European street music project

In celebration of today's internet installation in my apartment, I can finally upload and share the clips of music performances (mostly street musicians) I've collected started since arriving in Amsterdam.  Enjoy!

Amsterdam Centraal Station, 9/6/14:
http://youtu.be/beS_2-E4lXs

Bruges, Belgium, 9/12/14:
http://youtu.be/RTF_CiZKOFk

Sacre-Coeur, Paris, 9/19/14:
http://youtu.be/O76nWMUY5Lc

Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, 9/21/14 (L'été from Vivaldi's 4 Saisons):
http://youtu.be/YRhXsaiQ3Aw

A random moment à la Roche-sur-Yon involving a truck carrying a band dressed in neon yellow and a handful of traditionally-dressed chefs, 9/27/14:
http://youtu.be/24rK-_5IGfs

Water dancers + classical music + hip hop music au Festival Météores, la Roche-sur-Yon, 9/27/14:
http://youtu.be/lBDzN3BsaQk

"Paris reminds me a lot of L.A."

I have never had much luck with hostels in Paris, and this time was, at first, no different.  Since I initially wasn't sure if I'd stay all weekend in Paris or go somewhere else, I only booked two nights at a place near the Louvre.  Like many Paris hostels, it was rather dingy and cramped...but most worrying was its lack of proper lockers.  While I can definitely rough it for a few nights, I've been carrying my flute with me during this trip and I really have to make sure I have a safe place to store it when I'm out for the day.  The only lockers available were in the lobby and looked like they could disintegrate if you brushed them while walking past, but as they were the securest option, I grudgingly used them.

I shared a room with five other Americans - college-age students on some kind of cruise ship tour of Europe.  They had also just arrived in Paris and were a rather entertaining bunch; the title of this post is a quote from the most astute of the group.  Another gem was, "Oh, God, I'm so glad you're normal" (when they discovered that I was also American).

I have an agenda of things that I always have to do and eat in Paris:  I did the usual picnic by la Tour Eiffel at sunset, hike to Place Monge for my panini and nutella crêpe from my favorite vendor, pain au chocolat and people-watching in the Jardin du Luxembourg...  But this time, I was lucky to have five days and plenty of time to relax and discover new things.  I took advantage of the sketchy hostel's location and spent a day near the Tuileries, where I visited two new museums on the west end of the gardens.  Le Musée de l'Orangerie holds Monet's les Nymphéas as well as an impressive collection of impressionist paintings; I recommend it.  Just north of that is the Jeu de Paume, which had a couple of more modern, philosophical artist exhibits.  I enjoyed seeing Kati Horna's photography, but the other two exhibits were rather bizarre.  I read the French descriptions; I looked at the artwork; I didn't understand; I read the English descriptions; I looked at the artwork; I still didn't understand.  At the very least, I collected a lot of new French vocabulary for mon petit cahier (my little notebook).

View from my hostel

View from the top of Sacre-Coeur

The next day, I switched to a new hostel in Montmartre.  When I arrived, I felt like I'd won the lottery - it was clean; small, but not cramped; my room opened onto a nice terrace with a view of Sacre-Coeur; there were free, secure storage lockers right in my room.  The Village Hostel in Montmartre: my official Paris hostel recommendation.  I took advantage of the opportunity to spend a day in Montmartre; there are many cobblestone streets and shops and restaurants to explore.  (You'll also get an unavoidable workout walking up and down the hill.)  If you walk about twenty minutes behind Sacre-Coeur, you'll find a less-touristy neighborhood with espresso for under two Euros.  My favorite new adventure was climbing to the top of the Dom of Sacre-Coeur; I went mid-morning to get a stunning view of all of Paris.  The steps were much sturdier and less scary than those in Delft.

That weekend, les Journées européennes de la Patrimoine were happening - a celebration of European heritage, which means that in every city, for one weekend, nearly all museums and national monuments have free admission.  (It also meant that Paris was extremely busy and there were long lines for everything.)  I did go to and enjoy Musée Cluny, a collection of art and artifacts from Paris and the surrounding area during the Middle Ages.  Many of les sculptures, les tapisseries (tapestries), et les vitraux (stained glass windows) are worn or broken, but the museum holds the famous Dame à la Licorne tapestries, a series of six impressive tapestries made in the 1400s that show the five sense (le toucher, le goût, l'odorat, l'ouïe, et la vue) plus one extra: mon seul désir (my only desire).

