Tot ziens!

OK, we're off. We had a great farewell dinner last night with Bill and Beth at a Korean restaurant -- it was just a few hundred yards from the flat that PJ and I first lived in when we moved to Amsterdam more than six years ago, but we had no idea it existed until yesterday. I'm sure there's a gag in there about Alanis Morrisette and irony but I'm exhausted and can't be bothered to find it. But I will post a pic of our meal.



We're in sunny Southampton for the weekend and will be up in Winchester on Monday. Not sure if Virgin Media will have us online by Monday evening -- can't wait to see how UK service compares with the Dutch lack thereof. I'm well aware that I will have lots to complain/blog about when we get home.

So, what will I miss? Cycling, yoga with Sandra and Leo, friends, the view of the canal from our living room, cycling, our gym, puppies in baskets, outdoor life, laughing at tourists looking miserable on tour boats in the rain, oud kaas, jong kaas, Sushi Me, De Via Portare, cycling ... but not smoking in restaurants. At all.

So long!

Off to the exotic ... Westerpark

When we hit breaking point yesterday, sniping and snapping at each other, we took off for the Westerpark. A beautiful afternoon, although the icy winds sweeping down from the Urals made it less than comfortable to sit outside. However, we did get to take a few pictures (of course).

Lock up your daughters!

The tourists have arrived! Large groups of jet-lagged muppets, wandering between the Dam, the red-light district, and the Anne Frank house. The teenage footballers from Brazil are identically clad in their track suits; the lesbian moms from the US are identically clad in tapered stone-wash jeans and matching baggy shirts. Pack mentality at its finest. I just wish they wouldn't move en masse -- cutting through them on the back becomes a challenge to rival anything on "I'm a celebrity ..."

Oh well, one more week and I'll be cursing the tour groups wandering around my neck of Winchester, pausing outside Jane Austen's house and wondering where Mr Darcy lived. Joy!

Off to the exotic East

We took advantage of a radio interview that PJ did yesterday with BBC World to head over to the east side of Amsterdam. Despite being only a 10-minute cycle ride from ours, we rarely get to this part of the city. What a shame -- it's got some lovely buildings. First stop, the Desmet Studios for the actual interview. Presumably, this was a 1920s cinema, which someone has rescued and turned into a small venue and recording studio. Given the blue skies, it looked more like LA, but the chilly evening meant were well aware it was Amsterdam.



The next port of call was a bar on the Entrepotdok that we'd visited for a reviving beer on Museumnacht. I was extremely pleased with myself for finding it again, given that it had been dark, an unknown area, and six months earlier when we'd previously been. What was going to be a quick libation turned into an extended one, as we enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere and bitching about our fellow guests' clothes. The row houses in this area are quite spectacular, far more regular than the ones at our end of the canal ring. Much of this area was labeled slum housing in the post-war years and demolished; the subsequent protests led to the saving of our neck of the woods, the Jordaan -- thankfully.



Like I said, this is one of the areas we know less well, which is a shame when you see what's on offer. I've never been to the Tropenmuseum or the Artis zoo -- nor, unsurprisingly, to the Kindermuseum. (If it were the history of the delicious German chocolate egg manufacturer, I'd be interested; kids, not so much.) Next time I come over here, I'll be just another tourist.



Last stop for pictures on the way home was this rather fun supermarket on the Rapenburg. I remember passing it in Bill's car on the way back from IKEA and cursing the fact that I didn't have my camera with me. No such problem this time. Why can't more city center stores look like this?



I am going to miss the photographic richness of this city. Carrying a camera around is never a waste of time. Oh well, I'll have countryside to photograph shortly.

The past six years, summarized

And far better than I could possibly manage.

Enjoy.

(Vondel) Park life

Two weeks to go, and the weather is now glorious. I'm not sure I want this. It's easier to feel confident about your choices when you're battling the elements to get to work, less so when you're cycling in the sunshine through the Vondelpark. In order to capture the good times, I've been stopping to take snaps of the park, juddering to a halt (my brake cables seem to have stopped working) when a view takes my fancy. Such as those below.





