<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nSunday, 1 October<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nWe left home at 5:45, ferried to the airport by Carolyn. Curbside check-in was closed, so we checked in at the counter, as required for international flights. This took a while as one customer was having some sort of problem that was taking the attention of three employees \u2013 I wonder, in this age of automation, what problems can still be had the require a gaggle of humans to resolve them. Anyway, we got checked in after a twenty minute wait, went through security, and made our way to the gate, waited again, and boarded the plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although we were in a new-to-me seating category, \u201cDelta Premium Select,\u201d whose ads seemed to promise nearly reclining seats, they turned out to be pretty much like what used to be called \u201cComfort Plus,\u201d perhaps with the addition of an inch or two of width. \u201cComfort Plus,\u201d now, I believe, just called \u201cComfort,\u201d is tighter than I remember. It seems, as always, corporations figure out new ways to wring more profit out of people. I wonder what \u201cMain Cabin\u201d is like these days \u2013 unless they have made it worse, entirely possible I suppose, it may be a better move to fly main if Exit Row seats are available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All that said, we got settled in, and had an OK trip to Amsterdam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>First day<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nMonday, 2 October 2023 \u2013 3.5 miles<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nArriving in Schiphol we made our way through the airport, got our luggage, and took a taxi to our apartment in the Jordaan neighborhood of Amsterdam, all without any difficulty. Our apartment was not occupied the previous night, so we were able to check-in upon arrival, rather than having to wander the streets for a couple of hours. It\u2019s a great apartment \u2013 quite as nice as it appeared in the pictures \u2013 with big mullioned windows that look out through trees to a canal, and the row houses on the other side of the street. Although there are occasional cars and vans, the traffic is dominated by bicycles and pedestrians, which gives the streets a nice feel. We do, as frequent bell-chinging reminds us, need to watch out for bicycles as we walkers step into the street to pass others on the narrow sidewalks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\nAfter settling in we napped for two hours, and arose surprisingly refreshed \u2013 that is to say, not horribly groggy. There is still a veil of fatigue between us and the world, but it is not bad. We walked a big loop through the neighborhood where we\u2019re staying. Mostly we checked out the locations of things for future reference, though we did have a light meal of tapas (unexceptional) on Harlaamstrat, with beer and wine, and picked up a few things at a grocery store near our apartment. Overall, we walked about 3.5 miles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\nWhen we got home we collapsed into bed at about 8:00pm. I awoke, feeling reasonably refreshed and ready for a new day, but discovered it was 12:38am, and I needed to sleep longer! Katie also woke up, and we spent a couple hours reading, before falling asleep again, and this time slept until around 8am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>A walk, and great pumpkin soup<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nTuesday, October 3<\/em> \u2013 1.5 miles<\/p>\n\n\n\nWe were pleased to be up at a normal-for-Amsterdam hour, and although, still a bit fatigued, felt pretty well. It was gray with intermittent light showers, but after lolling about and having a leisurely breakfast we set out to explore the Jordaan neighborhood. (Yesterday our walk, as it turned out, missed most of the neighborhood). The first stop was a pharmacy, where I picked up some oormeer<\/em> softener \u2013 that being Dutch for ear wax (I used foam ear plugs on the plane, and one of the appears to have jammed wax into a plug in my ear canal, resulting in a partial deafness on my left side). (When we returned home I used it, and it solved the problem, so no more to be said).<\/p>\n\n\n\nBy this time we\u2019d gotten hungry and went looking for a lunch place. It was surprisingly difficult to find something that was open. Apparently restaurants often close on Tuesdays, and sometimes on Wednesdays. Finally we found a nice caf\u00e9, and sat outside under an awning at a small corner table, and had a delicious spicy pumpkin soup (along with a beer for me). The rain picked up, but it came straight down so we stayed dry and happy. Very cozy, and very sustaining! (We will have to explore pumpkin soup recipes at home when we return.)