My favorite part of les Journées de la Patrimoine was a free Saturday evening concert I came across by accident.  I attended the récital inaugural des grandes orgues restaurées de Notre-Dame de Paris.  Notre-Dame's organ has been undergoing restoration for about two and a half years; aside from a short period in July of 2013, when it was used to celebrate Notre-Dame's 850th birthday, it hasn't been played.  The sound of the organ, which has been my favorite sound in the world since I first heard it while studying abroad, returned to the cathedral for the first time Saturday evening.  Three major organists played, all official organistes titulaires (tenured organists) of Notre-Dame: Jean-Pierre Leguay, Olivier Latry, and Philippe Lefebvre.  Lefebvre is a legendary improviser who teaches improvisation courses at the Conservatoire de Paris; his final improvisation was truly one of the most incredible musical moments I've ever heard.  Beyond the music itself, people-watching at concerts in Europe is truly an experience in itself.  Notre-Dame was packed with people that evening: every seat was filled and people of all ages were standing in the halls and sitting in the aisles.  You could tell that the récital meant a lot to some who couldn't seem to wipe the smiles off their faces throughout the program and even after the final chords sounded.  The following clip is the end of a the classic Bach Prelude et fugue en ut mineur played by Leguay:

http://youtu.be/A3ZSv6G-VEs

If that wasn't enough excitement, I decided to get a ticket to a Sunday evening small string ensemble concert at Sainte-Chapelle, a smaller chapel not far from Notre-Dame which is known for its incredible vitraux.  If you want to see Sainte-Chapelle, I really recommend going for a classical music concert there.  You get to sit, relax, enjoy the music, and spend time slowly admiring the stained glass windows.  The l'Orchestre Classik Ensemble's music was incredible smooth and skillful, and they really put on a show, moving around the altar (and sometimes running around the chapel) as they played and interacting with each other.  The highlighted piece of the evening was Vivaldi's 4 Saisons, but this is a bit of their rendition of Pachelbel's Canon that opened the performance:

http://youtu.be/-C0DgAJhEoY

The final highlight of the Paris adventure was visiting Edith, another friend from the CELTA who works for Disneyland Paris, and her family for Sunday lunch.  She lives in Torcy, a suburb of Paris accessible by a forty-minute train ride.  It was a nice afternoon seeing her and her husband, David (who visited Strasbourg last summer) and meeting their two kids and cat, Kiwi, while speaking a lot of French.

Vieux amis, nouveaux mots

My first days in France were probably my favorites of this adventure so far.  Last Sunday, I took the train from Liège to Brussels to Paris, where I had to take two different Métro lines and sprint through three stations and across the Bercy neighborhood to a smaller station to catch a train to Nevers.  (I made it in record time and didn't get my suitcase stuck in a single turnstile.)  Two hours later, I arrived to a very warm bienvenue from mes amis Lise and Christophe, who were my hosts last summer in Strasbourg.  Christophe has worked in Nevers on weekdays for a few years now, but since it's a five-hour train from Strasbourg and they were only able to see each other on the weekends, Lise moved to join him last spring.

It's strange to think that, a few months before the CELTA, I randomly picked Lise and Christophe off of a list of possible housing choices.  They've turned out to be two of the most wonderful people I've met in France - genuine, easy-going, friendly, and curious; they turn simple outings like museum visits or walks along the Loire turn into lively adventures.  At my request, they wholeheartedly agreed to put me through three days of French immersion boot camp.  Lise's strong Alsatian accent presented the most difficulties for me, paired with her always-poetic prose, but my listening and speaking had become much more fluid by the time I left Wednesday.  French grammar has been coming back to me quickly, but vocabulary is a different story; I've been collecting new and forgotten words in a notebook.  I've gained some interesting and technical words from visits to museums and churches.  Lise and I had an excellent time trying to use some of these words in conversation after she helped me to understand the definition:

un plat à barbe - shaving plate
les voûtes en berceau - a type of arches often found in Roman and Gothic churches
truculent - eccentric, colorful, original (as in a personality)

La Faïence

Nevers is a small but charming town on the Loire, two hours south an a tiny bit east of Paris.  As Christophe explained to me, it is en décline economically; lots of shops have closed in recent years and people have moved away.  Nevers' main industry and claim to fame is la faïence (earthenware pottery painted in white, blue, green, yellow, and brownish purple).  In the 1600s, the town was full of pottery ateliers and vendors which were popular with upper-class customers.  Eventually, pottery from England rose in popularity and drove most of Nevers' pottery makers out of business; there used to be hundreds of ateliers, and now there are only five left in the town.  As a result of the poor economy, you will come across many disgruntled and pessimistic people in Nevers.  Lise and I met a man working at the Musée de la Faïence who seemed hate everything from Nevers to Paris to Obama to François Hollande.  He asked me to marry him and I declined on the grounds that he thought that Denver was north of Minnesota, among other reasons.

