ONE MONTH TO GO CHO-CHO

It's actually less than a month. We leave Amsterdam on June 27 and we're leaving for ten days in June, so we really only have like twenty days left. Crazy. We went to the movies again today, and while most things are the same as they are in the States, the pre-show commercials here are out of control. We have to sit through at least eleven full-length commercials before even getting to the previews. And if that isn't bad enough, they're always the same ones! Today, I spent the entire time with my eyes closed - it's that annoying. We went for a power-walk this morning at the Westergasfabriek. It's this huge, beautiful park (similar to SF's Presidio) literally five minutes away and we only just discovered it about a week ago. It's the only place we've ever seen people working out (walking, jogging, etc.), though we still got weird looks when we went today. We're not sure why. We woke up to sunshine, so we grabbed the opportunity and bolted out the door. We have two separate groups of friends arriving on Sunday. Adrian's friends Akshay and Rollie are coming into town - and my friend Analie and her boyfriend Mike are coming the same day. Analie and Mike are staying with us - the others at a hotel. It will be fun to show all of them around this wonderful city.

LIANG TRAVEL SERVICES, LTD.

It's official - Adrian and I will end our summer in Europe by meeting my parents and younger brother for a 10-day Portugal trip. We just finished booking all the flight and hotel arrangements for them - and they didn't even seem to mind the fact that we included "handling & processing fees for Liang Travel Services, Ltd." They're easy marks.

Not only will this Portugal trip (which will cover both the Azores islands and the city of Lisbon) be the cap of what will be the best summer ever, but it's going to be such a momentous occasion for many different reasons. First off, it will my family's first trip to Europe (of many, I hope). Secondly, my mom is going to be visiting the towns her parents (my grandparents) came from. Thirdly, besides tiny trips to San Diego and Tahoe, we've never all traveled together, so this will be a great test to see how the extended family works on vacation. Especially since we have family trips tentatively planned for the next two summers. I have no worries though. I know it's going to be fantastic, and I'm so glad that it all worked out.

"I LIKE IT"

I love the Dixie Chicks - always have and always will. Their newest album came out on Tuesday and I preordered it through iTunes. Using the few brain cells I still have, I figured that with a new album, they would most likely be touring again. I have never seen them in concert, but it has been a dream of mine. After my research, I learned that the only way to get a code for the presale tickets was to buy a CD from Target. I immediately paged Katie and she in turn told our friend Cathy. Katie's trip to Target proved unsuccessful as they were sold out. Not a big surprise. Yesterday, I also told my brother Steven to check in San Diego. This morning I awoke to a presale code in my inbox, courtesy of the best brother in the world - who has since won the "Brother of the Year" award. I hopped on Ticketmaster and not only did I get tickets to their Oakland concert, but I got seats 19 rows away from the stage. I'm not a big fan of floor seats at any concert, but for the Chicks, I'd be in the nosebleed section, so this is like nirvana.

NEMO FOUND

We had our day planned - we would head over to Centraal Station to see if a new "People" magazine was on the newsstands, then we would head to lunch at a restaurant recommended in our book for it's amazing views of Amsterdam, and then we would spend the afternoon exploring NEMO, the largest science and technology museum in the Netherlands. Success with the magazine, success with the lunch. However, on arriving at NEMO, we were bombarded with an unusual amount of kids. There are always kids running around the streets of Amsterdam at all times of the day; we always wonder when they go to school. Well, maybe we figured it out. They don't go to school, they just go to NEMO. It was too much for us, so we left and after regrouping, decided to go to one of our favorite places in any city. The movies! We watched "The Da Vinci Code" and it was as bad as the reviews say. What was even worse was that a quarter of the movie is in French, and gets translated into Dutch, not English, so we missed a lot of one subplot (not that it mattered). Below, I give you NEMO:



P.S. I misinformed you in an earlier blog when I said that the smallest Euro cent piece was 5 cents. While in Belgium this past weekend, I was given both a 2 cents piece and a 1 cent piece. You should see this 1 cent piece...you almost need a pair of tweezers to get it out of your change purse. Perhaps that's why Amsterdam will have nothing to do with it.

