Recently in Amsterdam Category

'But to you, I give my affection, right from the start.' -  Joan Armatrading, The Weakness in Me

The other day, when I was looking for Small World online, I found Underwater Amsterdam. Fab website, look at all these restaurants I can visit. Been to four on the list, de Bakkerswinkel, Bazar, 11 and of course Small World. Didn't like 11 at all! The food was overpriced and horrible. I was there for lunch when I went to the Andy Warhol exhibition and I wasn't impressed.

I liked Bazar, but I really need to go again to write a real review and of course, there are so many many others. Week before last I went to Vinomio. That was nice. An excuse to drink (and eat) because food goes with wine, or so they say. It's one of those 'be there to be seen' places, which kind of alarm me, and I didn't taste the food so I can't comment. Guess I might just have to go back and see if food really does go with wine. What do you think?

This weekend I went to Casa di David in Utrecht with a friend. Lovely lovely food, wonderful company. I had an amazing ravioli, can't remember what my friend had, but I know I wasn't sharing mine at all! It's in a beautiful location, just along the Oudegracht. To enter the restaurant you walk through thick velvet curtains which somehow makes you feel like you're entering some kind of medieval chamber. Very romantic. There's even a house cat who purred and wound herself around my legs when I went to the bathroom and then refused, haughtily, to come any closer to me after that.

I start work tomorrow. Expect abbreviation.

'Then sometimes again it seems that all I have is worry, and then you're bound to see my other side' - Cyndi Lauper, Don't let me be misunderstood.

While I was in Amsterdam on Friday I walked the Negen Straatjes and found Nieuws.

I love kitsch and in this shop there is so much kitsch. Heaven, really!

I bought Son #1 a paper robot kit for his birthday (which is tomorrow) and was so tempted to buy huge quantities of other kitschy stuff.

Considered buying this bag. Wanted one of these too, aren't they cute?

**You can find Nieuws at Prinsengracht 297, 1016 GX, Amsterdam or look at their website.

'They call me the wild rose...' - Nick Cave & PJ Harvey, Where the Wild Roses Grow

Yesterday, before lunch I went to see Millais at the van Gogh museum.

The poetry trail was a stroke of genius! You can listen and watch on the website, or you can download to your ipod and walk around the museum and actually look at the paintings and listen. The John Donne poem, The Autumnal, combined with the painting it inspired, Lingering Autumn, all golden brushstrokes made me gasp. This excerpt from the poem is famous, but no less beautiful for it's fame:

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace

         As I have seen in one autumnal face.

Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape,

         This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape.

If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame;

         Affection here takes reverence's name.

As usual, I liked the pieces that are not the main focus of the exhibition, like the sketches, more. There is a whole section of the exhibition devoted to the sketches and commercial illustrations of Millais. Once the poetry trail was finished I listened to Leonard Cohen and the music blended seamlessly with the pictures. His Take This Longing and The Eve of St Agnes together. 'Oh take this longing from my tongue'.

A century apart and yet emotionally so close.

'Another runs away' - Audioslave, Be Yourself

Oh my god, I died and went to heaven. I had the best coffee I've had in a million years and the most absolutely fucking amazing sandwiches I think I've ever eaten.

Spicy salami, grilled courgette and taleggio on ciabatta. D had turkey breast, bacon and mayo on focaccia and we shared half each.

The staff there are fabulous, it's like walking into someone's house and chatting with a very old friend. The carrot cake and muffins looked amazingly attractive. Good thing I have such steadfast willpower.

Absolutely brilliant. Do yourself a favour. GO!

Small World is at Binnen Oranjestraat 14, off the Harlemmemerstraat.

'You make me make me make me hungry again.' - The Cure, Why Can't I Be You?

Guess who found Jezebel.com. Guess who has subsequently been feeding herself a steady diet of celebrity gossip? (I'll give you a hint here.. it's not you.)

