A much longer and slightly soggy walk around Amsterdam

After Simon's ridiculously early morning walk, we did the conspicuously touristy thing and took our guide-book in hand and proceeded to follow the author's self-guided walking tour of central amsterdam.  We started out at about 8:30 which meant that many places were not yet open, but in some ways this was nice too as it also meant we had many places to ourselves - and seeing as we walked back rather than following instructions and catching a tram, we also had a 2nd opportunity to visit the places that were closed earlier. Having said that, we're really bad indoor tourists and I don't actually think we set foot inside a single recommended building.  Ah well, we were happy. Despite walking more than 7km, mostly in the rain.

Where did we go and what did we see?  Well, a lot of it was more about just taking it all in, enjoying the architecture, observing the customs and spotting all the small details.  And noticing how even everyday things become less familiar when you're half a world away from home.  Such as fruit.  We walked past a number of fruit stalls today and invariably they were selling many fruits we were unfamiliar with, along with varieties of usually familiar fruits that were far from it -  like the strawberries that looked almost like raspberries, except that I am aware that strawberries are the only fruit who wear their seeds on the outside, and these little guys clearly had their seeds on show.  Anyway, I digress!

We wandered from our place (I find I fairly quickly refer to where-ever I'm sleeping as 'home') across a few canals and through a few alleyways until we reached Damrak - the main street that stretches from the Centraal station down to Dam Square.  From there we wandered along Damrak to Dam Square observing sights along the way.  We joined the street at about the Beurs - the old stock exchange building, which apparently is an early example of a "modern building, emphasising function over looks".  Personally I think it far more attractive than most 'function over form' buildings I am used to!  Apparently Simon didn't like the photos he took here, so if you're curious, use Google. Wait!  My crappy Mac skills are to blame (oh, did I fail to mention our apartment also has a Mac for our use?!)  Found a glimpse of Beurs.

We reached Dam Square and I did the cheesy deed and read out all the details about the various buildings and monuments around the square.  I personally found the guy cleaning windows in the palace the most notable feature.  I don't know why, but he was quite fascinating!  And the buildings of course were absolutely gorgeous.  I remember at some point wandering through here thinking how fabulous it felt to be back in Europe.

Next we wandered down on to the pedestrian only Kalverstraat.  Here we stumbled upon the 'hidden catholic church'.  I was again taken with the small details - the parrot and dude with set-square carvings above the door.  Is he a mathematician? Or a priest? Or who?  Wandering off to google briefly...   Didn't help.  If anyone knows, please comment and enlighten me!  The parrot is explained, but not the dude with the set square.

Directly across the road from this was a McDonalds where we were amused to see a traveller hunkered down with laptop in hand, taking advantage of the free-wifi hotspot.  I'm really not sure why he didn't just go inside and sit more comfortably and order a coffee or tea.

Next we were meant to wander down an alley to the entrance to the Amsterdam Museum, but it was not yet open, however we still photographed the entrance and learnt about the use of XXX and the crown in the Amsterdam coat of arms.  Apparently the 3 Xs symbolise heroism, determination and mercy, whilst also representing the crucifixion of St Andrew - the patron saint of fisherman.  And the crown dates back to the 15th century and Maximilian I.  (I'm not relaying details here, I'm sure wikipedia has it all for the curious).

 We also popped in to the Begijnhof, however photos were strictly not allowed, despite the man clomping around taking photos from pretty much every angle.  I appreciated the peace and tranquility of this interior courtyard surrounded by connected houses.

Our next point of particular interest was the flower markets lining the western side of the Singel canal from the Mint Tower back towards Centraal.  Our first sight of this was from the other side of the canal.... (yes, Simon has hat hair - persistent rain and coat-hoods will do that.  The guidebook is also quite damp by this stage).

The array of flowers, seeds and bulbs on display, ooh and cacti, was just amazing.  Every single shop had something new and fabulous to admire or marvel at.  The bonsais were wonderful - including a bonsaied olive tree, and the variety of colours of tulips simply amazing.  There was in all honesty, far too much to try and take in along this stretch. And a few too many photos to boot. I've tried to keep it the bare minimum! (The canned marijuana seeds were export quality btw.)

From here on, the notable points for us were once again in the little details.  The cheese shop, the park full of bronze lizards, the clothing shop "NZA - New Zealand Auckland", the madness of parked bikes - what to do if yours is at the back?, people riding bicycles whilst holding an umbrella.