BACK TO WIEN

When Adrian and I were planning what other cities we might want to go to from Amsterdam, Vienna was high on my list. Eleven years ago (can you believe that?), I spent four months in Vienna as a student. I have very fond memories of the place, even if somewhat vague. (Can eleven years really do that to one's memory? I guess so, because I've had to do some research to refresh myself on the city and its highlights.) Adrian really wanted to see Prague, so yesterday we finalized our only other trip while here in Amsterdam. We are going to fly to Prague, take a train to Vienna for 5 days, then back to Prague for 4 days, and then fly back to Amsterdam. I am having so much fun looking for all my old haunts on the internet and making a list of all the places that I have to show Adrian. Of course, it will be different to be there as a tourist, traveling from sight to sight, but I just know it's going to be great.

BRRR-USSELS

We're back from our trip to Brussels, Belgium. I would say "short" trip if I felt like we had missed something, but unfortunately, Brussels doesn't really have anything to miss out on. We didn't have a horrible time, but the weather was excruciatingly bad. Now I know you can't blame a city for the weather (as I write this, it's raining here in Amsterdam), but when you need to sightsee at a breakneck speed, you really don't want to do it in windy, rainy weather. It was so cold that I didn't take any photos, lest my hands freeze into ice blocks and fall off. (For any Brussels photos, please visit Adrian's site as he is tougher than I am.) There wasn't much to see or do, so we wandered aimlessly and then we did the only thing worth doing in Brussels (unless you're a beer drinker...if you drink beer, Brussels is the city for you, hands down).
We ATE!

If you should ever find yourself in Brussels, you cannot miss the fare at La Grande Porte. This quaint restaurant, tucked away on a sidestreet, was fabulous. It was actually beyond fabulous - it was so good that in a town of amazing restaurants, we almost went there two nights in a row. We started out by sharing a ham and cheese croquette; for our entrees, I had the spaghetti bolognese and Adrian had the beef stew and fries. We traded halfway through and could not believe how good both dishes were. For dessert, I had one of the best warm chocolate cakes I'd ever had. The service was excellent and I could go on and on, but I'll end by saying it was the best pasta and beef stew we'd both ever had.

On Saturday, with bad weather at every turn, we set out on a chocolate tour of the city. Basically, this consists of visiting many of the distinct chocolatiers and sampling two different chocolates at each one. We tried Filip Martin, Corne Port-Royal, Neuhaus, Corne Toison D'Or, Kim's, and Elisabeth. Yes, count them up...we had twelve pieces of chocolate (and that doesn't even count the Godiva ones we got at our hotel turndown service). So I know you're thinking - what about the Belgian waffles? Did you try those? Of course.

After dinner on Saturday, we made a stop at one of the many waffle shops dotting the city. These places are packed. You can order a palm-sized waffle smothered in anything you want - I went for the bananas and chocolate, Adrian went for the strawberry jam and maple syrup. They were so good that before we left the city today, we each had another. (This time I went for a simple maple syrup and powdered sugar one.)

We're glad to be home and we hope that the weather gets better so we can walk off all those damn calories we consumed. It was so worth it though.

SOUTH

Today we explored the last uncharted territory of Amsterdam (at least for us) - the Southern Canal Belt and an area known as De Pijp. Highlights of the day included the biggest grocery store we've seen yet (a Dirk van den Broek that included both a pharmacy and a wine store). On a sidenote, there are many different grocery stores here in the city, but the two main ones are Dirk and Albert Heijn, marketed as simply AH. We frequent them both equally. We also walked through the Albert Cuypmarkt, Amsterdam's largest street market. Basically, its stall after stall of everything from food to clothes to toiletries to junk with some french fries vendor in between. We like to look, but it's all a bit tacky. We also walked over to the Amstel InterContinental Hotel. Quite impressive, and being that it was home to George and Matt back in the "Ocean's Twelve" filming days, it was nice to examine. I looked into rates, in case we wanted to spend a romantic night there, but at $500 a night, I'll keep looking at the photo.

KEUKENHOF

Today we ventured outside of Amsterdam to the public garden of Keukenhof in the town of Lisse. It's like an amusement park for flower lovers - or any photographer with a macro lens. We journeyed on a train, then a bus - and found up-to-date English magazines in the train stations. I couldn't resist and had to buy a "People." The gardens were beautiful and you can view our best shots on our Flickr sites. They may get a little redundant - though Adrian is the one with the better lens.