-------------------

Glad I'm not alone with the unwashed hair. Yes, really. It's once every few days here, and I get the best results washing with very little of my John Frieda stuff for curls, slicking it full of a Garnier wash-out masque, which you don't wash out (very important, that) and then taking myself into the sauna where it dries into beautiful curls. Otherwise it's just limp and flat and blah. Especially if I wash it too often. Often I skip the shampoo and just put the other stuff in, then I relaaaaaax and the heat does all the work.

----------------------

Went out last night to somewhere new: Bazar. Gorgeous, gorgeous. Had a huge table upstairs and ordered plates to share.  Download the menu and take a look. The ambience was great and so was the company.

(Interruption to address a reader directly: Yes yes, I know you read this blog so there are no hidden meanings in that specific sentence! Thanks for inviting me!)

The food was good and the bill was even better (23 euros each).  Afterwards we wandered around a bit. First to an Irish pub, on the godknowswhere, then a brown cafe also on the godknowswhere, (hey, great sense of direction I have) and finally a taxi home at 1.30 am. This Friday night thing is becoming a habit.

-----------------------

No, I am not back in the gym, yet. This is making me bitchy, bitchy bitchy. Also I want to sleep all the time, unsure of the connection there?

I did a training on Tuesday with one of the trainers who is much stronger and fitter than me (and a man). Old style condition training it's called. You use the other person as your resistance and then you do all kinds of funky things like lift a bench while the other person walks up it. And do pull-ups with the other person applying counter-weight. Oh my. Up until today I couldn't move my shoulders without squealing. I'm just a little bit recovered now. Enough to go and do it all over again. All those little muscle fibres just re-knitted and I'm about to go un-knit them again. My right ankle (with the shinsplints) is so swollen, I have a cankle!

-----------------

Did you know that you can buy things from Zara Home here in the Netherlands? Neither did I. Now we both do. I have a jones for this bedlinen. Maybe one day when I grow up.

--------------

Chloe did six things. I think I need to do six things too, 'cos I'm such a follower of fashion.

So here are my six:

1. I put things in my mouth all the time. Coffee spoons, my hair, my fingers, your fingers... uh. I'll stop now.
   
   
2. If there are Marie biscuits in my house I shouldn't drink tea. The two go together far too well, then before I know it I've eaten a whole packet. Dipped of course. Then I think of my hips and I mourn.
   
   
3. I'm funny when I have an audience. Cynical funny. To the 'ouch' degree, but only with native English speakers. Sorry native Dutch speakers, you lose. I should do improv.
   
   
4. I worked as a waitress in a vegan restaurant. Our only salary was the tips we made. My girlfriend (who was it again who worked with me, my memory is terrible?) and I used to wear hotpants under our frilly strawberry printed aprons and bend over suggestively to get more tips. She had bigger boobs so she'd lean forward and I had the better bum so I'd sidle in from the side to put the plates in front of the customers. The restaurant was tiny, with an open kitchen.
   
   We'd walk out of it in pairs, one plate in each hand, held just high enough to push our tits out and really make a statement. We found that working the tables with a two-sided approach worked perfectly. Eventually we had tables of businessmen completely captivated and the 100 dollar tips were rolling in. I'm pretty sure the entire business district of Harare was in our restaurant at one point or another.
   
   The middle-aged man can be a wonderful thing, when you're a hot teenager. Actually, almost being middle-aged myself, I have to say that the almost middle-aged man is a wonderful thing at any time.
   
   
5. Chloe mentioned her pistachio and pink phases. I had a red winter and I'm having a black and white summer. Where is the grey? Why is everything always so delineated? Grey is in this spring. The shops are full of it.
   
   
6. I have been married twice. Failure is a noun, but also an emotion.
   

-----------------

It's spring break. Crocus vakantie. What will we do? Lie around a lot I suspect. Drive all over I suspect. Today we're starting off well with a party.