<\/p>\n\n\n\nAfter lunch we returned to the apartment, and kicked back for a few hours, reading and writing. Katie researched options for the next day, I worked on finishing my Yosemite trip report for my blog, and did other online things, and we had a relaxed afternoon. As evening fell, we got hungry, and went across the canal where we got take-out at a small Indonesian place; we brought it home, had a nice meal, and returned to our various pursuits. We stayed up until about midnight, and then had a good \u2013 if drug-assisted \u2013 night\u2019s sleep. <\/span>SLA lunch, and a meander around Jordaan<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nWednesday, October 4 \u2013 5 miles<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nWe rose around 8:00, had breakfast, and read and wrote for a couple of hours. No doubt this will be a regular pattern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then we went out and had lunch at SLA, a chain of vegetarian restaurants that we\u2019ve eaten at before. It was quite good \u2013 I had a flafel salad with all sorts of other things in it. Katie had something similar. After that we did a tour of the Jordaan neighborhood that we found on the app GPSmyCITY.com, an app which apparently allows people to publish their own tours. The guide was pretty good at getting us around the neighborhood; however, we didn\u2019t really want to go to museums today, and instead just enjoyed the walk. Katie was intrigued by the church, xxx, which was extremely spare, and oriented along a diagonal: she believes it may represent a reaction against the ornamentation of catholic churches. [check] The nicest part of the tour was walking along a very small street called Nieuw Leliestraat. Both because the street had nice gardens, and because it wasn\u2019t very trafficked (it gets a bit tiring watching out for both cars and bicycles \u2013 pedestrians are clearly at the bottom of the hierarchy here).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Our walk to and from dinner came to a bit over two miles; I neglected to record our earlier walk, but as it took us within a block or two of Moeder\u2019s, but by a considerably more circuitious route, I\u2019ll call it a minimum of 3 miles, making this a 5 mile day. <\/span>Pancakes and the Rijksmuseum <\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nThursday, October 5 \u2013 6.5 miles<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nWe rose around 8:00, had breakfast, and read and wrote for a couple of hours. Today we have more ambitious plans, which at the minimum will involve museums. Just now we are planning on walking to the Rijksmuseum, and exploring it and the adjacent park. It\u2019s about half an hour\u2019s walk each way, which sounds pleasant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We began with lunch at the Pancake Caf\u00e9. I had an apple-bacon pancake, and Katie had a gluten-free spinache-cheese pancake. They were big and quite flat, very much like French crepes, except with the extras incorporated into the pancake itself \u2013 although given their thinness, the ingredients tended to protrude. They were good, but I don\u2019t believe either of us would say they were wonderful (Katie was hoping for a puffy pancake, as in a German apple pancake). But no complaints. We will probably return to this caf\u00e9, but more likely for a lunch of pea soup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a brief stop at our apartment \u2013 the Pancake Caf\u00e9 is nearby \u2013 we headed out to the Rijksmuseum. We took a slightly oblique route \u2013 we wanted to walk along less-trafficked streets, and were also interested in passing by the place we\u2019d stayed in 2020, and so we walked over to Herrengracht and thence to the museum. We arrived at about 2:45, and upon enquiring for the ticket office discovered tickets were only available online. But that wasn\u2019t so bad, as I could just go online, order them, and download them. Five minutes later we were in the entrance queue, and pleased that they were not enforcing entrance times, as we would have had to wait half an hour. So in we went. Soon we were in the 17th<\/sup> & 18th<\/sup> C rooms looking at Rembrants, Vermeers, and the like. One thing I appreciated was that the Rijksmuseum had large plastic placards (in holders on the walls) that featured one or more nearby pictures, and highlighted some of the features of note. For example, on placard showed Rembrant\u2019s picture of a wealthy Dutch man dressed in his finery, and noted the techniques he used to make the fabric glisten and the fine lace stand out (for the latter, rather than painting the lace with white, he layed down a background of white, and used black to paint the holes that patterned the lace). In another case, \u201cThe Threatened Swan,\u201d its placard noted that the swan\u2019s feathers, which appear white, are actually painted with touches of multiple colors.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt was also nice to see the Vermeers. Katie enjoyed them as well, and remarked that she was surprised at how small they were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\nThe Vermeer show had closed, but they still had the Vermeers in their own collection among them, The Love Letter, Woman Seated at a Virginal, and The Milkmaid. The ever-informative placards called attention the way in which several of the paintings set their subjects a distance from the viewer (e.g., behind a table), and feature a single point of movement (here, the pouring milk) amidst stillness. The Milkmaid was my favorite of these. I like the calmness and focused concentration of the subject pourng the milk in an otherwise motionless scene. I was perhaps also primed to appreciate The Milkmaid because I\u2019d come across a Banksy play on it a few days earlier. No doubt you can tell which is which.