13 DAYS

We've been enjoying some quality downtime in the midst of our European tour. We go to the grocery store and take leisurely walks, but have done nothing too strenuous. We've been trying to figure out what we want to do in the latter part of July. At first, we were going to city-hop before meeting up with my parents and brother in Portugal, but now Adrian is determined to go on a Mediterranean cruise. We have emails out to various travel agents, and are just waiting to hear back from them. It would be our first cruise together. Our first choice starts in Venice - travels to Croatia, various spots in Greece and Italy - and ends in Barcelona. We recently tried out our microphone connection through Yahoo Messenger and it works great. I was able to speak with both my family and Katie - clear as a bell, for free. It doesn't get much better than that. If Adrian feels better this week, we plan to take a trip outside of Amsterdam to Keukenhof, which is a public garden/park overflowing with flowers that we hear is a must-see.

DIAGNOSIS

Is any vacation truly complete without a trip to a local hospital? Well, we didn't think so. So off we went - an hour walk there, an hour walk back.

Diagnosis: a "Dutch" virus

Definition: What we were worried was strep throat, the doctor explained was a cold that Adrian wasn't recovering from easily because it wasn't "American." No prescription, no medicine - just a $320 bill and we were sent on our way.

DUTCH KARMA

Because of Adrian's slight illness, we're going to postpone our Italian dinner tonight. So either karma is telling us not to eat at this place, or it's just preparing us for the best dining experience yet. I really hope it's the latter.

GOOD THINGS

Our DSL is finally working.

We visited the Van Gogh Museum today.

We journeyed to Gary's Muffins - I had the banana-chocolate, Adrian had the very berry. Delicious!

Did I tell you that our DSL is finally working?

WE'RE LEARNING - SLOWLY

The other night we were turned away from an Italian restaurant in our neighborhood due to it being full to capacity, with a wait of 30 minutes or more. We were hungry, so we moved on. Today, we thought we'd try the same restaurant, but just arrive super early. When we got there, there was no one there at all except for two ladies at a table outside. Since it was a nice night, we sat at a nearby table and waited for the server. She handed us a wine list and walked away. When she came back, we ordered two Sprites and asked for the dinner menu. She gave us a funny look and said that the menu is printed on a board inside and she hadn't changed it yet, but it didn't matter anyway because she had no room for us. All the tables for two were booked for the night. She didn't want to serve us outside in case it rained. We were a little dubious about it raining - we thought she was using that as an excuse not to serve us. We sat and debated about what to do (because once again we were starving), and we finally decided to make reservations for a night this week. We're booked for this Thursday, and we expect it to be damn good with all this waiting we're doing for it. We then went down the street and had Chinese and on our way home, we actually felt some raindrops. Surprise, surprise.

FAQs

What’s the weather like?

The weather has been beautiful. Shorts and tank top kind of weather – easily in the high 70s. The nights are the best. Still warm with a soft breeze. The funny thing is the day we got here our landlady told us that it had been raining nonstop just prior to our arrival and that it was supposed to continue. We haven’t had anything but clear skies. (Let’s hope I didn’t just jinx anything.)

What’s the apartment like?

The apartment is great. We’re on the third (top) floor of the building and we have a cute 2-story place. The staircase is a tad dangerous as it curves and has no banister, but we are super careful. Two full bathrooms, a full kitchen, a washer/dryer, most everything provided. It suits our needs perfectly. Of course, any place has its quirks. Some of the faucets drip continuously, our hot water was off for half a day, the toilet upstairs is temperamental…but it’s all part of the adventure.

What are the Dutch people like?

First off, they’re so damn tall. The Dutch are known for being the tallest in the world, but it’s ridiculous. Adrian and I feel so short here. Everyone speaks English, but we are usually addressed first in Dutch. Maybe they do that to everyone, or maybe we don’t stand out as much as we think we do. It’s definitely a multicultural city, which is what we wanted.

Can you buy all the same stuff?

Yes. But not in a one-stop shopping experience. Their grocery stores have just that – groceries. They have special stores for toiletries/cosmetics and special stores for hardware, etc. You have to bring your own bags to the grocery store, and pack them yourself. The smallest coin is worth 5 cents, so all totals get rounded (i.e. my purchase today for 2.18 euros was rounded to 2.20) – I guess no one argues over 2 cents.

Have we rented bikes yet?

