Day 41: Amsterdam

Monday, September 23

Last night, after i posted the log, i did end up going out in search of food. I was hoping to try Stick Up, the Indonesian street stand next to Pont Neuf, where i'd gotten the frikandel the previous night.
    I should've known better than to go seeking food at ten minutes to midnight without checking if anything was open first. Both stands were closed. I checked Maps, and everything on my side of the canal within two kilometers was closed or would be in just a few minutes. I could take the ferry back to the other side, where there were things open until 12:30, 1, even 2am, but, as easy as that would be, it felt like too much.
    I walked back to the hostel. The bar stopped serving food at 11. So i got a Twix bar out of the vending machine, and went to bed.
    Woke up this morning to the sounds of my horrible roommate gagging in the bathroom. It sounded like she was brushing her teeth, but she would go on to make a horrific gagging sound, like if an overstuffed garbage disposal was somehow organic, like if the Sarlaac was horking down an entire Rancor, a dozen more times. As soon as she was done in the bathroom, she turned on the overhead lights in a room where every other occupant was still sleeping, and proceeded to loudly rummage through her shit for another fifteen minutes.
    It was a reasonable time for me to wake up anyway, and i'm still not really feeling confrontational, just agitated. I laid there and waited for her to fuck off. Might have lightly dozed back off a bit.

I just took the whole jar of electrolyte powder downstairs with me today. I may have given up on the idea that i would be ready to go straight out the door from my morning water routine, so wrapping it up in a disposable vessel is now extra steps.
    And i was right.
    Looking outside, and checking the weather, i determined that it would probably be a good day for sleeves. So after i finished my water, i went up to grab those, and found that i'd also left the Insta360 in my locker. Would really like to have that too, of course. Although, in the end, i did not use it today.
    The other two roommates were awake and moving around when i got up there, so i didn't take the time to put the sleeves on, just stuffed them in an inside pocket and left. When i got outside, it was beautiful and sunny; not exactly warm, but not so cool that i needed the sleeves right away. Dark gray clouds dotted the sky in a holstein pattern. The sun would pass behind one every now and then, and the temperature would dip.
    The weather report said chance of showers mid-afternoon. So i knew what i had to do.
    I headed straight for Hortus Botanicus, the Amsterdam Botanical Garden.
    You would think i'd be hungry, having not really eaten since that sandwich and bitterballen that i spent two hours on yesterday, but i wasn't. Not really.
    Just past the train station, there's a pancake place called Pancakes Amsterdam, which has banners across the construction site out front reading, "Amsterdam bucket list: Eat Dutch pancakes" and "You can't leave Amsterdam without having Dutch pancakes!"
    I did have the poffertjes, so i think i can legally leave Amsterdam, but i do respect the angle they're taking here, and all the photos of their pancakes look really good. So i kind of wanted to stop in there and have some.
    The line was a dozen people out the door.
    Skip. I'll just eat when i'm ready.
    Hortus Botanicus was really nice, i can see why Liz recommended it so highly. It's among the oldest botanical gardens in the world. It was established in 1638 as Hortus Medicus for the express purpose of growing the necessary herbs to treat the Black Death. By 1682, the Dutch East India Company had added many rare and exotic plants never before seen in this part of the world.

