So, Kingsday

Was interesting.  We ended up wandering around at least a quarter of the central part of Amsterdam, and one of the funniest things (for me) was that Dam square was probably one of the places that it was easiest to move and the least crowded.

Kingsday is a Dutch national holiday generally held on the birthday of the current monarch, but held the day before this year as his birthday falls on a Sunday and they don't do big national parties on Sundays here.  Every city, town, and village holds their own massive party with lots of loud music, food, and alcohol and the occasional mini playland.  The Royals make an appearance in two towns every year.  I don't remember which ones they were in this year.  

The biggest party that everyone says you need to check out is, of course, in Amsterdam.  There's extra trains running in and out Centraal Station all day, and they're all full.  Not sardine like full, but all seats taken full.  We walked through the North end of the Jordaan to Westerpark, then back down through the Centruum to Dam, and finally across in to the Red Light district and Chinatown.

In the North part of Jordaan it's pretty darn quiet on the side streets, but you can only move at a crawl on the main streets.  It's a free for all when it comes to booths on the street.  Most of the food joints have an outside stall, there's random beer bars, and as near as I can tell Kingsday is when everyone and his dog has a garage sale.  So some of the stores have stalls, but most of what I saw was the result of Spring cleaning.  Makes sense, actually.  Amsterdam is not set up in such a way that would make it easy to have garage sales normally.  Then, of course, back down to Dam.  The giant fair from Halloween was back in the centre of everything with associated wurst, poffertjes, oliebollen, friete, and waffles stands.  Oh, and cotton candy.  Dam is where everyone ends up when they want to sit down for a minute or two, so there was the usual crowd around the national monument and (because Kingsday) an absolutely staggering amount of beer detritus including way too much broken glass.

Next is Red Lights and dim sum.  The Red Light district was much as it usually is, only they were all aloud to be drunk and high on the streets instead of in the bars and coffeeshops.  So it was more crowded and a heck of a lot louder.  In the Red Light district, Kingsday is pretty much and excuse to start partying earlier and on the street.  The ladies of the area seemed like they might be doing a fair trade (again, makes sense) so there were more lights on in the windows than I usually see in the middle of the afternoon.  Several of the bars had outside music stands and were basting it loud enough to make peoples ears bleed.  And it was so bloody crowded around those places that you had to fight to get through which means your stuck having your pounded longer than you'd like.  It was at this point that my headache started.

Chinatown should perhaps be re-named.  It isn't Chinese specific, as a district.  I think Asian Quarter might be more accurate.  Walking along the street (singular, so quarter might not work as a name change) there were at least five different styles of Asian cuisine.  I saw Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Korean for sure.  Oh, and Dutch, but that's hardly Asian.

At this point the sun was making my headache worse and we were getting hungry and tired so we decided to get food and go home.  The train was very empty, so we got our pick of seats, and blessed quiet.

We split up when we got to Hilversum, so I decided to try a new route back by following the bus route on the bike.  It's quite nice.  Quiet as in no traffic and very pretty.  it makes the uphill part longer, windy, and more annoying so I'd likely only take that route home and never on the way in.  Is topped in Laren to pick up some stuff at the Albert Hijn, and a friendly older gentleman stopped me and asked if I'd enjoyed Kingsday and where I was from, which was nice.

And after that?  After that I just crashed.  TTfN y'all.

