Jan05,2010 Day 1SBD

Started the first diet of my life.
South Beach Diet..Phase 1 is to last for 2 weeks.
Breakfast had 1 omellete (onion,tomato)
lunch ...fish with cabbage

Trip to Amsterdam

During our trip last month to Keukenhof, we were able to catch glimpses of Holland which were so mesmerising that we decided to make a 3 day trip to Amsterdam ,the capital of Netherlands.

Amsterdam is called so as it is the city built on the Amstel river .For some fun facts about Amsterdam click here http://www.amsterdamescape.com/didyouknow.html

Netherlands is called so as its completely flat..And around 20% of the land area of Netherlands is reclaimed land.

The population of Netherlands is 16 million and the number of cycles which are there in use currently are just 17 million.And when people get tired of their old cycles..what do they do..Just drop it into one of the numerous canals! LOL

On the first day of our visit ,we decided to move the local way by cycling our way through the various bridges and trying not to fall into the canals.

We had heard about Mike's Bike Rides which takes one cycling through the city when giving a brief background history of places.

For a charge of 22€ , you get to go with a bunch of people from all around the globe who also want to exercise their calf muscles .

So we ended up with bunch of folks right from Canada,France,Taiwan to Australia for our 4 hour bike ride.

Our Guide was Pip, who was pretty good at entertaining us while mixing facts with some witty jokes.

We started off by cycling across one of the bridges of Amstel and then by going to Rembrandt Square.Then we headed towards the country side where we saw Benetta , probably one of the oldest Windmills in Netherlands..And whom do we find beside her? Yet another Rembrandt Statue. This was a Perfect Foto opportunity , so we all clicked away some memorable snaps here.

Then came the ride to a Cheese factory , where we got to taste varieties of chess . What hit us first when we went in was the Cheesy Smell ;-) Unfortunately for the girl who took us through the trip was so bored telling the same lines again and again that I thought she will fall asleep while reciting the lines.

Then came the turn of the Farmer cum Cobbler.Maybe he was all cheesed up due to the cheese factory next door..He tried very hard to find out if A and I spoke Marathi ya Gujarathi back home. We decided not to add more Indian dialects into his head and agreed to stick to Hindi for which we got a prompt "Namaste" from him.

Then we cycled back all the way through the famous Vondel Park ,which is the biggest park in Netherlands which the Queen gifted to herself for her 60th Birthday.

Now more about the Queen Beatrix . The Queen of Netherlands is around 67 years old.She stays in the outskirts of Amsterdam in a Palace in the Woods. She is descendant from William the king of Orange..She has 3 sons and the eldest son is the Crown Prince. According to our guide no one know when he will become king as the only person who can decide that is the Queen herself. For more on the Queen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrix_of_the_Netherlands

Back to the cycling trip , we then ended the bike ride with Mike's Bike tour by stopping for a drink in Dan's Irish Pub, where your's truly was thinking maybe its time to get used to having Beer instead of water,which is so expensive in this part of the world ;-)

So the 26 kms cycle ride was a good exercise for the Body and the Soul. As I keep mentioning , Europe is extremely pictursque and you need to be a part of this frame by riding /walking in it.
This brings us to the end of the Bike ride.

Now it was time to appease the grumblings from our stomachs, so our search for a nice place to dine landed us in an Indonesian restaurant.

"The Indonesian rice table, invented by Dutch colonists, consists of rice and several hot and cold side dishes of meat, fish, chicken, vegetables, pickles, nuts, etc. The number of side dishes depends mainly on the number of guests; in a restaurant as many as 22 side dishes may be served.
You put some steamed white rice on your plate and surround it with small helpings taken from the various side dishes. The meats are usually cut into bite size pieces and are grilled or stewed in rich spicy sauces with onion and garlic and coconut milk. There are also bowls of soupy vegetables and baskets of crispy prawn crackers. The small amounts heaped around the rice should be tasted separately with a little of the rice. The aromatic combination of nutmeg, cloves and ginger is rich and appetizing. No meal is complete without the sambals, the hot spices used in the food.

Most Chinese-Indonesian restaurants serve a mixture of both cuisines. Many dishes have actually been adapted to Dutch taste. Dutch cooking has been enriched by the influence of Indonesia. Nasi and bami goreng are household names. Nasi is made with rice, bami with noodles. Satays - small shish kebabs served with a thick spicy peanut butter sauce and spring rolls - deep fried dough filled with vegetables and meats - are just delicious"

We then walked our way through the gates of the much acclaimed "Van Gogh Museum" which contains the largest collection of paintings by Vincent Van Gogh in the world. More details about this museum can be found at http://www3.vangoghmuseum.nl/vgm/index.jsp?page=101&lang=en

I am sure many of us would recognise a few of Van Gogh's self portrait and ofcourse his Sunflowers painiting.

