Keen observation for the night.
Another observation is that it's warmer when it's actually snowing, than when it's not snowing, and the skies are clear and the ice all around you, along with the wind, just makes it bitterly cold.
Like last FRIDAY AND SATURDAY night... man, IT WAS COLD.
Minus 15 degrees or something.. 'Twas not fun.
Ok, so a recap on the last week.
Let's start with Wednesday night:
Well, I had my department Christmas dinner at the Hermitage Amsterdam museum (which is a "satellite" branch of the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg - random concept - bringing Russian stuff to Amsterdam, but apparently there are some significant historical ties between St Petersburg and Amsterdam - like did you know the town planning of St Petersburg was loosely based on Amsterdam's town structure? Hah. Bet not... well either did I really.)
My bosses had organised for a tour of the museum for an hour, and then dinner in the museum restaurant.
The tour was fascinating, with genuine restored Russian army uniforms and portraits and interiors like vases and arm chairs, but it was the gowns that were the most interesting part for me.... Gorgeous, delicate, intricate, over the top, emboridered, feathered, bustiered, non bustiered, flowing, sequined, gowns.... luscious to look at.
Just to put it into perspective, good meals in Amsterdam at a reasonable price are few and far between, and even if the restaurant is expensive, there are no guarantess that the food will be any decent, because of the whole "Tourist city" thing...but this restaurant was spectacular! I was feeling very lucky to be dining there with my workmates.
Me, Matthijs and Evelien a little bit tipsy after dinnerFirst course; pan seared scallops, with cauliflower foam, and then second course was roast partridge with lentils and a witlof something or rather, and then vanilla rice pudding with caramel sauce, topped off with french white and red and port at the end.... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH. Bliss.
I topped off the night by "checking in" to Pia and Romain's houseboat, which I am housesitting for a week, before I head to Indonesia for Christmas, and then when I get back, I am living here for a month. It is Amazing.
The first night I was here, I dreamt that I was swaying and I couldn't figure out why, until I realised that "Duh, you're on a boat!"
This beautiful, old boat, sits on a canal, 2 minutes away from Heinekenplein, which is a really really central part of town. It's a 5 minute walk to Rokin which is an arterial street in the centre, and Rembrandstplein, which is a bar area. The canal street itself is cobblestoned, lined with trees, old Amsterdam townhouses, and lightposts.
The canal at the moment is nearly frozen, but not quite, with ducks, swans and storks just hanging out, by the kitchen window, waiting for scraps or just hanging out on the boat itself.
Pia's a stylist, so the boat is just beautifully cosy, and just such an intimate little space that is full of love. I am glad to be chilling out here, in this floating respite amongst the madness that Christmas time and the snow chaos can bring. I saw my first snowfall from the kitchen windows of this boat, and it was more perfect than words can describe.
I keep meaning to bring my camera everywhere, but I just haven't!! The city looks so pretty, but my battery camera is dead and I can't find the Australian adapter that goes with it to charge it.
Anyway, I digress. So, that was Wednesday night. Thursday morning, I woke up, almost in rage with the lack of light, because it felt like 4 am. I thought nothing of walking out the front door of the boat for work, and literally almost slipped into the canal, and then looked around and realised that everything was covered in snow! I was sooooo excited!!
I literally walked down the street, skipping (almost), down the dimly lit cobbled street, when I saw a guy letting his dog out. This little bull terrier came trotting over to me, sniffed my feet, and I sort of smiled, and the guy said something in dutch. Usually I would give a polite smile and keep walking, but I just sort of walked over and said "Sorry?" and he laughed and he switched to english and he said "Oh, I was just saying that it's the first time he's seen snow." and I grinned and I said "Me too!!" and then turned and kept skipping.
At the office, I watched the snow fall all day, and I didn't want to be indoors. I went out for a walk at lunch, and shuffled my feet in it, drew my name in it with my feet, and did lots of slipping and sliding.
On Thursday night, Laura and I got Italian takeaway from a great place near the boat, (Oven baked swordfish with tomatoes, and spinach; Spinach ravioli with eggplant...and 2 bottles of Chianti) and we had our last girls night for the year, before she went to Switzerland.
On Friday night, I cooked dinner for my friends Leon and Sam and we went to a birthday party in about 15 minutes cycle from the boat, on the west side, at a bar area/park called Westerpark. Cool bar where they play swing, zoot suit music mixed up with some other stuff. On arrival, I immediately felt the vast difference in temperature inside and outside. It had to be minus 5 outside and 35 degrees inside. I felt so overdressed in jeans and a thermal, thermal, thermal and a black long sleeved top and boots, all the dutch girls were swanning around in teeshirts, and nice tops, and skirts with stockings, and berets. I immediately went to the toilet and took off 3 layers, and my thermal stockings because I felt like a retard. Even minus the layers I still felt like a frigid nun.
The after party at 4 am was at a really seedy, small dutch brown bar where the leathery dutch bar maid was dressed in a backless top, frosted pink lipstick, and highly teased blonde hair, and she looked like she had been raised in the bar, probably had her first drink suckling from a bottle of Grolsch on the bar stool I was sitting on. The cycle home was ATROCIOUS, despite my many layers, if it had taken any longer I would have purposely just run into a car so an ambulance would have had to take me somewhere as opposed to cycling for any longer.
Leon and I stayed up until about 6 in the morning, drinking wine and talking crap. He crashed out on the boat, and I had the thermostat up quite high apprently (it's quite tempermental), and when I looked at the clock the next day, it was 3.40pm. I bolted upright and called over to Leon who was crashing on the day bed;
"Leon!! It's almost 4 o'clock!! I had to be at brunch at 1!!"
Shit. Who missed brunch from sleeping in ALL afternoon?! My day was just getting started at 4pm, which was quite the concern.
The day was so dark, it was so hot inside, it was like we had created a tropical island in the middle of the artic, and the warmth and cosiness had fooled us into believing it was mid morning still. We then spent the afternoon, eating omelette, drinking tea, and listening to music.
On Sunday, Karl came over to the boat, where we sank some red wine, and then dragged ourselves outside for Christmas shopping. But all the shops were closed ( we got carried away drinking red wine I guess) and so we went to another couple of bars and hung out.
The ground was in this weird "it hasn't snowed for an hour so the snow is kind of melting and people have been treading over it all day so now it's grey slush/puddles" phase, and I literally slipped every 30 seconds. Karl eventually insisted I hang on to his arm the entire evening if we were walking together somewhere because after the 3 time I fell over, he felt like he might need to help the retarded Australian girl that had never seen snow, or clearly, ever learnt how to walk in snow. Even after I clung to his arm, I managed to fall 3 times again, and take him down with me once.
Overall, such a lovely weekend on the boat. Perfect for friends and chit chats and watching the day pass and the snow fall!
I hear a rumour that it's supposed to snow another TWENTY centimetres of snow tomorrow! Hahha - awesome. If it only snowed 5cms today, and the train system was wrecked, perhaps I just couldn't possibly make it to work tomorrow - lucky I brought my laptop home then. Tee hee.
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