What me? Emotional? No! I've just got some dirt trapped under my lens. Better go and rinse it out before anyone sees.

The little oven that could (almost)

Of course, I tried out my electric mini-oven on Friday. I knocked up a batch of rye sourdough bread and put it in to bake. This was a tough test; it should be cooked at 425F for about 25 minutes, and my "real" oven struggles at that heat. One problem with the mini oven became apparent very quickly. To get high temperatures, you need to have both the top and bottom heating elements on; the bottom one alone is not enough. However, the top element is really the grill, so instead of getting consistent high heat, you actually get a glowing red grill -- causing the top of the food to burn before it's cooked. I experimented with baking parchment across the top of the bread, settled for a lower temperature and a longer cooking time, and to my surprise, it worked. The bread rose (or as much as rye bread ever does), it was cooked through, with a fluffy crumb and decent crust. Perhaps longer, slower cooking is the answer for some breads.

However, this is my dream oven.


It belongs to the takeout pizza place I've raved about previously -- somewhere we're very much going to miss when we leave. I cycled past on Thursday night and for once it was empty. Carpe diem! I dashed in, ordered a couple of pizzas, and sat back -- smug in the knowledge that (also for once), it wouldn't take 40 minutes to get two pizzas. And, given that I was the only customer, I risked ridicule and asked if I could take a picture. The two members of staff looked slightly bemused, but agreed. Isn't it lovely?

The old boy done good

Wednesday lunchtime, we receive an email from our selling agent. Our buyer wants to come round that afternoon to measure up the apartment. Is this okay? We had a similar message through a couple of weeks ago, and we made sure the place was spotless -- only for her to bail on the appointment. This time, I desperately cast my mind back over the state of the apartment when I left for work that morning. Not spotless, but not filthy either; she'd just have to put up with the clothes on the floor and the crumbs on the carpet. It's not ideal, but she's given us the runaround plenty of times during the course of this sale, so tough.

Later that day, we discovered that it wasn't actually our buyer who went round; it was her dad and a couple of his mates. The father will most likely be living here most of the time, he wanted to show his chums the place, and apparently they love it! In fact, they love it so much in its current state that our wealthy and design-focused buyer may have a problem doing up the apartment as she'd like. Heh! I'm actually rather comforted by the idea of an old boy moving in here, setting up a table by the French windows in the living room, watching the tourist boats go by on the canal, wandering over whenever a police siren is heard, and amusing himself with the arguments in the street below. We've loved it here, and so will he. There have been yuppies in this here apartment for far too long!

It's a good job I don't have to make important decisions every day

6.30 a.m.: PJ announces he is awake, it's not raining, and he's off to the gym.
6.40 a.m.: PJ leaves the house.
6.50 a.m.: Rain starts beating against the bedroom window. Doh!

8.25 a.m.: I stand by the window, trying to guess whether it will rain in the next 25 minutes.
8.26 a.m.: Grey clouds. It probably will. I'm wearing a skirt. Decision time. Do I cycle in wearing the skirt and get wet when it starts raining or do I put my waterproofs on, put my skirt in my bag and change at work? The latter option is the sensible one, but I will attract strange looks from passers-by, given that it's not actually raining.
8.35 a.m.: Still torn. Finally, I decide that I just don't care that much about what strangers think, but I do want to get to work.
8.40 a.m.: Damn. First set of strange looks. I DO care what strangers think.
8.41 a.m.: Is that a patch of blue sky?
8.42 a.m.: Pray for it to rain. Wish strangers would stop giving me odd looks. What's wrong with being prepared? The British Empire was built on this motto!
8.43 a.m.: Hah! It has started raining. I am vindicated! Bet you wish you were wearing your waterproofs now, Cloggies!
8.44 a.m.: That's enough rain to prove a point. Am now feeling cold and damp and miserable.
8.59 a.m.: Arrive at work, soaked. Drip my way into the office and change. In my calendar, mark off another day until I can walk upstairs to work.

The lack of big problems in my life is clearly having a detrimental effect on my decision-making skills.

