Amsterdam

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Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Today has been… overwhelming. If someone had told me just a couple of months ago that one of the last things I’d do this year is visit Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, I would have laughed. Like London, Amsterdam felt like an out of reach city to me and so I never did much research on it, only knowing that if my Path ever took me there, I would pay anything to see the works of the painter who most influenced my own artistic talent and use of colour.

I was young when I oil painted; it was during my adolescence, so a period roughly 20 to 25 years ago. I’ve always wondered what would have happened if I’d kept up the hobby. But after I moved out on my own, I never had room for a studio and oil painting is too unforgiving a medium for a temporary space.

The museum is one of Amsterdam’s top attractions and lines can be long. Even with a Museumkaart, you are advised to book a timeslot online, for which there is no extra fee. I managed to score a spot at nine this morning. I set off in almost balmy gloom around 8:30, with Google surprising me by taking me through a lovely park.

I went down a street that reminded me of Belgravia and paused for a moment to look at this lamp hanging over the street. At first, I thought it was a bell!

I was early upon arriving and there was not yet any queue for folks with a time slot, so I popped into a café for a pricey, but oh-so-pretty café cortado.

Here’s the exterior of the Van Gogh Museum. This is the group entrance. The regular entrance is around back to the right. The queue for folks without a booked time slot was getting long!

The museum is in Amsterdam’s museum quarter. You’re looking here at the Diamond Museum, which doesn’t interest me.

Here’s the café, Healthy Food Coffee.

I was a little irked that at no point in my Museumkaart research was I told I had to activate the card before use/that it would not be activated at time of purchase. So after queuing for a few minutes in a much shorter line than the regular one to get in and then queuing to have my e-ticket with my time slot scanned, I was told I had to go back out to the ticket window to have my card activated. I couldn’t believe it since the line to said ticket window was a block long! But, thankfully, a museum employee had been told by radio to look for me and guided me to the head of the queue and then right back in. So it was fine in the end.

There’s a free coat check in the museum, which I took advantage of as I knew I’d be there a while.

Photography was, of course, not permitted in the museum. Visitors are encouraged to use stock images, so that’s what I will do in this post. I took copious notes as I went through. An audiovisual guide to the museum is an extra 5 euros and I got one. I don’t think I would have appreciated my visit as much without it. I read somewhere that 1.5 hours should be allotted to the museum and I was there a full three, including the special exhibit!

The guide and signage give a lot of context to Vincent’s life, but I don’t think it would have been quite enough for me. I highly recommend the movie “Painted With Words,” a unique piece in which all words spoken are from actual correspondence. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Vincent and the resemblance is striking as both share the same carrot orange hair and bushy beard, pale green eyes that change according to the light, and a marked Cupid’s bow to the upper lip. No other actor I’ve seen play Van Gogh so closely resembles him in both his self-portraits and the one photograph I’ve seen. Combine that with his remarkable acting skills and you’ve got a truly remarkable film.

So the museum starts with the self-portraits. They were not meant to necessarily represent Van Gogh as he was, but to play with textures and colours. You’ll notice that his eyes, for example, change colour from portrait to portrait. Painting himself was also a way to get around the fact that he could not afford models.

I then saw Vincent’s palette, thick with paint showing the brush strokes. My palette was like that. Like Van Gogh, I painted thickly, so there was no point limiting how much I squeezed onto my palette. Van Gogh used colour to represent emotions, not reality, and I did much of the same. I regret not having at least photographs of my works. I saw them as very crude and childish, but they were the works of a child and according to my instructor, they showed potential. She was always struck by how I used colours that were not true to nature, especially with skies. Many years later, in college, I took an art class and the teacher told me she could tell that my biggest influence was Van Gogh.

The first really important of his works that I saw was The Potato Eaters.

This one is from his early days, when he was still trying to figure out who he was as an artist. It was a crowning achievement for him even though it got scathing reviews. His ideal models were peasants, people who lived rough with the salt of the Earth, and this scene depicts all that he found to be noble about them.

Vincent’s father was a very religious man and Vincent broke away from that, but was still religious in his own way and even worked as a preacher. This art was very much about his own search for God.

And then… the Sunflowers.

