Day 17 - July 13: The Waterlands / More Amsterdam Museums

GRANDMA AND THE GIRLS (as told by Julia):

I started my day off with a lovely and beautiful run along the canals while Grandma worked on some sewing and Rachel slept soundly.  The last time Grandma had been in Amsterdam she had stayed very close to where we are now and remembered loving a bakery just around the corner.  Last night when walking back from the tram we found it, so this morning on my way home I stopped and got some treats to supplement our hotel's buffet: an apple turnover for Grandma, a plain croissant for Rachel, and one of the best chocolate croissants I've had for myself.

After missing the opening of the Rijksmuseum yesterday, we were determined to make it to the Van Gogh museum on time. We got there a little past nine, when it opened, and were glad we did as it was already full of people! Van Gogh is one of all of our favorite artists, so we easily spent three hours walking through all of the floors and exhibits.  It was incredible to see some of his most famous work up close, but my personal favorite was seeing his lesser-known paintings that really show how he came into his iconic style of work.  Even after we were done looking at art, we still had another half hour in us for the gift shop so that Rachel could attempt to whittle down the many postcards they offered to find the best one for her favorite history teacher, and Grandma could choose a  new mug to compliment the one she got last time she was here.


We decided to try a place that we tried to go on our first day before Grandma arrived but was too crowded called Bakers and Roasters.  Much to our surprise, there was a 45 minute wait on a Wednesday afternoon!  Instead we went into a Vietnamese street food place nearby and were very glad we did, as the food was delicious and unlike anything we have had so far on this trip.

Our biggest to-do for the afternoon was to figure out getting tickets to the Hague, so we decided to go to the train station, but to work our way up there slowly and see some sights along the way.  Our first was the Museum Van Loon, a perfectly kept example of the beautiful and elegant house of one of the wealthiest merchants of that time.  Next, we visited the Royal Palace, used now only ceremoniously, but filled with much of the decorations from the late 19th century and complete with a thorough and informative audio guide about all the different and varied used for the palace over time.  There was also a temporary exhibition gallery of the royal family throughout the ages, which compared the old royal paintings to the official pictures of the day.


After three museums, we were all starting to experience serious "museum legs", so after picking up our tickets and getting some more information about tomorrow's trip, we decided to go back to the hotel to rest before dinner.  Tonight's meal was at the only place where Rachel had made a reservation ahead of time, so we were all excited to what it was like.  When we got there, the entire restaurant was completely empty and so we were all slightly concerned about what the state of the meal would be.  But, if I've learned nothing else, it's that you should never doubt Rachel!  The meal was amazing, and followed by an incredible lemon triffle and panne cotta.  Afterwards, full and happy, we headed back for an earlier night in preparation for tomorrow's early morning train!

LIZ: 

My intent in staying in Haarlem was to use it as a base for exploring some of the smaller towns outside of Amsterdam.  From Amsterdam Central, there is a special Waterland bus ticket that lets you explore the small Waterland towns on the public bus system.  Knowing that Wednesday is cheese market day in Edam in July, my first destination was an obvious choice.  I made my way through the beautiful little town to the cheese market first thing, and so had all the other tourists.

There were benches set up around the perimeter of where the action was taking place and I was a few rows deep behind the benches, but I patiently waited, watched, and worked my way up until I was sitting in the very front row of benches trying to figure out exactly what was happening.  It took a long time, and lots of cheese sampling, to finally figure out who was who. The cheese is brought in on boat or horse and the guys wearing all white clothing and straw hats load it onto barrows and carry it to the market and lay it out on the ground.  The guys with long white coats are the buyers and the guys wearing blue are the farmers.  The buyers sample the cheese by taking a core out of the middle of it – and they share it with the front row.  When they are ready to try to work out the deal, the buyer and farmer engage in an intense hand-slapping ritual (handjeklap) until they either decide on a price or one angrily walks away.  The one who stomped away will come back and the hand slapping starts all over again until a price is agreed upon.  Then the straw-hat guys carry it away to be weighed.  I was really enjoying watching the show and the energy of the market, but needed to move on before it started to rain.  

