to get tickets for tomorrow. I’m not sure I’ll do that as there are things to see in Amsterdam that I haven’t seen twice before. (My first talk isn’t until Thursday.)
Once again the day was lovely: tee-shirt weather. You know you’re in Amsterdam because there are bicycles everywhere:
The obligatory bike-mirror selfie:
My best guess is that the denizen of Amsterdam below is a Western Jackdaw (Corvus monedula), but readers can help out.
This is the smallest car I’ve ever seen, and there are plenty of these in Amsterdam, as parking is quite difficult. It can hold two people in the one seat if you’re squashed up together.
I think it is a LuQi electric mini-car, which runs about 10,000 Euros. It may be made in China but I don’t have enough information.
You can fit them into a space only a few yards wide:
The interior. You better be friendly if you have a passenger.
While looking around the Museum Quarter, I found “The Best Hot Dogs in Town.” I can’t vouch for that, but I’m sure that a good Chicago dog, dragged through the garden, is way better.
Finally, I took the tram to the Central Station (it’s nearly a straight shot from where I live, with an intermediate stop at the museums, to fulfill a long-time craving: Dutch friets with thick mayonnaise. This, along with raw herring, is one of the two great street snacks of Amsterdam. I was last here a while back, but I remembered the location of a good friets stand near the station, and, sure enough, dead reckoning brought me to my goal:
That was lunch. And you needn’t tell me that it’s not the healthiest of foods, as I already know. I have tried the raw herring, but couldn’t abide the malodorous fish, and I’m not a piscivore anyway.
Now it’s time to rest a bit, work on my talk, and read the book I brought: Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant.
And so it begins …
Another great travelogue off to a great start! Numerous important developments can be claimed to have taken place in Amsterdam,… I think…
Been boning up on the ever popular Deconstruction craze that swept college campuses – sounds like a Godel for linguists, they have a problem with foundation documents, Euclid elements, Constitutions, Ancient Sacred Texts, international treatises, national borders – they are all just ‘scraps of paper’ so makes sense we get things like “feminist glaciology” and other jokes out of it. All you get from language are binary opposites which only serve to enforce the existing power structure.
Well I was watching our cats as the neighbor cat was rolling around trying to mark a territory boundary – just meaningless pheromones challenging our cats power structure – yet not a lick of text, systemic oppression and binary opposites were involved.
Wow. Toom is so resourceful and very good at training visiting staff. Glad you got such excellent sleep and thanks for the timely days1/2 travel nosh.
Our male tabby, Sam, when drinking from his water bowl always alternates between left paw and conventional lapping licking from the paw first then lapping. I am amazed he always does this plus he also likes slow running very cold water on tap and it has to be really cold or it is no go!
Hi Jerry,
Welcome in Amsterdam!
We call it “frites”, indeed pronounced as “friets”. Though half of the country prefers “patat.” A good compromise: “patates frites”, which is actually French for baked potatoes.
Actually frite means fried en français.
Of course, you are correct. Hence: “French fries” in good English!
😻
Is there a difference between “frites”, “patates frites” and “vlaamse frites”, which I recall seeing everywhere?
It looks like you’re staying near Frans Van Mierisstraat, where I lived happily for 6 months while I was in college. Those steep Dutch stairs must claim at least a few lives every year. And I can remember my total incredulity when I learned that the Dutch eat their fries with mayo. Unlike you, however, I never could warm up to them.
I think real mayo would be pretty good with fries (not the usual store bought stuff). But I would definitely combine them with ranch dressing, tartar sauce, or something similar.
Also vanilla ice cream.
Chocolate milkshake is a good dipping sauce for fries too.
A favorite dinner at a small local place in Shockoe Bottom when I was assigned to Richmond VA for a year, was a great hamburger and fries washed down with a thick and rich chocolate shake..and come to think back to those times fifteen years ago, I did ocassionaly dip a fry into the shake! Luckily it was a mile and a half walk uphill back to my room.
In my high school years I’d eat a meal like that and then right back into the ocean for another 5 hours of surfing. Nowadays if I ate something like that I’d be semi-comatose for the next couple of days.
It tastes better if you are sharing both the fries and the shake with someone who really really likes you. Particularly if she has freckles. <3 🙂
Beautiful.
Really??🙀Love them separate😻
Crispy, salty, plus sweet and chocolate? What’s not to like?
I first came across it in my teens where it became a pretty popular fad for a time to get Wendy’s fries and Frosty (their signature chocolate milkshake) and eat by dipping the fries in the Frosty.
Vanilla ice cream?! Surely you jest!
But if you’re serious, don’t take that as a criticism! As my dear old dad (really and truly) used to say all the time: De gustibus non est disputandum
Nor really a fan of any kind of mayo, except aioli😋
I don’t know if the incidence is high enough to call it common, but it’s not unheard of for USians to eat their fries with mayo. Of course I might be biased because I’ve always liked mayo with fries, but I’ve run into many others over the years. Though most of the time I eat them naked, except for seasoning.
Okay I have to relate a story from my career in classical music recording.
A famous soprano was on tour in the the U.S. south. At lunch she had French fries with a side of mayonnaise, to enjoy them Belgian-style. The waitress observed this and said, in her southern accent which sadly I can’t convey in print, “Can I say one thing? YUCK!”
Ever after, at rehearsals and recording sessions, if a criticism was called for, all anyone would have to say was “Can I say one thing?”, and the point was made.
That’s genuinely hysterical! (Since I live in the south, I don’t have any trouble in imagining exactly how that waitress sounded)
+1 from Virginia
I respectfully recommend (over coffee) Stroopwafels!
How fun!
Hi Jerry, wife and I are in Amsterdam too. Eating at foodhallen right now. We were also disappointed the Van Gogh museum is sold out all week. I think you can buy tix paired with a tour on secondary sale websites like getyourguide but they are pricy
The microcar is indeed a Chinese made Luqi EV300. It’s just 90″ long and 56″ wide (230×142cm).
A very sensible sink that doesn’t take 40 gallons to fill,and a sensible car to boot.
Can we hear your talk online???
I am so jealous, but I’ll be nice about it. I hope you have an absolutely fabulous trip!
No wonder you had jet lag! NEVER take a nap after you arrive in Europe from the US!!!!! Savvy travelers have learned that you must stay up, go outside, get
air and sun, and go to bed at the normal time for Europe. Taking a nap after arrival guarantees the worst kind of jet lag, as I learned. After that one bad trip,
I learned the trick of staying up all day. It works!
That cat is so perfectly black and beautiful. Wow.
Yes! Eurasian Jackdaw (aka Western Jackdaw). Resourceful and adorable corvids. I miss them (I’ve recently relocated from UK to NZ).