Next Friday the kids have daycare for the day and I'm off for the day. Millais is waiting. Who wants to come with?

'And I have left the warmth of the sun and a million adventures not yet begun.' - Paolo Nutini, Northern Skies

Photo taken in the Amsterdamse Bos on the Bosbaan, today in the sunshine.

'All summer long we sang a song and strolled on golden sand' - Madeleine Peyroux, The Summer Wind

Amsterdam was so beautiful today. Clear from morning to evening. Vapour trails across the rose-tinted blue this morning at sunrise, 11 degrees celsius, people on terraces, coats open. People smiling and flirting in the tram, happy.

I was in the Bakkerswinkel for lunch with another writer. We were talking about how there is just more time in the tropics. Maybe it's the longer, more constant days (his theory) or that there's some kind of compensatory lilt in the earth's motion that unfairly gives the tropics more of the wonderful stuff (my theory).

How else can you explain the languidity of endless afternoons waiting for the 5 o'clock cocktail hour? Lying in bed under a humid-damp sheet, turning the pages of a book and literally watching the seconds pause? Also of course, that having more time gives you more time to dream up mischief. Then we discussed how almost all possible mischief in the tropics involves booze, drugs and sex. Oh, and water.

After I ran my 4 km for today, I walked across the parking lot from the gym to pick up my kids from daycare. Behind me, the sunset reflected in the buildings across the polder creating myriads of red flashes along the horizon.

A hundred setting suns repeating over and over and over.

'Caroline talks to you softly sometimes, she says 'I love you' and 'Too much' .  She doesn't have anything you want to steal well nothing you can touch' - The Psychedelic Furs, Pretty in Pink

I have tickets to see the Plain White T's live at the Melkweg tonight. I thought it was tomorrow night ... Imagine the disappointment I would have felt if I had turned up tomorrow night?

'Sorry mevrouw, it was yesterday.' D'oh!

The Plain White T's are like listening to the Breakfast Club and all those other John Hughes' movies.

Which movie was your favourite, of the John Hughes' movies? I think mine are Ferris Bueller's Day Off, followed by Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles.  Oh, and another one .. Some Kind of Wonderful!

I had such a crush on Mary Stuart Masterson and one on Ally Sheedy too.. she was so vulnerable and odd. Watched her recently in High Art and it's odd to see how she's become a grownup. Huge crush on Judd Nelson too.. ooooh. Mostly I just wanted to be one of those people. Kind of weird to look back now.

I can remember watching these movies on bootlegged videos from the video store in the dustbowl of a town I grew up in, lying flat on my back on the tweed covered couch in my parent's lounge during school holidays. In between I'd look in the mirror , examine my flaws (which didn't really exist back then, what was I thinking?) and wonder if I could be like Molly or Ally or Mary. We kept the videos for a week. The farm was remote and trips to town were few. So I'd watch and watch and rewatch, and mirror my own teenage heartbreak in the characters on the screen.
 
But the one I loved the most? The 80's movie that makes me go all teenagery still?

St Elmo's Fire, and listen to the love theme here....

Sometimes I am not 34 at all, I'm really just an adolescent!

Which is why I like this alternative Pretty in Pink trailer someone made, with a really cool subtext. Go watch.

So back to the Plain White T's - they're so young and enthusiastic and sing all about broken hearts. What's not to like? 

Especially if you get there on the right day.

'I''ve been looking so long at these pictures of you that i almost believe that they're real' - The Cure, Pictures of You

How adolescent of me. Don't laugh.

So, it's Saturday. Way-hey.

This week has been kind of crappy, despite the horoscope predictions of a fabulous week. Monday was good.

I spent some time working out on Monday evening and the company was fab. That just happens sometimes, you know? 

Thursday was good too, it was Ms Blonde But Bright's birthday drinks. I drove with Citizen Stu to Leiden and we had a little mini-blogger meet in amongst all the real people. Thanks J!