Master bed for 400 lb man and his wife

I ducked into Edam’s Museum in the oldest house in Edam and which had two particularly interesting features – the floating cellar designed to accommodate the changes in the water level and store things safely without flooding and the “box beds” where people slept partially upright…they thought that lying down was tempting death.  The rain had stopped so I decided to just wander the streets and found a bakery very popular with the locals.  I pointed to the cream puffs and asked for one, and just by her asking “One?” she talked me into two….and another little raisin sort of roll.  Wow, were they good!  While I was walking, the church bells began tolling incessantly and it wasn’t a time that made sense.  It wasn’t until I joined the end of the processional thinking it was just a group of tourists that I realized I was part of a funeral.  I peeled off quickly but it was kind of a cool scene to watch the mourners all walking behind the car while the bells were audible throughout the whole city.  I circled the city and ended up back by the cheese market for a lunch of a Edam cheese and tomato grilled panini.

Poffertjes

Volendam promenade

Next stop on the tour was Volendom, which seemed to be mostly a boardwalk with all the Dutch treats you can imagine.  While I have missed traveling with my girls this week, one the boardwalk was when their absence was most notable.  I was stuffed from my bakery/lunch combo and couldn’t make myself order a stroopwafle or poffertje all by myself.  With support, we would have gotten both!

view of Marken from boat

Somewhere along the way I realized that the trip to the next town, the fishing village of Marken, was actually by boat.  I don’t do boats.  I went straight to the boat dock to figure out how long the trip was, how rough, other options, and the lady told me that the very best option as to take the boat leaving at that moment.  There were others but this was the most stable of them all.  I had to make a split-second decision and just went for it.  I hopped on as the boat was pulling away (not seeing much of Volendam as a result) and tried to stay as still as possible.  I was prepared to share stories of absolute hell, but I made the 30-minute ride without much problem.

Until about 50 years ago Marken was only reachable by boat but it was then connected to the mainland via a dike. The town is no longer a fishing village but has been preserved for tourists.  About 2,000 people still live there.  The town’s museum is dedicated to the traditional clothing that the residents wore – handmade by the women of the village, each age and stage required a different outfit.  There were clothes for mourning, half-mourning, weddings, single ladies, married ladies, winter, etc.  All elaborate.  I also visited a wooden shoe factory and saw a presentation on how wooden shoes are made starting with a solid piece of wood.  I guess it should be obvious but I didn’t know that they wear wooden shoes because they keep your feet really dry.  It was cool to see one machine shape the outside and then another create the inside.  (In another "never in America" moment wood chips were flying everywhere and he just told us to watch our eyes, especially in the front row.)

I was so thankful that I could return to Amsterdam on the bus and then to Haarlem on train.  I had had a busy, cold day and was looking forward to hanging out at the hostel for a little before heading out to a local festival at night.  But, when I walked into the hostel there were a couple of people set to leave in 10 minutes.  So, I just dropped my stuff and joined Luis (a Mexican/Danish man doing a “workaway” where he works at the hostel 4 hours a day in exchange for his housing) and my Montreal friend Karine.

Luis has only been in Haarlem a day longer than I have and took us (confidently) way out of the way to get some food and drink to take to the Park Sessions.  Four Wednesdays during the summer months Haarlem opens up a park for food, music, and festival fun.  I had just picked up some cherries and raspberries since we weren’t feeling that hungry.  Now that I had a partner in crime, I did order some traditional French fries with mayonnaise.  Karine and I were unsure about the mayo piece so I asked for it “on the side” to which she said “of course!” and then proceeded to give me extra right on top.  The festival definitely had a good vibe and I could see how it would be super fun if you were local and meeting a group of friends to eat and be merry.  But, I was pretty sure Luis felt more obligated to hang out with us when he’d rather go off so after hanging out for an hour or so, Karine and I decided to walk home (a much shorter walk this time).

We set ourselves up in the main lobby area – me on the computer, her reading her book and drinking wine. She invited the super cute guy who works here over for a glass of wine which he accepted. He had to hop up often to take care of people in the lobby but always returned.  He asked us if we had seen the canals with the lights at night- we hadn’t- and offered to take us on a walk once he got off work (12:30 am).  It became increasingly clear that I was going to be a third wheel on this super romantic outing…so I gave Karine the option.  After she gave it some thought over the next hour or so, I was not surprised when she decided I wouldn't be needed on the walk....I gladly strolled out to take this shot of the water at night alone and went to sleep.