Amsterdam, Netherlands

One of the advantages of going to the pool in the early morning rather than after work (he spoke as if he was a veteran early morning pool swimmer) is that riding your bike an hour earlier than usual is so much more peaceful. Amsterdam at, say 8:45 in the morning, is absolute mayhem. Bikes, cabs, lorries, early tourists, school kids, car commuters, we're all competing viciously for the preciously rare available space in Amsterdam's narrow city centre streets. But if you go at 7:15, the streets are still blissfully quiet. It's absolutely wonderful and definitely one of the advantages of getting up early. The picture shows my street in the early morning sunshine. The house with the scaffolding covered in green is where I live.

This evening, Rob and Günter came over for food and drinks, and it turned out to be a wonderful evening! I had prepared salmon, and served it with rice, a greek salad and vegetables, with a cheese platter as dessert. Most of it was completely against my low-carb diet rules, but seriously, I didn't care. When I was in Glasgow or Barcelona last month, or in Madrid just last week, I didn't observe any diet rules. Life has to stay enjoyable. I wasn't made a Catholic for nothing after all, you have to enjoy life every now and then. And tonight was such a time. It was Rob's first visit to my apartment, oddly enough, and he liked what he saw, especially admiring the view from the large windows. Great to have both of them over as guests!

Amsterdam, Netherlands

I did it! I had been dreading this quite a bit, but I did it, I managed, and it turned out to be great. I got up at 6:15 this morning, an hour and half before I normally get up. Just over an hour later, with my lunch, and a towel and swimsuit in my bag, I got on my bike and cycled towards work... but stopping at Zuiderbad, the swimming pool. There, I did my usual 60+ laps, then showered and got ready to go to work. So, instead of going to the pool after work, I now went before work, and it was so much better! The pool was quieter, and those who were swimming did so in a much more disciplined way, so it was much more enjoyable. Tomorrow I will definitely return in the morning, before work.

In the evening I needed to do a lot of shopping, because Günter and Rob are coming over for dinner tomorrow evening. I decided to prepare a salmon dish, but of course that meant buying a lot of stuff in the supermarket tonight, after work. Normally I go to the big Albert Heijn Food Plaza, right behind the Royal Palace on Dam Square. It's a big shop and especially for tourists they have quite a lot of things that you wouldn't always find in a Dutch supermarket. At five this afternoon, however, a shoplifter who was stopped by one of the supermarket's staff member had decided to start spraying pepperspray everywhere, forcing the supermarket to shut down. So, instead, I went to another Albert Heijn, just next to City Hall in Jodenbreestraat. Not as nice as food plaza, but at least quite big, so with lots of choice. The picture is of Zuiderkerk, close to where I live, just as I had left the supermarket again and the sky had a very nice pinkish hue. Not sure if that was still from the pepperspray though...

Amsterdam, Netherlands

It's not just my weight, or my swimming routine, that I'm keeping a close eye on these days. Also the progress on the house is something to watch closely. The picture is of the pointing just next to the window frame outside my windows on the canal side of the house. The window frames were all painted, and where the wood of the window frames was rotting it was replaced as well. What's very noticeable is that the colour of the new pointing is much whiter than the existing, as you can see in the picture. That will completely change the look of the façade, but if all goes well, the house will look like a typical Amsterdam canal house so it's something to look forward to!

I went to the office today, on this Monday, which used to be my part time day. It's a bit of a shock to the system that I'm working full time now again. Five days a week is a bit too much of (not such a) good thing. So, one of the things I did in the office today was request for a day off next week Monday. I have more than enough holidays left to use this year, and no real money to spend on far away holidays, so I figured that I might as well take a day every now and then, so that at least I will have an occasional three day weekend. For old time's sake. Something to look forward to always helps to make life bearable!

Amsterdam, Netherlands

The city was cold, grim, grey and rainy today, but that didn't stop me from having a bit of a stroll through Vondelpark and the PC Hooftstraat area in the afternoon before going for a swim. The picture shows the former Filmmuseum in Vondelpark, housed in a beautiful building. The film museum left the building years ago, moved temporarily to an old cinema on Marnixstraat before that one got demolished, and soon will be housed in a brand new and very futuristic looking building in the north of Amsterdam, on the other side of the water behind Central Station.

