Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Kibbeling in Vlissingen



Take a good, close look at this menu. I recognize only three words. I like eating in places like this!

This restaurant on the tip of Holland’s south coast, in the little town of Vlissingen, is where my other very good Dutch friend, Jikke, took me. (I ate kibbeling, which was white fish, battered and deep-fried.)

wonderful Jikke

no Dutch photo album is complete without one of these

lovely old church courtyard

a little odd, this

houseboat

town hall


 

We spent an afternoon exploring these little towns in the south. 

The next morning we hung out in Rotterdam, where Jikke lives. I begged her to go to a real, live Dutch waffle stand, and we did – the only one in the city.


WHY can't we buy waffles on the street in Canada??
 We also toured the city on foot and found some interesting sculptures. (As all good Netherlands residents do, we biked everywhere.)




Rotterdam's Erasmus Bridge in the background




On my last night in the Netherlands, one of Jikke’s good friends invited us and another friend for dinner at his place.

What a feast -- and what an experience in hospitality! Jelle prepared what seemed like a never-ending parade of dishes. And he served each course as attentively as a waiter at the Ritz, minus the attitude. Not to mention I felt like a celebrity, being Canadian and all. The others wanted to know everything.

This combined with some fantastic breakfasts Jikke had warm and waiting in the morning, a heated bag to warm up my bed at night, and a litany of other little, thoughtful gestures, made me maybe the best-hosted guest ever to visit Holland.

For fond memories, especially some fantastic conversations, this country is at the top of my list. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. If only my souvenirs could have been my two wonderful friends Anne and Jikke.


Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Going Dutch

After I finished working at the end of February, I spent a week in The Netherlands and another in Rome. Had to add a couple more magnets to the collection before leaving Europe!


In fact, the day after my last day of work found me on a plane from Milan to Amsterdam. I had met some wonderful Dutch people at Italian-language school in Genova, later found a cheap flight, and knew I couldn't pass up an opportunity to visit them at their homes.

Anne (pronounced An-neh) was an exceptionally lively man of 80. If you don't believe me, how many men of that age do you know that go and study a language in another country?

(This also goes to show that when it comes to making friends, age is nothing but a number! And that we all need a grandpa, now and then.) 

It's true what they say: northern Europe really is a world apart from the south. 

I had a fantastic time in the Netherlands. The weather was beautiful, Amsterdam’s canals and well-maintained canal houses shone, Anne and I discovered wonderful restaurants (a very cute Italian trattoria, a sumptuous Indonesian place, a French bistro). “What did we do,” he frequently asked, “to deserve this?”


One day he took me on a detour through a grand park he used to cycle through every day to work. “It made me really happy,” he said, “to think that at the end of the day I would be able to bike home through this.” Old thatched-roof houses, forests of green trees, almost-hidden lakes... “It was a FEAST!”


Maybe his most special memory was of this spot.


"In 1945 I was 8 years old, standing on this corner, when I saw the first Canadian soldiers coming down that street. That's when I knew the war was really over."

"So, everything's on me today," he continued. "I want to give a little back to the country that did so much for me."

* * *

We did a lot of great things together. He taught me a lot about the history of the international institutions of Den Haag [The Hague], his home city. (For example, did you know that the Peace Palace, which houses the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration among others, was built with money donated by Andrew Carnegie? Who said “It’s a shame to die rich”?)


We went to a fascinating exhibition on Alexander the Great at the Hermitage in Amsterdam. (Because the Russian collection is so huge and can’t possibly all be displayed, parts of it travel to other Hermitage museums around the world.) Random tidbit: did you know that the word ‘barbarian’ used to be much less pejorative? It comes from the Greek for ‘he who doesn’t speak Greek’. 

tried kroketten at the museum cafe (breaded sticks filled with potato and minced meat)

And of course we visited the Rijksmuseum. What a place for a Rembrandt-lover! 

the entrance to the Rijksmuseum

Obviously a whole salon is reserved for maybe Rembrandt’s most famous, and definitely biggest work, the Night Watch. Up close it was possible to see not only the brushstrokes but also, in some places, remnants of the slashes made by a psychologically-disturbed man with a bread knife in the 70s. !

Anne also took me to Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder, “Our Lord in the Attic”, a 17th-century Catholic church built in the – well, guess – of a wealthy merchant’s home, back in the days when it was against the law to practice Catholicism. 

"open" restoration (meaning the museum is still open during work)
of course I'm going to take a picture of the organ

We went to another famous Dutch house, that of Anne Frank. It was a memorable experience to walk through the upper rooms where she and her family had once hidden from the Nazis for two years, before they were betrayed. The rooms were empty; yet full of ghosts.

Also sad was an unplanned walk through a section of the red-light district. Women, wearing practically nothing, posed or beckoned or pranced inside small, glassed-in cubicles. The feminine half of the human race has been fighting against objectification for how many centuries - ?? – and these ones depend on it to make a living.

(As for the famous Amsterdam pot...yeah, I did see or smell it a lot. In certain neighbourhoods. Still uninformed as to its quality, however.)

* * *
Other highlights:

- strolling through the stylish and serene streets of Den Haag


- feeling the sun and wind at the beach on the north coast


- having hot chocolate on Anne’s sailboat


But the best experience was on Thursday afternoon after lunch. We left the restaurant and headed along the street to a nondescript building. Anne quickly bought tickets to what looked like a small gallery and, holding his finger to his lips, hurried me through the hall. We came to a rounded staircase and ascended.....to arrive back at the Dutch coast! 

That’s what it felt like, anyway. It was a panorama: a huge cylindrical painting of the 19th-century coast near Den Haag. It was if we were on the highest hill on the beach. We could look out in every direction, over “real” sand dunes, and listen to the screeches of seagulls, the lapping waves and distant conversation.

How could you not enjoy your time with someone who shows you things like that?

Thank you, Anne, for showing me how to live a life more filled with curiousity, beauty and gratitude.

“When I’m in America,” he said, “and my children say ‘bless you’ after I sneeze...I say: ‘I already am! Eighty years old! Like this! Hey!”

The end is near

Well, my friends, the time has come. My work visa has expired and I need to keep on moving.

My next destination was not originally in the plans. I had thought I might travel and work in Europe for years, flitting from country to country like a hummingbird.

But I realized that, at my advanced age (ha ha), that's not really what I want. Instead, I have discovered that I want to settle myself down in one place, where I feel like I belong, with friends and even family nearby. I have explored, I have examined, I have interacted. And now, some roots: that's what I want.

So that means that my next journey is a one-way trip home.

Vancouver, BC, here I come!

Sunday, March 13, 2011

a Nice weekend

Since this famous city on the French Riviera is only three hours by train from Genova, obviously I was going to visit.

Also because I just can't get enough of the coast.


Also because I discovered that Nice is home to a (small) art gallery of the works of Marc Chagall! This time in France I didn't get it wrong.

grounds of the gallery

I got to see two -- two! -- of his stained-glass windows:


as well as his Biblical Message series, which was an unexpectedly wonderful spiritual experience.

Chagall also created some fantastic mosaics in and around Nice:



Other discoveries: the very great church of Jeanne d'Arc:


more gorgeous French balconies (oh French balconies how I love you);


 and this unmissable patisserie.


Plus I happened to be there at the right time of year for a Carnaval parade!

This was the Saturday afternoon Bataille de Fleurs (Flower Battle). (Unfortunately there was no actual fighting; it was just a misleading title.)


Someday I would like to come back here.