Recently in Places to go Category

On Sunday we took a bike ride to Zeist. This is Slot Zeist:

 

We couldn't go on the guided tour of the Slot itself, being just 5c short of the amount we needed to get in, but we went instead into an exhibition of the work of Bernadien Sternheim being hosted by ING Bank. It was awesome! The exhibition hosted not only the work of Bernadien but also of some of her contemporaries and people who influenced her, and while we were there a docent came and gave a guided tour giving us the background on some of the pieces. I took two surreptitious photos, which I'm glad I did as I couldn' t find any of her work online.

This piece by Bernadien is entitled 'Getekend' which means 'Drawn'. Note the double meaning. I like the perfectionism in the way she paints.

 

This is a piece by Kik Zeiler, a contemporary, entitled 'Vaste Klanten' (Regulars). I love the pun in this.

 

I was captivated by her work although the pieces after she lost her husband are less bold and more spiritual.

Nearly forgot to mention I used my Sunday walks book to help guide us in where to go and there was a recommendation for coffee and cake in the Espresso Bar at Figi. Put shortly - the cake was a bit apathetic and the staff were worse. I asked the waitress what cakes she had and was told to go look in the cabinet! Then she answered me repeatedly in English when addressed in Dutch (which annoys me anyway!) So go to the Slot, but avoid Figi.

It was a nice day, a great bike ride, (and my legs still hurt now on Tuesday!) and a fantastic new artistic discovery.

It's been a while.

I'm writing something for an online expat journal, trying to work, kids are back to school and I visited the beautiful Heidelberg last weekend (and had Germany's Next Top Husband puke on my feet), so it's been a bit busy. Plus lots of email about gemsquash and recipes from my old blog, and still panicking about somewhere to live.

On Friday it was a special day for me & M, so I booked a loveseat arrangement at the Tuschinski theatre in Amsterdam. The Tuschinski theatre is really special. It was built in 1921 and is extravagantly art deco in style. Read it's history here.

The pulling point for me? You can pay extra for your tickets to be seated in a special booth with love seats, where you watch the movie while drinking champagne and eating snacks. Eat your heart out America - over here we have movies with booze!

Pity about the movie. Am I the only person on the planet who thought that it could have been at least an hour shorter? 152 minutes? Hello?

 

On the 8th we went to Heidelberg. 5 hours drive and a castle. What more could you want?

We ate too much at Vetter's on the first night and couldn't even try the beer and were too full to be naughty in our hotel room. We made up for it on the Saturday by almost being accosted by museum staff for inappropriate behaviour within an exhibit. Honestly, the way those staff came running you would think they'd never seen anyone snogging before. Bloody cameras everywhere!

We walked loads, drank lots of free samples in a brandy/liquer shop, saw the castle from all available angles, but were disappointed that the inside was only accessible by paying extra for the guided tour (although, maybe they have a point - see note re exhibit above). 

We walked up and down to the castle and it wasn't taxing at all - all the information on Heidelberg says you have to be fit for the walk? Don't buy a Heidelberg card - it's a waste of money. The Heidelberg one day card gives you entrance to the castle and discounts on some things, but all of them have caveats and the castle entrance price is cheaper than the cost of the card. Also found out that paying 50c to have a wee is not only a Dutch thing - a very tightlipped German fellow with a moustache was demanding 50c entry to the castle toilets.

On Saturday night we met Germany's Top Blogger for a fantastic meal out with her and her husband. After which we were both vomited on by the backpack-wearing friend of Germany's Next Top Husband.

On Sunday we drove back. 

Have a look here for a comprehensive guide.

(Yes, this entry is post dated - I was busy.)

Last night we went to the Rijksmuseum and just missed out on their picnic in the garden. You can buy a combi ticket for entry to the museum and a picnic basket but you have to ring ahead and reserve the basket. The music was fantastic but we were late so opted to go into the museum instead of sitting in the garden and listening. The next picnic in the garden is next week Friday, but next Friday I'll be in Heidelberg.