Sunday afternoon in Dumpling Towers

PJ is doing vital work, killing zombies in a shopping mall. I head out to forage for food and take photos, and then come back to ironing, blogging, and listening to a free Daily Mail CD of The Stranglers. We are both content, after our own fashion.

Madame Sin

The nearest thing Amsterdam had to a near-real-time crime map was in its Love For Sale exhibition a few years ago at the Historical Museum. This was a great show on the history of prostitution in the city, complete with recreations of the infamous windows and maps. These large-scale plans of the canal ring and city centre had marked on them the sites of the vast numbers of street walkers, brothels and windows in this trade-based, sailor-rich town -- ranging from the 17th century through to relatively modern times. It was fascinating trying to work out which numbers on our canal had been houses of ill-repute (or still were). Not ours, unfortunately; that was a warehouse from 1621 through to the 1980s, but there were others along the canal that traded in flesh, rather than goods. In fact, most days I cycle home past a house that offers personal services. Not on the canal ring, but a rather quaint-looking house called The Golden Key on the Overtoom. I had always been intrigued about it, then did the obligatory Google search. The other evening, for the first time in the five years I've been past it, the door was open. As one might expect, the walls were a deep red with gold accents, and there was a large, menacing man in a long, black coat and shades standing about. Looking menancing. How very bordello!

I still have my doubts about prostitution in the Netherlands -- whether it's as clean and wholesome as its advocates make out, particularly given the number of junkies who tout themselves at the back of Centraal Station and the fact that very few of the women in the windows appear to be Dutch or even Western European. However, the Dutch do demonstrate that it's possible to run brothels relatively discreetly in residential areas, causing a minimum of fuss to the neighbours. Something those of us from more prudish/hypocritical nations should learn from, perhaps?

Speaking of which, I read a comment on another blog -- the excellent Johnny B's Private Secret Diary -- which said that:

Basically, if you come to England and go into a small deli, etc. then if there are pork pies stacked up on or behind the counter it means that the shop is actually a brothel.

It's a bit long to go into now, but the way the pies are stacked/arranged etc is traditionally a 'code' for the services that you can expect...NOTE - this does not apply to supermarkets or butchers!!! If you see pork pies in supermarkets or butchers they are just pork pies for sale - - - do not ask for sex as you will end up highly embarrassed...

Is this true? I've never heard of this before and am wondering whether it's a wind-up of foreign readers or something that I should have been aware of when a meat-eater!

Ker-ching

We've sold our apartment. Actually, we got the offer two weeks ago, signed the preliminary contract at the notary's last week, and confirmed the completion date this week -- but I didn't want to write anything about it for fear of jinxing it. Yes, I'm that superstitious.

Now that we've reached this point, I don't know how to feel. Happy that we won't be losing a bundle on this place? Sad because it's a great apartment, and we'll certainly never find anywhere like it again? Excited at the prospect of finding a new place in the UK to buy and do up? Overwhelmed at the thought of all the stuff that we need to do before we move -- such as getting through our extensive alcohol collection? All of these things, but mainly just a wee bit deflated. We've been talking about this move for the past two years, but now it's real.

Oh well, it's always best to leave a party when you're still enjoying yourself, rather than hanging on to the bitter end and heading home when the sun's coming up and I have no idea where this is analogy is going. Time to stop. Now.

Graag gedaan

A domestic Sunday. Pouring rain this morning thwarted my attempt to go for a run, itself the result of my thwarted attempt to go to yoga yesterday -- the lock on the studio door was broken and wouldn't open. Given the climatic setback, I decided to do my own yoga session at home while my sourdough rye bread was baking. The sloping floor, so off-putting to our many viewers, does make some of the standing postures a little awkward; well, that's my excuse for not being able to do The Tree. The bread was great, by the way, despite it's failure to rise as much as I'd hoped. It's very tangy, showing that my repeated efforts to kill off the starter have come to naught. I think I'm going to need to find a good home for it over here. Trying to get it past security and onto a plane back to the UK will prove near impossible. I can't imagine putting 100 ml of scenty, beige starter into a ziplock plastic bag and convincing airport authorities that it's not some form of biochemical weapon -- which it is, but in a good way.

