Amsterdam

Awake to a drizzly day. But I have no agenda! Does it matter that it's wet outside?

Breakfast comes to my room.


 


While waiting for it, I read a (very recent) cartoon-illustrated book about life in this city. When I first started traveling through here (1971), the city was just at the cusp of developing a new identity, guided by a liberal vision of tolerance toward everything from prostitution to gay culture to pot use. More than forty years later, it still remains the only city in Europe where you can walk into a coffee shop and buy some pot and walk out high.

Not that it's exactly legal to run these cafes. You can possess small quantities of pot, but you can't buy it and legally sell it. It's just that for now, the policy of nonenforcement is (shakily) in place. (In some Dutch cities, local ordinance prohibits cafes from selling to non-registered guests. To register, you need to live there. Amsterdam has declined to go that route, most likely because pot tourism brings good Euros to the city.)



pausing to read about the different highs you can purchase


Supporters (of pot cafes) argue that  cannabis is a soft drug, as opposed to, say, alcohol, which is a widely available hard drug. (Amsterdam is home to the Heineken brewery; here's a bar, one of many, celebrating this beer.)





More interesting (than pandering to international pot tourism), I think, is the Dutch position toward hard drug users: don't punish, but give help. There are, for example,  heroin clinics where you can apparently walk in and get a controlled amount so that you can gradually rid yourself of the habit. Heroin addiction here has greatly declined over the past several decades. Several countries are considering this "Dutch approach," though none have been bold enough to try it.

But this part of Amsterdam just passes me by. I read about it, I don't see it. Even in my younger years, I was more interested in traveling here from Poland to see the newly released movie the Love Story (not yet playing in Warsaw) than in hanging out on the square where the smell of pot was everpresent.

And I loved the museums here. And so on this wet and a bit cool day, I decide to go back to some favorite museums and to visit at least one new one, highly recommended by my hosts, Frank and Oki.

The drizzle comes and goes and as the day warms, I shed my jacket and play on/off with the umbrella. My first stop isn't far -- it's the Rijks Museum.





I'd say it would make the top ten list of Europe's greatest, but I'm not really inclined to linger. I just want to see the renovation (which, at ten  years, took longer than the original construction; the place just reopened a year ago).

The lines to enter are legendary! But strangely, at 9:30 there are no lines at all and I breeze in without a pause. So of course, I trudge up to check off its most famous painting - the Night Watch. I mean, why not. I remember standing before it and reading to my then very young daughters about what to look for. And before that, standing alone as a young adult not knowing what to look for. Today, I scan it for those distant memories and I have to smile as they slowly trickle back to me.






You're asking -- are you allowed to take photos inside the museum? The answer is yes. I don't know why even permanent collections in so many places are taking the position that you cannot photograph their stuff. (I'm remembering Paris at the Musee d'Orsay, for example.) Not that I plan on swamping you with favorites. Well, just a few. And you know why? For the same reason that, in the end, I stayed here a long time and I went through nearly the whole museum. And then returned for one more look at something I missed. And then returned for a third time to check on something else. Why? Well, there is  (through September) a quite special, I think, commentary, posted throughout the museum on giant post-it like papers. Some of these "messages" are longer, but most are quite short.





At first I didn't understand -- was this some unfinished business here? What are these comments? This next painting comes with the following (excerpted):

It is a picture that is geared to produce an ambivalent reaction. We delight in it and yet - at the same time - feel regret. We don't live up to the beauty of the picture. ... Rembrandt illuminates with painful accuracy our lack: we don't have nearly enough genuine love in our lives and in our world... 






But I find myself reading them. And reflecting on them.

And only when I am done with the museum (the first time around), do I read downstairs that these were written by Alain de Botton -- the Swiss British philosopher whom I grew to admire some years ago when I read his sweet, sweet sweet book "How Proust Can Change Your Life."

