March 6, 2012
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Amsterdam, Netherlands
Tonight, after work, I met up with Sean and Mike, who had booked a table in Restaurant Spelt, just off Herengracht. Twice a year, Amsterdam restaurants organise ‘Restaurant Week’ (sponsored by a major credit card company who no doubt benefit from higher than average credit card use as well) and usually that event goes by me completely unnoticed… but this time I’d been invited by Sean to join them. It was a very nice evening out, and the fairly restricted menu (there’s less choice in Restaurant Week but the price range is also much lower so you can try some adventurous food for a good price) offered enough variation for a very nice meal! Because Sean had given me a ticket to the Madonna show in July the other week, I decided that today’s meal would be on me… and I’m saying that, hoping that soon a substantial amount of money that the seller of our apartments still owes us will come back my way again. If not… well, I’ll see about that next month then.
The picture was taken as I was nearly home again. It’s of the Waalse Kerk (Eglise Wallonne, Walloon Church) just three houses from my front door. The canal on which I live, Oudezijds Achterburgwal, is nowadays mostly known as the heart of the Red Light District, but there were times, some centuries ago, that a lot of Amsterdam’s churches, convents and monasteries were to be found here. The bridge in front of the house is still called Paulusbroederssluis (Lock of the Brothers of St Paul) and some of the streets close by also still carry the names of the convents that were once housed there. The Waalse Kerk was once part of a larger complex but now stands on its own. It’s a protestant church with services in French. Once upon a time, when protestants fled France and came to the Netherlands where they could live in freedom, the Netherlands had many French language churches, but nowadays that number has gone down quite a lot. The Waalse Kerk still has its services in French though, every sunday at 11 as a sign outside the church announces. Funnily enough, at the time when he lived in Amsterdam, Vincent van Gogh used to go to this church frequently. Oh, how times have changed.