Familiarity and other things

I had an odd experience a few days ago.  I went out for a walk because I felt my mind had been to noisy for several weeks and wanted to see if I could still get to the quiet space I used to be able to find more frequently.  I found one of the woodsy areas, walked to the middle and stopped.  I can get to a meditative state much easier in a forested area or someplace slightly more wild.  I also use that to familiarise myself with the land, or the feel of a new country.  So I closed my eyes and just listened, for a while, to the sound of wind in the trees and birds squalling at each other, and did in fact find my centre.  Faster than I thought I would, actually.  The weird thing happened when I opened my eyes.  I'd been thinking about the similarity in sound in different forests and the feel in some of the others I've been in, and when I opened my eyes I had a moment of complete confusion as to where I was.  The thought process went something like "Where the hell am I?  Why the hell does everything look like it does?  Where is here?"  And then the rest of my brain caught up and I thought "Oh right.  Blaricum, the Netherlands."  It was very very strange.  But it made me think about my reaction or interest in some places/countries versus others.  Home is Canada, specifically Vancouver.  It feels like home, and I fit there.  However, another country that could quite easily become home is the United Kingdom.  I haven't been to enough places in it to be able to tell you which area in particular fits best, but the first time I went there I remember stepping off the bus and thinking "This place feels right"  It was familiar in a way that I hadn't encountered before, and felt almost but not quite like home.  For Taiwan and Italy it wasn't familiarity but complete and utter fascination.  Particularly with the cities of Venice and Taipei.  In both cases I was completely caught up in the cities.  The feel of them, the sounds, sights, and smells, and the people and culture.  And in both cases I left feeling absolutely certain I'd go back to both of them and with a hunger to learn more, as much as I could about them in the meantime.  I think about both countries frequently and miss them in a different way from missing home.  Belgium was the same but to a lesser extent.  Not as captivating but still intriguing.  And then there's the absolute non-reaction.  The completely unfamiliar that just doesn't become familiar even if you try.  Germany might be one of these.  I wasn't there long enough to be able to tell.  I'd started becoming familiar with Munich, but in the way you can familiarise yourself with new places, not in the deeper sense of feeling like this was a place you could put down roots.  So I'm not sure about Germany.  But I've been in the Netherlands long enough to tell.  And it is one of the completely unfamiliar that isn't becoming familiar and probably won't.  It's been an interesting place to visit, (and I'm glad I came) but it isn't going to be home.  I've familiarised myself with both Amsterdam and Utrecht, and I enjoy hanging out in both cities quite a lot, but even now I don't feel as though I'd make the choice to move here.  And it's not for lack of trying.  I generally end up in a part way meditative state when I walk and that's how I learn a place, and I walk with the dog a lot.  And I've actively tried to get the feel of the area, and the cities.  It's worked to an extent.  I can halfway zen my way through central Amsterdam and Utrecht, and do the same in Blaricum.  But it still doesn't feel right.

It's been interesting, and a good life experience.  I'm glad I came.

Shade and Sweet Water to you all.

Venice

Alright, here's the much belated Venice recap.

I started out from the Rome Termini station at what I thought was a reasonable hour of the morning, but it turns out if you don't have a credit card than your gonna be waiting for hours to talk to a person.  Mostly because the station is so crowded.  I actually don't remember when I got on the train, but the whole trip took a few hours and the Italian scenery is lovely no biggy.  I had a B&B booked already but of course no map.  So the first thing I did when I arrived was find the information centre to find one and ask for directions.  The first thing that should have warned me was when the info person looked at the address and went "Huh?" and had to look it up.  The second was when she didn't explain what had made her confused.  Anyway, I got my map, got on the vaporetto, and headed for the Rialto bridge.

I love Venice.  I've been twice now.  The first when I was stumbling from lack of sleep and jet lag I just thought I'd been in Italy long enough to start to wake up and that was why I remembered it so well when I got home, but after this time I realised it wasn't that I was more awake.  It was Venice.  The feeling of entrancement started on the canals on the way to the Rialto.  It got stronger at the stop, where the gondoliers were hanging around and the first of many Venetian mask stands were, up over the lit up bridge where I finally came to the realisation that Carnival was in full swing, and I fell in love with the city all over again.