    To me, the most fascinating specimen in the garden is the Wollemi Pine. We had known about this tree from the fossil record, but it was long assumed to be extinct. In 1994, an Australian hiker made the incredible find of two narrow gorges in the Blue Mountains which, between them, contained about 60 adult Wollemi Pines, the only known living specimens. Since it would be all too easy for a single forest fire to wipe out the entire species, arborists began a propagation and conservation program to save them, and planted Wollemis in botanical gardens all over the world. In 2005, Amsterdam became one of the first to receive a Wollemi Pine. It is the only plant i saw in the whole garden with its own protective fence.
    Also of note is Wood's Cycad, another nearly extinct tree. Cycads date from 280 million years ago, the early days of the dinosaurs, and are a dioecious species of tree, meaning they have sexes. Only one Wood's Cycad has ever been found, so it is likely the last of its species. A male, without any female trees left in existence, cannot reproduce on its own; but it does produce side shoots at the base of its stem, which can be removed and cultivated on their own. Other Wood's Cycads have been grown from these, including the one at Hortus Botanicus. So while there are now additional Wood's Cycads in the world, they are all clones of the original from South Africa.
    They also have a 2,000 year old agave cactus, which i saw, and a famous 150-year-old lily, which i did not. Their coffee plants, Coffee Arabica, are considered the "parents" of three-quarters of the coffee plants in the Americas. I did not see these either.
    I did see the butterfly house, though! Smaller than the one i went to in Copenhagen, but the butterflies were more active and social. They kept flying up to flowers and leaves very close to me, giving me plenty of opportunities to get some sharp macro images. I think i did go the wrong way through the butterfly house, though, because most of the traffic was against me. As i was trying to squeeze onto the edge of the path and let two women by me, i noticed one of them had a butterfly in her hair.
    "There's one on your head," i said.
    "Oh, there is?" she exclaimed. Her friend got really excited, and took several pictures.

    A butterfly did land on my head a little later, but i wasn't quick enough to get my own pic. I could feel it up there, and then it buzzed my face as it flew away.
    I really enjoyed the butterfly house, but people kept coming in, and it got hot and crowded in there pretty quickly, so i got to the point where i needed to escape.
    There's also a caterpillar nursery in the next building over, but civilians aren't permitted to enter. You can look through the windows, but i couldn't see any caterpillars. The caterpillars are taken from the butterfly house, and then returned when they pupate.
    Overall, Hortus Botanicus was a nice place to relax. Or it would have been, except for a group of young children tearing ass all over the place. I altered my path to avoid them several times, including leaving the palm house before i'd even seen the palms, and returning much later. When they first came in, from the sounds of it, i thought it was going to be an entire school field trip. I literally thought 30-50 kids. But from what i saw throughout my stay, i don't think there were actually more than, like, eight.
    I was there for two hours. While i was walking along the back stretch, the hunger suddenly hit me, and hard. I should really know better than to go adventuring without food. I've been taught this lesson again and again, and then i constantly prove that i have not actually learned it.
    A woman was sitting outside the garden, playing an accordion. I found a spot to sit not far away and listened to her French-tinged serenade while searching Google for places to eat.
    I don't know why i didn't just eat at the café in Hortus Botanicus. The next time i looked back at Liz's recommendations, she had even mentioned it. I didn't go in, from what i could see outside, it just looked like it was gonna be more like, snacks, and baked goods, instead of meals. Looking at the menu online right now, i can see they have lunch. They even have mushroom shawarma. Now i really want a mushroom shawarma. Dang.
    I think i was just at the point where the neurons weren't firing. I stared at the list of restaurants for a long time, realizing i was beyond the point of being able to make decisions. I elected to just head for the first result on Maps, Petit Lou.
    It's a French restaurant. I looked through the menu, and was pretty well sold on getting their house burger, but just before the waitress came back, i noticed the Vegan salmon sandwich. Vegan salmon?! I need to know. I ordered that, plus parmesan truffle fries.
    The vegan salmon was okay. I don't think it tastes that much like salmon. A little, yeah, but it's not really there. Texture's a bit weird, too, which is not really a surprise. But as far as appearance goes, yeah, if you saw it without knowing, it would definitely pass for salmon. The sandwich wasn't quite satisfying. On the one hand, i wish i'd gotten the burger; on the other, i tried something new and now i know.
    The parmesan truffle fries were incredible, though. I hoped they would be enough sustenance to carry me through the rest of the day.