I cannot tell you how many times I attempted to recreate this painting in my own style, using his example of one colour in many tones. To see it up close was to realise I’d never seen it before. The background is almost like a woven pattern. I was amused that the guide told me to step away and let someone else have a look. But I had it all to myself! I was so lucky to have been able to visit the museum when it was not crowded and I could take all the time I wanted at each painting.

Bridge in the Rain is done in a Japanese style, which Vincent admired.

You can really see the rain coming down and feel how cold it is.

I learned so much I didn’t know about The Bedroom.

The painting was damaged and has been restored. Vincent used a lot of paints that faded over time and so many of his paintings are not as vibrant today as they once were. Amazing!

We saw how Van Gogh dabbled with Seurat’s pointillism style of painting and how that led to his own iconic style of placing side-by-side unmixed dabs of painting of contrasting colours and letting the viewer’s mind mix them.

I saw some of his drawings that look like his painted style and some of the reed pens that he cut himself.

This still life of fruit, Quinces, Lemons, Pears and Grapes, is the only one that still has the original frame that Vincent made himself.

Like with Sunflowers, this is another painting where he plays with yellows and a bit of contrasting blue.

And here is the single painting that most influenced my own style, Seascape near Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

There are three things of note here that I applied to my own paintings. First is how the painting is divided with a third devoted to the sky and the rest to the foreground, with a very narrow sliver of background between them. Second is how he used his palette knife to sculpt the waves with white paint. I applied that technique to snow. Finally, it’s this painting that inspired me to sign my own artwork in a bold contrasting colour.

Like Vincent, I appreciate how using complementary colours (eg. red and green or blue and yellow) can add depth and interest to a scene, as we can see here in the Yellow House, his last home, which he shared for a time with Paul Gaugin and in which was the bedroom he so famously painted. The bright blue sky really pops against the yellow and orange of the house.

The Sower is the painting that inspired me to create landscapes in odd colours.

I distinctly remember my painting teacher criticising my choice of sky colour in one of my paintings and my telling her, “Van Gogh would have understood!” Funny the things one remembers!

I just went through the blog hoping to find a picture of one of my only surviving paintings, which is above the entry door in Miranda, as it really illustrates all this influence, but alas, I don’t seem to have one. 🙁

At any rate, the museum moved on to the end of Van Gogh’s life, when he was in the grips of mental illness. There is a misconception that he painted because of his illness when, in fact, he painted in spite of it.

There is some controversy as to which of his paintings his his last and Tree Roots is most likely it as it is unfinished and unsigned.

Like me, Van Gogh found great inspiration in a Prairie-like landscape, “expanses of wheatfields, large as a sea.”

Wheatfield with Crows…

If that style of painting birds was good enough for Van Gogh, it was good enough for me. My painting that I referenced above has birds like these in it. I love this painting so much that I bought a small metal tin at the gift shop with this painting on the cover. I’ve been wanting a tin like that to carry Advil and it was only 3 euros. 🙂

And here’s Under Thunderclouds that so reminds me of home and which I was sad not to see in the main collection, but thrilled to view in a special exhibit, an unexpected bonus!

I didn’t know until today the story behind the striking Almond Blossom.

It was painted for his brother Theo and his wife Jo upon the birth of their healthy son, whom they named Vincent, with the blossoms representing rebirth. His nephew Vincent was the founder of the museum.

Irises is just a bit less famous than Sunflowers and I prefer it because I love the contrast of the blues and the yellows.

The paint is layered on so thickly that this painting took a month to try, something I remember too well since I also caked the paint onto my canvasses to give them a 3D feel. I appreciate Irises so much more now that I’ve seen it up close.

After this main exhibit, I was able to visit a special exhibit about Daubigny, Monet, and Van Gogh. Daubigny was much older than the other two and greatly influenced their style. I wasn’t familiar with him. Monet is my second favourite painter after Van Gogh. I could not believe that this exhibit did not have a surcharge. Little did I know what awaited me…

Daubigny’s Moonrise at Auvers reminded me of my favourite Monet painting, which hangs in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Paris.

I saw a painting of poppy fields by all three, showing their different styles. Vincent’s was very hands on, with him squeezing the red painting directly from the tube onto the canvas and then manipulating it with his palette knife.