The rain eventually stopped, exhausted no doubt after falling continuously for 16 hours. Off to Super de Boer for supplies, then I left PJ to mule those home while I set out for a walk. Along the Herenstraat, across the Nieuwzijds Voorburgwal, and onto the shopping hell hole that is the Nieuwendijk. After quick trips to Kruidvat and HEMA, I made my way against the tide of unwashed humanity back up the Nieuwendijk, along the continuation of the Nieuwendijk by the Haringpakersbrug, aka Sodom & Gomorrah -- past lots of "smart" shops, dodgy tourist stores offering glass bongs and dildos (and probably bong-shaped dildos), and gloomy coffee shops. On to the Harlemmerstraat, where the aforementioned coffee shops have been displaced by upmarket oil and vinegar shops -- hurrah! And then back home, stopping to admire the view from the Pastoorsbrug at the top of the Keizersgracht. I'm going to miss this view.

At home, PJ was looking very pleased with himself. He'd managed to detach the door of the electricty meter cupboard downstairs; we did have a key for the lock, once, but haven't used it since we moved in and have no idea where it is now. Well, we now have a lock that we can take to a locksmith and get a key for -- and we can (ideally) get some money back from NUON for overpaying on electricity for the past five years. We watched some TV spots for Hot Fuzz, ate some of Jo's lovely cake, I made pastry for a quiche for tomorrow evening, and PJ continued to wrestle with DragonQuest 8 on the PS3. All in all, a relaxing day.

Save the Schinkelkade trees!

The local council has started cutting down trees on the Schinkelkade near work, denuding the canal and making the street look very empty and harsh. I hope that this is because the trees were damaging the sides of the canal wall and not, as I suspect, to make more parking spaces for cars.

Frosty the Snow-Dumpling

The much-heralded snow arrived at lunchtime. In fact, it had been so heralded that the rail service starting delaying trains before it arrived -- now that's customer service! Just don't tell any of the incompentent private companies that make up British Rail; they'd love to do that.



Considerably heavier than the light shower we had earlier in the week, the snow started coming down thick and fast at about midday, about the time we'd planned to cycle over to WTC for lunch at Wagamama's, followed by an appointment in one of the buildings there. We held off on lunch, trying to convince ourselves with eternal British optimism that it was brightening up, but at 1.30 we had no choice but to head out into the snow. Ignoring the BBC's advice to take a spade (although a flask of hot tea would have been fantastic), we pedalled slowly over to WTC -- a journey that normally takes 10 minutes, but today took 25. This was, it must be said, also to do with the fact that the road we needed to turn onto was closed off by building works, so we had to do a huge loop around the complex -- no fun in driving snow and on slippery bike paths. However, we arrived safely, to be greeted somewhat incredulously. "You cycled in this weather!?!" Yep, foolhardy and proud of it.

After the meeting, PJ slyly slipped off to Schiphol in a taxi to wait out the inevitable delays on his flight to Copenhagen. I had to cycle the 10km back home, the snow now replaced with heavy, horizontal sleet, which stung my face and made it tricky to see where I was going. Please keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't freeze tonight; slush is bad, but ice is worse.

The situationalists strike back

Cycling through the Vondelpark this morning, we saw a couple of green plastic chairs -- expensive ones -- in the middle of the path. Unsurprisingly, a thrifty Dutch woman was standing by them, clearly trying to figure out how she could carry them on her bike. Free chairs are too good an opportunity to pass up! Cycling on, we saw several more chairs, only this time they were positioned in the middle of a field and had a table. "Bet you it's wacky art school students," said PJ. "Bet you they got a hefty grant from the government to do it," I replied. We then went on our way, chortling to ourselves about the lunacy of a tax-and-spend-on-layabout government that lavishes money on public art installations. And then, as Thatcher's children, felt rather envious and just a little bit sad.

