goodnight Amsterdam, and fare thee well

Dear Amsterdam,

As I contemplate the fact that I'll next see the sun set on another continent, I'm very pleased to have spent the last several weeks getting to know you.

You're a very lovely city, and I remain charmed by your deep, rich history. I've had a wonderful time here and I hope to return to your cobblestone streets again someday.

But I'm glad to be going home. I miss my native language, my queen-sized bed, my kitties, and my kitchen with it's full complement of counter-space and accompanying arsenal of utensils. I miss my friends and my school and my city, with its antiquated public transit system and a deep, rich history all its own.

So even though I know I'll miss you when I'm gone, right about now I just can't sleep for the anticipation of traveling homeward bound following the next sunrise.

Fondly,

Jacqui

the sounds of Amsterdam

I heard cathedral bells dripping down the alleyways...

• the ringing of bicycle bells
• the foreign sound of spoken Dutch
• humming, whistling, and singing; usually by a solo walker, but the refrain of a late-night tavern chorus occasionally echoes through the narrow streets as well
• the clattering of dishes being collected and washed; and also the crash of glass bottles being thrown into recycling receptacles, as well as the cascading weekly crashes when the big trucks come through to collect from those receptacles
• accordion-laced gypsy-polska music
• cathedral bells: tolling the time but also, at special times, chiming metallic, droning melodies
• boat horns (which is a sound reminiscent of New Orleans)
• horseshoes on cobblestone streets (also reminiscent of New Orleans)
• the frenetic electronic beat of EU pop music
• birdsong: owls and others I know not how to identify
• laughter: of children and adults alike
• the growling of motorbike engines
• dogs barking
• the squeaky machinery of bicycles being put to good use, carrying children and cargo and people all day every day

One of the neat things about traveling to a foreign land is how you notice such things as the sounds of a city. Ordinary sounds you generally take for granted in everyday life at home, but which suddenly take on new meaning in a situation where so much is unfamiliar. Because many of the sounds are familiar, listening to them closely reminds me that even though most of the talking in this place is done in a language I don't understand, the things that people are doing are not so foreign.

That is to say that Dutch culture, being inherently Western European, is not so dissimilar from my own that I feel out of place here. And listening to the sounds of the city reinforces for me the similarity of my culture to that of this place.

Even still, I do find myself eager to get back to the American South, where everything is spoken and written in a language I know, and the only cultural nuances I'll have to navigate are those with which I'm well accustomed...

ETA: A demonstration (apologies for the orientation; I lack video editing software/skills) ~

eating abroad

It would seem that eating abroad is part of the adventure of traveling. And indeed it is.

But for us, it's also a bit of a challenge. Because Adam can't eat wheat, our restaurant options are severely limited. (Particularly for breakfast and lunch.) Even the Dutch treat bitterballen are verboden for us!

Luckily, Studio Elf has a well-equipped kitchen, and we've had no trouble getting yummy ingredients, so there's no worries of malnutrition as a result of eating nothing but Indonesian. (Although we have been known to eat Shah-Jahan more than once in a week.)

On our block there's a neighborhood grocery, and an organic market with things like bulk grains and oils. There's an organic farmer's market every Saturday in the neighborhood, too, and they even have things like cheese and fish! (Pictured: wine-braised tuna, mashed sweet potatoes, and a green bean, shallot and tomato medley, all from the farmer's market!)

All in all, we've cooked up some yummy stuff. Even if there has been some interesting improvisation involved. For instance, did you know that a cheese slicer-spatula works for frying eggs? Or that a French Coffee press can be used to wash quinoa? Consider yourself informed for the next time you're trying to fry eggs without a proper spatula or wash quinoa without a fine-mesh strainer.

After we brushed up on our metric measurement units and learned some essential Dutch food vocabulary terms (tarwe = wheat), we got to cooking. We've had lots of rice/quinoa with protein-and-veggie medleys. And we found a great gluten-free (GF) corn pasta, so we've enjoyed some excellent tomato sauces and pesto at home.