    Alright. My brain was working again, at least enough that i could feel present on Earth. What am i doing next?
    My other main goal for today was the Van Gogh museum. Should i just head there? I'd spent two hours at Hortus Botanicus, it had been a long walk to get there, and now i spent a substantial amount of time at a restaurant. It was quarter to three. The Van Gogh museum closes at 6, and it's almost another half-hour walk to get there. I reasoned that i probably wouldn't want to spend more than two hours in the museum anyway, so it seemed like i should have enough time.
    When i got to the Van Gogh museum, there was a space for a queue outside, but no one was in it. A couple employees were working the queue. Two monitors behind it rotated through messages. They were now serving the 15:30 entry time. Did you book an audio tour? The devices are available downstairs in the gift shop. Do you have your ticket?
    Oh shit. I didn't know i needed to book ahead and get an entry time.
    I found a spot to sit and pulled up the website.
    They are fully booked until late Wednesday afternoon.
    That is about a day late, for me.
    Looks like i won't be making it to the Van Gogh museum on this trip.
    Unfortunate; i had enjoyed the Edvard Munch museum a lot more than i expected to. I think single-artist museums might just hold my attention better than more general collections, because analyzing a body of work together reveals patterns, and i respond well to that.
    Well. I walked all the way out here. The Stedelijk Museum is right in front of me.
    I got up and walked inside. The whole hall you enter into is huge, with glass exterior walls reaching about three stories high, and plain white interior walls and floors and...i don't know, the room was huge and empty and felt really sterile for an art museum. I looked around, and something about it just wasn't grabbing me at all.
    I had checked the web site on this one before i came inside, and there were definitely entry times available, but i hadn't bought one. Since i was physically at the place, i thought it would be easier to just walk inside and pay for my ticket. But looking around, there were no ticket counters. There were small signs on posts with QR codes to buy online. A very small information desk stood in the center of all this empty space, with just enough counter space for one person to work at it. She was currently engaged with another customer. I stood in line for a few minutes, continuing to contemplate the emptiness, and then i turned around and walked out. I wasn't feeling this at all.
    I may have just been cranky from other factors. I mentioned at the end of yesterday's log that i had "caught a light sneeze." I'd then gone on to wake up with a bit of a sore throat and a headache.
    Do i think it's Covid? No. But i didn't think that when i had Covid ten days before i left America, either, and it was. I haven't figured out where to pick up testing kits, and i don't know what i would or could even do if it is. I think it might just be a light cold.
    Doesn't stop me from being paranoid that everything is Covid, though.
    I've had a dry or sore throat in the morning several times on this trip. It really depends on the air in the hostel and how bad i snore at night. Usually it clears up after a few hours. And headaches? I've had some degree of headache every day on this trip. I feel like walking around with that heavy camera hanging off my neck all day for 41 consecutive days so far is probably the key contributing factor to that.
    There was a grocery store across from the Stedelijk Museum. I decided to drop in for some caffeine and Excedrin, to help with the headache. It took a moment to identify the drugs, but i did find one called Nurofin, which is ibuprofen. That should do the trick. I didn't see any Covid testing kits, but i did grab a banana.
    I sat down outside the grocery store and chugged the Coke and two Nurofin. I ate the banana. I was on the other side of the Museumplein from it, but i was still connected to Van Gogh's wifi, so i frittered away some time scrolling through newsfeeds.
    By the time i was ready to move again, it was 4:45. Some how, some fucking how, i had been in Museumplein for an hour and a half, and attended zero museums.
    Well. The Cuypers Library was close, maybe i'd just go see that quick, and move from there. It's the oldest and largest art history library in the Netherlands, with a gorgeous, oft-overlooked reading room. I headed for the GPS coordinates given by Atlas Obscura.
    Turned out it was inside of the Rijksmuseum, another huge museum in the area. Liz had mentioned this one as well. This one is absolutely massive. It was late in the day, and i was not in the mood for a huge museum. A small, niche one, maybe, but not this. I passed it by.
    Now that i was walking again, i was sure the ibuprofen had kicked in. My head had cleared up considerably. In fact, all of my symptoms seemed to be gone. I hadn't sneezed all day, just a little bit of sniffles, and my throat was feeling much better. Whatever it was, it was basically passed already. I know from experience that ibuprofen alone does not cure Covid. Not even when paired with a banana.
    Paranoid. Just paranoid.
    Okay, so NOW where do i go?
    I guess there's the Hash, Marijuana, and Hemp museum, but if i'm being honest, i'm not all that interested in it. I AM very interested in the Resistance Museum, about the Dutch resistance against the Nazis during the occupation, but that's closed. You need to book Electric Ladyland, the Flourescent Light Museum in advance, and it's only open Wednesday through Saturday. You need to book De Poezenboot, the Cat Boat, in advance, and it's only open Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday, for two hours each.
    Basically, everything is closing. Not much of Amsterdam seems to stay open past 6pm.
    I decided to go see the memorial to the persecuted gays and lesbians of the Netherlands. It was commissioned in 1970, after gay activists were arrested for placing a lavender wreath on Amsterdam's National War Memorial. The design was done in 1980, and the piece was unveiled in 1987.
    They called it Homomonument.
    That's. Um. I guess.

