In Holland Christmas starts in November itself. It starts with from19th Nov the day Sinter Klaas comes from Spain ( A saint from Turkey) and all the way till “Tweede Kerstdag” the 26th Dec. The city is all decorated; streets are lit up with festive lights. The global economic crisis didn’t seem to affect the Christmas spirit; well not mine at least. I always wait for the festive times, be it Diwali or Christmas, I am the happiest during festivals (for the records I am a grumpy man).
Speaking of Sinter Klaas, my colleague Rinus had given me clear instructions as what to do to get a gift from Sinter Klaas. I had to keep a shoe in the window and not to forget the carrot for his horse. Well, I did neither of them but I sure did wish for an exciting Christmas. I hadn’t given up with the wish, I had planned to go to Fryslan (North of The Netherlands) and spend some time on frozen lakes, but it looked like Sinter Klaas had planned something more special. To start with my manager gave me Christmas gift, two books on Cricket J and Sathwick was planning to be in mainland Europe during Christmas and asked me if we could meet up, how better could it get? I had no two thoughts; I changed my plan of Fryslan and decided to stay back. As with my other tours with Sathwick, I was assured that this too would be exciting and so it was.
Sathwick spent few days of his holidays in Paris and came to Rotterdam on 23rd night. I went to pick him up from the Bus station he saw me and said “Category innu haage iddiya” which means “Katageri, you are still the same”. My surname is Katageri thanks to one of my managers he managed to pronounce it as Category and since then it has been so. We had planned that Sathwick would be staying in Rotterdam at my place; I had warned him about the state of my place when we had planned, and it looks like he hadn’t really considered it. One the way home I introduced Sathwick to my Turkish friend Memeth. He runs a Turkish takeaway in Rotterdam where I buy most of my dinners. Anyway as soon as Sathwick entered my studio he was shocked to see it. For the next hour or so he was after me getting me re-arrange things, advising how space can be made in that room etc., I did manage to clear some of the mess but it was too much to clear the whole thing. So I just cleared my clothes which were all over the room and that made Sathwick calm down a bit. All the time I was clearing the mess I was thinking of this old movie, “The Odd Couple” (It was a play on Broadway too). One should watch the movie to understand what I am talking about. Sathwick then started un-packing his bag and this is always the best part. His bag pack is what I call the “jadoo ka piTara” filled with interesting things. At least I find them interesting. It is also those tiny little things and gadgets he carries which makes it interesting. But this time it had something more interesting, it was a gift for me hurray!!!!!!!!! Another Christmas gift for meJ. It was a cardigan, sweater, don’t know what to call it but I liked itJ. We had dinner and next were the call to the 3rd monkey of our group, Vishwas. We three; Sathwick, Vishwas and me had taken a photo in the same pose as 3 monkeys of Gandhi, so recently Sathwick started this group called 3 Monkeys. Anyway, the call was more to shout at/ursofy him for not being here. By the way there is one more person to be introduced, Sathwick’s cousin Aparna. She works in Amsterdam and was going to join us later. After a short talk with Vishwas we called it a day, it was almost 2’O clock.
I had to work; rather, go to office the next day and I left Sathwick near the visitor’s information centre and headed to office and we decided to meet for lunch. I didn’t have much time for lunch so instead of a restaurant Sathwick asked if there was a bakery around and we were in a bakery. I suggested him to have a “Bosche Bollen” a specialty from Den Bosch a near by town, then I asked him to try “Olie bollen”. I always felt it reminded of something I have eaten in India but never could relate. Sathwick said it was more like our “Mangalooru bajji”, but with powder sugar instead of chutneyJ. I went back to office and we decided to meet again after the office at some Pub. We went to a pub called “Rotown” (a place where I usually go). I should thank another colleague of mine Colin for getting me to this pub.
