First Taste of Amsterdam

Finally fingers to keyboard, what’s left of them after two weeks of hard slog packing and unpacking, cleaning, arranging, building and dismantling. Now looking for a local manicurist!!

The move from the UK went relatively smoothly. It’s a wonderful thing when everything is arranged through “The Company”. Professionals arrive and pack your possessions and head off down the road with them within a few hours. A far cry from my usual “Man with a van” who expects you to stagger around helping out, and it’s you mostly taking the strain. The never ending cups of tea, then you run out of milk and they down tools (or boxes in this case).

Our packing was only a part load otherwise it would have arrived in Amsterdam the next day, so we had to wait a few days for the Packers to say when it would arrive.

We live in one of the beautiful old canal houses on the tree lined Prinsengracht. The only downside for delivering is that the road is a very narrow one way street, therefore you do have to get permission from the Town Hall to block the road with your packers van. This takes 5 days to get the permit.

I shouldn’t have packed all the plants on the balcony but I did – I didn’t have the heart to throw them out after all these years, considering they have given such pleasure through all seasons. Talk about taking coals to Newcastle – everyone thought I was totally barmy taking plants to The Netherlands. (We don’t say Holland here the Dutch find it offensive and the word “Dutch” even worse). Back to the plants, of course they are quite right as you can buy armfuls of flowers and plants for next to nothing. I painstakingly spent the first weekend out on the roof terrace looking after my half dead plants that had sat in sweltering heat in a warehouse for a week because of the part load and permit – some are still in the plant hospital ie, hidden behind a wall of healthy plants actually, and you will be pleased to know they are making a steady recovery after a lot of TLC.

As far as getting the furniture up to our 3^rd and 4^th floor apartment - now the Dutch know a thing or two on how it’s done. It goes like this – Permit from the Town Hall allows the road to be closed. The crew arrives to assemble the outside lift at 8.30am (road still open until your container truck arrives which will not be until the lift is in place). All the canalside properties have huge hooks hanging from their gables dating back to the time they were warehouses, but the modern way is to have your packing zooming up what looks like a Stannah Chairlift and through the open window, the team leader having previously removed the metal Juliette type balcony, which all the windows seem to have here. Furniture goes in through the window, the lift truck leaves and the road re-opens, furniture re-assembled, boxes unpacked, a smaller van arrives to collect all the used packing… and they are gone. No more than two hours from start to finish. Incredible organisation.

Having organised the packing out of London, K saw it delivered into our flat this end. I arrived a day later to reorganize, build flat packs etc and put everything into it’s proper place. Fantastic, we were all done in less than a week.

I arrived in perfect weather so getting out and about was a pleasure. Clearly the locals thought the weather was exceptional too. Early evening would find boat jams on the canal outside our window, boatloads of revelers enjoying the evening sunshine, crates of beer on board, music and singing, with some of Britains best also in the fray from the sound of things. The canals are quite magical all year round but when the weather is nice thousands of little boats come out to play.

By the second week it was high time I got into cycling I thought. Everyone cycles here. It would look really strange in London to see a beautiful woman in stilettos, short skirt and designer coat pedaling at full speed, handbag in a huge basket at the front of the bike but here it’s the norm. It’s almost impossible to get parking permits for a car – something like a 4 year waiting list and the few metered spaces cost a fortune. Even if you do have a car, people tend to do all their short journeys booted and suited.

My first trip down the street was pathetic – not nearly aggressive enough. I waited at junctions and only crossed with the others. Even then, with the trams and pedestrians to negotiate I wasn’t fast enough off the mark. I now know the rule – BICYCLES RULE OK! I am still not sure which side give way, there is just a lot of weaving about… and on those really heavy 1930s sit-up-and-beg type bicycles that’s no mean feat. They are very heavy and unmanageable – the only concession that has been given to their design change over the past 70 years is that they are not all black now. A few crazy colours have been introduced ie bright yellow, turquoise and coral colour often with baskets – mostly old milk crates by the looks of them covered in plastic flowers!!! My theory is that this is a woman thing to stop all the thieves from choosing their bike…. What self-respecting thief would be seen dead cycling off on a canary coloured, flower strewn bike.

Bike stealing is by far the biggest problem here. I had to go to market to get an additional chain for mine, rather like those that chain up motorbikes in the UK. I was advised by my bikeman to buy the stronger local chain (which cost three times the price) instead of a “made-in-China” type because the local one is far more likely to deter thieves…maybe, maybe not. All I know is that the chain is so heavy when I put it in my basket and cycle off, the weight causes the handlebars to wobble uncontrollably, I’ll just have to build up some new muscles. Talking of wobbling, the paved roads around my area are so narrow and allow traffic in one direction only, ie one way on each side of the canal. Bikes go where they like of course although they aren’t supposed to. I try to be a little more law abiding, basically because we live right next to a Police station and the PCs and WPCs are always hanging about in the road smoking a fag.

It can be terrifying being overtaken on these very narrow roads by a car, 4 wheel drives particularly and that’s when you start to wobble, they literally scrape passed you - I’ve just got to get the hang of holding the middle line and not being bullied. After all motorized vehicles have no rights over bicycles (except trams of course which I will come onto later) and cars mostly don’t overtake unless you stop. So there you are leading the traffic down the road on your bike. It is truly bizarre.

The adventure doesn’t stop there. I cycled to almost Schipol airport to the only covered tennis courts only to find that they are basically used like an Academy. Apparently there are people who contract an indoor court for the season, there are two seasons Autumn and Winter and these few contracted out courts are used by a sub group. I have written to the organizer to see if I can play with them – probably another 4 year waiting list. Otherwise there is another club with outdoor courts who have a Thursday morning mix-in so I might try that. It’s rained all day today (Thursday) Maybe cycling will be my sport from now on!!!

When it rains it’s safer and dryer to take the tram or the bus. The system works very well and I managed to get something similar to an Oyster Card which has just arrived in Amsterdam soon to replace the Strippencart – a card strip allowing travel for a number of journeys/zones. I haven’t tried a bus yet, that is an excitement to come, but most of the trams have a miserable person in a kiosk to stamp your strippencart and to ensure that it is valid. The deal is you can travel around on transport for a couple of hours before you have to pay again – quite clever really.

There is also a decent metro should you want to go further afield – I made one of my obligatory visits to IKEA out of town – most of the stuff I could have got in the Albert Cuyp Street Market round the corner. Now that is a market, everything imaginable is sold there.

Talking about Streets – A small group of us ladies decided to “do” Chinatown followed by lunch. Smaller than London’s Chinatown but on the edge of the Red Light District which we strayed into. Our Leader explained that you are not allowed to photograph the girls in the windows although she did quite a lot of shots of the rest of us hoping to get a little background too. I don’t think the “girls” were fooled – I think she will find a lot of shots with a single middle finger showing from behind closed curtains!! Amazing stuff there, apart from the girls – the “toy” shops certainly are something else!! I also learned from our “Leader” that blue lights indicate transvestites – they looked more attractive than the women!

My starter blog is longer than intended but I was a bit slow getting up and running, a torrential downpour all day has forced me to catch up. For the weekend a surprise birthday lunch has been planned at Ouderkerk situated way down the Amstel… its about 20Kms each way and we are going on our bikes. Mmm! The outward bound journey is do-able but wobbling back along the canal on the return after a glass or two over lunch…. Maybe we should consider returning by train or our bikes (along with us) could end up rusting on the bottom of the canal. More to follow……………..