More musings from the fall of 2019
I travel to Amsterdam twice a year for about 3 weeks each visit, one in the spring and one in the fall. The last 2 years the fall trip has started later in October and ended mid November.
This year, the summer season was abnormally hot and set many all time records. As such, fall came late and sporadically. When I arrived the trees were already showing significant color change and when I left, it was mostly finished and the leaves were falling in abundance which added to the beauty of many of the canals now being leaf covered. The temperatures ranged from the mid 60s F to the mid 40s F with a few nights into the 30s F. Rain fell off and on over the 3 weeks with a few significant showers lasting for a few hours. Wind is the most influential factor when it comes to comfort. It it’s windy, the “feels like” temperature is way lower.
So, this is to say, when traveling to Amsterdam during anytime, take layered clothing options with proper rain gear from head to toe. The locals favor wearing hoodies or rain jackets with hoods as opposed to carrying an umbrella {paraplu}. That way their hands are free to ride a bike {fiets} as an example.
Amsterdam continues to be a very popular tourist destination regardless of the time of year. I’m there in the “off” season and it’s still jammed on the weekends especially. Tourism is ever growing here with more than 4.63 million international visitors annually. This is excluding the 16 million day-trippers visiting the city every year.
BTW, when visiting Amsterdam, the best way to explore the city is to do the touristy thing and take a canal cruise. You’ll see more from the canal than from the streets. I recommend doing both, but for sure, do the canal excursion. Also, it’s a great rainy day thing to do.
Walking down the street in any part of the Centrum, one hears many different languages. I often wonder, how did so many different people create so many different ways to communicate and who could have ever figured out to say it that way?
Within the Netherlands, there are many different dialects and a person in the South of the country often has difficulty understanding one from the North. And in Friesland, 1 of the 12 Provinces, located in the North, it’s really a different language. Some of my Amsterdam friends have trouble understanding a lot of the Frisia and it’s less than 100 miles away.
I fly KLM, the Royal Dutch Airlines, each time I visit. In Business Class, they give you a choice of a selection of Delft Blue miniature houses which are real copies of the gable houses alongside the canals in Amsterdam and other historical towns in Holland. This perk started in 1952 and this year is the 100th anniversary of KLM and Delft house #100 was offered on the flight over. It represents the official residence of the Dutch monarch in Den Haag built in 1645. A complete set is sold for 1,500 Euro. The KLM lounge in Schiphol has 2 walls consisting of all of the houses lined up making for an impressive display. I have a miniature collection now and although each is filled with the famous and only Young Dutch Bols Jenever, distilled by the Bols distilleries, i leave them in tact and have formed a small village with them at home.
There’s so much to love about the Dutch. They’re very resourceful and enjoy the simple things of life. Many are really just happy to stay put and enjoy life in their homeland or take a train to Belgium {a little less than an hour away} or vacation to other parts of Europe, again, mostly by train. A local Amsterdam friend told me he has never flown and I asked why and his response was “I have a bike”.
Learning Dutch is very difficult as the language is so different from English. It’s made harder since most of the Amsterdamers speak English fluently having learned it since early on in life. Often i receive an answer in English when I pose a question or make a statement in Dutch. One has to be careful when they speak in English because they often use a word that sounds like the intended word, but has a different meaning.
I learn more about the US when I visit there than I do when in the US. They stay tuned to all of the news, fake and otherwise. OTOH, I take a walk daily to explore small pockets of Amsterdam and relate some of the discoveries to my local friends and they reply, I know more about the city than they do. It’s like when someone comes to Santa Barbara, they tell me things about the local scene that I’m not aware of.
On my first visit to Amsterdam, 1996, I had a super strong sense of the feeling of freedom. It’s been with me each and every time since. It was only a few years ago when visiting the Amsterdam Museum that I learned that the city is actually entitled The City of Freedom.
Here I am, a passionate wine geek and when I go to Amsterdam, wine is transmuted into beer for me as I explore the numerous high quality Dutch and Belgium beers available.
OK, enough for now. I shall return.
Proost,
Blake
