Je zegt dat je niet langer van mij houdt..?

I will explain the title later.  I have just returned from a visit to Amsterdam to see another part of my family, my brother Andrew, his wife Laura and their little girl, Toni.  I stayed in their home in the hear of the Jordaan district overlooking the Brouwersgracht. This wasn't my first trip to Amsterdam but it was the first time I stayed in a family home and it made a difference to experience the city like a local, meeting the locals. I met some interesting people that I would never have met, a particular mention must be the two ladies who work in a coffee store on Haarlemmerstraat. The two ladies who work in there were funny, not a word of English was spoken but they told me and Andrew we looked nothing alike but we did have the same wrinkles! I bought a lovely Indonesian coffee that was darker than ebony and smells divine. I had to be careful talking about coffee shops as there is a huge difference between a coffee shop and a cafe.  

Coffee shops are the places people go to get stoned, there are a lot of them and they were busy, even at 10am.  It is one of the Amsterdam cultural experiences, like the red light district, that I can happily skip. I only spent a little time outside of Jordaan in places like the Westerpark with its restored industrial buildings, street food and loads of open spaces and play parks.

So I met my niece, Toni, for the first time and what a funny little lady she is. She speaks English, Dutch and Spanish so we had 2 languages to choose from and we chatted away in Spanish, English and my made up version of Dutch which made me laugh more than her.  Considering she is 3.5 and met me for the first time she wasn't shy and within minutes of me sitting down had me involved in her games.  It was lovely.  I got to practice my Spanish (and it needs regular practice) and I met and bonded with another relative, all good. My brother reminds me of my father but only in the good ways, he has the creativity and kindness and doesn't seem to resemble Terry in the ways that put people off.  We talked a lot about our childhood (not brought up together), and the fact we have only seen each other 5 or 6 times in our whole lives.  Something we will make up for as I am with our other brother, Dan.  Families and parenting are complex, ours is probably less complex than others and it is good to yet to know someone I didn't know as a child.

Back to Amsterdam, on this visit I ran into a person I knew from Madrid when I lived there in 2012.  He lives and works in Amsterdam now as a tour guide and I was fortunate to go on one of the touristy canal trips (Hop on Hop Off), it was a lot better by knowing the guide. I even got the best seat, by the skipper and this was fantastic.  

My only 'must' for this trip was a visit to the Rijksmuseum which we did on my final day. It is lovely building and contains some world famous art by the Dutch master as well as other from England, Belgium etc.  I saw the Van Goghs, the Rembrants and Vermeers but for the life of me I couldn't find any Dick Van Dyke paintings, I am sure they are in there somewhere.

I travelled to Amsterdam by Eurostar and the outbound journey was good and it was worth paying the extra E45 for premium economy, the journey is 4 hours and the service is good apart from Amsterdam Centraal not having platforms long enough for the trains.  The return is more complicated due to Amsterdam not having passport controls etc. You need to take an awful Thalys train to Brussels then run through Brussels Midi to find the Eurostar then go through passport controls and security (Schengen).  So door to door my return took 6 hours.   I'd do it again by train but probably only to Amsterdam then fly back (a 1 hour journey).

And as for the title of this post 'Je zegt dat je niet langer van mij houdt..? which means 'You say you no longer love me ..? is from a Dutch pop song I heard when I was there and though I though Dutch was not a song that suits romantic songs, this song works so I am posting it here as it will be the song of my trip (apart from the cool Italian songs from the 1950s and 60s I listened to at Andrew's place)

July 9th, 2019