Saturday's adventure - a tour of the Boerenmarket & Haarlemerstraat

As you all know, Wes is still in the States. He got stuck with packing up the rest of house, though I did help some before I left.


In an effort not to become a hermit (though, with an apartment as nice as mine, who would blame me), I have been looking for tours to take within the city. In looking at the website Expatica, which has quite a bit of information for expats, I found out about Karen's tours. Karen came to Amsterdam several years ago from Scotland to live with her boyfriend (now her husband) who was from Holland. She owned a delicatessen for a long time and now she gives tours and cooking lessons (The Cooking Coach). The tour I took was of the Boerenmarket & Haarlemerstraat.


It's amazing how many people there were doing their shopping at this market and amazing what the market had - everything from huge fruit and vegetable stalls to stalls where you could buy beads or bikinis or purses! I was quite impressed with the selection. Since Karen has lived here for such a long time, she has built up a relationship with many of the stall owners. We spoke to several people including a guy who sold only potatoes (which seriously flashed me back to Peru - where they have Parque de la Papa to preserve the over 4000 varieties of Peruvian Potatoes), the guy who sold all kinds of olives and dried fruits and nuts, a guy who sold all kinds of farmer cheese (which is what non-factory made cheese is called in Amsterdam), a lady who raises chickens and turkeys and also makes sausage and pate and other yummy stuff, and a guy who raises herbs and makes salsas and pestos. 


We then visited a few shops, specifically one that sells olive oils and vinegars. I was really surprised as to the variety of flavors between Italian olive oil and oil from Greece or France or Spain. We also visited a Spanish shop and an Italian shop, which were both really cool. At the Spanish shop they gave us a taste of Serrano ham, which was very good and the Italian place had amazing cannolis that I only managed not to buy with severe willpower - specifically clinging to the knowledge that I didn't have a way to take it home with me on my bike. 

Keukenhof

As most of you know, I am crazy about flowers...not just flowers, but taking pictures of flowers. So it will come as no surprise that my mom really wanted to take me to Keukenhof, as I mentioned in an earlier post.  My mom came to Amsterdam once before, in 1982 before I was born, but she remembered the flower fields. Here are some of my favorite pictures from our visit. There was an orchid show this year, so there are a few pictures of those as well.

Picasso in Paris

This past Friday I went to the Van Gogh museum to see the Picasso Exhibit (Van Gogh Museum Description).

I was quite surprised at the works, which included both Picasso and other artists that he took inspiration from during the period he lived in Paris from 1900-1907. These works show a much different artist than the Picasso I typically think of and it was interesting to see the evolution of his work.

Fun facts -
- Picasso's blue period was thought to be triggered by the suicide of a close friend, Carlos Casagemas. This period began and ended while he was living in Paris. There were two paintings in the exhibit that Picasso did of Carlos after his death, both prominently featuring the bullet wound in Carlos' forehead and typifying the Picasso's blue period.
- Picasso also spent some time in Amsterdam. There were a few paintings in the exhibit with windmills in the background. He visited Amsterdam during his time in Paris and spend a summer with an artist friend, whose name I can't remember.
- There are no umbrellas or photography allowed in the exhibit. This was unfortunate as I had both my camera and an umbrella. The camera stayed in my purse, but what to do about the umbrella when I had to go through security to get into the exhibit. Fortunately, I went with a Swedish expat that I met from PwC and her husband and 14 month old son, so they suggested putting the umbrella on the stroller as they said that security never checks anything on or in the strollers. Surprisingly enough, they were absolutely correct, the stroller wasn't checked at all in the security.

The exhibit runs until 29 May, so it's not likely that anyone else will get to see it. However, I haven't been to the Van Gogh portion of the museum yet, so I can save that for someone's visit!

Next up - I'm flying to London on Friday for the weekend!

The penny tour of the apartment

 I have a few more pictures of the apartment, but this is enough to give you a good idea of what it looks like.

The dining room

This bench is right next to the table...my shoes are now under it.

Other view of the dining room

Living room

Other view of the living room

The apartment has awesome windows

The study, where Wes will be working when he gets here, and where the extra bed is.