We make breakfast at home. (Eggs aren't sold refrigerated in Amsterdam!) We eat lots of home-made sandwiches, because we discovered an excellent GF baguette! and because there are excellent little meat and cheese shops all over the place. (Our mayonnaise is in a tube. Like toothpaste.) Our local grocery carries Rosemary & Garlic kettle-cooked chips -- like sour cream & onion for grown ups, which are an awesome accompaniment to lunch sandwiches. We enjoyed a lovely coq-au-vin made with organic chicken and veggies. (The one "essential" thing our little kitchen lacks is an oven!) So we're saving lots of money eating in most of the time.

Of course, we do eat out on occasion as well. We've had cafe fare from decent to great, and some really good Mexican and Indian food. (Also, sub-par over-priced Thai.) There's lots of great-smelling Italian restaurants that we probably won't try, since all the really great stuff there is gluten-tastic. We've found gluten-free bagels at Bagels & Beans, though, which is a real treat for Adam -- we don't even have those at home!

When I'm by myself, I'm free to eat the divine-smelling bakery breads that are baked fresh every morning. I've taken to having a croissant, some cheese, and some dried fruit for my between-classes mid-morning snack, which feels very European, but it sure is good. There's a great dried-fruit vendor whom we visit at the Farmer's Market every weekend. Dried kiwis + dried strawberries = Awesomeness. (Pictured is a multi-grain croissant with a British Farms Pressed Apple Juice with Ginger.)

In addition to the delectable meats and cheeses to be found in small shops, there's also a proliferation of yummy olives and sun-dried tomatoes and tapenades. So we often snack on anti-pasti platters with GF crackers.

Amsterdam has a ton of Argentinian restaurants -- a relic of its colonial past -- but we have yet to try those. We also have yet to try any Dutch food, other than cheese. There are also Indonesian and African restaurants that we haven't tried. Finding menus that are in English is always a consideration.

Still 2 weeks to go. That's many more meals to plan cooking here at Studio Elf, and many more opportunities to try new restaurants.

ETA: A link to all the photos

Den Haag: Dutch for either "War Crimes" or "Terrible Lunch"

Our trip to The Hague made for an interesting day's outing. We met with Jacqui's class-mates and professors early to board a quite nice Mercedes charter-bus. I am not disappointed we chose to stay in an apartment by ourselves rather than in the dorms with the other Tulane folks; we're several years older than most of the students, and one of only two couples I've noticed along on the outings. It doesn't bother me that the rest are younger as such, but I feel old because their concerns and priorities seem so silly to me. I tried to participate in idle conversation, but quickly decided head-phones would be a better option then trying to keep up with who had bunked with whom the previous evening. After a 45 minute drive through some lovely Dutch countryside (yes, windmills), we arrived at our destination: a squat building from the 1970's which once housed the Dutch Intelligence Service, now home to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. (Fun fact -- the Dutch Intelligence Service is a real thing, and it was decided they deserved a better building, you see. So they bought an old telecommunications headquarters second-hand and moved it there, because ostensibly it's a much bigger and nicer thing than the ratty old building at which I visited the Tribunal. It's vitally important they have plenty of lines available to answer all of the calls that aren't coming in about Dutch Intelligence, apparently. The people who allegedly assassinated the Lebanese prime-minister can just deal with the shabby digs.)

We learned that tidbit and many other operational details of the court on the first leg of our tour, and then sat for a presentation by one of the judges, a member of the prosecution, of the defense, and of the registry. After this, we broke for "lunch".

"Lunch" was a glass of orange juice, a bowl of french fries shared among the table, and chintzy roast beef or lox sandwiches, which of course I couldn't eat. Oh well. (I had packed away provisions for just such an eventuality back on the quite nice Mercedes bus. Still, it was disappointing they would take us to a restaurant and provide so shabbily for us. Perhaps a less shiny bus and a nice bit of grilled fish for lunch next time, no?)