Once we'd completed the prescribed tour we randomly wandered back to Kalverstraat in search of somewhere to have lunch.  And lunch is the subject of a further blog post.

An early morning wander around Amsterdam

I woke up around 5am this morning and my body clock didn’t know what time-zone I was in, and decided to go out for a walk around Amsterdam just before 6am. Not surprisingly the streets were very quiet and I barely saw anybody as I wandered.

It wasn’t very dark at 6am but there was still just enough darkness for the building lights to be prominent; the Magna Plaza Shopping Centre in particular looked lovely at this hour.

The usually bustling Dam Square was empty!

I also came across the Church of Scientology along one of the main roads and just had to take a photograph.

The canals were also looking great with barely a ripple.

It was however starting to rain and I wasn’t wearing a jacket so I started back to our accommodation. Along the way I was surprised just how far the red light district had sprawled, when I happened upon two window boxes containing woman of the oldest profession. With the foot traffic being so slow at this time of the morning, one of them opened up her sliding door and hollered after me for business. I quickened my walk.

Leaving San Fran, Arriving in Amsterdam

We had another of those rather long and confusing days yesterday, whereby the entire day consisted of signficantly more than 24 hours.  Actually, thinking about it, I think we had 2 days yesterday, but still they totalled more than 48 hours.  San Francisco seems such a distant memory already!

Well, we started the day (Sunday) by wandering down from our hotel to Powell St station again.  This seemingly shortly and therefore surely uneventful walk was anything but.  I have no idea what was going on in San Fran (must check), but we saw zombies, birdmen, walking booths, catgirl, people in their PJs and all manner of oddities!  Ok, just checked, and it must have been Bay to Breakers - a fun run where people dress up, or apparently down (naked).  We didn't see any of the latter costumes!

We managed to get on a train car that was packed with people making their way to the run which made for a fairly festive atmosphere for the first leg of the train journey.  Again, I was interested to watch the architecture and the neighbourhoods on our way to the Airport.  I was surprised by the long lines of connected wooden houses, many of which looked terribly run down.  More exploring is required in San Fran, but that was always planned for our return visit on the way home.

After checking our bags in and getting boarding passes for the next 2 legs of our journey we grabbed a late breakfast / early lunch at a little bar at the airport.  One of the things I love most about food in the US is that you can reliably get a good, fresh and generously sized salad no matter where you are.  My garden fresh salad with chicken and the most garlicly garlic dressing I've ever eaten was enormous - I'd have put out a similarly sized salad as a side for a meal for 4 people at home.  Simon's burger and fries by all accounts was also pretty good.

Our flight was on Lufthansa's new A380 (started flying from SF last Tuesday!).  I can't say we had much more room than usual, but it was nice to once again have touch screen AV units, and we both felt we travelled much better than usual and that the flight did not feel the full 11 hours long - I think it was actually a lot quieter than I am used to on the plane, although I did still use my noise-cancelling headphones for the whole flight.  The last 20 minutes of this flight were a little tense as I had noticed a situation developing about 5 rows in front of us where a women was not conscious, and the crew were not entirely sure what to do - there were about 7 of them conferring in panic-ed tones for some time before eventually putting an oxygen line on her.  This was all occurring as we were beginning our descent in earnest and in fact preparing for landing.  We ended up all remaining seated for quite some time even after taxiing while they managed the situation.  I have no idea of the outcome, but it certainly added a bit of adrenaline to our arrival in Frankfurt. Perhaps this contributed to the flight feeling shorter than it was.

We walked for well over 20 minutes through Frankfurt airport to casually have our passports stamped (I mean seriously casually, I know this is called a formality, but there was nothing formal about the procedure!) Eventually we wound our way to our departure gate about 20 minutes before boarding.

We sat next to a Melbournian who lives in Hanoi and had a tour group of Vietnamese people coming up to Amsterdam later in the week.  We spent most of the flight discussing Outrageous Fortune with him, which he obviously really enjoyed - good to know the show is as well received by non-kiwis.

I thought this flight was meant to be 1:50 long, but it turned out to be a very brief 55 minutes.  Approaching Amsterdam was absolutely lovely - albeit brief, in that there was a massive bank of cloud to descend below, and by the time we had actually cleared it there wasn't a lot of approach remaining!  But the outlook, whilst obviously wet, was also lushishly green, and the canals and brick buildings were a wonderful welcoming glance at our home for the next 8 nights.

