As usual, a few days into my trip my feet need to be held together with tape.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Things I have eaten in Amsterdam
Before I started planning this trip, I couldn't have named any sort of Dutch food except Dutch carrots (they just call them carrots here). I now know a lot more than I did then.
The major food group is bread.
The second most important food group is also bread. Then, once as at least 50% of the meal is made of bread, cheese is added.
Now, as much as I approve of a city being so obsessed with cheese that they have cheese shops everywhere, I'm no so sure I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with using cheese (that will later be sold as food) as street art, and especially not during a heat wave.
The major food group is bread.
The second most important food group is also bread. Then, once as at least 50% of the meal is made of bread, cheese is added.
One of the first foods I tried was bitterballen. I knew they were deep-fried balls of meat, and a classic bar snack. I was not, however, expecting the meat to be in goo form, but they were surprisingly tasty
I also tried the fast-food version
which I got from FEBO, a chain place where you don't have to talk to people, you just put money in the slot and open the little door and take out your hamburger that was cooked who knows when:
I have to say that apart from the shape, I couldn't tell the difference between the two. It's either a very traditional recipe that's followed faithfully by everyone, or there's a supplier somewhere who has a monopoly selling vats of the filling that are just shaped differently by different outlets.
Beyond that, pancakes are definitely a Dutch thing. Caro and Jesse took me to a place called Pancakes! which has a great name, but a horribly long queue out the front. Possibly not worth the wait (not much is), but the spread was pretty darn impressive, and they give you a little clog keyring when you pay your bill.
For some reason, the Dutch are also really into Belgian fries. And for some, even more inexplicable, reason I chose to have curry sauce with my belgian fries. This was not a wise move, because apparently "curry" in this part of the world means "really sweet BBQ sauce". And this is from Mannekin Pis (you know the sculpture of the little boy peeing that is one of the main tourist attractions in Brussels? Seeing people urinate in the street always makes me hungry, so I think it was a good move to name a chip shop after it.), supposedly the best place for frites in Amsterdam.
Other food highlights include the time that it took three of us and about half an hour to open a bottle of wine, because we're all Australians who are used to screw caps. I don't know how I'm going to get by in Europe, I really don't.
Finally, I learned that after days of eating cheesy bready fried objects, attempting to "be healthy" by ordering a wholegrain croissant instead of a regular one is not effective.
Just because it's in the shape of a croissant does not make it a croissant. It makes it an overly fancy lump of bread that tastes like disappointment.
24 hours in transit
The Melbourne to Singapore leg of my flight was great: before we'd even taken off we were handed a drinks menu
and as if the offer of Campari within minutes of takeoff wasn't enough, there was a guy whose sole job seemed to be to hand out Singapore Slings and make the same "this would cost $30 at Raffles, but for you, FREE!" joke every time.
After they'd handed out three rounds of drinks (so, about 35 minutes in to the flight) they fed us some bland but entirely non-awful food and I settled in to watch the guy across the aisle from me down a gin and tonic every 20 minutes. I was worried that he was going to get drunk and belligerent and we'd have to make an emergency landing in Alice Springs to offload him, but after his 10th drink he curled up and went to sleep. Sure, his feet were hanging out into the aisle, but those G&Ts must have been strong because he didn't wake up when the flight attendants smashed the drink trolley into him every time they went past.
I had the very clever idea of not sleeping in the first leg of the flight so that I'd sleep through the second leg, and arrive in Amsterdam at 7am local time, good to go. I somehow managed to keep myself awake despite having a row of three seats all to myself, and having had only about 5 hours sleep the night before, and stumbled out into Singapore airport's 30 degrees dressed in my Melbourne-in-July clothes.
My travel motto is: when in doubt, find out what weird flavour of chips the country has. I chose to eat the BBQ Curry Dude Twisties, which were quite delicious (it took me a while to place it, but they tasted like Burger Rings with more chilli) but a terrible idea for someone who doesn't handle sodium well and was in the middle of a 24-hour flight.