And then something so incredible happened that I had to pinch myself. My favourite Monet, Sunset on the River Seine, was not hanging in Paris, but at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam!!!

Claude Monet (1840-1926). “Soleil couchant sur la Seine à Lavacourt, effet d’hiver”. Huile sur toile, 1880. Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais.

I just love that bright bit of orange against the muted blue.

Landscape with Peasants Reaping shows how Vincent’s drawing style also evolved to match his iconic painting style.

Visiting the Van Gogh Museum was more than a dream come true. What an amazing gift!

My day of tourism wasn’t quite over, but this post has been long and I have work to do. More later!

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Walking Tour of Amsterdam

I slept really well last night! I’m so lucky to be staying in yet another place with true blackout blinds. I left home around nine since I had a walking tour booked for 10:30 and I hoped to be able to buy my Museumkaart at De Nieuwe Kerk beforehand as it was the best recommended place to get a Museumkaart (little to no lineup) and right on Dam Square, where my tour would start.

Google got me to Dam Square without any problems, but it seriously overestimated how long it would take. Here are some things I passed along the way:

Very expensive tacos:

A quintessential Amsterdam scene:

The work of a crazy person who drove an RV in downtown Amsterdam:

Houses leaning forward (I would later find out why):

And now, Dam Square:

And De Nieuwe Kerk:

Magna Plaza shopping centre:

And the Royal Palace:

I had almost 30 minutes to kill before De Nieuwe Kerk opened, so I wandered around a bit, sort of thinking of getting a coffee, but I was put off by the prices of 3 euros or more for a basic espresso. It was cool and damp, but I was comfortable. After I had almost circled back to De Nieuwe Kerk, I found a café that offered me an Americano for just 2 euros! I later learned that a coffee here is about 2.50 (compared to about 1.20 in Spain). So I did very well! It was still pricy and wouldn’t be a daily treat, but I was pleased. The clerk even assumed I’d want it to go. I had it black since milk was extra.

I continued my wanderings in the gloom.

The Royal Palace is included in my Museumkaart so I may squeeze it in.

The National Monument.

Another shopping centre. So pretty with all the lights.

 

De Nieuwe Kerk opened right on time and there was no lineup. My Museumkaart was just shy of 60 euros (almost 90CAD) and came with a really cute shopping bag that folds up into a pouch. Nice bonus! If I see all the museums on my list (not counting any of the possible extra ones I discovered on this tour), I will save 90 euros, or almost 140CAD! I really love this kind of card because it’s a one-time expenditure that forces me to get out so I maximise my value.

See the ship at the top of the Royal Palace? It symbolises the Dutch empire and its trading all over the world.

So that was the first thing of real note on my free Amsterdam walking tour with Marius. I picked this tour because it had the best reviews. The tour was a bit slow to start as people were really late showing up, long enough for me to realise that I was going to be cold if we spent a lot of time standing, just because the damp was seeking into my bones. But we finally set off. I will not be able to do justice to everything Marius told us as he was full of trivia, but I’ll do my best!

We headed first into the Red Light District and stopped outside Condomerie, which had a very festive Christmas tree in its window that should tell you everything about what the store sells.

We then went into an alley way and were directed to this plaque above a doorway, showing what would have been sold in this building in days gone by (this is apparently a roll of fabric, not rotten sausage).

These blue and white signs indicate that the home had collapsed in the muddy, unstable foundation and been rebuilt.

I noticed a store advertising all manner of magic mushrooms.

And then we went to see “the girls.” That was surreal, to say the least and I refused to ogle. It was interesting to learn about how prostitution works here. The ladies pay 150 euros per day to rent a window. This is double what they paid a few years ago because the government is trying to cut down on how many windows there are and so landlords jacked up the prices. Each woman is an independent contractor who pays taxes and has some benefits. I’ve known a range of prostitutes from the ones who are in the business to support a hard core drug habit to those who do it because they genuinely love it and find it an easy way to earn good money. So I definitely cannot generalise about the lives of these women. All I can say is that prostitution has always existed and so will likely always exist. The way to protect women is to empower them to do this job legally and safely, not to force them into back alleys.

On we continued.