De Botton writes not for the handful of like minded academical types, but for a wider audience and in just a few pages he really can set you spinning about the way you conduct your everyday affairs. I'd say Ocean is very much influenced by people like him. De Botton emphatically stands behind the relevance of small detail, the everyday minutia of life. In the Rijks Museum, here's what he says about this painting:




It can be hard to see beauty and interest in the things we have to do every day and in the environments in which we live. ... The linen cupboard itself could easily have been resented. It is an embodiment of what could, in unfavorable circumstances, be seen as boring, banal, and repetitive - even unsexy. If only we, like De Hooch, knew how to recognize the value of ordinary routine, many of our burdens would be lifted. It gives voice to the right attitude: the big themes of life - the search for prosperity, happiness, good relationships - are always grounded in the way we approach the little things...


And in a similar vein, on this one:




This painting...wants to show us that the ordinary can be very special. The picture says that looking after a simple but beautiful home, cleaning the yard, watching over the children, darning clothes - and doing these things faithfully and without despair - is life's real duty. This is an anti-heroic picture, a weapon against false images of glamour. It refuses to accept that true glamour depends on amazing feats of courage or on the attainment of status. It argues that doing the modest things that are expected of all of us is enough. ... If the Netherlands had a Founding Document, a concentrated repository of its values it would be this small picture. It is the Dutch contribution to the world's understanding of happiness  - and its message doesn't just belong in the gallery.

All on large post-it type notes temporarily stuck on the walls of the museum. And so I am absolutely mesmerized by it all.

Now, some would say that de Botton only states the obvious. Yes, well, so do I, here on Ocean. I eat breakfast, tend to the farmette with Ed, watch daughters grow up. What could be more prosaic, banal, commonplace? But for me, this is life and if you can't pause to consider it, then you've let a lot of it slip by unnoticed, unrevered.

I'll leave you with a de Botton post-it and an a photo of the painting next to it, because being myself a life long fan of Impressionism, this really made me smile:





This is an unashamedly pretty picture, and educated people today quite often feel a bit queasy at the idea that art can be sweet and lovely. Isn't this a denial of all that is wrong with the world? Shouldn't art be about more weighty and worthy matters?
Van Looy knew a lot about human suffering - not least his own... Once life has shown us its darker sides, we start to take this sort of pretty scene more seriously. Beautiful flowers aren't a way of avoiding the tougher facts; they are a consolation now that we know what things are really like. We need beauty around us to keep up our spirits and to refresh our appetite for life. Cheerfulness - the mood that beauty naturally encourages - is a good state of mind to be able to access, given the number of practical problems we have to face. A taste for pretty art isn't a denial of the troubles of the world; it shows a wise awareness of the extent of suffering and a concern for bolstering oneself against despair.



Alright. I'm done. Out on the street, the rains have stopped. I head for the market, learning to dodge the bikes that come at you from every corner.



with roses




with a child




with more children
without helmets

Amsterdam has more bicycles than residents. Yes and they all drive crazily. I read that there are *only* a handful of bike deaths per year here. Typically trucks run down those in their blind spot. I suppose I should think that this low number is commendable, considering that some 10-20 men die here per year falling into canals as they try to pee into them while in a drunken stupor  (they fall in and can't climb back out). Ahhh, but Amsterdam is a dangerous city for those who don't watch their step!

But, too,  it is a pretty city. Let's not forget that.











I make another museum stop in the early afternoon -- the Hermitage. Museum nuts will recognize the name as belonging to perhaps the world's richest art gallery -- the Hermitage in St Petersburg. Well now, Amsterdam has opened a branch of it with rotating collections from the real deal.

But I change my mind once I enter the museum. This year's collection is on art along the Silk Route and my head is still reeling with Vermeers and Rembrandts. So instead, I go straight to their brand new cafeteria, pick a plate of boiled new potatoes with Norwegian smoked salmon and sit down at a long table that has very attractive glossy magazines from Russia (among other places).





It is a fitting tribute to that country's world of art (and food: I think of boiled potatoes as being very Russian. Or Polish. Or both).


