Amsterdam, Netherlands

Quite an active day today! Already in the morning I headed out to the southeast of the city. I went to the Villa Arena Woonboulevard, which is a big shopping mall specialised in home decorations, furniture, and anything that will help you make you house look like a Royal Palace. Its shops are not the cheapest in town, and I really had no intention of buying anything there, but it was just to get some inspiration. There are two things I really still need in my little apartment, namely a light for living room area, and a carpet with the dining table. At the moment there’s still just a bare light bulb above the couch, and the floor underneath the table is wearing a bit because of the movement of chairs on it (it’s not the best quality of laminate floor, but it was already in the apartment when I bought the place.) The only thing I found in Villa Arena that I really liked was a piece of art to hang over the bed… but that’s not the most essential thing I need right now and at 700 euros also something I should not be buying right now. I continued to IKEA (slightly more affordable) and did see a carpet I liked… but it turned out to be out of stock, so I would have to come back for that later on. No lamps that I liked, so I left the southeast again and returned to the city centre.

In the afternoon I visited the Bijenkorf department store to see what they had in their home decorations department. They do have a lamp that I love (it’s basically just seven glass bulbs suspended on their own cables, but it’s marvelously beautiful in its simplicity) but the price tag is just not friendly enough. As for carpets, they mostly seem to come in four-digit numbers so I was happy to just glance over them… and then I left the store again.

As I walked back to the apartment, I noticed that the worker who is doing the pointing on the building was working on the windows of the apartment of my upstairs neighbours. When I looked a bit closer, which was only possible now that the scaffolding is disappearing, I noticed that they now have new double glazed windows. I was actually a bit angry when I noticed that this afternoon. Why hadn’t they told us about this? Repeatedly I asked people if they knew how long the scaffolding would still be there and no one seemed to know (or even bothered to reply) and now it seems that it took so long in part because on the 3rd and 4th floor they were having completely new windows installed. I’m annoyed that no one had the decency to just communicate this and I’m puzzled about who’s been paying for this… and for the labour involved… Could it be that, unbeknownst to me, I have been subsidising my neighbours’ new windows? Let’s wait and see where this goes, but, as Queen Victoria would have said, we are not amused.

In the early evening, in a wonderful sunset, I had a long walk through town, and Amsterdam simply looked stunning. I walked via the main canal ring towards Leidseplein where a new Apple Store opened last week. The shop looks absolutely amazing, and the new iPad, with which I played for a while in the shop, looks fantastic. No money for it at the moment, but since a couple of months I’ve been putting aside every 2 euro coin that I get in shops, saving for an iPad. I’m about halfway… not going fast enough. From Leidseplein I walked to the Amstel River and that, as well, looked so beautiful this evening. The picture is of Magere Brug (‘skinny bridge’) where it crosses the river. Via the similar looking but smaller Walter Süskind Bridge I returned home. A busy day behind me.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

It was once again a beautiful day in Amsterdam, and it started already early in the morning, when this picture was taken just after 7. It shows Oude Kerk, Amsterdam’s oldest church in the heart of the Red Light District, in the early morning sunshine. Clear sky. The outlook for the weekend is great, and what’s even better, it will be a three day weekend for me, as I have taken Monday off.

The early morning swim was once more magnificent. The only ‘problem’ there really is, is that everything I do after the swim is aimed at cooling down as quickly as possible. When I leave the pool, my skin feels very warm, and even though I shower of course, as long as I’m in the pool, the humid and warm air inside the building keeps me dangerously close to overheating. In order not to break out in a sweat in the first half hour at work, I cycle to work from the pool with my jacket wide open, and with my backpack not on my back but on the front of the bike. As much as possible cool air, cooling me down. Even so, it does happen that I enter the office feeling tremendously warm. In that case I tell my colleagues it’s just hot flushes from my menopause. I’m old enough for that. I think they believe me. In any case, I’ve decided to continue with this early morning swim habit, rather than going to the pool after work, because the tranquility of the pool in the early morning is really great.

At work, one of my colleagues from the UK office and he had planned a three hour meeting with me, but in the end he only sat at my desk for about ten minutes. And he seemed more than keen to leave the office at 3 in the afternoon to start a party weekend in Amsterdam. The project I’m working on for him uses a database with many millions of records and any query running on that requires quite some time to complete, as he found out today. I’ll have to continue doing some work on this over the weekend, because eight hours in the office is just not enough to do all the work on the database that is needed.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

No swimming today – not before work and not after work, and given last night’s dinner at my place and the amount of food and (delicious) wine that was consumed, that was not necessarily a bad thing. Of course I returned to my low-carb regime, and quite happily so. My scales are still my best friend at the moment, whenever I stand on them (definitely each morning.)

The picture is of Prinsenhofsteeg, which is a narrow, pedestrian-only alley in between the two old canals, Oudezijds Voorburgwal and Oudezijds Achterburgwal (the one I live on) and it’s a very old little street. One of the houses in this street has a stone above the door showing that it was built in 1576. It’s absolutely wonderful to be living in a part of the city (and country) with such a rich and old history. What I wouldn’t give to see a picture or painting of the canal in front of my house just after that canal was dug, back in 1367… It would be so amazing to - just for a short while – walk around that ancient Amsterdam (or Amstelredamme as it was called then) and see the people that lived in those times and see the houses they lived in. The only thing I wouldn’t particularly look forward to is experiencing the lack of hygiene in those days and smelling the resulting rather obnoxious smells in the crowded city that was Amsterdam in those days… But I wouldn’t be surprised if Prinsenhofsteeg would have looked just about the same (apart from perhaps the electric lights!) The church in the distance is the Waalse Kerk.

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!