Did we go through any form of customs at Amsterdam? Not that I can recall.  I know we taxied further than I've ever been before, to what Simon appropriately observed as 'the arse end of the airport'.  So once again, we walked for miles, well, at least a kilometer, to collect our bags and clear 'customs'.  This involved walking through a door titled 'nothing to declare'.  Literally.  Just waltz on through.  I always find that so odd, being so used to the very detailed and thorough checks at NZ border control. One thing that immediately struck me at the airport - all of the official airport signs and directional signs were solely in English.  There were a couple of billboards in dutch, but that's about it.

Train tickets from Schipol to Centraal were stupidly easy to buy, although it was good to confirm that Simon's credit card (chip card) actually works in the machines here.  Mine wouldn't have.

On arrival at the insanely busy Centraal station we eventually located Tram 2, bought a couple of tickets from the conductor and promptly got off at the first stop (I hadn't realised it was quite that close, but still, it was worth it to avoid dragging our suitcases over the cobbled streets).  The conductor spoke perfect english - just like pretty much every single person we have encountered since.  I don't know if I'm insulting people when I ask them if they speak english or not, but on the otherhand, I don't like to assume!  Still, most shopkeepers have instantly conversed with us in english anyway, and if not, I pointedly ask Simon a question or make a remark to him and they fairly quickly catch on and switch languages from then on anyway.  I feel so bad not making any effort at the language, but it seems to be unnecessary and acceptable.

Moving on - we jumped off the tram and wandered through a couple of little alleyways and over a couple of canals to finally arrive at 86 Sous, our below-road-level apartment for the next 8 nights.  Edwin was on his balcony ready to greet us with a friendly wave as he saw us approaching over the bridge, then gave us the tour of the apartment, instructions on using the TV, the Mac, the Nespresso machine, to text him if we needed the underfloor heating adjusted from upstairs, and then through his fabulous list of bookmarks online with many recommendations for places to eat, for both lunch and dinner!  A splendid host if ever there was one!  I've been excited about staying here since I first found it, and arrival has well met my expectations!  From the old original beams in the ceiling, to the orchid murals on the bathroom doors, the industrial wall lamps, the boat window to the eclectic range of furniture.  Oh! And of course the electronic adjustable bed!  Home sweet home indeed!

Once we'd settled in we wandered out to get some supplies - water, bread, cheese, soap, shampoo.  We didn't however bother to find out where a supermarket was before we left and took quite a while to eventually find one.  But that's all part of the charm of travelling and exploring as far as I'm concerned.  We did eventually find a place up near Centraal station and got what we needed and had a look at all manner of things we've not seen before.  I especially appreciated the number of pure fruit drinks you could buy that had nothing but fruit in them - not a hint of added sugar anywhere.  I chose a cranberry and raspberry smoothie that we later really enjoyed.

On the way back, we popped in to Kaasland, which we had passed on the way - a fabulous little cheese shop with all manner of cheeses on display.  We bought a small wedge of truffle gouda and a lovely soft white goats cheese.  Home again home again, and then past home for another block and a half to find a bakery and buy half (yes half) a loaf of bread to have our cheese with for breakfast the next day.

We had planned on heading out for a cheap and cheerful dinner later, but both fell asleep for a couple of hours and when we woke at 8pm-ish we were both absolutey shattered and instead elected to keep ourselves awake for timezone adjustment purposes, but to finally go to bed at 10pm. It was a thoroughly good night's sleep I can assure you!

Finally, a few 'local' photos - from across the road immediately outside our door, and then about 20 meters away looking away from the canal (Herengracht).  The ubiquitous bicycles, and a typical canal view.

Swell Restaurant and Tunnel Top Bar, San Francisco

Tonight for dinner we went out to Swell in the Union Square area of downtown San Francisco and had an excellent meal. Swell is like a modern version of Japanese food with a little bit of European thrown in and a focus on seafood. The restaurant had an excellent vibe, the service was relaxed but efficient, and the tables were regularly turned over.

We started with the Chef’s tasting platter which consisted of Sea Urchin that was divine, magnificent Hokkaido Scallops that were wrapped around Granny Smith Apple, Yuzu Ailoi and Wasabi Tobiko, Yellow Fin Tuna and a fish of some description (Hamachi?). This was an excellent platter.

We had Wagyu Beef and Hamachi to share for our main with a side of roasted asian mushrooms that had a lovely lemon flavour to them.