    The monument itself consists of three pink triangles (the Nazi symbol used to identify gay men in concentration camps during the holocaust), arranged in a larger triangle, with a thin pink line between them to hold it all together. One is flush with the ground, one is raised to a comfortable height for sitting on, and the third forms a staircase, descending toward the canal. The points are also strategic, indicating the directions to the War Memorial, the headquarters of COC Nederland (the oldest continuously operating gay rights organization in the world, founded 1946), and Anne Frank's house.
    Speaking of, i thought i should visit that, too.
    Not go inside; Liz had already given me the heads up that tickets to the Anne Frank museum are extremely difficult to get. She said i could go ahead and try, though; they do occasionally have cancelations and opportunities do come up. I did check the web site; tickets go on sale every Tuesday, to book six weeks out. Yeah, there's no way. Six weeks ago i didn't even know that i would be going to Amsterdam, let alone what dates.
    I stood outside the house for a few minutes, gazing at the building. I did take a selfie, with a somber look, as i felt would be appropriate. It was difficult to get, though. Vast hordes of tourists cycled through the area, posing in front of the door, smiling, throwing up the peace sign, you know. Tourist shit. I found it all kind of distasteful. Yet, here i am, taking my own selfies. I'm not really sure if my facial expression really makes it that much better.
    I also never approached the door myself. I stood about six feet away, and snapped the shots in those brief seconds i could get a clear view, without another tourist in front of it.

    The Amsterdam Cheese Museum was pretty close, as well. There's also a Tulip Museum right next to the Cheese Museum, but by the time i got there, the Tulip Museum was ten minutes away from closing. The Cheese Museum is open until 7, which, whoooo, getting pretty late there, my dudes.
    The Cheese Museum is in the basement of an active cheese shop. Given my experience with the Amsterdam Cheese Company the other day, i had sky-high expectations here. Whereas the previous cheese shop had only a few samples out, the Cheese Museum had many. I walked around and tried every sample, some of them more than once, and every time i thought i'd had them all, i'd notice another shelf with three more bowls. I probably sampled thirty cheeses.
    None of them compared to Amsterdam Cheese Company, not even close. Most were pretty good, but they just can't compete. If they'd had a sampler container, like what i got two days ago, i probably would have bought it and made it most of a meal. But they didn't. And i did not feel like i should purchase a wheel of cheese and eat it like a candy bar.
    The actual museum is in the basement. This is not a large shop, and not a large museum. There's three walls of cheese-making equipment and blurbs about its use, some of it dating to the 1800s. There's a souvenir penny machine, which i did go ahead and use. But otherwise, not much. I was only down there for a few minutes. Then i went upstairs, grabbed a few more cheese samples, and headed out.
    It was not much past 6. It had rained on me a little on the way from Museumplein, and it was threatening to do so again. My symptoms had all but disappeared, but i was still a bit cranky. I decided to call it. I headed for the hostel. ClinkNoord was supposed to be having free drink night starting at 6:15, and movie night starting at 8, so i thought maybe i'd get in on those. Also, i'm leaving Amsterdam tomorrow, and i have not made any plans regarding that. I should probably look at train schedules and book a hostel in Luxembourg. If that is indeed where i'm going.
    I started down the course Google Maps was sending me to the ferry; i was further west than i had been previously, so it was sending me back a very different way. I checked this against the Atlas Obscura map, and i was going to walk right past another spot anyway, so i stopped for it.
    The last of the Huddesteens, or Hudde Stones, is located on Eenhoornsluis, or Unicorn Lock. There were originally eight of them, commissioned by Johannes Hudde, a civil engineer who served as Amsterdam's mayor from 1672 to 1703. The stones marked the highest possible water levels in the canals, allowing for builders to compare heights to make sure dikes and sluices were able to withstand a worst-case scenario. These Huddesteens became the basis for the Amsterdam Ordnance Datum, that z-axis equator thing that marks sea level, a standard which is now used to measure water levels across Europe.
    I did initially walk past it, but it wasn't too difficult to spot once i went back to the correct place.