View from the apartment; Palais ducal de Nevers

Nevers is also home to the oldest château in the Loire Valley, le Palais ducal, which I could see from my window at the apartment.  Built in the 15th century, it was home to much royal drama during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance; I found it impossible to keep track of who married whom and who was exiled and whose children inherited what.  Le Palais was restored in the 1980s and now includes the tourist office, a small museum with information about Nevers and its history, and an aquarium where you can learn about all the fish of the Loire river.

Also well worth a visit is la Cathédrale Saint-Cyr-et-Sainte-Julitte, to continue with my theme of beautiful buildings that were destroyed in wars and are still undergoing restoration.  In the summer of 1944, the cathedral was accidentally hit and almost completely destroyed by an overnight airstrike.  Most of les vitraux (stained glass windows) have now been replaced by four different artists, and the result is absolutely stunning if you visit mid- to late-afternoon.


The best part of Nevers was spending time chez Lise et Christophe et leur chat (their cat) Vodka, who's grumpy as ever and still hates me.  Lise cooked excellent meals; she even made delicious escargots for me when I said I'd never tried them.  (It took me a few tries to get the technique down - I accidentally flung one poor escargot across the room, like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman - but I perfected my skills!)  There's a jazz festival in Nevers in November, and I'm hoping to visit again then - there's a train connection between Nantes and Nevers in the city of Tours, so I can travel between the towns without sprinting through Paris.  And Christophe insists I have to try frog legs next time.

Un beau jour à Bruges

On Friday, I set aside the day for a solo mini-adventure.  I researched Antwerp, Bruges, Gent, and Brussels before deciding to head all the way across the country (which is only a two-hour train ride) to Bruges.

Bruges is a small, picturesque town - a good place to relax, wander, and enjoy the ambiance.  Canals and forty-some bridges circle the city centre.  Near the train station, there's a beautiful monastery, park, and lake complete with a plethora of ducks and more swans than I've ever seen in one place.  The square in the city centre is enclosed by a handful of huge, elegant buildings - a museum, the Stadhuis, and many cafés and restaurants.

The greater part of the day was spent wandering the cobblestone streets, admiring, and people-watching.  The only drawback to Bruges is that it's buzzing with clones upon clones of the stereotypical tourist, complete with fanny pack, camera and neckstrap, and always with city map in hand.  If you can get past that, and maybe find some quieter, less-traveled streets, the buildings and shops are wonderful to peruse.  I did take a canal tour just for kicks, although I didn't see much that I hadn't already seen on foot (the only difference was being on a boat with thirty other people and a driver/tour guide who cracked relentless terrible jokes).  It was worth enduring the bad jokes, though, because you get to listen to the tour guides speak five or six languages fluently.  They ask you what language you prefer when you get on the boat, and they rotate through all languages as they give the tour; our boat heard everything in English, Italian, and German.

Another must-see in Bruges is the Église Notre-Dame (Church of Our Lady), which houses la Vierge à l'Enfant (Madonna and Child) sculpture by Michelangelo.  It was made around 1504, and the sculpture is one of the few by Michelangelo that are located outside of Italy.  The church also owns a handful of paintings that are on display, and there's a small but pretty garden area and canal behind the church.

For dinner, I had an amazing dish of carbonnade flamande (beef stew) with applesauce.  My other adventure was visiting a shop called the Chocolate Line, which was featured on a cooking show called the Hairy Bikers.  The Chocolate Line is known for bizarre chocolate flavors, like grass and one that numbs your mouth.  I discovered that these are used mainly for demonstrations, but I did pick up a variety of flavors like apple vinegar, lemongrass, and passion fruit.  We sampled them after dinner the next night in Liège and they were incredibly flavorful; they outshone even Godiva.