We arrived after "lunch" at the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and after 20 minutes of security checks and metal detectors got to see the final 8 minutes of court for the week, which if I interpreted them correctly consisted of every one telling each other "have a nice weekend" and "we'll get to that other stuff first thing bright and early Monday" in the sort of very complicated language you'd expect from folks who spend their work week trying to suss out just how many thousands of peasants the defendant might have allegedly ethnically cleansed in May of 1993. Interesting stuff, but not riveting even for the law students, I suspect. We had one last short Q/A with a lovely young woman; I even had the chance to ask a Q of my own that somehow did not completely embarrass my lawyer-ly wife. An abortive peer-vote averted us all having to endure stopping for iced-cream together, but did not unfortunately avert us having to endure the iced-cream proponents mutterings of discontent toward us negative nabobs, the iced-cream detractors. I learned that Law-school students can be petty when you get lots of them together in tight quarters such as a bus, which is fitting since they are training to be petty in tight quarters such as judge's chambers for a living as lawyers. Another 45 minute trip into headphone-land then, and we were back where we began that morning.

All things considered, it was an enjoyable morning and afternoon, but I was certainly ready for a nice large dinner upon our return to Amsterdam. If memory serves, I believe we had some really good roasted-lamb tacos from a Spanish place down the street from our flat. (Jacqui's been taking notes on meals and restaurants; we'll let you know what we think of all of them just in case any of you ever plan to visit.)

I hope everyone is well back home. I'm missing you guys more and more. Many people here CAN speak English, but they speak Dutch to each other most of the time, so it's hard to make polite conversation with folks. It gets a bit lonely.

I'll write soon about other things I've been doing while Jacqui's been in class; I took my guitar out and around for the first time today and, while sitting with a friend I'd met at Paradox a few days earlier, I played a few Beatles tunes and a random bloke at the table bought me a shot and offered to record me in his studio. That was quick. I'm hoping to meet him again Monday, so we'll see how that goes.

More later,

/ah

the tale of our journey

Better late than never.

the first leg: NOLA to Houston

Our flight was scheduled to depart Armstrong International at 10:45am, so we arrived at the airport around 9 o'clock. After checking our luggage and confirming with the gate agent that Adam's travel guitar could indeed be stored in the overhead compartment of the twin-engined, turboprop aeroplane, we snacked on some popcorn while waiting to board.

The flight was fully booked and we had to sit several rows apart. I gate-checked my carry-on back-pack, and settled in at my window seat. The flight was barely long enough for drink service once we reached cruising altitude, and before I knew it we had landed. I could hear Adam making friends with his seat-neighbors almost the whole flight!

the second leg: Houston to Amsterdam

We arrived in Houston ahead of schedule, and had several hours to kill there. Houston is the largest hub for Continental-United and a sizeable airport, so we knew we'd have some ground to cover to get from Terminal A to Terminal E. We ended up on the monorail: TermaLink. And several of those flat-escalator-things.

We located our departing gate, and looked around for a place to get some lunch. Luckily, there was a great little cajun-themed restaurant mere steps from our departing gate: Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen.

As it turned out, Papadeaux is owned by some Greek brothers, so we both opted for Greek choices from the menu. Adam had a wonderful table-side-tossed salad, and I enjoyed a chicken & tzatziki pita wrap. We loitered in the restaurant for a while following our meal, and when the time came, made our way to our gate.

Our Boeing 767 was waiting at the gate for us, and it wasn't long before we boarded. Our seats were together this time, and Adam was kind enough to let me sit by the window. We settled in for the long haul, with blankies and pillows and entertainment and snacks.

The in-flight entertainment consisted of a selection of movies, television shows, and music. Each seat had its own display monitor (as a part of the seat in front of you), control, and headphones. Neither Adam nor I used this elaborate system much, except to watch the map feature, which charted the course of the plane on its journey across land and sea.

The plane's interior was configured in a 2–3–2 layout. We were on the right side of the plane, near the center galley and lavatory, but not too close. Because we had requested special meals (Adam: gluten-free; Myself: vegetarian), we were always served first at mealtimes. For dinner, Adam ate chicken, a quinoa-veggie medley, a gluten-free roll, green beans, and a gluten-free cookie. I ate Indian-spiced veggies, red beans and rice, and some soft of tofu substance, with a whole-wheat roll and a vegan cookie. Mine was rather good (or maybe I was just really hungry), Adam's was passable as sustenance. Our breakfasts were much more disappointing: fruit tubs with GF and vegan muffins which were very poor pastries indeed. But we didn't starve, because we had packed nuts and cheese and fresh pineapple.

