Hamsterdam, the Neverlands

Okay, so maybe it was a tactical error to have Milo go to his first ever sleepover the night before we flew to Amsterdam.  To be fair to young Milo, he had warned us.  On Thursday—the day before his big sleepover—as I drove C.C. and Milo to school, Milo said, “You know, Mama, I’m feeling a little bit nervous about my sleepover.”

“Really, nervous how?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, are you feeling like you might miss your family?  Are you a little bit scared?”

“I don’t know, but some of the things might be different.  Like no Milo time.”

We instituted “Milo time” a while ago to complement C.C.’s “grumpy time,” our nightly attempt to corral her litany of complaints into an evening time slot before bed.  It kind of works. 

“Well, that’s right, you probably won’t have Milo time at Peter’s house.  But you will have a special time with your friend Peter.”

“And we’re going to Amsterdam the next day, and if I don’t get enough sleep I might be cranky.”

Out of the mouths of babes.  In the end, he decided he wanted to go after all.  We kept our phones on in case we got a late night call telling us he wanted to come home.  But he didn’t.  When we picked him up on the way to the airport, Milo was ecstatic—he had had a great time.

But travel days always take more out of all of us than I seem to remember when I am planning trips.  And, before we buzzed the bell at our home exchange apartment, both kids had melted down.  Rather than take a cab from the airport, I figured we should use the excellent Amsterdam public transit system.  There is a train right from the airport to the center, and then it would be only one metro stop from Centraal Station to our neighborhood, and then a “very short walk” according to our home exchange friends.

Well, after much upping and downing on elevators and escalators to buy tickets, ask questions, etc., a stop for a slice of “New York” pizza to keep the energy levels up, and a discussion with some police to figure out how to walk to our apartment (which turned out to be a not so short walk because we ended up going in a roundabout way), I admitted that we should have taken a taxi.  We are not made of the same stuff as these rugged northern Europeans.

We lugged our suitcases up the three flights of twisty steps and collapsed in our home away from home.  We are staying in the apartment of a Scottish director/casting agent and his Dutch wife, who is a jewelry designer, and their two teenaged children.  They are in our Barcelona apartment as I write this.  Have I said before that I LOVE Homeexchange.com?  We have done many exchanges, from the US and from Barcelona, and have always ended up in very cool properties owned by lovely people.

The apartment is in a converted hat factory right on a canal.  The canal has lots of boats and ducks, and all that space in front of the building means we get loads of light.  It’s a great space.

The kids have been excited about coming here since Spain beat the Netherlands in the World Cup.  They had been watching Peter Pan around the same time that the World Cup was happening and, as a result, thought the announcers were saying “Neverlands.”  We have not corrected them.  Similarly, Amsterdam has become Hamsterdam.  So, from their perspective, we are in “Hamsterdam, The Neverlands.”

After a little lie down and some tea, we all recovered and set out for dinner—we went to a place around the corner which translates to the Guardian Angel.  Fondue, spicy carrot soup, a huge selection of beer. Perfect after a long day of travel.

We all slept in today and it was nearly noon before we headed out in search of the Sunday art market I had read about.  The market was nowhere to be found—it seems it must not run in the winter, although the website made no mention of this.  So we got some lunch at an Asian bistro that, fortunately, also had grilled cheese, and then took a boat tour on the canals, which was lovely and almost put the kids to sleep.

Here’s one cool fact about Amsterdam.  Property taxes were based on the width of the houses, which is a key reason for their narrowness and height.  The skinny/tall combo means that stairways are narrow, steep, and twisty, which makes it impossible to move furniture in and out.  So, every house has a large hook jutting out from near its top, which is used to hoist furniture up and through the windows. 

After 6 months in Spain, where I feel like a giant, I am almost short here.  As for other superficial observations?  I was the only person I saw today wearing clogs—I live in my Danskos when I travel. And there are flowers everywhere, beautiful flowers.  Our home exchange family left us a vase full of anemones, my favorites.

We ate dinner at a Thai place called Krua Thai in the neighborhood—the spiciest food I’ve had in a long time that did not come out of my own kitchen.  The history of colonization means that there are a lot of Asian restaurants here, especially Indonesian.  This is just fine by me.