My mood took a a bit of a damper when I couldn't find my B&B.  I was on the right street according to the tourist info lady, but the numbers made veeeery confusing  jumps and it wasn't the same street name (or what I thought was a street name) as it was on the address I had.  I eventually went in to a drug store just as they were about to close and asked for help, and the fellow behind the counter said "Oh.  Well, it's very close, in the next intersection.  It's very hard to explain, but you're close."  So I headed back out.  Bearing in mind his mention of cross streets I went to the one that seemed to skip over about a hundred numbers, including the one I was looking for, and turned right.  Whereupon I discovered that the numbers didn't skip they just made detours.  Also what I though was a street name wasn't.  It was the name of the district.  I finally found the B&B, called the host who was very patient and friendly, and he came to let me in and give me a key.  It's the B&B Santa Sofia, by the way, and I would highly recommend it to any one looking for somewhere to stay in Venice that's centrally located.

Having dumped my bags and thawed out a bit I discovered I was quite hungry, and I'd noticed a pizza place on the corner so out I went.  Oh.  My.  God.  Best pizza EVER!!!!  I can't even remember the name of the place anymore, but I know exactly how to find it.  The crust was good,  the amount of sauce to toppings to cheese was perfect, and add to that the fact that every pizza I had in Italy had better quality, fresher, and more flavour full toppings then I've had anywhere else and I was hooked.

The next day I sallied forth after a lovely breakfast with freshly made coffee.  The tourist market near the Rialto was in full swing and there were tour groups aplenty wandering by.  I decided to dive right in, bought a two day vaporetto ticket, and headed to St. Mark's square and Ducal palace.  The vaporettos are definitely the way to go.  The views you get from them are beautiful.  I'd got a feel for a part of the cities personality the day before and I got a slightly different view of it that morning.

As soon as I got off the boat I started seeing the costumes.  They were incredible.  Single, pairs, sometimes full sets, they were all absolutely incredible.  There was usually a theme of some sort if there was more than one person.  One of my favourites was a couple dressed in absinthe green with fey designs and pictures.  The century that the costume was based in changed too.  Most were 18th century (pick your decade) but a few were earlier or later, though there were probably more 17th and 16th century than 19th.

I spent most of the day just wandering around.  Looking, feeling.  Taking pictures.  I took a vaporetto to the university district at one point and then ended up walking back to St. Marks square.  I found one of the many little cafe restaurants on a side street and had a very good spaghetti vongole for lunch, had an absolutely stupidly expensive latte at one of the cafes directly on the square, and then went in to the Basilica di San Marco for a bit.  Wow.  I mean Wow.  the walls, ceiling and floor are completely covered in mosaics.  Gorgeous, ostentatious, sparkling mosaics.  The floor is uneven everywhere and I'm not sure if it's from the shifting of time or people wearing it down.  And the feeling inside.  Despite the sheer numbers of tourists wandering through at all times it has a very contemplative feel to it.  And It was so cool to stand there and try and picture what it would look like during Mass at the height of the Renaissance!

I decided that I wanted Pizza for dinner so I headed back to my neighbourhood and wandered around San Polo a bit more before getting the last slices of pizza I was going to have in Italy (NNNNOOOOOOO!!!!!) for a while and going back to the B&B.

My flight was and early one, so I had to get around 6 am which I was less then pleased about, but it meant I got to see the city wake up.  The boats arriving loaded up with the morning deliveries for the various restaurants, cafes, and other stores, the people who start early going to work, the tourists catching buses, trains, or like me a flight.  The general feeling of muzzyness when nothings quite woken up completely.  I loved it.

I don't think I can adequately express or explain what I feel when I'm in Venice.  It captures the mind in a way no other city really has.  I knew when I left Rome that I'd probably be back.  After going to Venice I could say without a shadow of a doubt that I would be back again.  In both cities I found myself thinking poetically about both of them.  Venice as "The Queen of Water" and Rome as "The Sprawling, Ancient Lady" those being the short versions, and hardly the only ones I came up with.

Italy itself holds a special place in my mind and heart, but Venice, she holds the centre of that place.  I keep trying to come with ways to explain why I'm so entranced by Venice, why she inspires so much poetry in me.  Why I could spend hours just sitting, floating in the heady sea that is her personality.  The movement of the people, the smells, sights, sounds that are her soul.  And I can't.  Not properly.  I just know I'm going back.