I personally liked the Still Life Collections of Van Gogh .

Day 2

A friend who stays in Amsterdam had recommended that we do a day trip to Rotterdam,Delft and Madurodam, so we had booked for seats with Linderberg Excursions.

They run these trips professionally and unlike things back home where you will be always waiting for someone or the other to land up 30 mins post departure time, this bus left sharp at 10 :00 AM.

Our guide for this excursion was Dan, who spoke English,Spanish and Deutsch for the benefit of all the passengers.

Our first stop was in a Bloememveiling in Aalsmeer.Its was like entering the Mecca of flowers , we saw hundreds , no thousands of beautiful flowers being packed,auctioned and dispatched at amazing speeds.

It was like a scene from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory",the chocos being replaced by Bloemen.And to our surprise we did manage to spot some Sikh workers there, wearing their characteristic turbans..so like A was mentioning look harder you will find a Malyalee too ;-)

Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer has more than 3000 members , who have their board to decide on various policies. This more than 90 year establishment has 5 Auction rooms which might put our local stock exchanges to shame.

These 5 Auction rooms with the Auction Clocks are the heart of the Bloemenveiling.The prices during the auction are determined using the Dutch Auction System:the first buyer who presses the button not only determines the price, but also buys the entire batch at the same time.

It is through this auction system that more than 60,000 transactions take place between buyers and sellers withing a space of few hours everyday.

'The world marketplace for flowers and plants' Every day Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer sets the world price for flowers and plants. This happens by bringing supply and demand together by means of the auction clock- a fascinating process during which large and small batches of flowers are sold within fractions of seconds. Each day, 19 million flowers and two million plants are sold through 13 clocks at 'Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer'. It takes place within an area of almost one million m2. This means that Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer has the largest trade building in the entire world!

For more information do check on http://www.vba-aalsmeer.nl/

Next ,our driver took us to Rotterdam , which is the biggest port in Netherlands and Europe. Rotterdam is the second largest municipality in Netherlands in terms of population.It is situated on the banks of the river Nieuwe Maas ("New Meuse"), one of the streams in the delta formed by the Rhine and Meuse rivers. The name "Rotterdam" derives from the city's origin at a dam in a small tributary river, the Rotte.

Rotterdam is like the NCR region of India, all new buildings,new styles of architecture. As this city was completely destroyed during the II World War,it had to be built from scratch 6 decades ago.Only the City Hall survived the bombing campaign.Rotterdam is also famous for its Kubuswoningen or cube houses built by architect Piet Blom in 1984.

The Erasmus Bridge (1996) is a 2,600-foot cable stayed bridge linking the north and south of Rotterdam. It is held up by a 138-meter tall pylon with a characteristic bend, earning the bridge its nickname "De Zwaan" ("the Swan").Check how beautiful this is structurally and aesthetically.

Our next stop was at Delft..where they make the amazing Delft Blue Porcelian articles. There are only 3 genuinue Delft Factories left now .We visited one of them called the "Delft Peacock" or "Delft Pauw".

The guide there took us through the various steps involved in making Delft Pottery.For more details ,pls click here http://www.delftsepauw.com/

We then took a much needed grub break in Delft,based on the high recommendations of our guide we went to William of Orange. Willem van Oranje (William of Orange) is a large café in Delft's main square. It's three places in one: a hotel, a restaurant, and a café.

We saw people enjoying a variety of good food there.As we were very keen to try authentic Dutch Pancake we ordered one with Paprika and Cheese and we were definitely not disappointed.A manage to save enough space in his tummy for an Apple pie topped with cream too :) What an appetite !

You can always check the colorful spread of yummy food here http://www.willemvanoranje.net/ and anyone visit Delft should go there atleast for a coffee and cake :-)

Our last stop in this trip was at Madurodam.Madurodam is Holland's smallest city ,where all the objects are made in the scale of 1:25.We saw miniature towers,churches,canals and even a marching band .We could identify the Canals and Cafes of Amsterdam in their miniature forms and also recognised the replica of Rijksmuseum .And of course there was the replica of Munt Toren which was at a stone's thrown distance from where we stayed:)

You can recognise some fotos of the actual place and miniature versions here of the Cube-shaped houses , Helmond and the Erasmusburg Bridge , Rotterdam here.