Stalled

While in Boston last week, I got to attend some cultural sensitivity training. Oh, they called it something like Managing Virtual Teams In A Global World (or words to that effect), but it was really an attempt to educate us all about how different we are -- Americans versus Europeans, Dutch versus English, etc. -- and why can't we all just get along! (I'm hoping that I wasn't selected for this training because some of my colleagues had read this blog and decided that I was overly insensitive to other cultures, but that's always a possibility.) Anyway, it was all very interesting and enlightening but it failed to address a key cultural difference: Toilets.

I'm always surprised on my trips to the US by how different their toilets -- or rather, toilet stalls -- are. Be it in the office, the "restrooms" at Barnes & Noble in the mall, or in the executive lounge at Logan (shameless name drop, I know), the walls of each stall don't extend all the way to the floor. In fact, there's a good foot of space between the ground and the bottom of the wall, allowing you to identify the inhabitant by their shoes, trousers -- hell, if you're a US starlet, by your "va-jay-jay"(as I believe the kids are now calling it). This is highly unsettling. In the Netherlands, the toilet walls extend to the floor; you could kill someone in our office toilets and fellow occupants of the bathroom would be none the wiser. In the UK, there's a gap of just a couple of inches -- enough to allow the air to circulate in case you got trapped, but not much more. In Japan, you have the option of using white-noise generators to avoid embarrassment. But none of this in the US. Their stalls are far more like the ones you get in UK schools, which allow rampant bullying and the extraction of teenage girls who've just given birth unexpectedly in them during afternoon break.

I'm not the only one who noticed this, in case you think I'm weird. My Finnish colleague Kaisa -- owner of the delightful Tommy and kittens from June last year -- also raised this when telling me about her nasty bout of stomach flu. Most distressing. Thank goodness we're back with more civilized stalls.

In praise of the electric kettle

And, we're back in Amsterdam again. What a relief! There's a part of me that believes that I'll never actually come home from one of these trips (which can make traveling with me somewhat stressful) OR that when we get home, the apartment will have burnt down. Luckily, the latter was not an option this time, given the frequent visits by our makelaar; I just wished we'd asked her to buy us some milk so that we could have had a cup of tea when we got in, instead of having to brave the "delights" of Albert Heijn at 7 pm on a Saturday evening.

In fact, the worst part of the trip home was the layover at Heathrow for 3 hours. I love flying with Virgin, don't get me wrong, but from the point that we touch down at Heathrow until we touch down at Schiphol, I wish we'd flown KLM/Northwestern direct to Amsterdam. I was so tired yesterday that I walked into the men's toilets in the BMI lounge and stood, staring bemusedly at the urinals, trying to work out how women would use them, before realizing I was in the wrong place.

It is lovely to be back in an air-conditioning-free zone, though. I woke up this morning not looking like the Bride of Frankenstein, for once, and I've yet to receive an electric shock off our carpet. I have clean socks and underwear, and -- best of all -- an electric kettle! In fact, an electric kettle would be my desert island "luxury" item (complete with generator, teabags, and milk, of course). I don't understand how people survive without them: Kettles on a gas hob take far too long to boil, and you can't make hot Ribena using a coffee machine. Even the crappiest hotel room is significantly improved by the presence of a kettle and tea set.

After living outside the UK for seven of the past 10 years, it turns out that you can take the Dumpling out of Britain, but you can't take Britain out of the Dumpling. Or something. I'm still tired.

Feet firmly on the ground

Check out this article on Expatica: I am quoted! I get to see PJ's musings appear frequently in major publications, but this is my first press appearance since a photo of me playing the violin appeared in the Eastern Daily Press about 28 years ago. Go me! And go Sandra and Leo!!

Location, location, ceiling height?

We've had lots of viewers visit our apartment, but no offers. (Yet, PJ's just told me to add.) Apparently, the common problems are the height of the ceiling and the sloping floors. Great. Two things we can do absolutely nothing about. Also, they're not exactly uncommon in 17th century converted warehouses in the centre of Amsterdam, and it's not as if the photos of the apartment on Funda are misleading. Why can't people accept that these are characterful features, not drawbacks? Don't they watch house-buying shows?