The second leg of my flight was not ideal. I went from a new, comfy, half-empty plane to an old rickety plane packed full of Dutch (and therefore tall) people. The Singapore Sling guy had clearly called in sick that day so if you wanted one you had to actually ask for it from a regular flight attendant. Ridiculous.
Luckily, the particular Dutch people I was squashed in next to were seasoned travellers who just wedged their oversized legs into place for the duration and kept to themselves. Sleeping was difficult, but at least I wasn't seated next to the Aussie guys who, as the plane was descending into Amsterdam, loudly exclaimed "SHIT! We forgot to look up what kind of money Amsterdam has! Does anyone know?"
But I made it to Amsterdam relatively unscathed. More stories about those crazy Dutch and how wonderfully tall they all are to follow.
After they'd handed out three rounds of drinks (so, about 35 minutes in to the flight) they fed us some bland but entirely non-awful food and I settled in to watch the guy across the aisle from me down a gin and tonic every 20 minutes. I was worried that he was going to get drunk and belligerent and we'd have to make an emergency landing in Alice Springs to offload him, but after his 10th drink he curled up and went to sleep. Sure, his feet were hanging out into the aisle, but those G&Ts must have been strong because he didn't wake up when the flight attendants smashed the drink trolley into him every time they went past.
I had the very clever idea of not sleeping in the first leg of the flight so that I'd sleep through the second leg, and arrive in Amsterdam at 7am local time, good to go. I somehow managed to keep myself awake despite having a row of three seats all to myself, and having had only about 5 hours sleep the night before, and stumbled out into Singapore airport's 30 degrees dressed in my Melbourne-in-July clothes.
My travel motto is: when in doubt, find out what weird flavour of chips the country has. I chose to eat the BBQ Curry Dude Twisties, which were quite delicious (it took me a while to place it, but they tasted like Burger Rings with more chilli) but a terrible idea for someone who doesn't handle sodium well and was in the middle of a 24-hour flight.
The other flavours available were relatively standard, but with ridiculous names. My favourite was the (regrettably out of focus. Thanks, phone camera!) "DUH! Tomato".
Singapore Airport has won lots of "best airport" awards and while I do agree that it's nice to have a butterfly house and waterfall to look at while you're dragging your sorry self between flights, they have the knives-and-liquids check at the gate, so you can't buy a bottle of water to take on the plane. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to offer feedback about this issue. There was, however, a touch screen allowing you to pass judgement on your toilet experience.
The second leg of my flight was not ideal. I went from a new, comfy, half-empty plane to an old rickety plane packed full of Dutch (and therefore tall) people. The Singapore Sling guy had clearly called in sick that day so if you wanted one you had to actually ask for it from a regular flight attendant. Ridiculous.
Luckily, the particular Dutch people I was squashed in next to were seasoned travellers who just wedged their oversized legs into place for the duration and kept to themselves. Sleeping was difficult, but at least I wasn't seated next to the Aussie guys who, as the plane was descending into Amsterdam, loudly exclaimed "SHIT! We forgot to look up what kind of money Amsterdam has! Does anyone know?"
But I made it to Amsterdam relatively unscathed. More stories about those crazy Dutch and how wonderfully tall they all are to follow.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
And so it begins...
Probably the most important point to make about my upcoming trip is that I haven't come up with a catchy title for it yet. Don't worry, I'm working on it. When I've been in transit for 24+ hours, and am just barely holding it together with a carefully-balanced cocktail of diet coke, generic plane wine, and panadeine, inspiration is sure to strike.
Stay tuned here for updates on my adventures. If the fun I've had just trying to pack is anything to go by, this trip is going to be amazing.