The kitchen. The fridge is the size of what I had in my dorm room in college...so that will be interesting for us! Good thing the grocery store is right around the corner.

My favorite place in the apartment, the balcony! I spent a lot of time there on Saturday and Sunday.

Stairs up to the bedroom, very reminiscent of the Chapel Hill house's stairs!

The upstairs hallway and the extra closet

Bedroom, as seen from the hallway

The closet!

Thoughts on the first two weeks

So my first two weeks in Amsterdam are in the books. I have a few pictures to share, however, I don't have internet at home yet, so we'll have a delay in posting until that gets sorted out this week.

The highlights:
- Did a culinary tour of the world with my mom - We ate at a different ethnic restaurant every night...except for the night we ordered pizza to the hotel. The prices are a bit steep but not terrible when you consider that we were eating in the touristy area closer to the city center and that you don't have to tip.

- Visited the Expat Center (Expat Center website ) to register with the town and get my residence permit. Unfortunately, my residence permit card wasn't actually there yet, so I'll be visiting the Expat Center again soon. It was the best experience we've (my mom or I, mostly my mom, I've only been once) ever had in an immigration office. Really I think it was the decor - I've never a government related office wall decorated in green and orange patterns, with giant curved sofas.

- Found an apartment in a great location - The address (if you want to send me anything) is Eerste Helmersstraat 210-III; 1054EN Amsterdam (Location of my apartment on Google Maps ). The dissection of that is as follows street, house number, floor; zip code, city. Remember, in Europe, the ground floor is not the first floor, so yes, I am on the 4th floor of the building and yes, there are stairs up to the bedroom inside the apartment, and no, I am probably not going to find a gym.

- Figured out how to pay for said apartment - To move in I had to pay (up front) 1 month's rent, 1 month's rent as deposit and 1 month's rent + 19% VAT as commission to the leasing agent. The day after I found the apartment, we found out that even banks don't take checks in the Netherlands. Given this unfortunately check usage in the Netherlands and the fact that I had brought my money in the form of a cashier's check, I was a little at odds as to how to pay for said apartment. Huge thanks go to Elly, my buddy at PwC, for fronting me Euros until my check gets cashed...which according to the bank can take from 2 to 6 weeks...ouch. More ouch when you consider that at the beginning of June I have to pay 1 month's rent and another month's rent to finish up my deposit. I also got squared away with the cable provider, UPC. To quote a new colleague of mine, when I told him I had to be at home on Friday for the set up, "UPC is a mess, they might arrange in 10 minutes or need 3 more visits, so good luck next week!"...nice to see somethings aren't different here.

- Visited Keukenhof (Keukenhof website) - Tulips are awesome. If you've ever been on vacation with me, you know that I am out of control when it comes to taking pictures of flowers, so I had an awesome time here. Plus, there was an orchid show, even better.

- Enjoyed Vondelpark - as you can see on the map, right next to my apartment is a huge park. So since the weather was amazing on Saturday and Sunday, I took some time to stroll on Saturday and did what passes for jogging for me on Sunday. Everywhere there were people (with their bikes next to them) enjoying the sunshine. I think I'm really going to enjoy living that close to the park. Funny thing about my Sunday jaunt, I realized when I got back and tried to take a shower that the water heater is not working...or is just off...but there's no manual for it in the apartment, so I'm stuck either taking freezing showers (not going to happen) or being creative (ie electric kettle and a bucket) until the property management guy gets back to me. Which is seriously awesome. Note to self: look for manuals for everything going forward.

- Bought a bike - This is a big one, there's a huge cycling culture in the Netherlands. Everyone has a bike, there's bike lanes everywhere. Only people who are dressed in spandex wear helmets and you can see ladies cycling in high heels and mini skirts, while listening to music, holding groceries and texting. I actually even cycled to work today. I looked at the map and wrote out a queue sheet last night. This morning I strapped my computer bag to the back of my bike and promptly missed the first turn. So my actual route to work was significantly longer than my intended route to work. Note to self: carry a map.

I think that's all for now. Work is pretty slow, because I don't start on client work until tomorrow. Stay tuned for thoughts on - working in Amsterdam, the cable installation process, exchanging my US drivers license for a Dutch license, and a trip to London in 2 weeks, and more!