The Atlantic Ocean was, for me, a dreamy dark blur. I slept over most of it, and when I awoke to peer out my window, the world was naught but dark clouds, steadily illuminated by the aeroplane's navigational lights.

After flying all night, we approached Amsterdam on schedule. By the time we flew over the English Channel the clouds had cleared and we had descended enough that we were able to watch the Dutch countryside slowly come into view below us as we landed in Schiphol.

Both of our checked bags arrived, although it felt like we spent an eternity at the baggage carousel watching Bags That Were Not Ours pass us by. Then we following the signs for International Arrivals.

Customs was a breeze: just two lines. One for checking identities & passports. One for declaring Stuff. Since we didn't have anything to declare, we avoided the queue and walked on through, and then we were in Amsterdam. Still in the airport, but safely in Europe with all of our bags.

the third leg: Schiphol to Jordaan

Of course, our first task was to buy our train tickets into Amsterdam. (Like most major cities, Amsterdam's airport is located in an outlying suburb and not near the city center.) And that's when we first ran into trouble. The automated train ticket dispenser wouldn't sell us a ticket because we lacked the right sort of credit card. And the counter where real people sold tickets also boldly displayed "NO MAGNETIC CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED -- PIN & CHIP ONLY."

Uh-oh! We didn't know there was a different European credit card technology, and that our cards would be useless at 90% of the places we'd like to use them (train station, grocery store, etc.). So much for our plan to use primarily credit cards on the trip so as to avoid ATM withdrawal fees and exchange fees, and pay off the credit cards in September. It was a poor time to realize that my budget plans were ruined: we were stuck at the train station!

Between us, we scraped together 20 USdollars, which was only 11 Euros and some change after exchange. But it was enough for our train tickets. So we went down to the basement platform and boarded the high-speed train to Centraal Station. Soon enough, we exited the train into the open air platform and set foot in Amsterdam. It was a chilly morning, but the cool air felt good to me after the hustle and bustle of the public transit.

With our rolling suitcases, backpack, big purse, and guitar in tow, we set out to find our flat. The street naming and numbering system in Amsterdam makes little sense to my American mind, but I was able to navigate to our flat. It wasn't a pleasant walk, seeing as how we were lugging 5 weeks worth of clothes, and we hardly knew where we were going. But we made it.

And when we finally found our flat, it was the only place in the world I wanted to be: safe and sound in my temporary home here in Amsterdam.

First post from Adam

Amsterdam for Idiot Americans

(By an Idiot American) – Part I

First of all, the toilets. God, the toilets. European toilets are indicative of the near-maniacal efficiency endemic to European people. “Low-flow” water-saving toilets have faced significant backlash since their adoption in America a few years back, and rightly so; we have so much water and hate it so much we like to piss and shit in it. Fuck “low-flow”. The toilets in Amsterdam are “no-flow” affairs. There is no water in the tank. None. Water is introduced for only a few seconds when you open the flush valve, meaning far less than a gallon would be used in a typical transaction. That’s probably the way a European instruction manual for the toilet would refer to the act of using a toilet: a transaction. Anyway, this is as efficient as it all sounds, damning millennia of human evolution that have ingrained in us that we shouldn’t sit directly over top a steaming pile of our own poop any longer than is absolutely necessary. As a highly-evolved American, I must admit taking exception at having this thrust upon me immediately upon my arrival to the continent.

