Part Eins: Amsterdam

The 15-hour flight was broken, split at Calgary before the main to Amsterdam. KLM. We tried to sit together, but that luxury seems to have been left in 1999. Beef & yellow rice, a warm roll, mild cheddar, caramel brownie and a South African red blend as I watch movie, and movie, and movie. They pass around hot wet towels. Cashews. Coffee. I don't get up once, glued aghast to 50 Shades, which is an awful movie to watch in flight. Meal 2: yogurt with green melon, a warm space egg sandwich, over Demolition, which is good, the music: my morning jacket, m. ward, sufjan stevens, heart, free, eric burdon & the animals, as we draw slowly closer to Schipol.

It's 8:00 am, and we're on the lip of Amsterdam Centraal Station. Boats, mopeds, cyclists in suits, texting. We walk a direction, find a tram, get on. It's a process to learn the grid. In a plant shop two men with potting dirt beneath their fingernails, eating from greased white paper packages help, their lips turned up. We cross pedestrian lines, bike lanes, tram strips and roadways; a van gasses it, lays his horn as we run squealing with roller-bags, highly stimulated.

Our place is next to a petting zoo. Note: all of our places were by zoos. In Oud West, an older, more settled neighborhood, wedged between Vondelpark and Rembrandtpark. The buildings are mostly 4-floor rows; ours is, the steps leading up like a ladder, in red carpet, as our host grabs our bags from above. The first floor: kitchen with long wooden table and bowls of fruit, sweet sprinkles for morning toast. The floorboards have gone awry, from a spill, and each morning we stub our toes. We walk another steep flight of steps to our shared room, each step a sliver not big enough for a foot. The fireplace room with four beds, large windows, wood floors. LB & I go for a run, to get a sense of the neighborhood, waiting for Mck to arrive. The run is good to our cramped plane-bodies, our swollen feet, as we find a body of water lined in reeds.

Reunited, the three of us walk to dinner. Choose based on the vivacity of restaurant atmosphere, to a place along the Bilderdijkgracht (canal, 1878), lined with houseboats, called Fier ("proud"), where we sit outside by candlelight. Fier is Belgian-inspired with rotisserie chicken and traditional stews made from horse meat. With future-gluttony in mind, we keep it simple with salade geitenkaas (quinoa, geroosterde-en gemarineerde groenten en knoflookcroutons: goat cheese, marinated vegetables, sprouts, thyme and garlic croutons) and rose Fontvignes. For post dinner drinks we walk to Huis van Lopez off Clercqstraat, evocative of South America with ceviche, spicy mussels and accompanying cocktails. I have an ancho's margarita, a chili on the rim.

Day Zwei and I've slept in. Breakfast of various loafs of bread, cheese, meats, fruit and coffee are laid out. Put on my skort, a pack, and with coffees in hand we walk, see the day this way. Take a canal tour by boat (15e): canal houses from the golden age, the westerkerk, anne frank house, Rembrandt, Hermitage, the famed "Magere Bruge."

Vinnies for lunch, a place Mck had been before. When you walk in, there's fresh baked loaves of bread and a daily-made salad bar. Up a winding staircase to dine over avocado, dill & cottage cheese on bread. Curry hummus with turmeric, roasted cauliflower & smoked almonds on bread. Cappuccinos. The food feels good. "Love goes through the stomach."

We stand in line at the Anne Frank house & museum, on the canal Prinsengracht, close to the Westerkerk (opened in May 1960). LB & Mck buy me a hot coffee as we wait. For 8e we tour her story laid out in diagrams on the walls, see the art she hung in her room, the marks on the wall that measured growth. Each of us grew up with her story, as most do; it was a powerful thing to be proximate to the space she inhabited, to the physical & actual.

Walking canals to a cheese museum, tasting coconut and pesto gouda. Through Haarlemmerbuurt to Nieuwe Zijde to heaven which is De Mannen van Kaas, a cheese, stuffed sandwich, pastries and jam shop, where you can literally try every cheese. No questions, no hovering. Went down on 2-year vintage gouda paired with voets cranberry and fig dips, Boer'n trots peper trio and pompoenpit, wijndragers mustard dill, premium oud, klaver pesto, rucola, goat nettle, mustard peper and chili, pesto pine green and pine blue, goat truffle (dear god), farmhouse truffle, dmvk ouda, mulder extra belegen, cock verweij, farmhouse rotteveel piquant, prima donna (sim. to parm), smoked goat cheese, and frisian clove cheese. What was going on in my mouth was worth the cost of the trip alone. And to think, I didn't even have to try to pretend that I wasn't trying everything, I just did! and could! and creamed!