Not yet, but we will soon. I can’t wait.

What’s the food like?

Well, you’ve read about and seen some of it. You can get basically anything you’re craving; it’s just figuring out the best places to get it. Except for Mexican of course – there’s no El Pueblito hiding on an off street. We’ve tried American, Dutch, Thai, Greek, Indian, and Indonesian cuisine. No meal stands out. You have to pay for water, so we’ve started bringing our own. And we’ve actually cooked at home. Adrian did his whole breakfast thing – the shopping trip was hilarious…guessing what was nonfat milk, what was butter, etc. It turned out fine.

Are we having fun?

We're having a blast. Come join the fun!

PHOTOHOLICS

In case you want to see even more photos of Amsterdam, Adrian has finally posted some on his Flickr site. 48 Marnixstraat is our apartment (we're on the third floor), but that's not our bike.
(www.flickr.com/photos/filmfrenzy)

JORDAAN

Before we left, people often asked us what we were going to do each day. Well, we explore. After a few days of wandering the city aimlessly, yesterday we planned out our route. We would start by exploring the neighborhood we live in – the Jordaan. We headed to the Westerkerk (kerk – church) because Adrian wanted to climb the tower, which is known for its spectacular city views. Unfortunately, the tower was closed for renovations. Instead, we took a tour of the Anne Frank House, followed by an early dinner at the Pancake Bakery. We then decided to follow a walking tour route from one of our books. This led us to Dam Square – home of the Royal Palace and the National Monument. Being that it was National Remembrance Day, the place was packed. On this holiday, Queen Beatrix places wreaths on the monument in memory of all those – soldiers and civilians – who have perished in the Netherlands and the world since WWII. At 8:00pm, a two-minute silence is observed. Being that it was 6:40pm when we got to the square, we had a prime spot in viewing the procession and the queen. Honestly, it was quite boring, but we got to see the queen! We headed home after that – we’d left the house at 3pm and walked in the door at 9pm. We were beyond exhausted. We had a whole day planned out today and we scratched that in favor of relaxing at the apartment and trying to get our internet working properly. What a headache – it still isn’t working and I’m having to steal time off a random wireless network. Ugh.

EATS (for Sy)

dinner(03.05): d’Vijff Vlieghen. This was our first foray into a “contemporary” Dutch restaurant. We decided to be adventurous and go with the chef’s surprise 5-course menu. Considering that the a la carte menu included calf’s tongue and oysters, I admit I was a little scared. 1st: salad on a thin filet of beef, topped with a piece of bacon and red wine vinaigrette, 2nd: marinated catfish garnished with mayonnaise mousse, 3rd: half of a quail with snow peas, 4th: veal with potatoes and beans, 5th: strawberry mousse cake served with raspberry sorbet and berries. As you can see, it turned out not to be anything scary. As Adrian put it, “this is like American food.” (Photos at www.flickr.com/photos/gingham)

dinner(02.05): Burger’s Patio. I had the 3-course dinner – 1st: grilled asparagus served with a poached egg, 2nd: steak with polenta and vegetables, 3rd: a banana tart with ice cream. Adrian had the tomato soup and lamp chops. Our dinners came with french fries (served with mayonnaise) and raw vegetables (served with dijon mayonnaise). We see a trend. (We assume the name comes from family as there wasn’t a burger on the menu, though there was a patio.)

SEEING ORANGE*

Well, we’re definitely not in America anymore. We found our apartment without any problem, and it’s as cute and spacious as we expected. After a quick tour, we headed out to a supermarket to get some essentials (detergent, soap, water). We then unpacked and tried to figure out the troublesome washer (it would not fill with water and after hours of playing with it and calling the landlady, Adrian tried turning some valve in the back and it started working), and then we took a nap. We left for dinner around 8:30pm worried what we would find since we’d read that the Dutch eat dinner quite early. We wandered our neighborhood stunned at how many bicycles are in this city (you read about it, but it’s still an amazing sight) and how deserted it is at night. It’s so quiet that at one point we realized we were whispering as we were walking down the street. We found a few places that looked interesting and finally settled on one. An hour and a half later, we came back sated and exhausted and ready for some Dutch tv. We found Friends, Oprah, Super Sweet 16, and The Practice – all in English. Not too shabby.

*Orange is the national color of the Netherlands and dominates the majority of store window displays.