Sathwick is a traveler and carries Lonely Planet of the place he is travelling and I should say follows it to the word. I got this habit of using Lonely Planet from him, but my experiment with it was as good as any other reading material I have tried till date. There is nothing wrong with the book as such, but it is me who When I followed it for the first few times, the actual tour was more like a “second time” experience and it felt it was not interesting. So I use it just to decide which city to visit rather than follow it to the word, and then just follow local maps and local people’s suggestion about the city rather than what is suggested in the book, as per me it keeps the tour interesting. Sathwick doesn’t agree with it, but it’s these discussions of our different ideas is what I think makes it time well spent.
Rotterdam is supposed to be Netherland’s architecture city, so we had planned to take few pictures of the city at night, I always like this city at night with the bridges all lit. So we were off, first to the Euromast (a tower in Rotterdam) so that we get at the top of it and get some good pictures of the city, which as per Lonely Planet was open till 11:00 in the night but it was not L, so I argued with Sathwick that he should not follow Lonely Planet to the word. Actually it was supposed to be open as per the tower’s timings too, but hey what the hell it gave me an advantage to prove my point about Lonely Planet ;). Instead of taking pictures of the city from the tower we took the pictures of the towers and headed back. On the way we took few pictures of the Erasmus Bridge, a cantilever bridge across the river Maas in Rotterdam. We had planned to start early for Amsterdam the next day so we headed back to house. On the way back we got my favourite Turkish takeaway “The Falafel menu” which has kind of become my staple food for past few months.
Recently I have been watching this cartoon show called “South Park”. It is one amazing cartoon show and surprisingly even Sathwick was following it so that add to the long list of topics that we discuss. We had dinner watching the same cartoon show. We had to leave early next morning so we called it a day.
Next day we were off to Amsterdam, reached Amsterdam at around 11:00. This was only the second time I had been to Amsterdam and the first time I hadn’t seen anything. So I was expecting to see some part of Amsterdam, especially Van Gough Museum. I am not a “art person” but I did like Van Gough’s famous sunflower painting when I saw it in London’s National Art Gallery, and wanted to see more of his painting. We met Sathwick’s cousin Aparna and guess where did we meet at Van Gough’s museumJ. At the entrance there was the famous sunflower painting poster and one of his many self portraits. I was all excited, even Aparna hadn’t been to this museum. It was worth it. I wanted to buy something from there probably the sunflower painting (not the original one of courseJ) for my new house, but it was a too expensive. So had to leave just with the thought of may be someday I will. Once we were out of the museum we went to the “I Amsterdam” place nearby and took few photos there. It was lunch time and all of us were hungry and started the hunt of a restaurant. On our way we did try more Oliebollen. All of us were Vegetarians so that in a way made it easy and difficult too. Of course none of us wanted to go into so called “Indian” restaurants. My theory is why eat Indian when I am outside (India). I have eaten it for 20 odd years of my life and would prefer to try something local. We did search a bit and finally settled to an Italian. While having lunch we had few interesting discussions about art and art in India the support that is there in India and abroad for the growth of art. Aparna and few of her friends are setting up a dance academy in Amsterdam, so we discussed their plans, the kind of funding they get etc. It was an interesting discussion for me, considering that I am a person from engineering background.
I always wanted to go to Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam. This is something which I wanted to do since a long time, well really long, since the time we had this lesson “Excerpts from the Diary of Anne Frank” in our high school. Recently I even saw the movie, so that made me want to go there even more. It was supposed to get closed at five and we were running late. So, there I was just in time, at half past four. May be half an hour was not enough for that house, but something is better than nothing. Another important reason I had to go visit the house was, another friend of mine had asked me to get something from the house for him. While me and Sathwick were in the house. Aparna (who opted to stay out as she had already been there) was waiting for us in a nearby pub. We finished the tour of the house and headed to the pub.
