Amsterdam is magical
I was remembering the ’..and then’ storytelling days.
Where every detail had to be shared, where everything that happened at school was unbelievably exciting (like ‘My Hero pen ran out of ink in Ms. Rochelle’s science period, and then I asked V if she had an extra pen and then..’). Not so much for my twofold sister-mother audience.
Bereft of a daily audience, and a tiny bit scared to leave things documented only in my head, I want to write about some of my travels in the past year and how cities talked.
Chapter 1 in no chronological order: Amsterdam was magical.
I must have repeated that adjective a zillion times through our brief four days visit .I failed to find a better word to capture the fairytale like quality of this city (bewitching, ephemeral, wizardly, mythical, enchanting, charming).
It was late October and autumn reigned in all its crimson glory.
Any and every street was picturesque. On our first afternoon, we lounged by one of the many little canals and took in the view. Across the dark green water, a pair of tall, bright yellow trees framed a narrow, intricately gabled building that was leaning happily to the left by 10 degrees or more. Over the next few days, that scene repeated itself endless with trees in shades of fires, lining gorgeous old buildings, all slightly haphazardly titled, one way or the other.
Before the aforementioned plonking, we had enthusiastically bought 2-day ‘I AM AMSTERDAM’ city passes including visits to tons of museums and including all the typical must-see attractions. So, naturally, I guilt-tripped relentlessly when instead of hardcore seeing of sights, we sauntered through parks and streets for the rest of the trip.
I *had* to visit the ‘Anne Frank Huis’ for my 13 year old self and despite the hordes of tourists and chatter, it was an achy experience. Highly highly recommend buying tickets in advance and waltzing past the 2-block long queues outside.
Of the sights we did take in, one was Muiden caste, the oldest surviving medieval castle in Europe. It was smaller and more boring than I had dreamed up. Sigh.
We also visited the van Gogh museum and had a great hour rating the works of van Gogh against one Edward Munch. Just before prematurely exiting, we were pointed toward the 3 floor ‘Permanent Museum Collection’ by a snooty, old Dutch dame. We humbly thanked her and rushed through ‘The Sunflowers’ and other popular paintings before closing time.
Street side discovery 1: Dutch sounds like a bizarre mix of German and British English and I entertained myself by repeating ‘Dit is Amstel staatsiyon’ infinitely.
Street side discovery 2: I lived in fear of the bicyclists everywhere, but it is wonderful to see how it is the main mode of transport. We found multistoried parking lots for bikes outside every main station. Whatte wow.
Street side discovery 3: We walked by a weekend flea market and I most serendipitously stumbled upon an old map of Hamburg-Altona for 5 Euros. This was our summer weekend destination and another favorite European city. To be documented soonly.
Street side non-discovery 1: We failed to see any tulips but the supermarket around the corner of my street more than makes up for it now.
We finished with a picture-perfect canal cruise late in the evening.
PS: Of course being in Amsterdam and all, I tried to enjoy a space cake…and I failed spectacularly. I spent a terrifying evening with no sense of balance or orientation walking alongside a tiny pond and fearing for my life. Vishnu, on the other was a very happy camper.
PPS: No having found any Airbnbs or hostels in town at the last second, we ended up in a cozy cottage in the fancyschmancy little village of Laren, about an hour away by public transit. Beaut.