This is the old church, as opposed to the “new” church at Dam Square.

An illegal sculpture that popped up one day.

The houses are crooked because the foundations are bad. There is now work being done to find the houses that are in really bad shape and about to collapse. It costs about 150,000 euros to secure them.

At the height of the tulip craze, a single flower was worth the price of a house!

We didn’t go in, but this is the entrance to a museum for a hidden Catholic church in an attic. Another one I may have to squeeze into my stay!

This house is crooked both to the front and to the side.

 

See that hook? Many of the houses slanting towards the front have them. They were used to bring goods up from boats on the canal. If the house had a straight façade, there would have been more risk of damage if an item moved in the wind.

Look at how high up the water comes!

I asked a few questions at this point.

  1. Do people routinely fall into the canals? Yes. They’re usually drunk.
  2. How deep is the water? 3 metres, 1 of mud, 1 of bicycles, and 1 of water.
  3. How dirty is the water? Not at all. It is renewed daily and only looks grungy because of the plant material. Any garbage floating on the canals is routinely cleaned up. (The canals do not smell at all!)

This is the oldest secular building in Amsterdam, the Waag (weighing place).

This was a hard place to stand, right where the Jews of Amsterdam were herded onto trains to be sent to concentration camps. Marius even showed us a period photo of the Waag surrounded by barbed wire.

Now looking towards what had been the Jewish ghetto. So many houses were left abandoned for decades until the 1970s, hence the more modern look to these buildings. There had been an attempt made to build a subway, which makes no sense for Amsterdam. The idea started a riot.

A skinny house (to save on taxes), but ornamented to show the owner had money.

Headquarters of the… Dutch East India Company.

Canal boats, even as modest as these, can go for 1 million euros or more. You pay for the spot, not the boat. The boat is worth nothing if you don’t have a place to park it. They have sewer, water, power, internet, etc.

This guy is going around looking for illegal parkers. Parking in Amsterdam is some of the most expensive in the world. Notice the three Xs? They are a symbol of Amsterdam. There is an urban legend that they stand for the great fires that prompted Amsterdam to be all rebuilt in brick, the Black Plague, and the flooding. But the use of the symbols actually predate the Black Plague.

A Banksy! At the University of Amsterdam.

There was another one here, but it was ordered covered up by this minister of education is apparently wants to jack up tuition prices.

Courtyard in the university.

A row of expensive homes, as signified by the fact that they are white and many have stairs leading up to the front door.

This cosy alley would have been very smelly back in the day. It is behind the rich houses.

Entrance to another hidden church. This is a residence for women only.

One of the last remaining wooden houses in Amsterdam.

Marius told me that Van Gogh liked to come here as he found it quiet and contemplative.

We did not go into this church.

But we did go into this one. It is not a museum so we popped in and out and were quiet the whole time. It was very beautiful. And warm. I was pretty cold by this point!

We then went into the lobby of the Amsterdam Museum, another one to add to my list…

Here’s those crosses again.

And Napoleon.

More of those occupational plaques, taken from torn down buildings.

“Woman riding a surfboard,” LOL.

“The dancing nun taking a selfie.” LOL!

Our tour ended shortly after this. Again, I have not done justice to how much information Marius shared. He was a wonderful guide, very warm and knowledgable about his city.

He directed me to an area with restaurants, which happened to be on the way home, so I headed that way. I thought I’d grab lunch and go to a museum, but I realised that I was done for the day as I’d already walked a ton. I haven’t broken in my new boots yet and so didn’t want to push their limits too much yet as they’ve been rubbing a bit since I don’t have the right socks to wear with them. Plus… work came in. Yes, after my clients told me not to expect anything, every single one of them bombarded me. Thankfully, it’s all easy work and will not ruin my weekend.

I investigated restaurants and prices were all above 10 euros. There are a number of Ethiopian restaurants around my house only open in the evenings that I really want to try, so I decided to go home and make a late lunch there instead since I had everything needed to throw together a curry. I mean, why pay for a meal out when I had a treat waiting for me?!

I got to this foreboding church…

…and cool house when…

… my ?@$%@% iPhone went from 40% battery capacity to dead. Amsterdam is not an easily city to get orientated in and there I was who knows where with no map or way to find my way home. I had a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself, that I could follow a number 1 tram back. I was too close to home to make it worth actually taking the tram, though.