Oh the pub, it was one amazing place, an old pub not too huge. We started with our drinks and started to discuss on various things like music, the work culture in Holland, our lives, marriage and what not. I was enjoying every moment of it. In fact as we entered the pub Aparna was already into a discussion with another man about the “big mouth” of the Dutch had. In my short experience in Netherlands I have never seen such a thing. I feel they are pretty nice people and a lot straight forward. They don’t maintain too much of hierarchy in work (which I like a lot) and yes love their football a lot. One has to see it to believe it. They paint the whole city in Orange if the national team is playing in that city. Anyway to add to the fun in the pub, there was going to be some live music too. Music, interesting people, good discussions with friends, it just was getting better and better. After enjoying the music for sometime we finally decided to get out of the pub and explore more of the city. Sathwick had read about this “Café Cuba” a designer café in Lonley Planet and wanted to go there. So we started to search for it, but to Sathwick’s disappointment it was closed, another score for me ;). We were nearby Aparna’s school so we saw that too. It was almost time for dinner. Sathwick had already troubled me a lot to try some “Surinami” food which I was not at all ready for. I have tried it couple of times when I came to Netherlands and it was not for me. Luckily we didn’t find any Surinami restaurant and settled for Japanese.
We had dinner and it was time for something more exciting, time to get “high”. I was against it, and I mean it. We searched for a place and it was closed. I was happy and sometime back I was “annoying” Sathwick about another theory which goes like “samay se phele aur kismet se jyaada kisiko kuch nahin miltha hai” which roughly means, “a person will get something if and only if he or she is destined to get it and even then it won’t happen till the time is right”. So I started with that again. Few minutes later it looked the time had come!!!! There was another shop which was open. So, I and Sathwick tried the “space cake”. Aparna asked us if we will be alright to back to Rotterdam. Nothing happened to us. May be it was just a scam to loot people. Give the same old chocolate cake and charge more moneyJ. Whatever it was nothing happened to usL.
We walked back to the station and wait it was not over yet, we still had time for another pubJ. We went into another pub had some drinks took few photograph of all of us and headed back to Rotterdam.
So that was my real first day in Amsterdam. Oh what a day it was. The first major city I saw outside India was London and I had liked it. Then I saw Paris and fell in love with the city. Though I saw more of London during my second trip to UK, Paris was still my favourite city. Now I have seen Amsterdam, it is in a different league. I don’t know if there is any other city like this. It has a class to it. The canals, the grachts (wharfs) the ancient look. On my list, I will rate it better than Paris. May be it was the company mattered too, I am sure it is not the space cakeJ. This was Christmas day and we came back to Rotterdam. Next day it was Delft and The Hague.
We were late the next day (again) and decided to meet Aparna in Delft. We were the first to be in the city, but unfortunately it was not quite open as Amsterdam. So we tried to reach Aparna to stop her from coming here and instead we go to Amsterdam, but we were late. Delft is famous for its pottery. It is “Inspired” by the Chinese porcelain art. It is always in the white pottery and blue painting on it, hence the name Delft blauw (Delft Blue). The factory which arranged for demonstrations was also closed so we just took few pictures of the Nieuwe Church (New Church) and the blue heart and were waiting for Aparna in a café. After sometime she joined us. It was a very cold day and there was nothing much to do in the city so we decided to go to The Hague. We saw the Dutch Parliament and the old church, and then it was time for the “Madurodam”J. You can see most of the must see places of Holland here in miniature. It is a good place for kids. I had been there before so I decided not to go in and was waiting for Aparna and Sathwick. I was watching people there. This is something which I do instinctively and Sathwick doesn’t like a bit of it. I watch people and try and study them.
While I was waiting there, a bunch of Indians came in and as with most other groups, when they are out to on a tour, all of them “have” to be together. I am not saying it is wrong, but just not my idea of a tour. This group somehow got split up into two. Those who were there early went in asking the other guys to join them in later, but before they did that there were some good to watch argumentsJ. I enjoyed it because to me it was more like a déjà vu. After few minutes the other guys too came and it was very obvious that these guys were from the same group and then the apologies. I was observing people and then Sathwick and Aparna came back. All of us were hungry so we headed for a restaurant. We had good food and spent a lot of time again discussing about many more interesting things of life. Then there was something interesting, I went into the toilet and managed to lock myself in!!! I called Sathwick to get me out and I got out because of a “two eurocent coin”. I took it from Sathwick; I hope I will have it for a very long time.