Secondly, if you’ve ever heard the phrase “No, your money’s no good here...” it has usually been in the pleasant tone of voice one hears when one is about to get free stuff. Not so in Europe. Now, my wife and I didn’t think we’d just be able to hop off the plane here and buy a Big-Mac with our green-backs, and we were ready to exchange our money for Euro’s upon arrival. We had even taken the precaution of calling our credit card companies to let them know we’d be traveling to the Netherlands, and please not to block our charges, and we honestly thought we had everything planned-out and prepared. It was in line to purchase a train ticket out of Schipol International that the phrase “pin-and-chip” was introduced into our lexicon. See, Europeans got tired of the rampant piracy inherent in letting people sign a dotted line for access to credit, so shortly after the introduction of the Euro, credit card companies here began issuing more secure cards that have a security chip and require a pin rather than a signature. No U.S. bank issues them, because no merchants in the U.S. accept them. When we arrived at our lovely suburban neighborhood in the Jordaan, we quickly realized our plan to avoid exchange fees by using credit and paying when we returned to the States was a pipe-dream. In our many phone calls to three or four companies, no one bothered to mention the cards wouldn’t be accepted nine out of ten places. Several hours of phone-yelling later, we got things straightened out, but let this be a warning to ye prospective travelers.

Enough of that though. What you all want to know about is the weed. What can I say about weed in Amsterdam? It's almost all been very good. As background for those of you who might not know me personally, I’m a student and amateur musician in New Orleans, and I smoke regularly in my daily life at home. It is tolerated there more-so than in many American cities that do not have an active medical-marijuana community, but it is a ticket-able or arrest-able offense at an officer's discretion. All of this is to say that I am in no way new to marijuana, but I must say it has been refreshing to visit a place that has more or less fully embraced the path of acceptance of cannabis use. The coffeshops (one word) here range from hovel, touristy affairs close to the train-stations to relaxing local places where you’ll see the same frequent neighborhood regulars. It seems to me that there are a few places to get good-quality reliable smoke (such as the uptown Barney’s on Haarlemerstraat and Kadinsky by Universitie van Amsterdam), but they aren’t necessarily the ones you’d want to hang around in to partake. On the other hand, there are some quaint joints in back ally’s that are great for people watching and sinking into a bench while smoking hash and drinking a latte, but where the smoke on offer is of the more affordable but still quite serviceable variety. (Paradox comes to mind for this category; really nice folks there.) Lastly, I’ll mention the little spot here in my Jordaan neighborhood, Spirit. My old friends from the Fenian’s/Martins crowd will know what I mean when I compare Sprit to our dearly departed W.C. Don’s. This place is as local and dive-y as they come, but Spirit’s owner has an important advantage over old Terry in that Terry wasn’t allowed to sell Moroccan Ice-o-lator Hash. I’ve been spending an embarrassing amount of time there, but you would probably do so as well if there was hash within easy walking distance of your apartment, even if the vibe was Don’s-y.

My estimation of the city’s attitude towards marijuana is that it is roughly analogous to New Orleans’ towards alcohol. In Amsterdam, cannabis is readily available, scarcely regulated, and its use is accepted as a part of every-day life. Comparatively, I think that you’d have a hard time arguing that people in New Orleans are better off with their vice than are those here in Amsterdam. I’ve seen no fights in coffeeshops here, the annoyingly fucked-up folks have rather obviously been the few drunk ones, and the only negative consequences I’ve suffered from a week of smoking at every opportunity from sun-up to sun-down have been dry-mouth and consumption of an absurd amount of cheese and chocolate. Amsterdam wins, and weed wins along with it.

I’ll write several more times while we’re here. Hopefully I can tell you all about the Rembrandt museum and all of the other must-see tourist things, and maybe compile a little review of restaurants, coffeeshops, and bud strains for you. We’ll be going to the Hague in a few days time; I shall be making hash-fudge for the occasion. My grocery list today was priceless: condensed milk, cinnamon, chocolate, 3 grams Dutch-Malana Hash, nutmeg... These are good times, friends, good times; I shall try to remember to write and tell you all about them.

I can’t promise anything entirely coherent about the Hague though. There's something there called the "Peace Palace", but don’t be expecting a detailed report.

/ah

countdown: 4 days

Well, my law school community service requirement has been met. With that obligation out of the way, I'm suddenly much more excited about the trip.

Maybe because I feel that I can better focus on my final pre-trip planning and chores. Maybe because there's really only 4 days until I'll be walking the streets of Amsterdam. Maybe it's because I've been watching things like this:

I dunno the reason, but I'm super stoked and ready to get packing! (And cleaning, because 'tis always best to return to a clean house...)