On Saturday, my last night in Liège, Mary and Bruce had their neighbors (a Belgian couple, Daniel and Isabelle and their son, who's around Joseph's age) over for dinner.  They were excellent company and we all had a blast; we even tricked Daniel into trying some caca coffee after dinner...which, he admitted in the end, was not bad.  The experience was also a crash course in French for me as everyone spoke very quickly and wittily while I attempted to cling on and follow the conversation.  For five straight hours, it was exhausting, but it was the first step in jogging my memory and forcing me to think in French again, just in time for me to travel south into France.

"Can I get you a caca coffee, straight from a weasel's - ?"

That was my warm welcome to the city of Liège, Belgium.  After traveling solo through the Netherlands for a few days, it was wonderful to see a familiar face.  I stayed with Mary, a friend from last summer's CELTA days.  Mary teachers English at the Université de Liège and her husband, Bruce, is the principal horn player for l'Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège.  They're both American, but have lived in Belgium for twenty years.  I also met their children, Joseph (who's in high school) and Lys (middle school), their dog Hope, and cat Fleur.

The "caca coffee" is an interesting side note: it's actually an Indonesian coffee called Kopi Luwak, made from coffee beans that are first eaten, partially digested, and excreted by a weasel-like animal (a luwak, in Indonesian).  It's surprisingly smooth with hints of chocolate and hazelnut; chalk-full of caffeine; and it'll cost you about $30 per cup.  Mary got it as a gift from a Vietnamese student.

On the train from Rotterdam, I enjoyed watching the Dutch landscape melt away into Belgian countryside and cities.  Most signs in Belgium are written in both Dutch and French, but it's helpful to be able to recognize both the Dutch and French names of cities; it took a few baffling moments before I realized that Luik is the Dutch name for Liège, and I was therefore thankfully on the correct train.  I had only a slight moment of panic when I had to make a quick connection in Brussels; I simultaneously forgot the French word for "platform" and the Dutch phrase for "which".  The woman at the ticket counter just looked at me curiously when I spit out, "C'est à quel spoor?" in an American accent.

The Université and Philharmonique haven't started yet for the year, so Mary and Bruce took turns showing me around the city.  Liège has quite the extensive history; it was especially important during WWI, and this year being the hundredth anniversary of the war, there were several exhibitions on the subject throughout the city.  Because of its central location between the Netherlands, France, and Germany, Belgium was caught in the middle of much of the fighting during the world wars.  During WWI, Germany used Belgium as a means to reach and occupy France, and the process of taking control of Liège was particularly brutal.  After several battles, during which the Liègeois resisted relentlessly, around 5,500 civilians were killed in total.  Because of the world war history, you can find many people in this part of Belgium who are very friendly to Americans.

In fact, they're still rebuilding and repairing damage from WWII; as a result, the city has a true mix of historic and modern architecture.  In the churches, for example, it's difficult to find original stained glass window panels (and those remaining are usually in pretty bad shape), so you may see ancient stained glass next to a modern window designed by a twentieth-century artist.  Even more common are half-finished windows - they're in the process of replacing each panel one by one as they find the money (bottom right photo, taken in the cathedral).  The unfinished panels are just clear glass.  The top right photo shows the ceiling of another church, Saint-Jacques, which has a much different feel:  It was restored using Gothic, Rococo, and Romanesque elements, the effect of which is a rather rustic ambiance.  The church pictured on the left, Saint-Barthélemy, is now nicely restored due to a chunk of money from the Roman Catholic church.

Saint-Barthélemy's claim to fame is its baptismal font, known as one of the "seven wonders of Belgium" (pictured on the top center).  It was created sometime during the twelfth century by a goldsmith named Renier, who used a technique of wax-melting that was beyond revolutionary at the time.  The baptismal scenes featured on the font are incredibly intricate.  Liège is lucky to still have the font; it was originally made for a church called Notre-Dame-aux-Fonts, which was demolished by French revolutionists in the late 1700s.  The people of Liège hid the font (although the original lid disappeared), and about ten years later, it was safe to move it to Saint-Barthélemy.

Le perron; la Montagne de Bueren;
le Palais des Princes-Évêques

Another piece with some interesting history is le perron, a stone column near the main market square (top left photo).  It's considered one of the most precious pieces of architecture and history in Liège.  In the 1400s, the Duke of Burgundy captured the city and moved the perron across the country to Bruges to punish the people of Liège.  It was returned after his death.  There were several other times throughout history that the perron was dismantled and hidden by the Liègeois for safekeeping; during WWII, for example, the Germans' attempts to steal it were unsuccessful.  It's not elegant by any means and it's in very rough shape from the many periods of destruction in Liège's history, but it's a special symbol of local autonomy and freedom.