Then we headed back to Rotterdam. While we were in the restaurant we did spend a lot of time talking, so I brought this discussion up with Sathwick during our journey back to Rotterdam, would it happen in India that we go into a restaurant and spend so much time? I said I have experienced it only happen in “Café Coffee Day”, otherwise the people in restaurant are willing to make you leave as soon as you are done with the food. Sathwick did not agree, he said it all boils down to business. If they are making business because of you they will let you stay otherwise these people too will ask you to leave. However I was not convinced, I thought these people would let the customer spend more time even if they were not getting business out of him. More like they try to be more “polite”. On our way back to from station to Rotterdam Sathwick told me about these friends he made from Indian Navy during his visit to North India. He told me the expeditions those Navy people had made it was a good walk back home.
Next day, Sathwick bought the bus tickets for his journey back to Paris. We were going back to Amsterdam to cover few other things which we had missed on the first day; it includes the famous “red light district”. Sathwick wanted to be there as early as possible and see how it would be during day light. So here we were, right in the afternoon at the walls. That is how the Dutch call that area, “De Wallen” which means “The walls” as they are the two walls front wall and the back wall where most of the red light district is present. Sathwick went into an erotic museum and I was waiting for him outside. After that we went to the flower markets and from there we went to the “Café Cuba” the designer café, had some coffee. There was a local market setup just outside the café and Cheese was being soldJ Sathwick bought some cheese and people there were discussing something about India and Pakistan. We weren’t aware about the “speculations of war” yet. So we asked what it that they were discussing about was. The guy didn’t even bother to respond. We just ignored it and decided to go to the Pancake bakery which Aparna had recommended. As always I went for the simple plain (might be called as boring) pancake whereas Sathwick went for more interesting Holland special with some 2 scoops of ice cream and whipped cream and what not. We ate it and started discussing about work well it didn’t actually start with work, but somehow I dragged it towards work and I started complaining about my work and then there was unwanted discussion all in all the whole thing got a bit heated up. I think it is purely my mistake but then I am a self confessed “workaholic” so I guess it was bound to happen. I should thank Sathwick and Aparna that I had not thought about work for more than 50 odd hoursJ, and when it happened it spoiled everything. Anyway I was upset for some more time which is very much me and we then met Aparna that evening. She told us that there news about tensions between India and Pakistan and the troops were being moved etc. then we thought this is what the guys at the market were discussing.
We then decided to do the canal ride of Amsterdam but sadly we were too late and it was closed. So we decided to see more of Amsterdam, and Aparna was keen to shows her old house which she liked a lot. Indeed the area was pretty good which a wharf just outside the window, from there we went to her usual hangout place. It was a nice old pub, by now I had got work out of my brains again and had started to enjoyJ. In the pub Sathwick tried some Belgian beer; I went for same old coffee. We spoke for sometime and then there was a request from the pub owner for us to move to the bar instead of table as the table would be better for the people who would go for food. So it was Sathwick’s turnJ. He told me “See Kat, it all boils down to business”J. Now I had no choice but to agree with him. Indeed it all boils down to business. We spent some more time at the bar, took few photos and left from the pub. The second day in Amsterdam was even better so that confirms that “space cake” had nothing to do with Amsterdam being my new favourite cityJ. We then left the pub and decided to visit the red light area during the night. Then another friend of Aparna joined us. We all roamed around in Amsterdam till late night and then we took a train back to Rotterdam.
On our way back, the train stopped when Rotterdam was another 2 minutes journey. They said it was a signal failure. So we had to travel backwards to an earlier station. For almost half an hour there was no alternative arrangement made. It was terribly cold it was almost the time of a day when minimum temperatures are measured. Sathwick lost his patience and called up the SOS phone, then few Dutch too joined us and they told that another train will be arranged by then a bus was waiting for those who were going to Rotterdam. Sathwick had a bus back to Paris the next day at nine in the morning. I slept off and he did his packing. Next day I dropped him back at the bus station. I came back and slept the rest of the dayJ. This was my Christmas.
