From the ER to Flinckx – A Good Bad Day in Amsterdam (part 3)

Later that evening, we arrange with Herman to meet at a little restaurant around the corner from our hotel. Flinckx is a very small restaurant run by a very expressive woman who teases and flirts equally well in Dutch and in English. K** and I arrived a bit before Herman and his family and this woman asked us if we happen to be meeting “Someone named Van Gessel, who wants a party for 6?” I say yes, then she turns down her mouth in a classic moue and says, “I don’t know anything about that.”

Herman and his family arrive soon after and we sit. Herman’s son, G***, sits across from me and soon devours most of the bowl of bread as well as some Chocolate Milk which A*****, Herman’s wife, informs me is his favorite. Herman’s daughter B***** sits across from K** and she is soon engaged in conversation with K***. B*** has only been studying English for a short time, but she is quite fluent and really seems to enjoy speaking with native speakers like us.

The dinner is quite good, though A***** is mad with herself because she had bought us some Strope Waffle cookies and forgotten to bring them for us. She had served them the night before when we had dinner at their house and we liked them very much.

K*** has hare, and I tried some as well. It was good, a bit denser than chicken and more rich, with a slight gamey quality. I have lamb in a rich basilica sauce. The meal is wonderful, but it is Sunday night and I am aware that they must work in the morning and the children need to get up for school. Also, it is G***’s birthday tomorrow (he will be 9) and A**** informs me that he will be up at 4 AM wanting to get started on all his presents. The woman who runs Flinckx brings G*** a special ice-cream treat with a sparkler in it, and we all sing Happy Birthday in English, which I find a little odd, especially when the other patrons join in.

We walk out into the cool night and walk a short ways to where Herman has parked his car. It is sad, but I am so glad to have reconnected with him after so many years. I am also glad that he has such a nice family. Hopefully it won’t be so long before I see him again.

 

Epilogue:

The next morning K*** and I are rushing around packing and readying ourselves to leave for Paris. We eat early and while K*** goes back up to the room, I head outside to hit the ATM once again. As I step outside the hotel, I hear “Hey Scott”.

Herman is riding up on his bike and he has a bag with him. I know immediately that it is the cookies that A*** forgot to bring. She is a very organized person and I know that she wouldn’t tolerate such an oversite, so she had Herman deliver them on his way to work. We say good-bye again, a bit more personally this time.

My bad day in Amsterdam, turning into a very wonderful experience in the end.

Vrolic Medical Museum: Fascination and Sadness

The Vrolic Medical Museum is a vast collection of medical specimens collected primarily by Dr. Anton Vrolic in the 1900s. The museum is part of the vast Amsterdam Medical Facility that serves as the primary hospital and medical center for the city of Amsterdam.

While housing a large number of medical specimens, by far the largest portion of the museum is focused on preserved fetuses of babies born (or nearly born) with horrendous physical malformations. There are babies with twisted limbs, grossly expanded hydrocephalic skulls, external organ growth and various permutations of undivided twins.

There were also certain samples that basically defy description, aside from saying that they resembled a human only so far as there had recognizable flesh, and the semblance of other features. Essentially, these were monsters and though fascinating from a purely medical oddity point of view, it is hard to ignore the devastating effect that giving birth to such a child would have on the mother and father, and the physicians, nurses and any other attendees.

Was Dr. Vrolic a ghoul for collecting these specific types of specimens, or was he driven by pure scientific curiosity for the ways that the human form can go tragically wrong in its earliest development? Am I a ghoul for been drawn on in looking at these specimens, despite my visceral and emotional revulsion?

Perhaps the answer is yes to all these questions.

Tapas At The Van Gogh

The Van Gogh Museum is open late on Friday night. It houses the largest collection of Van Gogh’s work in the world and is arranged in galleries that progress through the artist’s life according to where he lived and how his work developed, I didn’t know much about Van Gogh aside from the ear incident and that he was supported by his brother. This progression through his life was facinating.

 

What we didn’t expect was that the museum was such a happening place to be on Friday night. The main lobby acts as a casual meeting area that is decked out with deep blue furniture that sits on a carpet of the same deep blue. There is a bar where you can buy wine, mixed drinks and a fruit smash that was very good. A DJ spun 45s of jazzy pop from the 60s to add a very ironic, retro hip feel to the place.

 

People lounged and ate and drank, while others explored the galleries to the fun music. The second floor houses the main collection and while we wandered through we noticed the reason for the lovely blue carpet in the main lounging area. Using the same blue screen technology that is commonly used on newscasts, the lounge area was filmed and projected onto the blank walls of the upper part of the museum, the blue replaced with a rotating display of Van Gogh’s paintings so that the people sitting in the chairs appeared to be sitting, drinking and walking through the paintings themselves. It was a very cool effect.

 

After strolling the galleries, K** and I sat and had tapas of various cheeses, nuts, and bread along with a glass of wine and a fruit smash. It was definitely the way to go to this Museum.

