June 10-12
I’m back in the land of ale and cake.
This is one of the beautiful cities of the world. Its ancient leaning houses, its canals lined with houseboats, its memories of the Golden Age and the tulip bubble—Amsterdam’s a great city just to sit and watch.
And traveling to Amsterdam can be fraught with surprises. I’ve been here a few times and so far there has been at least one surprise on the way here or on the way home.
My first trip, on Virgin Atlantic, left Newark six hours late because one of the engines needed a critical part that had to be taken from the engine of another plane that was sitting at JFK.
The second trip was delayed when the auxiliary power system failed during the taxi to the runway.
The time Joanna and I went together, we flew on British Airways and missed our connections in London on the way home.
BA may never have expected us to make the connection, which had a window of less than one hour. It usually takes half an hour just to get people off a plane once it reaches the gate.
My boarding pass for the second flight didn’t even have a seat assignment.
The current trip started Monday night. It had been drizzling quietly all day.
The plane arrived about an hour late and then lost more time because the airport was running late and planes were backed up.
Later, the flight captain explained that thunderstorms had delayed numerous flights “from the East Coast.”
All the East Coast? Part of it? A little bit of it? He didn’t say so I don’t know.
I booked an Aer Lingus flight through Expedia. It seems that, wherever you’re going, Expedia can usually get you from here to there. But first you have to go somewhere else.
My flight was going by way of Dublin. The connection was long gone by the time we touched down.
So were all the seats on direct flights. So I had to go by way of Heathrow and change yet again.
I’m taking comfort in the knowledge that there’s a comical consistency about all this.
Of course, I wasn’t alone.
There was quite a line to arrange new flights at Dublin. So I got into a long discussion with George, a Canadian on his way to Hamburg with his family.
George is interested in history. He finds U.S. history (which he calls “American”) more engaging than Canadian.
I think it’s because the Canadians get along so much better than we do in the States. It’s a propensity for violent disagreement that makes interesting history.
He pointed out that the U.S. can thank Canadians for the White House. It was painted white after Canadians burned it during the War of 1812.
Heathrow followed the universal custom of keeping arrival and departure gates as far apart as humanly possible. On the bus from Terminal 2 to Terminal 5 a man and his wife asked me if I had come from Newark.
They had, too. And they were taking the same roundabout route to Amsterdam.
The trip to Terminal 5 wasn’t a complete nuisance. T5 is where Huxley’s is. It’s a bar with several good taps. I was going to opt for Fuller’s London Pride but then noticed something new to me, Camden Pride pale ale.
It was sharply hopped, giving it a crisp edge. But it was light on malt so there wasn’t much beyond that crispness.
At the gate, a man named Simon saw the chain on my vest and asked about my watch.
I told him in brief the story of Luzern and the street with four places named “Harry’s” and not one of them a bar.
It turns out he was interested because his grandfather was a successful watchmaker. Apparently successful enough to establish the family’s fortune.
Simon said he comes from the Midwest but lives in Hawaii now. I guess that’s fortune indeed, if you like beaches.
I fell asleep during the short jaunt to Amsterdam. I know this only because the touchdown woke me up.
We got in around 5 p.m. local time, so I had been traveling through and between airports for more than 20 hours. A direct flight from Newark to Hong Kong takes less time than that.
I may have managed a couple of hours of sleep over the Atlantic on Monday night—or more accurately, Tuesday morning. But I had been pretty much awake the whole time since 7 a.m. Monday.
Schiphol was fairly efficient. The train ride to Central Station is always quick. Trains run on time every dozen minutes or so.
A cab took me some roundabout way to the Hotel Prinsengracht.
Somewhere during that leg of the trip, I caught a second wind.
Larry showed up around 6 or 7, and we started bar-hopping.
We stopped at Bush Docter, near Rembrandtplein, for space cake. Then we went to one of the great cafes on Utrechtsestraat for a beer.