Thanks to Sathwick and Aparna, I enjoyed every bit of those three days. Hope you enjoyed this writing too.
Speaking of Sinter Klaas, my colleague Rinus had given me clear instructions as what to do to get a gift from Sinter Klaas. I had to keep a shoe in the window and not to forget the carrot for his horse. Well, I did neither of them but I sure did wish for an exciting Christmas. I hadn’t given up with the wish, I had planned to go to Fryslan (North of The Netherlands) and spend some time on frozen lakes, but it looked like Sinter Klaas had planned something more special. To start with my manager gave me Christmas gift, two books on Cricket J and Sathwick was planning to be in mainland Europe during Christmas and asked me if we could meet up, how better could it get? I had no two thoughts; I changed my plan of Fryslan and decided to stay back. As with my other tours with Sathwick, I was assured that this too would be exciting and so it was.
Sathwick spent few days of his holidays in Paris and came to Rotterdam on 23rd night. I went to pick him up from the Bus station he saw me and said “Category innu haage iddiya” which means “Katageri, you are still the same”. My surname is Katageri thanks to one of my managers he managed to pronounce it as Category and since then it has been so. We had planned that Sathwick would be staying in Rotterdam at my place; I had warned him about the state of my place when we had planned, and it looks like he hadn’t really considered it. One the way home I introduced Sathwick to my Turkish friend Memeth. He runs a Turkish takeaway in Rotterdam where I buy most of my dinners. Anyway as soon as Sathwick entered my studio he was shocked to see it. For the next hour or so he was after me getting me re-arrange things, advising how space can be made in that room etc., I did manage to clear some of the mess but it was too much to clear the whole thing. So I just cleared my clothes which were all over the room and that made Sathwick calm down a bit. All the time I was clearing the mess I was thinking of this old movie, “The Odd Couple” (It was a play on Broadway too). One should watch the movie to understand what I am talking about. Sathwick then started un-packing his bag and this is always the best part. His bag pack is what I call the “jadoo ka piTara” filled with interesting things. At least I find them interesting. It is also those tiny little things and gadgets he carries which makes it interesting. But this time it had something more interesting, it was a gift for me hurray!!!!!!!!! Another Christmas gift for meJ. It was a cardigan, sweater, don’t know what to call it but I liked itJ. We had dinner and next were the call to the 3rd monkey of our group, Vishwas. We three; Sathwick, Vishwas and me had taken a photo in the same pose as 3 monkeys of Gandhi, so recently Sathwick started this group called 3 Monkeys. Anyway, the call was more to shout at/ursofy him for not being here. By the way there is one more person to be introduced, Sathwick’s cousin Aparna. She works in Amsterdam and was going to join us later. After a short talk with Vishwas we called it a day, it was almost 2’O clock.
I had to work; rather, go to office the next day and I left Sathwick near the visitor’s information centre and headed to office and we decided to meet for lunch. I didn’t have much time for lunch so instead of a restaurant Sathwick asked if there was a bakery around and we were in a bakery. I suggested him to have a “Bosche Bollen” a specialty from Den Bosch a near by town, then I asked him to try “Olie bollen”. I always felt it reminded of something I have eaten in India but never could relate. Sathwick said it was more like our “Mangalooru bajji”, but with powder sugar instead of chutneyJ. I went back to office and we decided to meet again after the office at some Pub. We went to a pub called “Rotown” (a place where I usually go). I should thank another colleague of mine Colin for getting me to this pub.
Sathwick is a traveler and carries Lonely Planet of the place he is travelling and I should say follows it to the word. I got this habit of using Lonely Planet from him, but my experiment with it was as good as any other reading material I have tried till date. There is nothing wrong with the book as such, but it is me who When I followed it for the first few times, the actual tour was more like a “second time” experience and it felt it was not interesting. So I use it just to decide which city to visit rather than follow it to the word, and then just follow local maps and local people’s suggestion about the city rather than what is suggested in the book, as per me it keeps the tour interesting. Sathwick doesn’t agree with it, but it’s these discussions of our different ideas is what I think makes it time well spent.