There are many, many more historical monuments and stories in the city from every era of history.  A lot of history from the Middle Ages and Renaissance have to do with power struggles between princes and the church; it all gets very complicated, but you can still find remnants everywhere.

Mary took me to the Restaurant Nanesse near le centre-ville for lunch to try some specialties of Liège.  The city is known for its peket, or gin; they like to experiment with a variety of edgy flavors.  I was skeptical, but ultimately impressed with my peket fruit des bois (fruit of the woods).  The main course was boulets-frites (meatballs and fries) with gravy sweetened by apples and pears.

There was one other famous specialty left to try in Liège, which brings me to my first French Mot du Jour (Word of the Day):
le gaufre - waffle

And, for good measure:
le gaufre à la cannele - cinnamon waffle

Sterker door strijd

Dutch Phrase of the Day
Sterker door strijd - "Stronger by struggle"
Also, the motto of the next city on my itinerary, Rotterdam.

Rotterdam Centraal Station

I spent the next two nights in the "Gateway to Europe", a nickname that came from Rotterdam's position as a major international commercial centre.  The city is the largest port in Europe, was the busiest port in the world until 2004, and sits on the delta formed by the Rhine and Meuse rivers on the North Sea.  These rivers then travel into Europe, straight to the industrial Ruhr region of Germany.

View from Rotterdam looking over the river

Rotterdam is also known for its strikingly harsh and edgy modern architecture.  Several of these buildings gave me the chills; they were massive, intimidating, isolated, and inhuman-looking.  Both amazing and creepy.  Adding to this effect is the fact that only a few areas of the city seem to bustle with people.  The rest is industrial, a little run-down at ground level, and eerily quiet.

One of the more intriguing pieces of architecture are the "cube houses" on Overblaak Street.  They stretch over the street and then onto a building near the port.  It's difficult to grasp the shape of the structure; I had to walk around the area a few times to figure out how it was laid out.  I assume there's a horizontal floor in each cube, but I keep picturing all the furniture and inhabitants of the houses sliding down into the bottom middle point.

Cube houses

Stroopwafel

I was lucky to be in Rotterdam on a Tuesday, because there was a market in Binnenrotte, the largest market square in the Netherlands.  The only downside is that the market is infested with pickpockets (like many large markets in Europe).  Being a port city, they had several fresh fish stands, as well as cheese, fruit, vegetables, clothes, and just about anything you can imagine.  Some fresh fruit and stroopwafel made for a wonderful breakfast.  Stroopwafel is two very thin, chewy waffles with something like caramel syrup in between.  Delicious.

The other great part of Rotterdam was actually my hostel, which was called King Kong.  It was very inexpensive and had excellent reviews online, so I decided to give it a try.  King Kong is probably the most impeccably clean hostel I've ever stayed in; the walls and beds were white, the bathrooms modern, and the floors wooden - they were trying for kind of a "modern jungle" ambiance.  The best part was upstairs where my room was located; in the common area, knotted ropes hung from the ceiling for people to swing on...you know, in case you really wanted to get into King Kong character.  They called it the "gym".

Girl with a Pearl Earring

On Monday, the stars aligned.  Wanting to branch out from Amsterdam, I decided to head south along the western part of the country.  The Netherlands is very small, so after only forty minutes on the train, I was in Zuid-Holland (south Holland), the country's most densely-populated province.  I was drawn by a small town called Delft.

Just before leaving my hostel in Amsterdam, it occurred to me that the day was not going to be all fun and games if I had to drag my suitcase around more cobblestone streets - my shoulder socket may not have made it.  After some quick Googling in the hostel lobby, I discovered from other travelers commenting on travel forums that the Delft train station was under construction and the luggage lockers were temporarily removed.  I'd never used luggage lockers before and was a little wary, but I took the advice of a random stranger on the internet and bought a train ticket instead to locker-equipped Den Haag HS instead.  This station, though not the main station in Den Haag, is about seven minutes from Delft.  Luckily, I had had to get a small backpack in Amsterdam (the peanut butter wouldn't fit in my suitcase) - even though the lockers looked secure, I felt better being able to carry my laptop, flute, and visa documents with me.