After putting off packing until 2 days before departure, I put all the clothes that I wanted to take with me into the washing machine, and went into another room to cook an overly-elaborate meal for myself so I didn't have to think about packing. Five minutes later, water was lapping at my feet, which it doesn't usually do when I'm standing in the kitchen, so I knew something was wrong. An hour later, every towel I owned was sodden on the floor, I had attempted and failed to unscrew the casing of my washing machine, and all the clothes I had intended to take with me on my trip were wet, soapy, and in my bathtub.
Being the efficient and unflappable person that I am, I screamed "WELL FINE THEN! I DON'T NEED CLOTHES ANYWAY!" at the soggy mess in the bathtub, pointedly ignored the empty suitcase that had been sitting on my coffee table for days, and decided this was an excellent time to dye my hair.
The next day (the day before departure), I continued to ignore the empty suitcase in the middle of my loungeroom, and strutted off to work hoping that everyone would comment on how fabulous my hair looked. But all they wanted to talk about as how my packing was going, so I walked out and dragged my soggy clothes to the laundromat.
While I waited for my clothes to wash, a guy ran in, emptied a drier into his suitcase, and jumped into a waiting cab with it. He's clearly a more skilled traveller than I, and I have a lot to learn from him.
It was about this point at which I realised the machine I'd put all my clothes in wasn't making any noise, but did have a rapidly-spreading puddle of water forming around it. It turns out that washing machines in Northcote do not like non-skinny jeans. They just straight up reject them and pour water all over anyone who dares to try to wear them. Even the fact that all my jeans are high-waisted was not enough to convince these damn hipster machines to play ball.
So, I'm 12 hours out from departure now, and I'm happy because although I have broken every washing machine I've touched, my host at my first destination has assured me that just last night she saw loads of people having quite a lot of fun even though they had no clothes so I should be just fine, and I'm eating all the food left in my fridge and drinking that open bottle of wine because it would be a waste not to. And, if nothing else, my hair does look rather fabulous.
Stay tuned here for updates on my adventures. If the fun I've had just trying to pack is anything to go by, this trip is going to be amazing.
After putting off packing until 2 days before departure, I put all the clothes that I wanted to take with me into the washing machine, and went into another room to cook an overly-elaborate meal for myself so I didn't have to think about packing. Five minutes later, water was lapping at my feet, which it doesn't usually do when I'm standing in the kitchen, so I knew something was wrong. An hour later, every towel I owned was sodden on the floor, I had attempted and failed to unscrew the casing of my washing machine, and all the clothes I had intended to take with me on my trip were wet, soapy, and in my bathtub.
Being the efficient and unflappable person that I am, I screamed "WELL FINE THEN! I DON'T NEED CLOTHES ANYWAY!" at the soggy mess in the bathtub, pointedly ignored the empty suitcase that had been sitting on my coffee table for days, and decided this was an excellent time to dye my hair.
The next day (the day before departure), I continued to ignore the empty suitcase in the middle of my loungeroom, and strutted off to work hoping that everyone would comment on how fabulous my hair looked. But all they wanted to talk about as how my packing was going, so I walked out and dragged my soggy clothes to the laundromat.
While I waited for my clothes to wash, a guy ran in, emptied a drier into his suitcase, and jumped into a waiting cab with it. He's clearly a more skilled traveller than I, and I have a lot to learn from him.
It was about this point at which I realised the machine I'd put all my clothes in wasn't making any noise, but did have a rapidly-spreading puddle of water forming around it. It turns out that washing machines in Northcote do not like non-skinny jeans. They just straight up reject them and pour water all over anyone who dares to try to wear them. Even the fact that all my jeans are high-waisted was not enough to convince these damn hipster machines to play ball.
So, I'm 12 hours out from departure now, and I'm happy because although I have broken every washing machine I've touched, my host at my first destination has assured me that just last night she saw loads of people having quite a lot of fun even though they had no clothes so I should be just fine, and I'm eating all the food left in my fridge and drinking that open bottle of wine because it would be a waste not to. And, if nothing else, my hair does look rather fabulous.
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