In the evening, I go out again. My first stop is the Seafood Bar. My hosts Oki and Frank tell me to reserve if I want to eat there, but heck, that place is booked weeks in advance. The best you can do is show up for the handful of spots that are given to walk-ins. Being single, I am squeezable. A place is set at the bar for me.

I order a mixed grill, because this is a seafood country and besides, after yesterday's vegetable stew, I need to move away from local fresh, honest and bland.





It's a delicious dinner and I really don't know how it is that this same concept of mixed seafoods is so differently executed in different parts of the world even as the basic ingredients -- shrimp, fish, etc -- are nearly the same.

At one side of me, I have a couple from Finland. Actually he is from Finland, she is from Thailand. We exchange first pleasantries, then stories and she looks at me and asks me how come I'm so muscular (!) and I look at her and wonder what she is doing all the way up in Finland and before you know it we're FB friends and exchanging daughter stories and pictures.





I mention this because eventually all roads do lead to stories from home. You may think you're away and yet, sooner or later your life catches up with you and you are right back where you started. This became even more evident as the evening progressed. The Finish-Thai couple were explaining how Finish people don't drink daily, but when they do drink, they do so to get drunk. I reflected how perhaps the same can be said of Poles. A flushed young man from behind the counter emphatically disagrees. In Polish. Not anymore! Things are different now! -- he says with some agitation.

It turns out he is Polish and he feels compelled to stick up for his own people, even though I'm Polish as well and have always found that critical comments about Poles are far easier to take if they come from Poles rather than outsiders. Still, I consider myself fully caught, proving once and for all that you're never safe in speaking of your own cousins or neighbors: they could well be the persons shucking  oysters behind the counter.


And now it truly is evening and I should really head home, but instead, I head for the Van Gogh Museum which coincidentally on this day is open until 10 p.m. I thought surely at 8:30 it would be rather on the empty side. (Last time I was here it was so packed, I was three people removed from any of the art works.)

It is quite uncrowded, but if I thought I'd have another soulful museum experience, I was wrong. This particular museum is a bit like the Guggenheim in New York in that it's an open space with tiered layers of exhibition. If you want to proceed chronologically, you start at the bottom and work your way up. (I know, I know, it should be the opposite, but there you have it.)

Well now, there is a concert of sorts taking place on the ground floor. Some pop type event that was tied into Van Gogh, because the upper walls are occasionally flooded with images of the artist and/or his work.





Maybe some would find this moving. I found it to be more theatrical and loud than anything else. So I strolled up and then I strolled down and since cameras are not permitted, you'll see none of the canvases which surely is okay as they're all familiar pieces to anyone who cares at all about Van Gogh or Impressionist art.

Despite all this, I walk home satisfied. For a visit that lasts really not even two days, I have had my fill of Amsterdam for now. Perhaps it's the way we position ourselves: I'm here a short time and so I don't fully engage in all aspects of the city. Too, I find Amsterdam to be loud and crowded in its youthfulness. Not only are the residents younger, so are the visitors (30% are between 20 and 29). Barcelona is also loud, but you can find quiet deep in the neighborhoods that spread away from the center. Amsterdam, too, surely has its quiet corners, but it's not where you and I would walk. Or ride. Ah, yes: the whizzing bikes, forever passing you in that death defying race from one block to the next...

So I'm satisfied. Two days was grand. Tomorrow, I fly even further north.

arriving

Where am I going? What?? Not to my most beloved Sorede? Or Barcelona? Or some such typical June destination?

It's like this: I thought about this trip all winter long. I knew it would be solo. I knew it would be late June/early July and so the crowds in the south would be thick with vacationers. Besides, my memories of Sorede -- four years in a row! -- are with Ed by my side. I don't want to spend time recalling and comparing. I want something new. And tame. And quiet. Meditative.