That worked a treat and I got back to familiar territory very quickly, even if that route was a little less direct.

Amsterdam is a very dark, gloomy, and damp city, but there’s a vibe here that I wasn’t expecting. The city feels very much alive and its residents seem to be thriving. Most are friendly, even if the cyclists have no mercy, and being able to get served in English is a bonus. Dutch is really hard to pronounce, having a lot of guttural sounds, and there’s almost no point in trying.

Most food packaging at the grocery store has Dutch and French on it, which is awesome for me. Even though there are tons of words that look like English, I actually find Dutch food labels more intimidating than Bulgarian ones were because words that are not like English are not like anything I’ve seen and I can’t even make an educated guess. A good example is chicken, which is “kip” in Dutch. If there hadn’t been a picture of a chicken, I would have had no idea what was in the package. In Bulgaria, though, I would have seen пиле, sounded it out as “pile” (pi-lay) and thought, oh, that sounds almost like the French poulet (pou-lay) and made an educated (and correct!) guess. Or how about grapes, which are “druif” in Dutch versus “grozdov” in Bulgarian. The food available here is most like what I’d expect to find in a North American supermarket, with lots of foreign foods, and it’s easy to get things like unsweetened almond milk (my host picked up a carton for me!).

Tomorrow and Sunday will follow a similar pattern of an early morning of tourism (I have a time slot at nine both days!) and then coming home to do a little work. I’m actually rather glad for that because it’ll save me from burning myself out while I’m here.

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Logistical Planning My First Day in Amsterdam

After dinner last night, I had a shower and then got out of my hosts’ way so they could finish packing for their trip. I went to bed around 10:30 or so and am surprised I pretty much slept the night through considering how hard the bed was (worse than Bulgaria!). But, hold on, hold on, I knew that ahead of time that the guest bed was bad and it would be a tradeoff for not having to pay for a room somewhere. Tonight, I move to the very luxurious master suite. 🙂

So, I ended up being awake pretty early. I did some online stuff, including trying to figure out why some of you long-time readers are suddenly having your comments moderated. I don’t have an answer for that yet, sorry. Just know that it’s nothing personal and that I’m working on it!

I eventually got up and made coffee and breakfast (had bought things last night), then started to plan my time in Amsterdam. The first thing I researched was whether the “Museumkaart,” an all access pass to museums all over the Netherlands, would be good value for me at 60 euros. It certainly will be, so I’ll get it and then I’ll do one or two museums a day. I’m planning to be pretty much “on vacation” through this weekend and everything is open, so I’ll be in hard core tourism mode, then I’ll work half days next week. As long as I don’t eat out much, the museum pass will be my biggest expense.

Next, I decided to see if getting a SIM card for my phone would be an option. Google told me that Lebara would be a good place to ask and there happened to be one right in front of the Albert Heijn grocery store I went to last night. So I headed there around noon.

A very nice guy from Jordan who spoke perfect English got me sorted very quickly. The SIM was free and 1GB of data was just 10 euros! I think this was my cheapest place to get online so far, possibly even better than Serbia.

I then wandered a bit around my neighbourhood.

This is a part of my street. I live at the end of it on the left.

So many bicycles. And bike lanes. I got yelled at a number of times today for not watching for bikes and/or getting in their lane. Need to be more conscious of that! Crossing streets can be challenging since you have to look both ways for bikes, then cars, then possibly trams, then cars, then bikes again!

This is where we had dinner last night, Olivity. From the outside, I would never have guessed it’s a restaurant.

I got some dinner things at a different Albert Heijn and then went home to make sure there were no last minute things my host needed me to know before she headed off. I then spent some time putting on laundry and unpacking. It was too late to go out to a museum or something since everything closed at five today. Tomorrow, Friday, things are open later and I plan to make a very full day of it, starting with a walking tour, then at least one museum.

But I still went back out in the late afternoon. It was rather gloomy and damp, but not as bitterly cold as I expected. I had to wash my sweaters today so I only wore a thin long-sleeved cotton top under my coat and I was perfectly warm. I actually don’t think I’ll need the other layer if I’m walking as much as I think I will be and it’ll save me having too many layers when I go into museums. However, I do want a fluffier scarf and some sort of warm hat.