All in all the raw fish was our highlight and we would happily return. As a bonus they also had Waiwera Water.

We then moved next door to the Tunnel Top Bar. Grunge is an appropriate word to describe this dark local bar that played a variety of music but more in the grunge genre than any. I had a very enjoyable Big Daddy IPA beer from San Francisco that was very hoppy and had lots of complexity and Jane had an Orange Juice. Great vibe.

Europe here we come! The travel begins with a short stopover in San Francisco

Travel is often exhausting, so we have broken up our trip to Europe with a one day stopover in San Francisco on the way over and a few on the way back.

Once through customs at Auckland we noticed that there is a Zarbo Cafe and Bar. If only we had known earlier we would have waited until we had gone through customs before we had lunch.

We found these neat little shells throughout Auckland airport (once through customs) which were quite cosy and took away a lot of noise from the whole environment. I could easily have fallen asleep in one of these, and in fact saw others that had.

Dinner on our Air New Zealand operated flight was excellent in economy and I thoroughly enjoyed the lamb and roast kumara, and the Kapiti ice-cream to follow. Breakfast on the other hand was a different story; I didn’t feel like hotcakes with maple syrup so went for the scrambled eggs with sausage and baked beans. I usually steer clear of scrambled eggs on planes and definitely should have this time; they tasted bland, were a bit undercooked and Jane questioned they would even know what an egg looked like; needless to say I didn’t each much of it.

Directions to the BART train at San Francisco were clearly marked, but buying the tickets was more challenging that it needs to be. The credit card slots weren’t working on the respective self service checkouts and there was no ticket counter to be found, but thankfully I had some $US already. I knew exactly what station I wanted to get off at (Powell St), found it on the board and the cost, what wasn’t so clear was that you don’t say where you are heading, you need to instead put enough money onto a card (one for each person). I finally sorted it out and we were fine from there, once I’d got my head into the right mindset. I was however pleased to see everybody else was struggling with the machines too.

Once we arrived at Powell St station there was an excellent vibe of a guy playing on empty tin cans to the busking saxophonist. Once I had my bearings we decided that taking the Powell St tram to our accommodation with luggage wasn’t going to work. Not only was the queue ridiculously long, but the trams really aren’t made for having bulky luggage too. We wandered up the hill and about 10 minutes later arrived at our accommodation.

After a quick tidy up we ventured out to Union Square where there was a Taiwanese American festival and an excellent multi-cultural vibe. I also came across this huge heart that was really asking for a cheesy photo to be taken with it so I obliged.

Lunch consisted of a Boudin Clam Chowder in a Sourdough roll and Caesar salad that Jane I shared. It lived up to our expectations and was a good cheap meal (about US$10).

Macy’s sales people (particularly in the perfumery department) then tried to get us to try anything and everything. I did find it bizarre that most of the perfumery didn’t have prices on, but when asked about the prices they were very reasonable.

We then wandered a couple of blocks and ended up back at the hotel for an afternoon siesta and freshen up before heading out to dinner tonight.

Moana Park “Vineyard Selection” Chardonnay 2007, Hawkes Bay

With grapefruit, mandarin and oak to the nose this is a lightly-oaked Chardonnay that is not too big and has some citrus notes that get progressively more bitter. It has a medium length and is very smooth with a bit of acid.

The more I drink it I find the bitterness less appealing. I won’t be rushing out to buy another one.

Gina's Italian Kitchen

I hadn't been to Gina's for years, and it had moved about 20 metres down the road since my last visit to much bigger and better premises. This trattoria-style Italian restaurant has an excellent vibe and was full this evening. The wait staff were very relaxed and exuded great enthusiasm.

Jane shared the "Antipasto di Mare Grilled seafood antipasto platter with prawns, calamari, scallops & mussels" with a few others. The calamari was nice and tender, the mussels were huge, the scallops were nice and not overcooked, the prawns were a little undercooked, but all in all it was a nice seafood antipasto.

I had the excellent "Papardelle al Ragu di Agnello with slow-cooked lamb ragu, red wine, garlic & rosemary topped with shaved pecorino cheese" and thoroughly enjoyed it.

For her main, Jane had the "Fish of the day" which was a fillet of terikihi. She really enjoyed the accompanying mango salsa, found the fish a little bland, and the veges and salad were both nice.

Well priced and a good relaxed evening out.