So let's take it one step at a time: yes, the connection from Minneapolis to Paris is more than an hour late. We all assume that it is because of the air traffic controller strike in France. Not so. Apparently a car ran into the plane that was to come (!?) and so at the last minute there was a change of airplanes and hence the delay.

No matter. I can take a slight delay. Goodbye Minneapolis, where my daughter now lives (but she's gone for a honeymoon trip with her beloved)...





I settle in for a terrific flight: smooth, effortless and because I am so tired from this past month's activities, for the first time in a long time, I log in real sleep hours over the ocean. Consequently, I arrive in Europe almost refreshed! (Almost. Let's not push how much rest you can pick up in some three or four hours of sleep.)

And now I am in Paris. If you had two summer hours in this city (and were burdened with a carryon suitcase and a backpack) what would you do? Would you go straight to the train station and wait for your next leg of the journey?

No you would not. You would perhaps, like me, stay on the train from the airport, past the station, all the way to the stop that is the Luxembourg Gardens.

It is a lovely, warm day -- the likes of which I haven't seen for a while here.






No, I don't pause for long. I want the quick high that comes from just seeing the gardens...


 


... but I also want food.

I leave the gardens and walk the familiar neighborhood where I usually stay. You'd think nothing would have changed since my last pop in here just a few months back. Not true! My favorite cafe where I was thinking of grabbing a coffee (Les Editeurs) is torn down. I haven't a clue as to why. No matter. It's not as if there is a shortage of cafes in Paris.

My first stop then is at the bakery: I want to grab a quiche for the 3.5 hour train ride I have before me. This one!





Okay, but I still want coffee. I meander down to Cafe Le Buci -- memorable for me from one very early morning stop there. It's more crowded now, of course. Everything seems more crowded now. In June, Parisians, not yet vacationing, have to share their city with the millions who, like me, come here to get that infusion of urban beauty.

I find a spot by the bar counter. A grade creme coffee, please. Oh, there are croissants still? (It's after 2 p.m.). Irresistible. I tell myself  I'll just eat part of one.

I eat the whole thing.





Monsieur, standing next to me watches with amusement. Am I arriving? Departing? -- he asks with some curiosity.
Traveling, I answer.
He  nods. You need strength for that heavy pack. He gives my arm muscle a squeeze. He's not flirting. The bar is a place for friendly banter. He is bantering. If not with me, then with the staff behind the counter.





As I leave he tells me -- welcome to Paris. Or, if you're leaving, then happy travels.

Well I'm both, aren't I?


I catch the metro to the station, where the intercity Thalys train is just opening its doors.





It's a superb piece of locomotion that in just a short time will wizz you to Brussels, then to Rotterdam, then to Amsterdam. I"m heading toward Amsterdam in my slow meander to northern Europe. And when I was purchasing my ticket (on line, in the States), there was a sale on first class fares -- causing them to be quite the same as second class. I grabbed. And because this train wants to compete with airlines (why anyone would fly or drive when they can take this rapid and supremely comfortable and not that expensive if purchased in advance train is beyond me), I see that they serve wines, sandwiches, cakes and bowls of cherries -- all included in the price of the ticket.

Not surprisingly, the train is full.

Not surprisingly, I am full.


We arrive in Amsterdam in early evening and because it's June and I'm north, there is plenty of light still before me.

In my younger years, Amsterdam was the city that linked me with the States. All my travels between Warsaw and the U.S., including my very first solo international trip at age 18, to fulfill my au pair obligations in New York, were through Amsterdam. (It was a matter of airlines: KLM offered the best fares from Warsaw back then.) So I have a rather peculiar take on the place. Nearly every stay here has been alone. I grew used to it. Barely an adult, I'd research places to eat, villages to pop into, concerts to attend, museums to explore. All of it alone. There I would sit -- in an Indonesian restaurant offering 30 courses of exotic plates (I had always spent most of my travel budget on food), writing in a journal and thinking nothing of the fact that I am the youngest there. And the only one without anyone across the table.

