Weeks 5 and 6

Hello everyone

About time I did something and fill in the gaps for the last couple of weeks. I will take it day by day and see if I remember much.

August 3 and 4 - quiet days again for me packing for Amsterdam and resting my foot. Really can’t remember what anyone else did - perhaps Dad had another game of golf.

August 5 - We flew to Amsterdam. Andy and Solomon dropped us at the airport around noon. We arrived about 5.30 after finding our way on the train and the metro without mishaps - i even used the ticket machine to buy the tickets - I love that there is always an English option! and it also helps to be familiar with public transport in you own country! The apartment was about 12 minutes out of town and the station only about 200 metres from the apartment. The apartment was in a high-rise building with lots of others which included residences and business. There was a small supermarket at the station where we could buy the basic supplies and an old circular building which was a sort of pub down below us and a very nice restaurant on the Amstel River which was very close. There were other restaurants about 15 minutes away and also larger supermarkets in the other direction. That first night, we walked the 15 minutes to a restaurant which had an area on the river full of young people. I was not that fussed about it as the food was a bit ordinary and also they lost our order which meant we waited at least an hour!! Grrr Grrr!! They offered us a free drink which Tony took very happily. It was all a bit late for me and my foot was feeling a bit horrible.

August 6 - Dad went off to check out the supermarkets and came back with tales of nearly losing his life to the bike riders - they were flying everywhere!! So it was always best to start out after 9 by which time they had all gone to work, It was fascinating to see people on the bikes in all sorts of gear - except lycra - you didn’t see any of that!! The girls rode along with the longest and the shortest skirts and the lowest and the highest heels and didn’t come to grief. You didn’t see any racing biles and people were mostly sitting upright. And no helmets - on anyone! Children were in many different positions on the bikes - front and back. Some of them had carts for 2 at the front, others were dinked on the handle bars, One thing, we never saw an upset or accident. the other interesting thing was the lack of motor traffic - even out in the countryside.

We caught the metro into town and set off for a walk through Amsterdam Central which was interesting as it took us past the main sights of the city - the Dam, the Palace, the Old and New Churches, the Bejgonhof where we saw the oldest wooden house, the secret Catholic Church in the roof of a house, the red light district and the Catholic Church - in that order. After this, we took a cruise around the canals. The boat took us out into the harbour past the new Musikgebouw and other public buildings which seemed to me to be reasonably new in that they were very modern and large. The Europeans seem to go in for large even now when they construct new edifices. Perhaps they only know that way of doing things. The cruise also took us around one of the old canals which passed the old houses of the middle classes of days gone by - I think they would have been traders at the time.

After that, we walked back through the Dam to the metro to go home. By this time, the place was packed and it was hot. There did seem to be a lot of rubbish on the ground and loads of cigarette butts! Not so attractive…

August 7 - Friday and we started off catching the tram over to Anne Frank House thinking we would get there early and avoid the large queue. Famous last words as the wait at that stage was 4 hours long - we had tried to buy tickets on line before we left but it said ’No tickets available’ Strange! We decided then to do another walk through the Jordaan district which is where the artists congregate. Pretty area with lots of interesting streets. I had printed the walks off Frommer’s website so there was a bit of commentary to go along with the walk. I was interested to find that there were lots of almshouses built by wealthy people to house less fortunate such as women who had been left by their husbands and unemployed seniors - they were all single sex abodes. Sometimes you could enter the buildings and found they had little gardens and courtyards and there were other courtyards leading off each other. They are a bit like rabbit warrens.

In this area, there is a great shopping district called ’Nine Streets’. This was my sort of place so, to avoid frustration on Tony’s part with my popping in and out of shops, he went off to check out the big department store in the Dam. We met up after an hour or so and went off to the Museum District to visit the Van Gogh museum. We caught the tram out there and had our lunch in a bistro in the square which is a huge garden with statues, the main ones being Miffy in different costumes. I didn’t realise Miffy was Dutch. Fortunately, we had bought our tickets already so the wait in the queue was only 20 minutes. It was a wonderful exhibition tracing Van Gogh’s life. We then caught the tram home which was another little adventure as there were road works and we had to find a different way home.

August 8 - Saturday was a trip The Hague to tour the Peace Palace. It was an hour trip on the train through the countryside which was good to see - the odd windmill, lots of agriculture, people riding bikes and very few cars. We were a bit surprised when we arrived in The Hague to find it to be very modern even in the Centre of town. We caught the tram to the Peace Palace where we had an audio tour in the Visitor’s Centre and then a guided tour around the Palace. It seems a bit sad to think that this all started 100 years ago and there doesn’t seem to be much peace in some parts of the world. We caught the tram back to town to have a look around the old part of town and then caught the train back to Amsterdam. Trains are terrific here- so clean and fast! I think this was the night we had tea out and as Dad wanted Tapas, I found one in my tour book in an old part of town - at least, it was off the beaten track. That was ok - not like the tapas at the restaurant in High Street, Malvern - we can’t compare it to Spain properly yet.

August 9 - Sunday and we caught the metro into town to attend Mass at St Nicholas Church near the Central station. interesting - they sing the same hymns but to different tunes. Also, they print out booklets of that day’s mass for the whole congregation. After Mass, we went for another walk to another part of town behind the station and across the harbour. We took a bus and ferries this time. There is a lot of development going on there with new apartments springing up everywhere. I always wonder how people in Europe manage to live happily in Apartments while we need to have the 1/4 acre block - not that they are that big nowadays - or they live in houses with several floors at any age.

August 10 - Monday and I wanted to go to a market which was the usual disappointment with the usual handbags and other stuff you find in ordinary markets - I wanted the antique one but I think I missed out there. Dad went off to the Heineken Factory which was in the same area. We met up and took the train to Utrecht for the afternoon - pretty place with unusual church, canals and old buildings. We came home for a rest because we had decided to line up for another go at Anne Frank house. The line was still hours long so that was that. We went home and walked around the river to have a drink at an old house with a view down the river. That was a bit interesting to see another side of Amsterdam. There was a swimming club with people doing laps in the river. It was roped off from the boats although there was a water police boat at the end to protect the swimmers.

August 11 - Tuesday and our last day in Amsterdam. We went to Delft for a look and for me to buy the Delft Porcelain. The trip to Delft through the countryside was great and Delft was another pretty town. But my search for the Delft bargains was fruitless as it was quite expensive and no chipped plates so I decided that I didn’t really like it that much. I settled for a +/- 1700 tile with a wooden frame. I was quite happy with my purchase till I realised Australia is quite funny about wood products and it might have to go into quarantine! So I will have to think about that one. After we got home from Delft, we popped into another little restaurant on the river for the view and a bite to eat. and that was Amsterdam done!

August 12 - was the flight home to Romsey.

August 13 - Thursday was a trip to Winchester and a look at a house to rent.

August 14 - Friday and a trip to Southampton and another look at a house.

August 15 - Saturday and a quiet day. Tony and Andy drove to Brighton for Dominic’s stag night - that is a British thing - with Paul, Toby and Toby’s dad.

and that brings us up to today.