Notes from Amsterdam

This brief travelogue traces one of our earliest trips to Europe. Didn’t want you to think we’re footloose again, although I’m hoping we’ll get there this year. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen our daughter Mary, an opera company pianist, beginning in Stuttgart, Germany in 1984 and working for several other houses in the years since. She’s alighting later this summer for a new job in Duesseldorf.

8-31-90: Traveling to Amsterdam. I slept most of the way over, having taken an old, old tranquilizer. It put my lights out, not something I’d recommend. It’s wise to have someone with you, someone with your best interests at heart.

(Delta flight attendant with tray: “What would you like to drink?” Me: “Chicken.”)

These are notes I took when we traveled to Europe in 1990, so I don’t have a way to retrieve details. Neither Dave nor I were particularly well-traveled. My first trip to the Olde World was over my birthday, Christmas, and New Year’s holidays, 1984-85. Dave came along on my second jaunt, in the summer of 1990. We flew into Amsterdam partly because it is not terribly far from Stuttgart, and without a car, we were at the mercy of Mary’s friends.

We walked all around Amsterdam, dropped Dave at our room, then we walked some more. (“We” were Mary, me, and her Significant Other of the Year.) Ate a light meal of Surinam food, very late. Wish I had that menu today.

Earlier, we got caught in a pouring rain after visiting the Oude Kerk (Old Church), begun in about 1250 a.d. and now primarily a cultural center rather than a place of worship. (“Cultural”? Or “commercial,” a place to sell drugs and, uh, other services?)

On this day, we heard the organist practicing Bach on a magnificent organ – and forgot to pull out the tape recorder I used to carry.

Back in our room, we spread our wet clothes all over the room to dry. When we left Atlanta the temperature was in the ’90s with humidity to match. Cool and gray in Amsterdam. Glad to be wearing a denim jumper and a jacket.

9-1-90: Raining lightly this morning, so I wore boots, jacket and raincoat, a slip under a turtleneck shirt. Carried our stuff most of the day. Tired feet tonight.

Went through the Rijksmuseum first thing today. Wonderful. Lots of Dutch masters like Vermeer, Steen, Hals, Rembrandt. Rembrandt’s The Nachtwacht is here, plus an explanation of what it means and how restored. It was the formal portrait of the city guard, like the local militia. Each of the 34 characters paid 100 guilders to be in the painting and Rembrandt earned 1,600 guilders, a large sum at the time.

The painting is so much livelier than the typical static rows of heads usually done. Time has darkened the paint, hence the title.

Took the Museumboot tour, getting off at the Naval Museum and the Flea Market, and saw the outside of Rembrandt’s house.

Ate Indian food and walked the canals of Amsterdam at night – very busy. The streets are full of people, mostly young.

Impressions of Amsterdam, remembering that this was written in 1990:

• Extremely crowded, lots of fast little cars, bicycles, many carrying double.

• Rows of narrow 3-to-4-story houses with “step” gables, just as expected.

• Houses have hoists from previous use as warehouses.

• Gently arched bridges over the canals.

• A tremendous mixture of people and races.

• Dirty streets, a few wasted kids.

• A lot of brick, different colors and textures.

• Trees and flowers, but less than most cities.

• A lot of fearless cats, like the black-and-white one at the Hotel Bema where we stayed across the street from the Concertgebouw (Netherlands famous concert hall).

• Very populous, mostly kids.

Impressions of North Holland:

• So flat! Straight rows of trees, some leaning.

• Low dikes with cobbled sides.

• Flowers! Roses, geraniums, lobelias, petunias, marigolds, impatiens, sunflowers!

• Crooked houses – soggy foundations?

Left Amsterdam after learning that the Van Gogh museum doesn’t open until 1 p.m. on Sundays, although the city brochure said 9 a.m.

Last night we were startled to find three skinheads camped outside our pitiful room in the Hotel Bema. Later learned the proprietor lets them sleep there – they’re part of a band - !

Drove through flat northern Holland, stopping in quaint Edam, yes, the town where Edam cheese is produced. There was a festival going on with a “step race,” the card shop operator said. They race with scooters, on foot, whatever.

Got a caraway seed cheese there.

The photo I didn’t get: two wholesome, well-muscled boys, finishing a scooter race and shaking hands.

The picture Dave missed: a canal bridge being cranked open by hand to allow a boat through. Neat barges and bluff-fronted wood and steel seafaring boats.

I’m glad I came across these notes – they do bring back memories, augmented by today’s Google capabilities. Will resume later in another column.

Rick Steves need not worry.