I'm not sure whether it's from the exercising, or the dieting, or from the 'sweating it out in the Spa yesterday' or from a combination of all of these, but it seems that my weight is really going down quite quickly now. I won't mention any numbers yet (but I promised myself to publish a chart on my Facebook should this weight loss exercise be successful) but when I weighed myself this morning I weigher just over 7 kilograms less than what I weighed in January. This is a hopeful sign indeed. My goal, I should add, is actually to lose 18 kilograms, so there are still 11 to go, but at least there is a downward movement! The swim in the afternoon was fantastic. Not sure if I ever swam that fast in my entire life.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

I met up with Pieter today. I've known him for many, many years now, and we see each other once or twice a year. Today we had decided that we'd be going to a spa in Almere, where he lives. I had mentioned to him that I'd be in Almere Central Station at 2 in the afternoon. Here's a map of where Almere is and how I got there... There's a story to this...

View Train Detour in a larger map

As you can see, Amsterdam and Almere are quite close to each other. Amsterdam, the ancient city, and Almere, a very young city (basically a suburb) on reclaimed land. The dark blue line is the direct train line between the two cities, and it's about 16.5 miles. Easy, takes you there in no time - if you have any desire to go to Almere of course, because it has the reputation of being quite a boring place without any real character.

Today, however, maintenance work on the regular train tracks meant that I would have to travel via the red line. That would mean, taking a train from Amsterdam Central, and then changing trains in Duivendrecht, just south of Amsterdam, and then directly to Almere. Not a problem. There are loads of trains on either track and there was hardly any waiting time at Duivendrecht between connecting trains. The red line is just over 19 miles, so really not an issue. The Dutch rail travel planner on my iPod told me that my train from Amsterdam Central would stop in Duivendrecht (where I would change trains to Almere), the internet planner said that my train would stop in Duivendrecht, the announcer at Amsterdam Central told me that my train would stop in Duivendrecht, and even the announcer on the actual train told me that my train would stop in Duivendrecht:

"Ladies and gentlemen," she announced on the train's loudspeaker system, "our next stop will be Duivendrecht, where you can change trains for Almere, Lelystad and the Airport. Our train will continue to Arnhem and will also stop in Utrecht. Next stop: Duivendrecht. Passengers for Almere, please alight here."

The only problem was that, as this announcement was made, we had already raced through Duivendrecht station. It seemed that everyone knew that we were stopping in Duivendrecht, except for our train driver, who dutifully raced us to Utrecht. Another train driver who was travelling as a passenger on the train and who also had had to alight in Duivendrecht, raced to the driver's cabin (where I happened to be standing, waiting to alight), opened the door and said "Hey! You should have stopped in Duivendrecht!". "Oh. Whoops," was the only reply from the driver. And so it was that I visited Utrecht, quite unexpectedly, before I could find a connecting train to Almere. The purple line, which is the line I ultimately travelled is just over 50 miles, so rather a big detour. Still, I made it to Almere, slightly delayed (thank heavens for mobile phones) and still managed to have a great time with Pieter in the Almere, even though that was fairly quiet. The picture shows the top deck of an old style Dutch double decker train that took me from Utrecht to Almere.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

I've been talking about some lifestyle changes I've made since the start of the year on this blog this week, and this is yet another one. The picture shows a pass that I bought in Zuiderbad on Wednesday and that gives me 50 times entrance to the swimming pool. I used it for the first time tonight. 49 times to go after today. The pool on Friday nights is wonderfully quiet, especially after 7pm, when sometimes you can have a whole section to yourself. Typically I do some ten extra laps on Fridays... just for that extra bit of exercise.

And I'm not done yet with this lifestyle change! There's not just the exercising side of it, I've also started a bit of dieting. My colleague and friend Sean lost a lot of weight at the end of last year, and when I asked him how he had done that, he said that he was on a low-carb diet. A what? "Well, basically it means you can't eat anything that has a lot of carbohydrates in it, such as pasta, rice, potatoes or bread. But you can eat as many vegetables, fruit, meat and fish as you like, because that's low-carb. It's amazing, the kilograms just flew away when I started that diet," he said, just as we were having a definitely-not-low-carb dinner in a restaurant in Amsterdam.