Another garden event is the Opera in the Garden at the Museum van Loon. My colleague was going on Thursday night when the weather was glorious. It is apparently sold out for tonight and tomorrow night, but what a lovely concept. The opera was Il Segreto di Susanna.

Earlier this week we went to Sal Gorda, a tapas bar in Amsterdam Zuid. It was good enough, but nowhere near fantastic. The food that was fresh was great but sadly, out of a choice of about 12 dishes only three were freshly made. The olives were nice, so was the bread, but the chicken wings in aioli were appalling and the meatballs in tomato sauce flavourless. The patatas bravas were good, but the sauce was far from spicy. The service was ok, made better by a very bouncy 20 year old and it was lovely sitting outside. I think if they paid more attention to not letting the food dry out before serving it they'd be much more successful.

Not in the evening, but also out - I went with the ex and kids to see Wall-E, which surprisingly has such glowing reviews all over the place. I found it to be long, and long-windedly moralistic. I enjoyed the message in an Inconvenient Truth. I suppose I'm just sick of kids' movies having to have a moral - can't they just be entertaining? Presto, the short film that's coupled with Wall-E was infinitely more entertaining.

I did a little motivational exercise recently where you make a 'tree' with the centre as what you want to achieve, like 'recapture happy moments' then with 'branches' off it for 'past', 'present', 'future considered' and 'future not considered'. I had forgotten how happy lying on the grass in the park made me feel, so I spent Thursday evening lying on the grass in the park. Perfect.

Making chilli beans on ciabatta for dinner. Watch this space. 

Did you know that the van Gogh museum has a late night opening on Fridays with music and drinks and all?

Now you do.

Did you know that you can have the best Thai I've ever had (outside of a tiny restaurant in Cape Town which I had discovered entirely by accident) in Amsterdam at The Bird?

Now you do.

The Zeedijk is a beautiful bit of Amsterdam I'd never visited before. The waiting line for The Bird was long, but moved really quickly and we were seated within about 10 minutes. The service is very very quick and professional, but maybe a little perfunctory.

The green curry was amazingly fragrant and the red was full of body.

Recommended ++.

 

Last weekend a friend who lives in Haarlem had a birthday party. A birthday party with lots of Polish vodka and many many mojitos. Good thing we decided to stay at Stempels just under the shadow of the church and around the corner from the Grote Markt.

It's a very charming hotel - Hastens beds, really nicely designed rooms, lovely showers and the sound of the church bells to wake you up in the morning. The only downside really was that they are a new hotel and so the attention to detail isn't quite what it could have been. The cutlery at breakfast was dirty and the breakfast room wasn't replenished properly. Breakfast is really important to the whole experience so I was a little disappointed. There really should have been someone there taking coffee and tea orders and making sure everything ran smoothly.

A couple of years ago I stayed in a hotel in London called the Georgian House Hotel which was cheap but not really that cheerful. However it had a wonderful breakfast that almost made up for the rooms being too hot and uncomfortable. They had lots of exchange student types working in the breakfast room, but the full English and hot coffee and tea was a winner. My mom runs a B&B and she says a good breakfast makes up for a lot of faults. I agree!

So we walked around Haarlem a bit hungover after all those mojitos and happened upon the Teyler's Museum. We have museum cards so it was free,  and although most of the collection was, well, not personally interesting (I hesitate to say boring), the Michelangelo drawings were fabulous. Then we sat in this cute cafe, called 't Teylertje and had carrot cake. Later we sat in Bagels and Beans and had bagels and a macchiato.

We shopped at America Today and their till broke and the teenagers working on shopping Sunday had no idea what to do. Later we sat down in another cafe called Brahms and Liszt which I learned is rhyming slang for what we were on Saturday night.

Oh, and the afternoon before the party we had icecream at Gelateria Bartoli. Oh my god. M had chocolate and caramel. I had lemon and a raspberry yoghurt sorbet. To die for. Must go back.

So, we ate and drank our way around Haarlem and very nice it was too.