I got lost on the A2 driving Stu back home because I was talking too much, but it was fun. Stu, let's get lost again together sometime.

In retrospect it hasn't been crappy at all. The only aspect that's been crappy is money.

The loss of it, the not having it.

Oh well.

--------

Saturday seems to be the day when I collect all my uncollected thoughts and put them in one place. Here's one - how odd it is that I can read enough German and French to order from various online shops? Linguistic shopping abilities - chalk up 110% for Ash. Real life German and French skills? Uh.

Here's another: Tamara-the-uber-trainer told me today that people find it difficult to step over the threshold and get themselves into a gym because once inside you are confronted with yourself.

Not only the physical shortcomings, but the mental ones too, determination and drive, fear of failure. I never thought of it that way but it's true. Every time you walk in you make a choice. I guess I'm not so bad at making choices after all.

---------

The online shopping I did was at amazon.de. I bought a whole heap of books. Carol Ann Duffy's Rapture, The New Rules of Lifting for Women, Tim Winton's Cloudstreet and Henry & June, Anais Nin.

Don't try and find any connection between any of the books on the list. Unless I'm bodybuilding to find rapture on Cloudstreet using Anais Nin as my guidebook?

--------

I trained so hard today that I thought my nose might bleed. Unrelated to that: coconut really is the best flavour of protein powder.

--------

The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl came! (Addressing Shauna directly) Woweeeeee babe! You are so hot! I had never gone through your whole blog before because I only started reading about a year ago but so much of what you say in the book is my story too. I could tell you all the similarities but that would be boring. Instead I'm just going to say thank you so much for sharing what you have to say! Big hugs!

(Addressing the rest of you lot again) Go and buy Shauna's book. Even if you're not trying to lose weight, not struggling with an eating disorder, even if you're a man and you think it's a girly book. She's side-splittingly funny, she has a perspective on life that is guaranteed to be different from your own, she comes from a time and place very much like mine. Oh, and I'm telling you to. So shoo! Go!

-------

Last Sunday evening I went with my girlfriend T to the possibly-ultra-hip&happening Panama. I say 'possibly' because these places are not usually hip once someone tells someone else that they're hip. Know what I mean?

We went to watch Xandra van Rossem, a friend of T's who I had met once before at a different concert, sing at Jazz it Up.

I was completely speechless. She is breathtaking. I can't remember what she sang now, but the atmosphere was amazing and her voice is piercingly clear, yet surprisingly warm.

The club felt so 1930s. The piano and a barstool for the singer in the centre of the room, beanbags and low stools arranged all around, tables and chairs at the outside. The fake fog swirled, the conversation flowed, the jazz types were there in their hats and suits. Couples kissing on the beanbags while Xandra sang.

It felt glamorous and grownup. I could see myself in a cocktail dress, stocking-clad legs crossed demurely at the ankle, lipsticked mouth neatly sipping from my glass while I sat across the table from my partner in crime who carefully leaned forward to light my cigarette.

To listen to Xandra you need to click this link, then choose Nederlands (the English version isn't done yet), choose music, scroll down and listen to my favourite, Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Ah.

-----------

A photo of mine was used for Schmap!  Cool beans, huh? It looks like a cute application. In the summer I plan to photograph more. You can trawl  through Amsterdam's Schmap yourself to find the photo.

Other great photography that I came across this week is from Xelia. Go see. Take heed, flickr will ask you if you want to go back to the kittens. 'Tis all I'm saying. Beautiful photography. I love it.

-----------

I rejoined the Daring Bakers. I will be daringly baking tomorrow. Anyone want some? Come over around 4. Phone first please, let me know you're coming. I wouldn't want to be surprised.

And that ends Saturday's long, languid post. Long and languid is the best kind, right?
 

'It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you' - Toto, Africa (also immortalised by SAB in a Castle beer advertisement)

Turn up your sound, I had trouble balancing it.