Day Four: Around Amsterdam: (Year 4:1971)

September 24, 2017

In 1971 we rejoined the student community adjacent to the university in Montreal. We used to take Joni in the backpack on long walks in the city streets. We found a Hungarian café that featured tortes and cakes, and that became a favourite stop. We were already powered by pastries.

Within that student community we also had a mini community in our four floor walk-up tenement building. The basement featured a guy with one of the first water beds we had seen. Lying on that thing was one of the most sensual experiences we could then imagine. Upstairs there was a girl whose parents owned a kosher pickle factory - another sensual wonder. And there was John Kater, a divinity doctoral student and later distinguished professor. Whether pickles or the priesthood, the water bed was really the big thing! 45 years later, we know John will be reading this blog!

The idea was that if we stuffed Joni in a backpack we could go anywhere. It was sort of true but normally cargo does not throw up down your shirt.

Sesame Street was soon to become a large part of our lives. Clips like this were our favourites:

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To have a day to visit Amsterdam we booked a place near downtown, called the Bicycle Hotel. Our plan was to go into town and drop our bags off there, so as to then cruise around town unloaded. Walking the city would have allowed us to go into places more easily, but we did not want to test Dodie's knees that way.

From the Ibis we were immediately on a bike path.At one point I was confused as to whether we were on a path or the road, because of how broad the bicycle path was.

The bike path from the airport seemed more like a road. But no! The cars have their own lanes beside it.

Once nearer the city we began to run into stacks and stacks of parked bikes. Amsterdam is a bicycle city as we know, but it is almost as if the bicycle is becoming a bit of an impediment, they are so numerous. Of course if each of these bikes would be a car, then the city would be Seattle, and totally dysfunctional. However, more on the "problem" of the bicycle a little later.

By The time we reached the city we began to run into stacked up parked bicycles.

We kept seeing this super small make of car but do not know what the name is. Anyone?

We chose the bicycle hotel mainly because of the name. That is not only because we like bicycles, but because from past experience, hotels in Amsterdam are so narrow and cramped that they are unable to really accommodate bikes. The Bicycle Hotel is also narrow, but it has two bicycle garages nearby. It is utterly basic and not cheap, at 95 euros, but better than the 104 euros at last night's Ibis, and with breakfast included (19 euros each at Ibis, if you are inclined to part with all your money).

The owner of the Bicycle Hotel still wanted a snapshot of us with our toy bikes and yellow clothes. Even in Amsterdam we still attract some attention, and answered UQs through the day. One fellow at a red light told us that all tourists should look like us, that way they would easily identify who likely needs help.

As we made our way into downtown, all the key features of Amsterdam rapidly made their appearances. These are the narrow buildings with contrasting brick facades and many windows, the many canals and the lovely scenes at the small bridges crossing canals, canalside roads which offer space mainly for pedestrians and bikes, but admitting a few beleaguered cars, parked bikes stacked up and filling racks all along roads, cheese shops, the flower market - comprising about twenty vendors along the Singel canal all offering quality tulip and other bulbs at reasonable prices, bakeries with good quality bread and danishes, lots of tourists, pedestrian shopping streets, even more tourists, and oh, did we mention lots of bikes?

We have been in Amsterdam once before, and knew what to expect. In fact, that is why we came here again. I was eager to capture it all with the camera, but was frustrated at first by a persistent mist or fog. The fog did burn off and I got some shots, but not quite as good as last time.

Our first bakery of the trip. The cheese croissant were great!

The impression that people here might be getting a bit fed up with so many bicycles started when we had a car driver honk at us near the airport as we crossed his lane on a bicycle/pedestrian crosswalk. Then today we came to a street zoned not only as pedestrian, not only as no bike riding, but also as don't even park your bike. Then at a café we took an outdoor table where we could watch our bikes, and put them against a tree. The waitress said we couldn't do that, and indicated the messy stack of piled up bikes at sidewalk bike racks as the way to go. I objected, explained that these bikes were our life for two months, and told the lady she was not a nice person and a rotten waitress. She shrugged that off and we stomped off, wheeling our beloved Fridays

This is not only a pedestrian zone but no bikes are even allowed.

We join the Sunday riders heading into town.

Our plan for visiting the city did not include actually going in to anything like a museum because we were on the bikes and certainly could not leave them unattended in any way. Still we really enjoyed going up and down the streets, absorbing the activity of the place, the lovely architecture, the canals, and so forth.

One thing I should mention (or not) along the lines of absorbing stuff is the seemingly large number of willowy young women about, all blond. Even at almost 70 it's hard to miss that. Just what their male counterparts look like I could not say. Dodie would presumably have to write that bit to get an accurate picture. (I read this to her, and she adds "Tall, slim, and gorgeous".)

Some things, though, we did not spot. For example, despite having cycled up and down and round and round this not really all that big downtown we did not see the famous red light district. All we noticed was one, maybe two "sex shops" and I thought that maybe (maybe) I saw a sex worker. We know we could do way better in Vancouver. Or maybe we are just not good searchers for things like that.

Certainly "districts" here are small. We did see Chinatown, but it amounted to a half block or less.

You can also get starter kits of not bulbs at the market.

The lowest price for any item on this shelf is 250 euros. Makes for a very expensive dinner set.

If you have to look at the price of this tulip holder you cannot afford it.

The more expensive items were on the second floor. The tourist stuff is on the main floor.

We thought this was the Royal Palace but it is just a shopping centre.

Dam square - with the actual Royal Palace on the left of the photo.

We really like the bridges crossing the canals. The bike lanes and small cafes add to the charm.

One of many cheese shops for the tourists.

The Munt Toren where coins were minted. It still contains a lovely working carillon.

Look up at the eight floors of this canal side building. All buildings like this have hooks at the roof to raise goods to the upper floors - no up and down the narrow winding stairs for these folks.

The next 3 shots are of various bike parking arrangements. The biggest problems are finding a place to park your bike and remembering later where it is.

Look Dave ! Our hotel is right around the corner from this.

The stairs to our 4th floor room. This is why they use hooks and pulleys to load things onto the upper floors.

We walked back to that pedestrian only area to find a cafe for supper. "Walked" is actually a big word here, because Dodie did it without sticks. Earlier in the day we had searched out and found an Indonesian restaurant recommended by the Alstons, but it was closed. So finding Indonesian was still on our minds. The closest we came was a restaurant with sate on the menu, and it turned out to be excellent. Dodie ordered a lamb on pasta dish which was also excellent. From our small sample we might be ready to say that both bakery and restaurant food is better here than in France - and as we know both of those are super in France.

Sitting near us at the cafe was a lady we ending up chatting with. She was from San Jose, California. Naturally the first part of the conversation was her being forced to deny that she or most anyone in her state had voted for Trump. We also learned that she had worked 30 years for IBM and had retired to teach children coding concepts through a non-profit. An interesting lady - we hope we hear from her in the Guestbook.

Only somewhat part of the nighttime café scene, Dodie is at our table writing blog captions.

Our brush with Indonesian food. It was all very good, though.

We see lots of Teslas plugged in here. This however is a VW - noted on our walk back to the hotel.

Today's ride: 31 km (19 miles)
Total: 83 km (52 miles)

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