Had to walk the cheese off. Cool off. Like a smoke in bed. Through Negen Straatjes where flowers bloomed bright pink along the canal ironwork. Stopped for a drink in the 17th century canal ring, sharing red wine over a stump table, ringed hundreds of years old. Bought a bottle of wine from the markt near our place; drank it as we got ready for a night in the redlight district.

LB wore this beautiful black & white striped long sleeve blouse, a choker, her hair pulled back. Mck in a black onesie and perfectly-fitted pea coat. I in a jean jacket as top and long black skirt. We confused ourselves in circles trying to locate the red light, found it. Smoked and had chocolate. Watched fingers call, couples enter, boys in groups giggling. It wasn't as big of a thing as I'd imagined. I find the explicit baseball cards of women flicked at you and littering the streets of vegas more crude. All I care for is if they're happy. Things got weird. Some abe lincoln look-a-like from midwest u.s. started talking about voting and wet willies. We stood outside a shop eating airy crusted pizza squares, took a frantic cab home from some dude in a 007 suit. Fell asleep after devouring a bag of wine gummies.

Day Drei - Ran with the ladiez through Vondelpark (1865), 120 acres and part of the borough of amsterdam-zuid, where the trees braid across cobbled roadways. Deliciously green within, circled in mansions, ponds, felled trees, clean.

On to Amsterdam's Olympic Stadium (1928 Games). A brick enclosed oval with a high tower, which held flame, and where the olympic flame began. We were able to run in, through the iron gate fence, witness to a youth track meet. Watched a flame-haired DS-L lookalike do the long jump. A small boy ran up to us pleading something in German, both of us just staring at each other deeply, trying to understand. Someone says, "He needs a bathroom."

Back in oud-west, we stop for cappuccinos, they with prawn salads on a high table beneath the sun. Get ready for the day, pink turtleneck, red lips, walk, photograph inspirations, walk; to the flower market where we peruse bulbs & succulents, ceilings of dry flowers.

There's an effortless yet very careful and particular elegance to the way europeans dress. Raw hems, pointed shoes, leather with silk, the boldness of white sneakers. Every man is incredible, every woman an inspiration, a walking story. Perhaps I'm romanticizing a people without fully knowing, but the air of careless or long felt confidence was entirely sexy. As I sit writing, in my white sweats with the spanish grease stains and my sleep shirt, I'm trying to think about how to cross over from careless into ----.

Took a tram to the Brouwerij 't IJ "De Gooyer" windmill (1814, restored) brewery in Plantage - once an old municipal bath house with the biggest wooden windmill of the Netherlands alongside. It's expansive, well-cared after, gorgeous. At the foot of it were endless outdoor tables beneath a canopy of low hanging trees. We ordered a flight & a pint to get a good sense of the biers - hoppy, floury, ambers, sweet and dark. 

There's a little hole in the wall that looks like a towel return, serving cheese and sausages. It seemed the main source of energy in Plantage, everywhere else a quiet breath. Back to the city, through pigeons, high-heeled cyclists, always the inquisitive eye.

For dinner our last night: Cantinetta Wine & Pasta, a little brick Roman osteria with great warmth we'd been eyeing, run by the chef, Deb, and her girlfriend, Claudia. We sat outside, the only table, with an incredible server who gave us her contact info to use for Berlin. Ordered a couple rounds of warm toasted rosemarino pizza alla griglia with rosemary & sea salt and several small dishes of marinated green & red olives. A couple bottles of 2009 Chianti Superiore Etichetta. Meal: Romano con ricotta, with tomato, onion, garlic, pecorino romano & buffalo farm ricotta. The place and the food and the wine was so good to us. LB headed back to our place on Schimmelstraat & Mck and I went in search of the nearest bulb-lit canal bridge. Laid on a floating dock along the canal houseboats, looking at the lit bulbs; could have just stayed there, for a long time. 

Day Vier - Ran from Schimmelstraat, along the canals to Sloterpark and Sloterplas, 90 more acres of vivid green. Packed our things. Kisses on the cheeks and ears from our host. Walked a few miles to centraal station, stopping at Vinnies for to-go lunches and coffee, this time thick bread covered in goat cheese and sliced fig, with Mck eye-teasing me with her baba ghanoush, somehow, never wanting to go back to Baba from a bad experience in san francisco, yet her open sandwich with its roasted eggplant mash, yoghurt sauce and pomegranate looked like edible christmas.

 Damp in sweat, we boarded the train for the 6-7 hour trip to Berlin, passing through Apeldoorn, Hengelo, Rheine...writing, reading Her by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I'd look over at LB writing, passing German countryside and feel like we were doing a really good thing for ourselves, and how lucky.

To come...Part Zwei: Berlin