Given a chance we could have sat here and enjoyed the place much more,but due to time constaint we had to walk past this amazing place within an hours time. More details of Madurodam can be found at http://www.madurodam.nl/default.php?language=1&sqlmode=1&fid=479

This bought us to the end of the "Grand Holland tour". This is a nice trip for someone who wants to see the key aspects of Holland.Starting from Amsterdam,to the flower auction place, through Hague , where all the major government offices are located to Rotterdam ,Delft and finally ending at the minature snapshot of things in Madurodam its worth the €€€ you pay for it.

Just be ready to ignore few fellow Indians who talk too loudly, eat chips in the bus where eating is not allowed and almost always come back late to the bus.

After a small much needed break, A and I decided to walk to the Dam Square..A was very much insisiting on going to some place called"China Town " for dinner..Now what did I know that his China town was just a street away from the highly infamous Red Light Area. :P

I was spared from watching too many people who had wares to sell as we went too early when the shops had just opened .

After much walking and searching around we landed in "Sukasari" a very nice Indonesian restuarant.

"This restaurant is very nice..if you can ignore the crowded tables and manage to just walk in and get a nice seat for yourself.The food is nice..tasty ..worth the money you pay .We had satay , veg soup and some veg dish with rice. Incase you are from Asia..whichever part of it ..atleast one dish will remind you of something what you would have had back home. What takes the icing on the cake is the service. The hotel staff is very knowledgable about the cuisine and are good with their recommendations.I would love to go here again and taste a few more of their dishes."

We decided to walk back home and wandered into the deserted shopping streets..it was amazing so many people walking past after 11 in the night..without a care about being mugged .Amsterdam I realised is a very safe city ,with a Police car parked or cruising by in almost every street at whatever time of the day/night it is.Wonder when any place back home will be this safe.

Day 3

The last day of our stay in Amsterdam and we had to make the most use of it ..so managed to drag ourselves out of home by 9 and headed straigh to Rijksmuseum. This museum is a treasure of paintings and artifacts which helps one understand the history of Netherlands.

There are artifacts which showcase the wealth of the Dutch anarchy from the 17th century , the Golden age to the 80 years' war .I strongly recommend people to visit this section of the website where there are loads of fotos of the amazing paintings done by Rembrant and his pupils.http://rijksmuseum.nl/meesterwerken?lang=en

We were amazed at the stuff which is there in this museum and how much they value their history.Why is that we don't have any such museums back home?Don't we treasure our history?Or we are just indifferent to this as we are to all other things in life?

Then we walked to Leidsplien where there are numerous cafes and eateries. We grabbed a VFM noodles at "WOK to WALK" and sat in front of yet another Rembrant Square for a quick bite.

The square developed in the 17-th century as a wagon park for farmers and peasants to leave their carts here before entering the city centre. The name is because of Leidsepoort, which once marked the end of the main road from Amsterdam to Leiden. Nowadays, Leidseplein is a busy tram intersection and centre of night-time transport.
Leidseplein is one of Amsterdam's popular centers for nightlife, with theatres, lots of cafes, restaurants, cinemas, the casino, the Lido theatre with live entertainment and music centres Paradiso and Melkweg. Street musicians, jugglers, fire-eaters and other performers make the square a lively place until the early hours, especially on warm summer evenings, when you can get there also a henna tattoo.
At night, the square is the meeting point for youth, who hang out in the clubs and cinemas around. It is also popular with pickpockets as well with drunk groups of tourists.

After this we walked through the Bloomen markt which was right across the place where we were put up .There were so many Coffee shops and Smart shops on the way that I had to try and recollect the 3 virtues of Amsterdam which our Mike's Bike Guide,Pip had mentioned.

The 3 virtues of Amsterdam are "Charity, Resolution, and Heroism" now they seem to be replaced by XXX and no guesses for what this symbol represents.

So this was our 2.5 day Amsterdam trip ... After coming back and reading through the various materials we picked up , I believe we need to make many many more trips back.

What's in a Name ?

Well for starters if anyone wonders why I have named my Blog "Looking through the Postcard", you have to come and live in Germany.

Coming from Pune, where I would have to walk to the Tekdis to see the blue skies, this is a special break given to me from the Angels above :-)

Like A was mentioning ,"In India people are colorful , here in Europe nature is colorful".

More later!