So my afternoon walk. The endless rows of terraced houses reminded me so much of London, but the architectural style is completely different.

Neat wooden bicycle.

My first canal! (Not counting what I saw from the train.)

Bicycles and a canal, so quintessentially Amsterdam!

Like being in one of Rembrandt’s paintings. The sky didn’t really translate to pixels, but the lighting was so evocative of his paintings!

The entirety of this poem by Emily Dickinson was on several plaques. Reading it, I was hit by a surprising wave of homesickness.

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

I didn’t actually make it to downtown tonight. It’s a bit of a hike (1.5KM just to the limits of it) and I’m doing a walking tour tomorrow so it didn’t make sense to do that. Once that’s done, I’ll go get my Museumkaart. I was advised to get it at one of the less busy museums, so I won’t be doing the two at the top of my wish list just yet, especially since you’re strongly advised to prebook your visitation slot. Can you guess what two museums they might be?

I can’t wait to go exploring tomorrow!

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An Amazing Last Evening in Spain and Off to Amsterdam!

My host in Málaga asked for permission to have a friend over last night! In her own home! She really wanted me to meet him, she said, and she also wanted to put together a special dinner for my final night in Spain. Um, WOW. Her friend, D, is Chilean, but has lived all over the world, including in Bulgaria! They insisted on making food while I drank beer and then we sat and noshed “family style.” There was guacamole made from avocados from my host’s family’s farm (with lemon juice and balsamic vinegar!), cheeses, sesame crackers, store-bought fries with a yummy yoghurt sauce, and homemade falafel (so good!). And did I mention beer?

We gabbed and laughed in a way that made me realise how much I need to make friends who only speak Spanish to force me to converse more. I had a blast trying to explain the finer points of taxation as a sole proprietor in Canada with my limited vocabulary. It’s not like I had to learn that in school! D and I also had a “Bulgarian vocabulary-off,” trying to see who remembered the most of that language. Interestingly enough, he’s the first person I’ve met who raved about Varna, a city I was well convinced not to visit (I went to Veliko Tarnovo instead).

Our meal didn’t end that late, but by the time I’d wound down enough to sleep it was almost midnight, quite a bit later than I wanted to go to bed since I wanted to be gone by about eight. I woke up at 7:45 and packed as my host got ready for work, then headed out around 8:15. She’d advised me to take a train rather than the bus to the airport, which was almost half the cost! I stopped at the Deutsche Bank on the way since there are no Global ATM Alliance banks in the Netherlands.

I got to the train station around 8:30 and a train came at 8:50. It was then a very quick (about 15-minute) ride to the airport. My flight was at 11:25. The plan was to get through security and then have breakfast. Sounds so simple, doesn’t it?

Security was backed up and slow. I listened to all the instructions (given in both English and Spanish) and followed them to the letter, including removing my boots. An agent approved my trays to be sent through the scanner and told me to go through the metal detector. I didn’t beep. So all clear, right?

No. That I don’t know what to call her agent who had approved my trays sneered at me and said I had to go back and put my electronic devices into separate trays and go through the process again. I went to grab my purse and she snapped that those things had been cleared and to leave them. I went back around the scanner and had to get back in line to send my electronics through. I was there a solid ten minutes with poor visibility on my belongings on the other side, which included my purse that had my passport, cash, and cards. Well, it happened — someone got interested in my bag. I yelled to the person to leave it alone and the same *** agent told me to stop making a scene!

I finally was able to push my trays through the scanner and was sent back through the metal detector. Just as I came out the other side, I saw my trays move back out in the wrong direction. And, sure enough, someone was eyeing them. I was just about to call out when the trays were pushed through the scanner at last… and then I couldn’t get to them for another minute because the line was so backed up. Talk about stressful! This was my worst airport security experience so far, but the nightmare my neighbour went through at the airport in Regina last week definitely put things into perspective. I was just glad to get through without losing anything!