So, when I was doing my Tuesday night swim, I decided that, after the pool, I would go to the supermarket, and buy a variation of veggies and fruit, and that from then on I would cut out potatoes, pasta, rice and bread as much as possible from my diet. So right now my fridge is filled with a complete vegetable store, and for lunch in the office I fill up a box with all kinds of salad ingredients. No more bread rolls, no more sandwiches, and quite frankly, I love it! It's a surprisingly easy change in diet. In the evenings I have fish or meat (such as a trout in the oven tonight) with generous quantities of vegetables... but no rice. We'll see how this diet goes, but I actually feel very good about it. Time will tell.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Slowly (much, much too slowly actually) but surely the scaffolding on the canal side of the building is coming down. More and more of the new façade is being revealed and that is quite exciting. The picture shows the difference between old and new quite nicely. The pointing on the right hand side has been done and all faulty, broken bricks have been replaced. The space between roof tiles and wall has also been redone so the roof is no longer leaking. It's all going well.

On the left hand side of the picture you can see the 'old' wall - that part of the building that's not been done yet. The pointing between the bricks is missing or badly damaged, the lion and the flat stones have not been painted yet, the beam that can be used to hoist materials to higher floors is damaged and is missing some paint work. All that will get repaired n the next couple of months. It's looking promising! 

Amsterdam, Netherlands

And speaking of a change in lifestyle this year (call it a successful New Year's Resolution, at least thus far) is my swimming routine. Four times a week, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday nights straight after work, and then again on Sunday, I go to Zuiderbad for 45 minutes to an hour of swimming. That means that I'm never more than a day away from going to the pool. It's basically always the same. I swim 50 laps 'normal' strokes, then additional laps 'swimming with legs only' and 'swimming with arms only' (tougher than you might think) plus two more laps entirely under water - with one lap approximately 20 metres (I think.) 

I must say that I enjoy it tremendously - swimming is such a wonderful, relaxing activity... except tonight. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights especially, the pool can actually be quite busy. Too busy to my liking. Especially when, as happened today, some sections of the pool are reserved for swimming lessons, that part of the pool that is open to recreational swimming gets too crowded. And you struggle to find the space to do your laps. I've been thinking about going to the pool in the mornings instead. Every time I cycle past the pool in the mornings, it doesn't seem as if it's very busy, so I can imagine it would be quite pleasant. Unlike tonight, when there were so many bikes parked in front of the pool, as you can see in the picture above.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Speaking of coffee (and tea); this is what's going on just outside the office building at the moment. For years, the Netherlands was one of the few European countries where there were no Starbucks shops, even though Starbucks's European headquarters are located just outside Amsterdam. Then, two years ago, three shops opened at the airport (franchised) and some others opened not too much later in some railway stations (again, franchised) - but still no Starbucks shops in any Dutch high streets.

Then, at the end of last year, much to the excitement of some of my colleagues and friends, two shops opened in Amsterdam city centre. One on Leidsestraat, aimed at tourists, and one on Beethovenstraat, in the affluent Zuid part of town, aimed at business people. Those two shops seem to have opened the floodgates. Suddenly you see Starbucks shops everywhere, and the most recent one is opening just outside our office, at the entrance of Zuid station. I hardly ever go to Starbucks (typically only when I'm in the US, or there's the odd time when I'm in London, but that's it) so I won't be visiting this one any time soon, but the expansion of the American coffee company is interesting to see none the less.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Since mid January I've been trying to change my lifestyle quite drastically, all with the goal of getting more exercise and losing weight. Of course I started swimming and I've been doing that faithfully four times a week since then, but I also changed some of my food and drinks habits. When it comes to alcohol, I've almost completely stopped drinking beer (quite easy because I don't really go out that much these days) and the rest (wine or whisky) is done with moderation. I don't have in between snacks anymore, which means no sneaky chocolates at work and no late night examinations of whatever edible stuff (typically cheese) there might still be in the fridge. At work, I've reduced the amount of coffee I drink in the morning and I've also stopped drinking Diet Coke.

I switched to tea instead. I've done this is the past as well, but admittedly, it's a difficult one. Tea can be quite bitter and I'm not always in the mood for that. I've always been more of coffee person, I'm afraid (with lots and lots of milk and sugar when I was younger, but much less so now) and apart from that, a hot beverage in the afternoon... well, let's say that a cool Diet Coke can sometimes feel very refreshing - unlike a cup of tea (it's a mind setting.) Nevertheless, I found some teas that I really like so yes, I've not drunk Diet Coke since the start of the year, and it's working well. One of my favourite teas is called Sterrenmunt in Dutch, and it's a herbal tea with quite a strong aniseed taste. I do really like it, but the packaging recommends no more than three cups a day, so I also drink rooibos or mint teas, for example. I wonder how long it will take before the call of the Diet Coke will once more become irresistible.