Suitcase-free, under a brilliant blue sky, I headed to Delft, which I fell in love with instantly.  Once I navigated past the train station construction zone, I entered a maze of narrow cobblestone streets and canals (some green with algae).  The town was quiet and calm, just waking up around eleven in the morning.  I wove my way to the city centre, which is a large courtyard with the Stadhuis (city hall) on one end and the Nieuwe Kerk (new church) on the other; they're connected by rows of small cafés and shops on either side.  The Oude Kerk (old church) is just a few blocks away.

Delft has an incredible history, much of it dealing with the two churches.  I went first to the Nieuwe Kerk, whose tower is the second-highest in the Netherlands after the Domtoren in Utrecht.  Nieuwe Kerk also houses the crypt where William the Orange is entombed as well as several other royals of the House of Orange-Nassau.  (William the Orange was an influential leader of the rebellion against Spanish persecution of Dutch Protestants in the 1500s.  He was assassinated in Delft in 1584.  The first letter of each of the Dutch national anthem's fifteen verses - yes, fifteen - spell out 'WILLEM VAN NASSOV' in his honor...but they usually only sing the first and sixth verses.)  His intricate marble tomb is on the UNESCO world heritage list.

Interestingly, Nieuwe Kerk was initially created because, the story says, a handful of people living in Delft in the 1400s saw visions of a church that would not go away until eventually the initial wooden church was built.  Since the permanent building was erected, it has been destroyed three times:  Once by fire, once because of iconoclasm which destroyed anything Roman-Catholic, and once by gunpowder explosion.  The tower of the current church was blackened by a chemical reaction in the stone used to build it, and according to the brochure, "there's no use cleaning it".

Nieuwe Kerk

After looking around the church, I decided to go up to the top of the tower, which turned out to be a terrible decision.  I've climbed several European church towers through small, cramped circular stairways, but none were as terrifying as this one.  The more than three hundred steps were mostly worn, slippery, unevenly-spaced wooden planks; there were often breaks where the handrails mysteriously disappeared for awhile and there was nothing to hang on to; there was only one staircase to go up and down, so when you met someone going the opposite direction, it was a very awkward game of climbing over each other and trying not to fall.  Even at the top, the passage circling the tower itself was incredibly narrow.  There's no way this passage would have passed code in the U.S.  I met a couple at the top; as I was taking pictures with my phone, the man said, "Oh, you also didn't think to get a wrist strap?"  It would have been too easy for an unsecured phone or camera to plummet over the edge.  The sign at the entrance boasted a "60-person max" for the tower; I can't honestly see how sixty would have fit.

Stadhuis on the bottom left; Oude Kerk on the top right.

With my feet safely on the ground again, I went in search of another piece of history connected with Delft:  The incredible painter Johannes Vermeer, who spent most of his life in Delft and Den Haag.  There is an excellent museum dedicated to him on a street just off the city centre, which has in-depth information about his lifetime of paintings (a small collection compared with most artists).  Vermeer is famous for his mastery of the usage of light in his paintings - the techniques he used are very mathematical.  The museum doesn't hold any of his original works, though, and I wondered where I could find his most famous painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring.  This masterpiece is what the Dutch call a tronie - a painting of a head that is not meant to be a portrait; the subject herself is a mystery.

For the rest of the afternoon, I did more wandering, finding the oldest bridge in the city (built in the 1400s) along the river and browsing Delft's famous blue-painted pottery.  After school let out, kids and families could be seen biking serenely around the city.  When I sat down to lunch, I looked up the Girl with a Pearl Earring, and found that it was housed in none other than the city in which I'd left my luggage:  Den Haag.  Eager to get there before the Mauritshuis museum closed, I peeked into the Oude Kerk (the burial location of many historical figures, including Vermeer himself and Anton van Leeuwenhoek, the famous scientist) and then hopped on a train back to Den Haag.

Den Haag is the political center of the Netherlands, the seat of the Dutch government and parliament, though Amsterdam is technically the capital.  Although the HS train station isn't in the loveliest part of town, the Mauritshuis art museum is about a fifteen-minute walk away in an upscale area.  The museum itself is a beautiful, classy building with a small but excellent selection of paintings.  It was well worth the extra dash into the city...and Vermeer's famous painting is just as mysterious and intriguing as everyone claims.  The background of the painting was originally a dark green, which wore away eventually.  In the museum, it's displayed on a green wall so that you can almost see the colors that would have been reflected when it was first painted.