I found a café after and got a very good Americano and a pain aux raisins, something I haven’t had since London. It was really good and reasonably priced by airport standards. At another café, I picked up a very expensive bottle of water and a decently priced ham and cheese sandwich for the plane (which ended up being a good call since EasyJet’s offerings were uninspiring). I then had about 45 minutes left to wait to board and I was able to get jump the queue for that since I’d paid for priority boarding in order to get both my bags on board as carry-on.  I was pleased that there was no one in the middle seat for my row, but less pleased that an American business man decided that meant he had two seats and started crowding me with his stuff. I let him know that wasn’t okay, then promptly went to sleep!

So the flight passed very quickly. There was nothing to see since we were flying over dense clouds. We landed at Schiphol Airport 10 minutes early, but the captain made a sarcastic comment about how far the landing strips are from the terminal and that having to drive all that distance would eat up our advance. We finally made it and deplaned. I got my first taste of the cooler Amsterdam weather and it wasn’t as bracing as I expected.

I didn’t have to go through customs  and had nothing to declare, so I was able to go straight to the train station. I like traveling within the the EU! 🙂

My host had given me very clear instructions on how to get to her home and I’d done my homework as far as paying for public transportation. I doubted I’d be able to recoup the non-refundable 7.50 euro cost for the OV-chipkaart (similar to the Oyster in London), so I bought a single to Amsterdam Centraal, which had a surcharge of 1 euro, and I was amused that the only way to pay was with a card and there was an additional surcharge to pay with a card.

Like with Oyster, I had to tap in before going to the platform and then would have to tap out, even with a paper ticket. I did that and then found the platform I needed. I barely had any wait before an Amsterdam Centraal bound direct train pulled up. It was then a very quick ride to the station. The scenery was nothing special, just rather bleak. Things got more interesting as we pulled into Amsterdam and I saw an iconic canal with houses lining it.

At the train station, I had to go to street level and catch a tram. I wasn’t sure where to get a ticket, so I went to an information desk. The agent there was odd, but spoke English and answered my questions. He sent me in the right direction knowing that I could pay the driver 2.90 euros cash.

The tram I needed was waiting out front! I still took the time to snap a few pictures of my first real glimpse of Amsterdam.

The tram driver was very pleasant about my not having change and got me sorted. I found a seat and was relieved to see that not only are all the stops announced, you can see the next several ones coming up. So I knew when it was time to make my way to a door and to request my stop. Slight hiccup at the stop, the doors didn’t open. A nice guy called to the driver to wait and showed me that I was supposed to press a button. Live and learn! 🙂

My host’s directions from the tram stop were fantastic. and I got to the house without any trouble (it was just a couple of blocks). She’d warned me she probably wouldn’t be home and would leave me a key, which was exactly where it was supposed to be. It was a bit odd to let myself in and make myself at home, but I did since I’d been sent the wifi password ahead of time. 🙂 I also introduced myself to my new charges. One is very friendly, the other will need some time to get used to me.

It was perhaps an hour before my host showed up. She is an American from New Orleans and “totally chill,” as she puts it. I felt very comfortable with her. She explained a few things to me and then introduced me to her fiancé when he came home. He’s Dutch, but speaks good English.

They suggested we go out for dinner to a nearby Greek café and that sounded good to me! It was a short, but cold and drizzly, walk there.

The place was tiny and felt more like being in someone’s dining room. The owner is Greek (of course), speaks perfect English, and is very friendly. She made me feel right at home. My hosts are vegans and the café has vegan options, but there’s also meat. The meatball special sounded good to me and I made sure that wouldn’t cause offence before ordering it. It wound up being a wonderful choice, coming with a tzatziki sauce, a salad with a balsamic vinaigrette, and roasted seasoned potatoes, just the way I like them, plus a very dense whole grain bread. It was just like eating home cooking. For dessert, we tried these crumbly honey-soaked cookies coated in crushed walnuts. I also ordered a saffron/lemon grass/mint tea that came with a sliver of walnut cake that I actually preferred to the cookie as it was moister. Prices felt very reasonable (my main was 8.50 euros), but I found out as I was about to pay that I was being treated!

We took a slight detour on the way back so I could get breakfast stuff for tomorrow, just bananas, raisin bread, and a hunk of cheese. All I can say about the price of cheese here is that I’m now convinced that Canadians are the only cheese-eating people of the Earth who get ripped off… The price of my purchases wouldn’t have even covered the cheese in Canada. So I’m encouraged that I won’t go broke eating here as long as I cook for myself as much as possible.

