Harry Travels: So Long, Amsterdam

June 18-21

Wednesday it was back to the Rijksmuseum, this time to focus on the Dutch Masters.

Like everybody else, I go to see the Vermeers and Rembrandts. And on the way, like everybody else, I see others whose names aren’t familiar.

Pieter de Hooch, I read, was noted for a compositional convention called a through-views. The scene—a mother delousing her child, or a man handing a letter to a woman—takes place in an interior room; there will be an open door or window in the background that opens to another room, which may have a window to a garden outside.

It’s almost like a comical aside: There’s more than meets the eye. And it adds to a sense of space.

Ferdinand Bol, who studied under Rembrandt, is another of those portrait painters whose subjects come alive. After you look into the detailed and focused expressions of these merchants, bankers, guild officers, and their wives and mothers, you come away with the feeling that you know these people.

I met Larry for a beer at the Ooievar and we went up the street to a bistro called Quartier Latin for escargot and wild boar, with a carafe of merlot.

Thursday was another of those comedies of errors. We were going to Haarlem.

And I was running late.

I expected Larry not to try to find me in Amsterdam, but to go to Haarlem and wait at the station there, where there would be fewer people.

He expected to wait on platform 2, where many trains to Haarlem leave Amsterdam, till I showed up.

His was the better plan, but I remembered the other one.

I got to Haarlem and waited at the station for an hour and a half.

Then I took a stroll through downtown Haarlem.

It’s a short walk from the station to the central town square of the old city. City hall and one of the main churches are still there. It is known as the Great Market.

I managed to get a coffee and a sandwich at a place on the market square that was preoccupied with serving coffee and sandwiches to tour groups.

I had a view of the street, as a truck trimmed with ribbons and flowers just barely managed a corner next to the town hall. A man in a powder blue suit and a lady in a white gown and crewcut were about to be married.

They had a small crowd of supporters who followed them into the building.

The church, one the opposite end of the square from the town hall, was the cathedral of the city until the Reformation in the 16th century. Now it is called the Great Church of St. Bavo.

They charge two and a half euros, which goes to the upkeep of the church, to get in.

It has a huge organ with several hundred, or maybe thousand, pipes. Mozart pulled out all the stops here, they say.

Many old carvings survive, including one of a monk (judging by his brown robe and beads) biting a pillar.

I tried to find Jopenkerk, but the time grew late and I grew tired.

Jopenkerk is one of the top entries on the Haarlem guidebook’s list of things to see. It’s a brewery of very good ales that operates in an old church building.

I got back to Amsterdam to find that Larry had been looking for me. He was wondering which hospital I was in.

He was understandably pissed off. I hadn’t gone to a hospital at all.

We went to De Pijp, not far from the Cuyp Market, for an assortment of South Indian food.

I had a crepe filled with potatoes and onion, with a masala gravy. It had three or four names, but I know it from Little India in New York, where it is known as masala dosai.

We also had curries with vegetables and the cheese cubes called paneer.

There was some heat in everything, but only a little.

We stopped for a beer or two at Ooievar before I headed to the hotel.

Friday was a moving day. I checked out but left the bags at the hotel. I booked the room through Expedia, so the rent was paid in advance. All I had on the bill was a charge for a few cans of Heineken.

I was running short of underwear and so went to the Uni-Qlo store in the Rokin neighborhood, near the Dam, to buy some. Then I came back to the hotel to wait for Larry.

I was using the computer to stay in touch. He was running late, delayed, as I learned later, by a misbehaving washer-dryer.

I was feeling a little peckish, but after yesterday’s farce in Haarlem, I wasn’t going anywhere, so I stayed put.

We went around the corner to a Japanese shop for a bite of lunch. I ordered a plate of gyoza dumplings, which were fried crisp. They were very good, but I’m used to having them steamed, which leaves the wrappers soft.

I also had what might qualify as Japanese deviled eggs. The yolk was seasoned with herbs and the plate came with a leafy green, maybe watercress or something else I don’t readily recognize. They were OK, but I don’t see myself asking for them again.

Larry had ramen noodle soup.

We had everything, appropriately enough, with bottles of Sapporo.

Larry’s friend Ryan, who lives in Singapore, was coming to town that afternoon.

Larry and I were sitting outside the Bush Docter, the coffee shop near the Herengracht, when Larry got a phone call from Ryan saying he was going to be joining us in a couple of minutes.

Larry was on his way to the head and told Ryan to look for me, the guy in the straw fedora.

This meeting happened as planned. Larry was on his way back when Ryan, whom I hadn’t met and wouldn’t know by sight, showed up with his bike.

We chatted a bit in the shade, and the breeze, and the relaxed ambience of smoldering vegetable matter. Then we decamped to Cafe Krom on Utrechtsestraat.

That Sapporo was a while ago. After a nice strong La Chouffe at the Krom, I was feeling pretty good.

Ryan hadn’t taken anything at Bush Docter. Neither had I. So we moved to Katsu in De Pijp.

While I took the tram, Ryan and Larry retrieved their bikes. We got there just about the same time.

I ate half a muffin, and it wasn’t long before we were all feeling ready to eat. Time, exercise, and also certain medications can do that to you.

By now we were feeling the effects of all three influences.

We went farther down into De Pijp to Leeman Kebab, a Turkish shop that serves varieties of sandwiches, mostly variations of the gyro.

Mine, for instance, was lamb shaved off one of those rotisseries rolls. It was served with hot sauce and a garlic-laden creamy dressing, all wrapped in a flour tortilla.

We sat outside the store on benches to eat the sandwiches. I don’t know how Turkish it was, but can verify that it was delicious.

If I remember right—and seeing how I was in Amsterdam, this might not be accurate—we said our so-longs outside the kebab shop, and I took the tram back to Prinsengracht.

I picked up my bags at the hotel and walked to Rembrandtplein. It is a longer walk than going to the No. 4 stop on Utrechtsestraat, but you can catch the 4 or 14 at Rembrandtplein to go to Central Station.

As it turned out, I got the 4 anyhow. I think it was my fifth tram ride of the day, and my card was still good.

I bought a ticket to Schiphol and may have saved a euro on the fare because I had it put on the travel card instead of getting a paper ticket. The train ride still wasn’t cheap—about 20 euros—but cost less than a cab.

I got to the airport hotel, the CitizenM, with little trouble.

The CitizenM has some distinction among airport hotels. It is one of the few that I have reached by walking from the terminal. The only other times I remember doing that were at the Pullman Roissy at Charles de Gaulle, and the Regal Airport at Hong Kong.

It is also the first hotel where I entered the room by walking through the bathroom. Literally. The toilet is sitting out on the floor on the left as you go in. The shower stall is a few steps farther on the right.