Not knowing the house rules, we sat outside with our beers while I started to eat half the cake. Eating the stuff is generally stronger than smoking it. So you start with half.
It takes about 20 minutes or more for the cake to release the drug into the system. It was about 8 p.m., and so far north, it was still broad daylight. The white half moon on the blue was so beautiful.
Rapturously so. The cake was kicking in.
Utrechtsestraat is the high-rent district so most of the restaurants were damned expensive. We wound up at a reasonable Turkish place called Ali Ocakbasi.
There were roasted peppers, cubed eggplant in a delicate sauce, grilled lamb, couscous.
Amsterdam’s not known for great food. Beer, yes, but not food.
This was pretty good. For Amsterdam, I’d say it was spectacular. Of course, a little space cake and no food since breakfast pique the tastebuds.
After several more stops and some strong beers, we had to leave the Cafe Krom when it closed. At the corner of the Prinsengracht, Larry left in one direction to get his bike, and I made my way independently, if a little unsteadily, back to the hotel—a distance of a couple of hundred yards.
A man came up behind me and asked if I was OK. He may have seen me extend my hand toward a tree trunk to avoid walking into it.
I insisted that all was fine. He had no ulterior motive. He patted me on the shoulder and then moved on.
Larry told me later that, seeing the guy approach me, he changed direction in case I needed backup. The whole encounter lasted only seconds and ended without incident.
I got into bed around 2 and didn’t move till 11.
Wednesday Larry came over in the afternoon.
It was after 2 and I hadn’t eaten anything, so Larry and I took off to find lunch.
It had been variously drizzling and pouring. This time it was wet enough that my hat leaked.
First, we ducked into a Barney’s franchise on the Reguliersgracht for coffee and dry shelter. When the rain slacked off, we proceeded to Rembrandtplein, past the bronze figures based on “The Night Watch” to a dark restaurant called the Three Sisters. I had my first beer of the day and a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato.
I don’t know if sheer hunger was the cause, or if I was still enjoying a lingering buzz from last night’s space cake, but that sandwich, entirely undistinguished, was delicious.
We strolled back to the canal to visit Sir Michael. He has the entire third floor apartment in what looks to me like a Golden Age townhouse that overlooks the Prinsengracht.
We brought some beer for the fridge, but after last night, it was still too early for me to drink any. Larry and Sir Michael were smoking joints while we watched a classical music program.
There was a break in the rain, so Larry and I wandered around the neighborhood for a while. Later we went back to Sir Michael’s where Merle, who used to manage the Hemp Bar before it closed, had joined the group.
I tried one of the bottles of ale that I had brought earlier. It was called Vedett and it was very good.
The discussion touched on some colorful topics, ranging from religious conundrums to colonial influence on the practice of Shariah law.
We tried to go to a popular pizzeria for dinner. Sir Michael and Merle went ahead of us on bicycles to scout out the place. Larry and I were walking.
We rounded a corner to see Sir Michael pedaling in our direction, like the cavalry with a situation report. The place was mobbed and no one had any idea how long the wait would be.
Plan B quickly presented itself—cross the street to a burger joint called Geflipt. Better than bad, it was good. The meat, or maybe the bun, had an herbal flavor that I couldn’t identify. It was different, and interesting.
The ale had a great name “Mooie Nel.” The first word is pronounced almost like “moy” with a drawl. It means “pretty” or “attractive.”
This Nel wan’t only pretty, but a little sweet too. But not too sweet
After dinner we retraced our route up Utrechtsestraat to a great cafe called Onder de Ooievaar. I don’t know how that’s pronounced. (I should have asked Merle.) It means “under the stork.”
I’ve read somewhere that storks used to nest on the chimneys of Amsterdam. Maybe the name refers to that.
I had a few more beers, including a Le Chouffe and a strong ale called Zatte from Brouwerij ’t Ij, but nowhere near the excess of the night before.
I was feeling good, though, and sacked out around the same time.
Sleep tight, and mooie dreams to all.
Harry
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