Dutch Stairs

Amsterdam is called one of the first and best “planned cities” in the world, and it is clear why this is so. Every street and canal is laid out in a series of concentric semi-circles that radiate outward from the central district (Centrum). All the streets are lined brick-to-shoulder with narrow multi-story “canal-houses” which are a marvel of optimizing usable space. Rooms are small, but livable with every nook and cranny of possible space utilized in some type of fashion.

 

As I said, no wasted space, so when it comes to getting people to move between floors these Amsterdammers don’t hesitate to cram the most amount of utility into the least amount of space. The result is a harrowing spiral climb up narrow wedges of steps that climb steeply up (and down), almost as if a ladder had somehow been twisted and fooled into believing that it no longer belonged in the yard, but rather had been civilized into indoor duty.

 

These stairways are seriously challenging to walk up or down, and probably are a large reason(along with the bike riding everyone does) why most Amsterdam residents appear thin and fit. 

The Red Light District…Meh

We made the trek to the Red Light District mainly because everyone who knows we are going to Amsterdam has asked “Are you going to see the Red Light District?”. Well, that and if we are going to go into one of “those” cafes…you know, wink wink. There’s a lot of “wink-winking” that goes on when you mention Amsterdam I’ve found.

We arrived at the Red Light District via a Canalbus that let us off right at the Central Train Station. It was raining pretty heavily and it was also right around 5:30 so the streets were filled with a soggy mix of business people rushing home and tourists thronging toward the district. The streets were packed, and about half the people had umbrellas, whose stays seemed to hover right at my eye level making navigation hazardous, if not nearly blinding.

As we entered the district the crowds thinned a bit and we were able to walk a bit more freely. We spent a little time in several of the Dutch souvenir shops, and actually considered buying some “wink-wink” related t-shirt for our friend Jonathan, but we relented and moved on.

There are many narrow alleys that lead off the main street and in the rain and gathering dusk, it is easy to see how this area is well suited for skulking and seemy exploration.

We were intrigued by one alleyway mainly because at the end of it was a church. We headed down the narrow walk and came out upon a winding walkway lined with a few offices, and then several of the display rooms. I’m sure that they have a more official term, but the feeling that I had was of looking at a human sized version of a vending machine. Each small cubicle had a woman in it, dressed in some variation of red underwear and lingerie. The women were all foreign born, dark skinned and well fed. They also looked bored as they watched us watching them. Toward the end of this little block was a day care center that must have served the women in the windows. Quite a clever little business opportunity actually, if you think about it. None of the offices where I have worked had day care right there where I worked.

We circled on around the alley that encircled the church we had seen. The church was closed, and I suspected that the women in this little area may have done quite well simply because they could tap into the “doing-it-in-the-shadow-of-the-church” crowd.

The rain was coming harder and it was getting darker, so we headed back to the train station to catch the canalbus back to the hotel.

So we saw it, but Meh it really didn’t do much for me.

 

 

The Ubiquitous Dutch Bike

Everyone rides bikes here in Amsterdam, and it seems, they are all riding the same bike.  It is a black cruiser style with curved handlebars, black and white fenders and a single utilitarian light poking out in the front. They are the epitome of  basic street transportation, and they are everywhere. Filling the narrow, flagstoned streets, overflowing racks; casually locked against trees, poles or special curved pipes…or leaned against walls, railings and each other.

They all seem to be of an indeterminate age, somewhere between 10 and 50 years old. Some have been customized so that they can cart children in wheelbarrow-like appendages lashed to the front, or sporting some other type of portage device in front or over the rear wheel.

Perhaps the most heartening thing about seeing so many of these unglamorous, utilitarian vehicles everywhere is the attitude that the riders have about them. You see men and women, young, old, black, white, professional, working class and funky, fathers, mothers and children…none of whom are wearing brightly colored spandex togs with slick racing helmets and sleek I’m-so-very-serious sunglasses. No, these are people who remember that a bike is just a very handy way to get from here to there. 

Early The First Morning

We are really here. It is early morning, the clouds are sort of scattering and the city is waking up, like every city in the world wakes up. Cars hissing along wet streets, trucks banging and wheezing. I peak out our window, pulling the curtain aside only a little so as not to let in too much light because K***** is still sleeping. Across the street from our Hotel, I can see into the cupola room of an apartment…a Dutch apartment in Amsterdam! I am excited and scared and eager to get out and see everything.

But there is time.

Yesterday was a long blur of planes, airports and then a long taxi ride through the Amsterdam rush hour talking with our Pakistani driver, Pas. His English difficult to understand, we talked of Pakistani’s problems in policing the borders with Afghanistan and how he has a friend in San Francisco. He then spoke proudly of his daughter, the doctor who will be moving to England to practice gynecology, and his son the MBA. He had one other daughter who was 12 and he shared as how it is expensive to send your children to college. When we arrived at the hotel I paid him with a 50 Euro bill and told him to give me back 5, he said “No, that is too much” and handed me back 7. I thanked him.

We travelled for 16 hours all told, and slept almost as much. I am not certain of the date and have a little fear that somehow I will lose track of what day it is and then miss the train to Paris and fall into a domino effect of missed connections. It’s a silly fear I know.

We are really here, I wonder when I will start to believe it.