It was another day of waking up with the sun, around 8:15 AM. Munroe headed off to the conference, while I hung around the hotel and did some work.
While I had wandered through the streets of De Pijp on the way to/from the metro, dinner, etc., I hadn't really explored it, so that was my goal for this morning. I headed out around 10:30 AM, which meant stores/cafes/bakeries were actually open.
I tried to capture the true size of one of the modern mini cars. That's what we would consider a "normal" size mini van, next to it. Even after wandering around here for 3 or 4 days now, I still chuckle every time one of these drives by. For more info, see YouTube.
I hadn't had much to eat, other than the usual ham/cheese croissant, so I popped into a grocery store to get something for lunch, later. The bakery and cheese sections were impressive. One of the odd things that stood out was American Filet.
After successfully navigating the self-checkout, with only a little assistance, I did a loop through the large street market. I had walked through some of it on previous mornings, but it hadn't been open yet on those days, so today I finally got to participate.
The market stretches for several blocks, and has at least two different vendors for everything one could possibly need: nearly every nationality of cuisine I've ever heard of (herring sandwich, anyone?), clothes, shoes, eyeglasses, toiletries, phone accessories, fish, chocolates, cheese, stroopwafel, luggage, souvenirs, pet supplies, rugs, home goods, watches, flowers, fruit, fabric, wigs, pillows, records, flags, purses, jewelry, and probably more that I forgot.
It was after noon by the time I finished perusing the market, so I sat on a bench and ate lunch while trying to decide what to do next. Serendipitously, Munroe had a few hours off from the conference, so I hopped on the metro and went to meet him at the convention center.
He hadn't seen the sun much this week, so was interested in a stroll through
Amstelpark. Coincidentally, it happened to be on the way to one of the windmills I didn't see yesterday, so we aimed for that.
We were puzzling over these dirt piles all over the park, until a fellow stroller enlightened us with the answer: molehills.
This windmill was also not open to visitors, of course, but it was by a lovely pond that had many squawking birds and some livestock browsing at the edge.
On our walk back through the park, we stopped to examine the floodwater-height indicator pole.
Google helpfully translated the plaque.
As I had already worked a bit in the morning, and Munroe had the afternoon free, I decided to go to the
Rijksmuseum with him and finished working later. We took the metro back to De Pijp, to rearrange bags/laptops/etc. at the hotel.
But first, Munroe needed lunch.
Mmmmmmm. Herring, raw onions, and pickle sandwich. 🤢
Around 2, we headed around the corner towards the museum. The decent weather had finally lost the battle, so we timed it well to spend a few hours in a museum while it was gray and drizzling.
Once we passed bag check and coat check, we started the "museum highlights" audio tour, using the iphone app.
Art museums aren't really my jam, but I made an exception for Rembrandt.
And paintings of windmills are almost as good as real windmills, anyway.
I also like ships, so this was a nice treat.
This was the museum library, which was quite stunning.
I forget the specifics of these flower-holder pagoda ceramics, but we concurred that the summary was "Dutch craftsmen were excellent forgers of Chinese porcelain".
I paused at the museum cafe to take a few zoom meetings (shoutout to
Eduroam) around 4 PM, then we continued the audio tour.
More windmills! And... narwhal horns/tusks? Zoom in and read that description...
There were also some extremely elaborate chess sets.
We had a few more minutes for another quick lap around the 3rd floor of the museum before it closed, then retreated again to the cafe for a beer. (The cafe and shop were open another hour, after the exhibits closed.) There's a
Vermeer exhibition starting tomorrow, and the cafe was on-theme already.
When they threw us out just before 6, we returned to the hotel to figure out evening plans. En route, we received dinner invitations from our third colleague and her sister (who was in town for a day or two), so we hoofed it deep into De Pijp for a lovely meal.
On our way back to the hotel around 8:30, we noticed an odd glow from some of the buildings across the canal. 🤔
It had been a bit of a late night, last night, and Munroe has another cold and dark morning walk to the conference tomorrow, so we turned in early tonight.
I'll probably head out and see some of the
Grachtengordel ("canal belt"?) tomorrow, then maybe see what everyone is up to in the afternoon. (I think the conference is over after lunch?)
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