So I've come back to this pattern, haven't I? Except I no longer need the great dining experience. Take out quiche and snacks on the train were just fine.

Alright. I've arrived. From Amsterdam station, I take the tram -- here's a view from the window:





...get off, get lost, but as always, eventually find my new home.

I'm only here for two nights and I am staying at a tiny but quite lovely place (Le Quartier Sonang) just off the ring of canals and awfully close to the museums should I feel so inclined. And when I say *tiny* I mean it. It's a two room hotel. I have the front room.





With a view.





And because it is tiny, it's hard to book a room (always full! I was lucky), so don't spread the word! We'll keep it an Ocean secret.

I leave here three parting comments on Amsterdam in case you're wondering if it should be included in your future travel plans:

First of all, the city always feels very young. As if they skimmed off the older people and asked them to please stay home. Everyone is one third my age.






Too, everyone rides bicycles. They careen down streets and paths at speeds that would make race horses wince. They chat to each other or to cell phones, they laugh, they hold hands, they peddle children around. And no one wears helmets.






And finally, as I come across a rapidly disappearing sun, I note how late it is. And how wonderful it is to have such long days in this warmer (but not hot) season.





My eyes are closing with every word added here. I leave you with wishes for a good night. A quiet night, wherever you are right now.

taking off

It's always a little troubling to hear of an air traffic control strike at the destination airport of your flight. I weigh the possibilities of complications. Hmmm. Is it going to be one of those trips?

I shrug it off.

It's my last morning for a while at the farmette.  Ed and I repeat the same questions again and again:
He says -- you're not really going, are you?
I say -- you're not really staying behind, are you?
He says -- it's so beautiful here now!
I say -- it was so beautiful traveling with you!

We both understand, of course, each others need. We accept it, even as it can be tough to accept.

He walks with me through the morning chicken rounds. I tell him my routines. For three weeks they will be his routines.






Breakfast on the porch is lovely, in a bittersweet way.






I have time to attend to all the packing details -- I never take much anymore. This time it's bulky, but still compatible with my small carryon: hiking boots, warm jacket, hiking stick, rain gear and some change of clothing, including stuff that would be fitting for cities. Yes, it all fits.

I'm a tad weepy by the time we set out for the airport. There is so much to stay for here, at the farmette! But, I am programmed to feel that home tug to Europe. Out of the many reasons I took early retirement, one prominent one was so that I could take time to be there without guilt or work worry.

Ed tells me - have fun! You'll love your travels, your Air France flights!
I shake my head -- don't you know? I don't really love the getting there. Especially when I fly alone, next to a stranger whose shoulder I cannot lean on. I make the best of it, because it is the only way to be where I need to be.

One last look at my beloved gardens...






He drives me to the airport.

The flight to Minneapolis is on time, the flight to Paris is delayed. I'm not staying in Paris. But I have purchased a train ticket north and even greater delays will make for tight connections. That's okay. Once on the ground, I am fine with whatever comes my way. Indeed, more than fine: I slip easily into my second side, my other face. In some small way, there too I am home.

looking back, looking forward

Far too overdue is my deepest thank you for all who followed the wedding here on Ocean and especially those who wrote to encourage me to let go of worry and then sent a thumbs up when it was all behind us. As always, I am humbled by your friendship, cultivated through Ocean. Every kind or funny comment is so deeply appreciated!

Slowly, everything settles to a very regular (ergo: very lackadaisical) pace, starting with a walk to the coop at sunrise...





...with a glance and a nod toward the garden...





and a smile at the flowers that are just now starting to really take summer seriously...










and at the first ripening raspberry -- right in the middle of the clump that was shielded by a tent just a little while ago...


 


and the chickens, parading in spaces that still have a touch of wedding about them.






Our breakfast is especially leisurely as we talk about the bits and pieces of farmette work that will fill the summer days (or only minutes if we're so inclined) for us.





(Oreo wonders why it's suddenly so quiet in the courtyard.)





