More Amsterdam!
A trip update that turned out to be mostly about bread.
I am having a sad time here on my last Amsterdam day. I fly home tomorrow morning… The days really fly by when you don’t do dishes or laundry or cooking—or have literally any responsibilities whatsoever! Imagine that!
Of course I do miss my family. I was texted this precious photograph from the dry erase board in our kitchen.
To ease my sadness, I’ll rewind a few days and tell you about the exploring my sister and I did before she left:
We walked around Bloemenmarkt, the famous flower market that floats on the canal. I had a romantic notion of taking home some Dutch tulip bulbs to plant in my own yard, but they’re not customs-approved. A customs officer even confiscated my sister’s venus fly trap (in a tin can) when she got home, and ALL her little boys wanted was a carnivorous plant souvenir. Leave it to the USDA to crush my garden dreams with their disease prohibitions.
We found a couple cute cocktail bars and restaurants, most of them packed with big groups of people in good moods. We tasted bitterballen, which is like a beef roux deep fried in breading. Not gross! The cocktails were good, but 80% of how I judge a cocktail is how cold it is. America is good at making things artificially cold.
We stumbled upon a charming side alley crammed with used books for sale. I didn’t buy any because my entire packing strategy was based upon bringing the maximum number of books into the country, so there is no room to take any out of the country.
Yes, we walked around the famed red light district. I have not illustrated this in my journal yet… How to approach it?! Ha. (I have more thoughts about this than can fit in a book, but I’m still processing. Also I do not want to tell those thoughts to the internet.)
Random things I have been thinking about:
Dutch sounds like English if you were speaking with your mouth full. Take this example:
In red, this says “household paper.” Put marshmallows in your mouth and say “household paper” and tell me it doesn’t come out like “huishoud papier.” Adorable!
A “winkel” is a store, and a cart is a “wagen.” So a shopping cart is a “winkelwagen.” Sorry, but that is charming as hell.
Yes weed is legal here, but I think the mythology of the drug culture is way overblown. Yeah, you can buy cannibis mints at the convenience store with your bottled water, but you can do that in Colorado, and actual drugs aren’t in your face. I think tourists make a bigger deal out of it than the people who live here.
Bikes. It is seriously amazing to be able to go everywhere on a bike. The bike paths are beside the road and AS WIDE AS THE REGULAR STREET. Nowhere does not have a bike path. Literally everything and everyone yields to cyclists. When there’s a water obstruction, cyclists hop onto a bike ferry for free. The whole city is planned around the bikes. I cannot tell you how much I love the bikes and wish I could sell my massive SUV that I am in constant danger of backing into a light post or running over a small child with. Also the people are not dressed so fancy and their hair is not all glossy *because they have been biking,* which, as a person from South Carolina, is refreshing.
Second only to the bike paths is the public transportation. Why is America so big and car-ish?? Mr. Government Man, you can have all my taxes if you will give us city-to-city public transportation, so I can sleep all the way to Charleston while my kids run up and down the aisles.
Third to the bike paths and the public transportation is the SANDWICHES. The sandwiches here are just… incredible. No white bread, no mayonnaise, no iceberg freaking lettuce. You can get prosciutto on fresh bakery bread, smeared with tomato marscapone. You can get ham and melty brie with homemade honey mustard sauce. You can get tomato and mozzarella with fresh pesto. The sandwiches here are so good, I had to take pictures of them.
And they’re everywhere, ready for you in bakery shop windows to pick up. Every third store is a legit bakery. LOOK at what happens when I put “bakery near me” into Google! Look at all those floating baby croissants!!!!
In closing, I want to live in a world where quality bread is more important.
Speaking of, I went to Belgium and ate multiple street WAFFLES! That’s up next.
