A Vist to the Palace and a Market

Goededag!

I finally found a place to recycle all those beer bottles.  I’m sure you are as relieved about this as I am.

I found out that my guidebook was mistaken about the opening times of the Royal Palace, but since it was also mistaken about them not taking the museum card, it evened out.  So I had some time to kill and went around licking some windows.  I actually went inside some stores, too, checking out the offerings and pricing genuine Deft ware.  The real stuff is hand made, hand painted, and correspondingly expensive.  I need to be psychologically prepared for the purchase.

It rained off and on, but since it was not cold or windy it was rather pleasant.  I walked up Leidsestraat to the Dam, found the palace was closed, the proceeded up Damstraat and turned down Oudezids Voorburgwal.  I thought it would be a good idea to visit the Oud Kirke or Old Church, which sits on the edge of the Red Light District.  The church was closed up tight, but the sex shop next door was open all right.  The window display was not to believed.  What would anyone do with a supersized dildo?  No, please.  Don’t answer that.  One of the working girls was displaying her wares as well.

So I went back to the Dam.  I went into a perfume shop and squirted myself with one of the samples.  I can’t remember what it was, but phew!  I don’t want it again.

I take back what I said about no grandeur in Amsterdam.  The palace looks very royal, but  all the statuary, reliefs, and most of the paintings were put there when it was the town hall of Imperial Amsterdam.

Napoleon Bonaparte had a passel of unemployed brothers and sisters.  The sisters he married off.  The brothers got thrones, and the baby of the family Louis drew the Kingdom of Holland.  He was also unhappily married to Napoleon’s stepdaughter.  As the persistent rumor was that step dad was the father one of her children, you can understand why.

There’s a free audio guide to explain both the original function of the rooms and how the royals modified them.  The state apartments are in excellent condition furnished in the empire style and well worth seeing. It’s a truly beautiful building.

Saturday is market day!  So I made my way to the Noordermarkt walking down Princesengracht to find it.  This is Amsterdam’s organic market, but a lot of things are on offer, not just food.  I tried poffertjes.  Picture a mound of miniature pancakes served piping hot and doused with butter and powdered sugar.  Lekker!  Of course, I ended up covered in powdered sugar.  Sigh.

In other news.  History means an awful lot to me, so blog readers just need to put up with it. Otto von Habsburg last heir (although he renounced any claim) to the Austro-Hungarian Empire will be buried in the imperial crypt in Vienna.  Given the history of the end of the Twentieth Century you need to understand that this is a signal honor that he had to earn.  The news article I read referred to him as Mr. Habsburg (You cannot imagine the surreal effect in the mind of the historian of seeing anyone called Mr. Habsburg).  He was born into the Imperial Family just two years before the outbreak of World War I and grew up in exile.  As a young man he opposed the Nazi take over of his homeland.  At the time of his death he was ninety-eight and had spent his adult life as an advocate for European unity—the voluntary democratic kind—and was involved in peaceful demonstrations that led to the fall of the Iron Curtain.  He was a member of the European Parliament for many years.  Much history dies with him.

For dinner this evening is Thai red curry with chicken and rice—not hot and very flavorful.  One of the things I like to do is find meals that I can recreate at home, and I think this is one to try.  I think I can find ingredients or ready-made sauce.  It’s slightly sweet and faintly tomatoish.  Another dish I’d like to try to make is the famous Dutch pea soup, but that is a winter recipe, so I’m not having it this trip.

The beer of the day is Belgian—Palm.  It’s ok.  I think I might be getting spoiled by really good beer.  This tastes pretty much as usual.

Dag!