Rotterdam is supposed to be Netherland’s architecture city, so we had planned to take few pictures of the city at night, I always like this city at night with the bridges all lit. So we were off, first to the Euromast (a tower in Rotterdam) so that we get at the top of it and get some good pictures of the city, which as per Lonely Planet was open till 11:00 in the night but it was not L, so I argued with Sathwick that he should not follow Lonely Planet to the word. Actually it was supposed to be open as per the tower’s timings too, but hey what the hell it gave me an advantage to prove my point about Lonely Planet ;). Instead of taking pictures of the city from the tower we took the pictures of the towers and headed back. On the way we took few pictures of the Erasmus Bridge, a cantilever bridge across the river Maas in Rotterdam. We had planned to start early for Amsterdam the next day so we headed back to house. On the way back we got my favourite Turkish takeaway “The Falafel menu” which has kind of become my staple food for past few months.
Recently I have been watching this cartoon show called “South Park”. It is one amazing cartoon show and surprisingly even Sathwick was following it so that add to the long list of topics that we discuss. We had dinner watching the same cartoon show. We had to leave early next morning so we called it a day.
Next day we were off to Amsterdam, reached Amsterdam at around 11:00. This was only the second time I had been to Amsterdam and the first time I hadn’t seen anything. So I was expecting to see some part of Amsterdam, especially Van Gough Museum. I am not a “art person” but I did like Van Gough’s famous sunflower painting when I saw it in London’s National Art Gallery, and wanted to see more of his painting. We met Sathwick’s cousin Aparna and guess where did we meet at Van Gough’s museumJ. At the entrance there was the famous sunflower painting poster and one of his many self portraits. I was all excited, even Aparna hadn’t been to this museum. It was worth it. I wanted to buy something from there probably the sunflower painting (not the original one of courseJ) for my new house, but it was a too expensive. So had to leave just with the thought of may be someday I will. Once we were out of the museum we went to the “I Amsterdam” place nearby and took few photos there. It was lunch time and all of us were hungry and started the hunt of a restaurant. On our way we did try more Oliebollen. All of us were Vegetarians so that in a way made it easy and difficult too. Of course none of us wanted to go into so called “Indian” restaurants. My theory is why eat Indian when I am outside (India). I have eaten it for 20 odd years of my life and would prefer to try something local. We did search a bit and finally settled to an Italian. While having lunch we had few interesting discussions about art and art in India the support that is there in India and abroad for the growth of art. Aparna and few of her friends are setting up a dance academy in Amsterdam, so we discussed their plans, the kind of funding they get etc. It was an interesting discussion for me, considering that I am a person from engineering background.
I always wanted to go to Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam. This is something which I wanted to do since a long time, well really long, since the time we had this lesson “Excerpts from the Diary of Anne Frank” in our high school. Recently I even saw the movie, so that made me want to go there even more. It was supposed to get closed at five and we were running late. So, there I was just in time, at half past four. May be half an hour was not enough for that house, but something is better than nothing. Another important reason I had to go visit the house was, another friend of mine had asked me to get something from the house for him. While me and Sathwick were in the house. Aparna (who opted to stay out as she had already been there) was waiting for us in a nearby pub. We finished the tour of the house and headed to the pub.