So I’m in Amsterdam! The next two weeks are going to absolutely fly by. There are only two things on my list, but I’m sure there’s more to do. I’m investigating a museum pass since I think that work will be light and I might have enough free time to visit enough museums for the pass to pay for itself. The house I’m in is very comfortable and my location is just off of downtown and walking distance to just about anything I’d want to see, hence why I decided to skip the public transportation pass. Can’t wait to start exploring!

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Filling In the Middle of the Puzzle

More things are falling into place… 2017 has been feeling like a jigsaw with the edge pieces all present and the middle part missing the centre-most pieces.

My host in Amsterdam emailed today with a bunch of information that will help me hit the ground running there, just as my host here did. I cannot wait to meet my new charges! My hosts are vegans and while they have told me that I can cook anything in their kitchen, I wouldn’t dream of it. So that will be an interesting challenge since I do still have many meatless days, but I never was able to manage to learn to cook without dairy (I lasted about 45 hours as a vegan!).  I suspect work is going to be really slow over the holidays, so I’m researching free or very inexpensive things to do over that period to fill my time and make the most of it.

Next, I get special deals on booking.com and was able to rent a whole studio apartment just outside of Manchester for just under 50CAD per night when the normal rate was almost twice that! It’s a newish place, but reviews look okay. I might be stuck taking a cab from the airport, but the distance is less than 10KM, so it shouldn’t be that expensive. Getting into Manchester will be cheap.

The next big piece of news is that I am definitely going to housesit for my parents for about three weeks and will be in Quebec for about a month total. I got an insane deal on a flight that has me landing in Montreal on March 15th. I am going to set foot in Iceland and get a glimpse of it, if only from the airport. 🙂

So now, I have to fill March 1st to the 15th. The obvious thing is to find a sit in or about London. There’s nothing posted for those dates yet, but I’ll keep checking back. It would be amazing to bookend this adventure with another stay in London, especially if I can stay in a different part of the city. I had hoped to find my way back to Scotland, but the airfares wouldn’t cooperate.

The next things to figure out are getting my residente temporal visa and getting myself to Mérida for about the 15th of May.

I have reviewed the visa requirements am quite confident that I won’t have any issues since I can present investment statements, which are well over the amount needed, rather than a convoluted package showing my income, which only averages the amount needed. Also, I contacted an immigration lawyer in Mérida who told me that I do not have to go to my “home” consulate, which is in Calgary. This means that I can attempt my request at the consulate in Montreal. If I have trouble with them (their reviews are appalling), I can try the embassy in Ottawa or even the consulate in Toronto. If I can get the visa while I’m in Montreal it will save me considerable expense and time.

Next, the inevitable question is do I have to go home to Haven before heading to Mérida? Why not take advantage of cheap flights from Montreal to Cancún and then just start from scratch in Mérida? I can’t say the thought didn’t cross my mind, but I want to go home to say a proper goodbye and to make sure there are no loose ends there. If I save the expense of going to Calgary, then I am going to drive, but will not take a trailer. So whatever I can squeeze into the truck, pretty much whatever I brought to Maz, is what’s coming with me. But I do have that roof frame and and am thinking of making use of exterior space for non-valuable/sentimental items. To be discussed with Charles and Caroline. 🙂

The residente temporal visa is a one-year commitment to being in Mexico, with the option to renew for up to another three years. So I am not going to be burning any Canadian bridges at this time, but I do feel committed to 18 months at least (five-month sit, plus a one-year lease).

I have a lot of expenses between now and May 15th (I’ll likely have $1,000 just in fuel costs to get to Mérida, never mind hotels!), but once I get there, expenses will drop significantly and I’ll be able to easily save up my housekeeping setup costs. I still can’t believe how long it took me to accept this housesitting offer!

I feel like I’m in a better version of the spring of 2013, clearly moving towards an ending, but without the fear of what the new beginning will be. I just need to remember to continue savouring the now and to make each step of my journey to Mexico count. I must never lose sight that the journey is often more important than the arrival.