Amsterdam report #1

A brief report on my first several days in Amsterdam.

The first couple of days/nights I spent sleeping, trying not to sleep at the wrong time, wishing I were sleeping at the right times, adjusting to new patterns of sleeping, and continuing to try to deal with getting an offer on a house and a mortgage application together. I think that part’s mostly behind me now! :)

Four major highlights since then:

Van Gogh Museum: my niece and I went together to check this out on Friday afternoon/early evening. I don’t think I’ve ever been to an art museum at that time of day. It was busy, but not too crowded. There was a live band playing. In addition to the restaurant, there were a couple of little bar islands where you could buy drinks. It was festive. There were a couple of displays that showed paintings by people other than Van Gogh, either his contemporaries, or folks who influenced him, or a couple that he influenced. But, mostly, it was Van Gogh’s stuff, of course. It was a lovely tribute to his life and work, and also striking throughout was the influence of the care and support that his brother Theo offered him throughout his life.

Zaanse Schans. This is a traditional windmill village not far outside of Amsterdam. I went with my bro and niece on Saturday. We saw the windmills, I tried on a pair of wooden clogs, we ate samples at the cheese farm, and we got a lesson in the production of pewter. All this in addition to simply enjoying the day together!

The next two sort of go together. Sort of not. You’ll see. It was one trip into the city, but....

Mass at De Papegaai (“the parrot”) in central Amsterdam. This church, built in 1848, was built on the site of an older hidden church (original built around 1660). The Protestants took control of Amsterdam in the 1570s, at which point it became illegal to practice Catholicism. Most of the older Catholic church buildings were either taken over or destroyed (or in some cases, more or less both). So this is made mostly to look like a storefront on the midst of this very busy downtown shopping street, but inside it’s Gothic (neo-Gothic?), with all these beautiful 19th century versions of the stations of the cross etc. Anyway, the original structure was known by a shingle of a parrot outside the storefront. Now, there is a parrot sort of built into the stone archway. But they aren’t underground anymore. A sandwich board sign, like so many others on this street, tries to draw them in. This one invites folks to come in, rest, and take “15 minutes with God.”

Mass, by the way, was in Latin, Gregorian chant, and beautiful. The readings and homily were in Dutch. (No, I didn’t follow it at all!) They distributed copies of the readings in Dutch, English, French, German, and Spanish. As I told my brother (who went with me!), that worship experience was a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. The choir and the priest sang the Mass beautifully and I really enjoyed it. But I felt more as though I had been to a concert than to Mass. Perhaps I would get used to it. (Side note to those attending to my communion habits: You’ll be happy to know that I received on my tongue, while kneeling at the communion rail. I felt very old-school reverent!)

Walking around Dam Square and (gulp!) the Red-Light District. OK. Perhaps this shouldn’t have been combined with Mass. But we were trying to catch the 10:30 and missed it, so we had time to walk around before Mass. Dam Square includes the palace and the New Church, both built (I think) in the 16th century. I’m actually going back there, so perhaps I’ll have more to say on that soon. But we were standing there with another 20 minutes or so to spend, and my brother pointed out that we were a couple of blocks from the edge of the Red Light District. His point: it’s a cultural experience, part of the Amsterdam “thing,” and, I mean, come on, it’s like 11:15 on a Sunday morning, how wild can it be? So we walk through a bit. Most of you probably know all about this. So we start passing these windows that look like windows where things for sale could/should be on display (“window shopping,” right?), but they are just curtained—nothing on display. And my brother is explaining to me that the women, the prostitutes, are on display in these windows and, when they are available, a red light is on to indicate this (and thus the name....). My brother is explaining this, and somehow we had paused in front of one of these windows, and, with a sudden whoosh, the curtain moved, and suddenly, standing 2 feet in front of me with nothing between us but glass was a lovely woman in lacey lavender lingerie, brushing her hair. It’s only occurred to me now that she likely heard us there and thought—whether to shock us or whether to help my brother in his attempts to explain—that she would give us a visual.

Actually, above and beyond the mere concept of putting human beings in window displays, she was far from the most shocking thing that I saw in the Red Light District. The advertisements for live pornography shows—listing out promises to would-be customers about what they might see and experience—were more so, for me at least. And it definitely wasn’t wild, really, but I could see that I didn’t want be there after nightfall. :)

We fought through the crowds of orange-clad Dutch about to watch their beloved “football” team play their first World Cup game (“Hup Holland!). The bars were full at 11 in the morning to watch a game that didn’t start until like 3pm. Orange wigs, orange body paint, orange underwear (seriously!). Harry Potter fans, I understand the section on the Quidditch World Cup in a whole new way now. I thought the point was that wizards are a little crazy when so many of them get together. Turns out, no. It’s just that they’re European and the World Cup brings out their craziness. The air horns and drumming went on for about an hour after the victory (by then we were out of the city and back at my bro’s place in Amstelveen, i.e. the suburbs). It was worst during and after the Dutch game, but you can always tell when there’s a game on, by the air horns.