At the end of the day, I retrieved my luggage safe and sound in Den Haag HS and jumped on a train to Rotterdam.  It's worth noting that, before leaving Amsterdam, I worried about not being able to speak Dutch in smaller towns.  I can recognize several Dutch words at this point and can guess at the meanings of many more, but I'm not familiar with the pronunciation and certainly can't hold a conversation.  Besides being extremely friendly, curious, and helpful, I've found that the Dutch also speak impeccable English, and not only servers and museum workers - anyone you meet on the street can easily switch into English when they realize that's the language you speak.

Mijn luchtkussenboot zit vol paling.

Dutch Word of the Day
toegang - entry, portal, admission
For example, "Look at all the fun toegang surcharges on my ticket" or "Don't climb on the pulpit - the sign says geen toegang ("no admission")!"

Amsterdam is its own unique circus.  It wakes up very slowly in the mornings, so anytime before eleven is a perfect opportunity to wander through the streets and canals and really notice the architecture and style of the city.  It's also a good time to bike freely (but not a good time for a coffee prowl, as most cafés are just opening up).  As the day progresses, more and more energy has to go into not running into anything and not getting run over by anything.

Magere Brug

Besides the peanut butter adventure, one of my favorite parts was seeing the Magere Brug, which translates to "skinny bridge".  It's the third bridge to be built over the river Amstel in that spot; the original was created in 1691 and was demolished and rebuilt twice.  It wasn't until 1994 that they stopped opening the bridge by hand to let boats through and made it automatic.

The area surrounding the Magere Brug is fantastic.  Every spot near the river had something going on.  There was even a Greek Fest where I got a fresh fill of 'Opa!'s.  The September weather is absolutely perfect for walking outside and for outdoor seating at cafés; it's been sunny or a little cloudy with just a hint of a breeze.  I spotted a café right next to the bridge where about a dozen people with a variety of brass instruments were relaxing, and sat down next to them in the hopes that the instruments would lead to music.  I wasn't disappointed.  They weren't the first traveling jazz band I came across in Amsterdam.  Every one I've heard has been fantastic - they could easily fund their travels through Europe just by playing street shows.  They don't exactly play jazz music in the American sense; they're more like pep bands playing songs like Sweet Caroline, Eye of the Tiger, and Iron Man.  I also kept a cello count on Sunday - on average, I saw one person carrying a cello per hour.  The Dutch make biking with a cello look easy.

Across town near Westerkerk, I peeked into the Amsterdam Tulip Museum.  I nodded off a few times during the films (it was my first day), but did learn an interesting tidbit about the word "tulip":  It is thought to come from the same root as the word "turban" due to the resemblance in shape.  It could also have been a mistranslation, since it was popular for people in the Ottoman Empire to wear tulips in their turbans.  Most types of tulips originated in the Middle East and only eventually came to Holland by trade routes.  The small museum is more of a sideshow to the tulip shop, where you can buy tulip bulbs; they even have special ones approved to take back to the U.S. and Canada.

Other than that, some species of frighteningly large and hairy spiders can be found all over in towns in the Netherlands; I have my fingers crossed that they aren't taking over France, too.

In search of pindakaas

It all started with a dangerously wonderful Pinterest recipe I found last winter.  Before I discovered the holy grail of homemade apple dip, I could have walked away from peanut butter for months without a second thought.  Over the past year, however, I've grown to depend on this concoction (1 part peanut butter + 1 part Greek yogurt + 1/2 part honey - go try it!), eating it almost daily.

Spotted the problem?  Europe is a peanut butter dead zone.  Before leaving, I even messaged several friends living abroad in the hopes that someone knew of a place where I could pick up a jar or stock up on several, but no one had any ideas.  I had resigned myself to a peanut butter-less existence.

Fast forward to last Saturday.  After landing in Amsterdam, navigating through public transit with extra train construction obstacles, and getting fantastically lost for four hours in a tricky, endless loop of canals attempting to find my elusive hostel on foot, I was free of my suitcase and ready to wander.  I had been in Europe for about six hours when I spotted it on Leidsestraat, ten minutes from the hostel:  A green awning advertising "U.S. and British Food" over a small grocery shop called Eichholtz Delicatessen.  I bit the bullet and walked in; there, amidst the Pop Tarts, Lucky Charms, and Triscuits, I found it.

So, as the proud and very content owner of two jars of Skippy, I'll introduce my first Dutch word of the day - pindakaas - which, of course, means "peanut butter".  As a side note, kaas typically refers to "cheese", so they basically call it "peanut cheese".