And so every once in a while, I think back to the weekend -- to those little details that cause me to smile broadly.

Like when the bar station was set up in the courtyard by the garage door: Ed was horrified when the serving team closed that door. (Considering the enormous mess of clutter -- wedding related and otherwise, this was a no brainer: the door had to be closed).
The swallows -- he complains to me -- what about the swallows! They go in and out all the time!
I tell him: they can be inconvenienced for 45 minutes.
No, they'll get confused! It has to go up. He goes to the garage and disregarding the crowd of partying people, pulls up the door.
As he retreats, I give a nod to the bartenders to pull it down again. It stays that way until he notices again.And so on.

I smile too when I remember how the horsefly that buzzed around the groom's brother's face during the ceremony. He'd wave it away, it would come back. I wanted to shout out -- the only way to deal with a horsefly is to swat it! -- but I restrained myself.

I think, too, about how good it was to discover organic cedar oil. The Mosquito Guys here in town are just introducing it experimentally this year for those fussers who do not want more potent stuff in their gardens. That would be us. We had a terrible surge in the mosquito population right before the wedding. We have so much dense foliage that it would have taken a lot of potent stuff to keep them off of a crowd of people. After the (greatly diluted) cedar oil was hosed on portions of the farmette, our mosquito population went down by 95%! Because we were unsure if it would continue to be effective, we had a second guy come in and do just a spot misting of particularly buggy corners with the "real" stuff.  And here's a funny thing: if you went further afield, beyond the cedar oil, the mosquitoes would be there to make your life miserable. But within our wedding space, we were wonderfully mosquito-free. And much to Ed's delight, the bees are still with us, having a grand old time in all the flowers that are emerging. The bug worry, the weather worry, the willow worry -- none of these in the end posed problems.

I definitely grin broadly when I think of Ed's incredible work as he helped me pull the farmette into shape, toiling with me during all good weather days of this past year. I happened to overhear his conversation with his aunt just a while ago. So how was the wedding? -- she asks. Lots of fun, he responds.

I smile, too, when I think of all the young people here that evening. To my knowledge, with the exception of one Madison friend of my daughter, all of them are city people. Chicago, Minneapolis, New York, D.C., New Orleans. Is it not fitting that their weekend away should include a fish fry on a farmette in the country?

And a huge smile -- I save that for my girls. My older one, who so deeply wants her sister to be happy...



(June 21)


...and for my younger one, who so deeply wants her sister to be happy.



(June 21)



Okay: I face this day's tasks and events.
I have lunch with one last out-of-towner and my older girl and her husband...





...and I walk through the garden preparing it for a three week period of neglect (deadheading spent flowers, weeding, staking) and I take out my little suitcase for the trip before me. But that's tomorrow's story.

the days after

Farmette life always begins in a similar vein and then it takes its twists and turns into something unique. It may not seem that way to you, but really, most days are not like the other.

But the days immediately following your daughter's wedding are singular from the get-go.

Oh, the weather may replicate patterns from before. Foggy, wet... The repetition of stuff that would drive me nuts for its wedding incompatibility. Now? Can't say that I care much. I check the weather only for Wednesday, to see if there may be flight delays for my connections out of here. Otherwise, I am living a weather detox.






I spend a lot of time on the porch today. Breakfast...






...and then a longer spell with a couple of "out-of-towners..."





In that time, it rains, a steady rain that is rather pleasant to witness from the shelter of the porch.


The young couple stops by as well --  to pack up all they'd brought with them from the Twin Cities. It is good, too good to see them. For a second, they make us feel like we are still in the thick of celebrations. Or better -- that they had stopped over for a quick hello, on their way home just around the corner.





Fantasy.

We say our post wedding good byes.

After, I hang two bouquets in the sun room.





Right next to the ones I had from my older girl's wedding. I'm not sure they'll last: a spring flower has a different stem and texture than a late summer bloom. But for a while I'll have a bit of the young couple inside the farmhouse with me.