Oh the pub, it was one amazing place, an old pub not too huge. We started with our drinks and started to discuss on various things like music, the work culture in Holland, our lives, marriage and what not. I was enjoying every moment of it. In fact as we entered the pub Aparna was already into a discussion with another man about the “big mouth” of the Dutch had. In my short experience in Netherlands I have never seen such a thing. I feel they are pretty nice people and a lot straight forward. They don’t maintain too much of hierarchy in work (which I like a lot) and yes love their football a lot. One has to see it to believe it. They paint the whole city in Orange if the national team is playing in that city. Anyway to add to the fun in the pub, there was going to be some live music too. Music, interesting people, good discussions with friends, it just was getting better and better. After enjoying the music for sometime we finally decided to get out of the pub and explore more of the city. Sathwick had read about this “Café Cuba” a designer café in Lonley Planet and wanted to go there. So we started to search for it, but to Sathwick’s disappointment it was closed, another score for me ;). We were nearby Aparna’s school so we saw that too. It was almost time for dinner. Sathwick had already troubled me a lot to try some “Surinami” food which I was not at all ready for. I have tried it couple of times when I came to Netherlands and it was not for me. Luckily we didn’t find any Surinami restaurant and settled for Japanese.
We had dinner and it was time for something more exciting, time to get “high”. I was against it, and I mean it. We searched for a place and it was closed. I was happy and sometime back I was “annoying” Sathwick about another theory which goes like “samay se phele aur kismet se jyaada kisiko kuch nahin miltha hai” which roughly means, “a person will get something if and only if he or she is destined to get it and even then it won’t happen till the time is right”. So I started with that again. Few minutes later it looked the time had come!!!! There was another shop which was open. So, I and Sathwick tried the “space cake”. Aparna asked us if we will be alright to back to Rotterdam. Nothing happened to us. May be it was just a scam to loot people. Give the same old chocolate cake and charge more moneyJ. Whatever it was nothing happened to usL.
We walked back to the station and wait it was not over yet, we still had time for another pubJ. We went into another pub had some drinks took few photograph of all of us and headed back to Rotterdam.
So that was my real first day in Amsterdam. Oh what a day it was. The first major city I saw outside India was London and I had liked it. Then I saw Paris and fell in love with the city. Though I saw more of London during my second trip to UK, Paris was still my favourite city. Now I have seen Amsterdam, it is in a different league. I don’t know if there is any other city like this. It has a class to it. The canals, the grachts (wharfs) the ancient look. On my list, I will rate it better than Paris. May be it was the company mattered too, I am sure it is not the space cakeJ. This was Christmas day and we came back to Rotterdam. Next day it was Delft and The Hague.
We were late the next day (again) and decided to meet Aparna in Delft. We were the first to be in the city, but unfortunately it was not quite open as Amsterdam. So we tried to reach Aparna to stop her from coming here and instead we go to Amsterdam, but we were late. Delft is famous for its pottery. It is “Inspired” by the Chinese porcelain art. It is always in the white pottery and blue painting on it, hence the name Delft blauw (Delft Blue). The factory which arranged for demonstrations was also closed so we just took few pictures of the Nieuwe Church (New Church) and the blue heart and were waiting for Aparna in a café. After sometime she joined us. It was a very cold day and there was nothing much to do in the city so we decided to go to The Hague. We saw the Dutch Parliament and the old church, and then it was time for the “Madurodam”J. You can see most of the must see places of Holland here in miniature. It is a good place for kids. I had been there before so I decided not to go in and was waiting for Aparna and Sathwick. I was watching people there. This is something which I do instinctively and Sathwick doesn’t like a bit of it. I watch people and try and study them.
While I was waiting there, a bunch of Indians came in and as with most other groups, when they are out to on a tour, all of them “have” to be together. I am not saying it is wrong, but just not my idea of a tour. This group somehow got split up into two. Those who were there early went in asking the other guys to join them in later, but before they did that there were some good to watch argumentsJ. I enjoyed it because to me it was more like a déjà vu. After few minutes the other guys too came and it was very obvious that these guys were from the same group and then the apologies. I was observing people and then Sathwick and Aparna came back. All of us were hungry so we headed for a restaurant. We had good food and spent a lot of time again discussing about many more interesting things of life. Then there was something interesting, I went into the toilet and managed to lock myself in!!! I called Sathwick to get me out and I got out because of a “two eurocent coin”. I took it from Sathwick; I hope I will have it for a very long time.