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We spent an hour and a half looking, which is about all that I can manage before feeling satiated, and then departed as the first closing announcements were broadcast through the museum; we shall return another day. We walked home, partially retracing the route we came on, and with our goal accomplished paid more attention to the people and streets and canals and buildings. We picked up dinner at the Indonesian place, I made a quick trip to the grocery store, and we settled in for the evening. <\/span>Rembrandthuis and Amsterdam University <\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nFriday, October 6 \u2013 7.5 miles<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nWe rose around 8:00, had breakfast, and read and wrote for a couple of hours. Today our plan is to visit the Rembrandthuis museum, a refurnishing of the rooms of the house Rembrandt lived in during this peak years. He later fell out of style, was unable to maintain his house, and sold off much of the furnishings. This process produced itemized lists which were used in the refurnishing. The house museum is a walk of about 35 minutes, into Central Amsterdam (aka the red light district) and then the Nieumarket, areas we\u2019ve not explored yet. In addition to the museum, I\u2019m especially interested in seeing the Begijnhof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before we set out for the day, I went out to find an ATM, and turned it into a short walk. The day was lovely; sunny and in the high sixties.Many people were out and about. I walked about a mile and a half, but other than enjoying my walk have nothing to report. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I returned to the apartment, and after finishing up our leftovers for lunch, we set out for the Rembrandhuis Museum. As we headed east towards the shore, where the museum is located, the streets grew busier and busier. I presume the increased density is due to tourists, and those servicing them. Although we passed through the red light district, we apparently bypassed the racy part; I noticed nothing. Rembranthuis Museum is the original house Rembrandt lived in, abutted by a modern building that houses the museum \u2018infrastructure\u2019 \u00ad\u2013 ticket collection, audio tour distribution, and galleries. After picking up the audio tour, which consists of a tablet with headphones, we passed through an entrance into the house itself. It was a little confusing a first, because the tablet interface offers a couple of rows of buttons which select the audio for each room, and at the right is a button for entrance room \u2013 but that refers to the house entrance, which is on the first floor, when the room one enters into when entering the museum is the kitchen. It didn\u2019t take long to figure out, but I have to say that the interface was a little clunky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The house is quite large, especially for the time, and had luxurious items like running water \u2013 via a pump \u2013 in the kitchen. That said, furnishings were quite sparse. The parlor \u2013 it had a different name but its where he saw clients and conducted business \u2013 had only a single chair. It\u2019s not what I would have expected a place where you met clients and shared wine. Most rooms had \u2013 again I forget the proper name \u2013 closet beds: they were short — only about four feet long — and were essentially built-ins with doors. Apparently, during that period, people believed it was unhealthy to sleep laying down, and so beds were short to enable sleeping in a sitting posture. I imagine the doors were there to conserve heat, though no doubt, closed up during the day, they also made the house look tidier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most interesting room in the house was Rembrandt\u2019s studio. The large one was Rembrandt\u2019s private studio. It had floor to ceiling windows, facing north \u2013 a direction favored by painters for the consistency of the light throughout the day \u2013 a large easel, and shelves of art materials ranging from props used in paintings to materials and apparatus for making paint. I found the paint-making of most interest: in those days, paints had to be made from scratch: black from charcoal, white from lead, yellow and red-brown from clay, bright red from cochineal, and blue from cobalt glass. The materials had to be reduced to power \u2013 if not clay \u2013 and mixed with linseed oil in a laborious and rather elaborate process; left over paint would be stored in small pots covered with an oiled cloth. I don\u2019t know, but I presume that painters pallets were less well-populated in those days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After Rembrandthuis we shared a salad at a caf\u00e9 to refuel, and then made our way to the Begijnhof. But as we walked, Katie grew curious about people streaming out of an passage, and so we altered our course. At first we were in a narrow alley that had cupboard like areas on either side being used as book stalls; most were closed, but those that were opened featured books, mostly used, and various manuscripts. It was intriguing. Venturing farther the alley opened into quadrangles with grass and lovely gardens, and we found that we were on the grounds of the University of Amsterdam. Katie enjoyed the collegial atmosphere and students bustling about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having satisfied our curiousity, we proceeded on to the Begijnhof. The Begijnhof was originally housing for widows \u2013 it was something like a convent, except, as the guidebook noted, the occupants did not take a vow of celibacy. Regardless, it was a square of houses with their backs to the city, opening onto a mostly grassy commons. It was beautiful and tranquil. The last genuine widow of Begijnhof died in 1971, and these days it appears to be housing open to anyone. It would be a lovely place to live, except for the stream of tourists during visiting hours, which are most of the day until 6:00.<\/p>\n\n\n\n