    Almost back to the ferry, i saw a flyer on a metal pole reading, "Leave a voicemail and i might make a song out of it" with pull tabs featuring a QR code. That's interesting enough. I took a tab. I haven't called yet. I saw two more of these flyers before i reached the hostel.
    You know how i keep getting to the ferry just before it leaves? Well, part of that is because there are actually three boats that go back and forth, so statistically, it's not unlikely that one would be there, waiting. As i neared the launch point, i saw all three ferries docked on my side of the river. I bet that doesn't happen often. Two of them departed before i reached the dock, though. I was on the third with plenty of time to spare, though.
    I didn't want a repeat of last night, wandering the streets at midnight, searching for food that no one wants to serve me. I still had Stick Up on my mind, so i went straight there.
    Stick Up was closed already. I'm sure they were open later than this last night.
    So i ended up at Pont Neuf again, and ordered another frikandel special.
    It was only after i had ordered that i noticed that Pont Neuf does, in fact, serve bitterballen. You know, the food i was looking for when i found this place. It's not on their main printed menu, a huge poster of which is plastered across the side of the building. There's a smaller menu, which only shows drinks, posted on the counter, and at the top of that, they have taped a small bit of paper which says "Bitterballen (6 st.) Crispy-meatballs + mosterd €4.95."
    Are you kidding me.
    Not only are they here, in this much more convenient location, which certainly has much faster service than what i received yesterday, but they cost half as much as i paid for them at that café.
    No, i didn't order them. I hadn't really been that hungry, i only got food at all because i wasn't expecting to have another opportunity. But i was nearly tempted.
    I ate my frikandel, returned to ClinkNoord, and did the usual thing of returning my camera and vest to the room, getting my laptop, and heading to the bar.
    "What can i get you?" the bartender asked.
    "I heard it's free drink night. What can i get for that?" i asked.
    "It only goes until 7," he replied.
    "Oh. I didn't realize it was after 7," i said, which was true. I'd plugged my watch in to charge while i was upstairs.
    Wait so free drink night lasts for...45 minutes??
    I ordered a drink anyway, a house cocktail called the Pink Perfect. "It's like a whiskey sour, except it's sweet, and it's vodka," he said.

    I got to work writing this entry. Soon, though, it became apparent that a single frikandel wasn't going to hold me. It wasn't yet 9:00, the kitchen should still be open. I went back to the bar. A woman approached at the same time as me. I grabbed the menu.
    "Can i get the bitterballen?" she asked.
    "Yeah," the bartender said.
    I...wait. Fuckin. What?
    Sure enough, there it is, right there on the menu. They serve bitterballen in the very building where i've slept the last few nights.
    I got the cheeseburger.