Then we headed back to Rotterdam. While we were in the restaurant we did spend a lot of time talking, so I brought this discussion up with Sathwick during our journey back to Rotterdam, would it happen in India that we go into a restaurant and spend so much time? I said I have experienced it only happen in “Café Coffee Day”, otherwise the people in restaurant are willing to make you leave as soon as you are done with the food. Sathwick did not agree, he said it all boils down to business. If they are making business because of you they will let you stay otherwise these people too will ask you to leave. However I was not convinced, I thought these people would let the customer spend more time even if they were not getting business out of him. More like they try to be more “polite”. On our way back to from station to Rotterdam Sathwick told me about these friends he made from Indian Navy during his visit to North India. He told me the expeditions those Navy people had made it was a good walk back home.
Next day, Sathwick bought the bus tickets for his journey back to Paris. We were going back to Amsterdam to cover few other things which we had missed on the first day; it includes the famous “red light district”. Sathwick wanted to be there as early as possible and see how it would be during day light. So here we were, right in the afternoon at the walls. That is how the Dutch call that area, “De Wallen” which means “The walls” as they are the two walls front wall and the back wall where most of the red light district is present. Sathwick went into an erotic museum and I was waiting for him outside. After that we went to the flower markets and from there we went to the “Café Cuba” the designer café, had some coffee. There was a local market setup just outside the café and Cheese was being soldJ Sathwick bought some cheese and people there were discussing something about India and Pakistan. We weren’t aware about the “speculations of war” yet. So we asked what it that they were discussing about was. The guy didn’t even bother to respond. We just ignored it and decided to go to the Pancake bakery which Aparna had recommended. As always I went for the simple plain (might be called as boring) pancake whereas Sathwick went for more interesting Holland special with some 2 scoops of ice cream and whipped cream and what not. We ate it and started discussing about work well it didn’t actually start with work, but somehow I dragged it towards work and I started complaining about my work and then there was unwanted discussion all in all the whole thing got a bit heated up. I think it is purely my mistake but then I am a self confessed “workaholic” so I guess it was bound to happen. I should thank Sathwick and Aparna that I had not thought about work for more than 50 odd hoursJ, and when it happened it spoiled everything. Anyway I was upset for some more time which is very much me and we then met Aparna that evening. She told us that there news about tensions between India and Pakistan and the troops were being moved etc. then we thought this is what the guys at the market were discussing.
We then decided to do the canal ride of Amsterdam but sadly we were too late and it was closed. So we decided to see more of Amsterdam, and Aparna was keen to shows her old house which she liked a lot. Indeed the area was pretty good which a wharf just outside the window, from there we went to her usual hangout place. It was a nice old pub, by now I had got work out of my brains again and had started to enjoyJ. In the pub Sathwick tried some Belgian beer; I went for same old coffee. We spoke for sometime and then there was a request from the pub owner for us to move to the bar instead of table as the table would be better for the people who would go for food. So it was Sathwick’s turnJ. He told me “See Kat, it all boils down to business”J. Now I had no choice but to agree with him. Indeed it all boils down to business. We spent some more time at the bar, took few photos and left from the pub. The second day in Amsterdam was even better so that confirms that “space cake” had nothing to do with Amsterdam being my new favourite cityJ. We then left the pub and decided to visit the red light area during the night. Then another friend of Aparna joined us. We all roamed around in Amsterdam till late night and then we took a train back to Rotterdam.
On our way back, the train stopped when Rotterdam was another 2 minutes journey. They said it was a signal failure. So we had to travel backwards to an earlier station. For almost half an hour there was no alternative arrangement made. It was terribly cold it was almost the time of a day when minimum temperatures are measured. Sathwick lost his patience and called up the SOS phone, then few Dutch too joined us and they told that another train will be arranged by then a bus was waiting for those who were going to Rotterdam. Sathwick had a bus back to Paris the next day at nine in the morning. I slept off and he did his packing. Next day I dropped him back at the bus station. I came back and slept the rest of the dayJ. This was my Christmas.
Thanks to Sathwick and Aparna, I enjoyed every bit of those three days. Hope you enjoyed this writing too.
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