Amsterdam & Antwerp: Kings Day, Amazing Food and Vindictive Pigeons.

Greetings from Amsterdam!

Getting from Copenhagen to Amsterdam was more or less painless, walked to the train, train to airport, plane to airport, train to bus, bus to our new home in the north of Amsterdam.

We are staying with April's host family from when she was an exchange student for a semester four years ago. Her host parents are named Alex and Stephany, host brother and sister are Blue and Luna. Their house is in Amsterdam Noord or North, across the big canal from the city center in a quieter residential part of the city. It's a narrow house three stories tall with a lot of character; a spiral staircase between floors, wonderful art, bright colors and two cats in residence named Hassan and Kuala. Kuala sat on my lap all the first evening and made me feel very cozy.

Since arriving in Amsterdam last week our days have been pretty packed. We have thus far spent the day in Antwerpen, traveled to a sweet small castle in the countryside, gone to a party and mingled with cool Dutch college students, seen April get her second tatoo, gone to a huge party in Amsterdam the night before Kings day and danced to Serbian ska. I have also eaten some of the best home cooked meals ever made. Alex and Stephany really REALLY know how to cook.

Our first day the three of us visited the Amsterdam Maritime Museum. If you get a chance definitely go! 15 euros gets you admission to the museum and three floors of artefacts including navigation tools, figureheads from real ships, atlases, photographs, an entire gallery of naval paintings and model yachts. Also, into a sort of virtual reality experience of being on ships through time that might make you a little seasick. But the best part is the full size replica of a multiple masted sailing ship on the canal behind the museum. Inside are interactive displays, cannons you can shoot, hammocks you can lay in, ropes to climb, cargo boxes to crawl through and lift with pulley systems and much much more. I cannot sing the praises of this museum enough. If you get a chance, GO!

Alex and Stephany drove us to Antwerp, Belgium last week; It was an incredibly relaxing day in a beautiful city, strolling down streets through the park from cafe to cafe. For lunch we picked a place with a serene walled garden in the back. The tables were white rought-iron on old cobblestones with heavy pink flowers hanging off trellises. Once settled under a large elm tree and our first beers had been drunk, the food arrived. For me, bouillabaisse or seafood soup, one of my favorites. The waitress put it down and I took a moment to appreciate the day, the sun, the garden, the company and the sounds of the birds.

But a loud PLOP brought me back to the present. I couldn't see anything immediately but the sound must have come from somewhere. I inspected my bowl carefully and lo and behold there it was.

Birdshit. Right into my soup.

It was equal parts horrifying and hilarious. My disgust was only matched with mirth and everyone at the table had a good laugh, or several good laughs about the pigeon with a grudge. Luckily it didn't take to long for the bowl to be replaced with one with a little less protein. The soup was delicious by the way.

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Today we attended Kings Day, the King's birthday and a serious party day. We went to the festivities last night for a few hours and they seemed more like what I would expect of a national festival. Thousands of people in a public square with several stages with live music, lots of beer, dancing, laughing, loud people and a lot of fun. Kings Day though is the day where it's legal to sell anything you want (within reason), so from about 6 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon the city is a giant flea market with people selling everything from toddler clothes to food to books, music, records, ice skates. Whatever you are looking for you can probably find it on Kings Day.

The sheer amount of people out was intimidating, besides the sellers there are musicians of all kinds, circus performers, some floats like parades playing music, carnival rides etc. It's like if the Fourth of July, county fair, flea market, school band performance, circus, summer concert series and the biggest beer garden you've ever seen all decided to party together for a day.

I even managed to find a kid playing a song I first discovered in Croatia and haven't heard at all the states. Listening to the music brought back memories of the Design/Build I hadn't thought about in a very long time. So see? You really can find anything in the Kings Day markets.

Last Days in Copenhagen: Canal Tours, Little Memaid, Botanical Gardens

The apartment is very cozy. Sofie and Emil have a bedroom with a sliding door, April sleeps on the couch as she is still getting over the plague, Rowan and I are bunking on pads on the floor between the kitchen area and the table. So really our feet are in the livingroom, heads in the dining room Ro in kitchen and me in the T.V. room with my head against the coffee table and body slightly under the dining table.

In the morning Emil or Sofie usually get up first and tip toe around us to the bathroom or shuffle alongside Rowan and open the fridge over her head to grab some bread and butter. Once roused we fold and store our bedding then make tea and toast maybe with eggs and eat breakfast together. A few people take turns showering, we check emails and facebook, upload pictures. Chat about the day and make jokes about how terrible we are at pronouncing Danish (it is a very difficult language).

Once, we convinced Emil to play piano for us, and the maestro sat down in his bathrobe and slippers to play a mix of classical, jazz and swing so April and I cut a rug somewhere between the music, living, dining and TV rooms. Somehow five adults in this small space is working out amicably. I love my new little family.

Monday and Tuesday were our touristy days. Sofie had the morning off from classes and took us to Nyhavn, which means "New Harbor" and is one of the oldest harbors in Copenhagen. Now it's all shops and restaurants for tourists taking pictures of semi-permanently parked, colorful sailing ships. Like this!

Our boat tour took us around the major canals. We saw the Opera house, museum, old palaces, and beautiful ships. We even saw the famous statue of the Little Mermaid from behind. Her head has been stolen twice since she was put in her place in the harbor in 1913 but with a new head she's looking pretty good chillin on her plinth. 

Copenhagen is proud of all things Hans Christian Andersen; the guide specifically pointed out a house he lived in Nyhavn and more than a few buildings, streets and squares are named after him.

After the tour Sofie left us and we shopped around for a bit in the old part of Copenhagen where there are pedestrian only streets and entered the main square where city hall and Tivoli Gardens are. Sofie's sister Matilda works in city hall and offered to give us a tour of the beautiful old building. We followed her up and down stone staircase, twisting around mezzanines and attempted to get into a locked ballroom or two.

Tuesday we explored the Royal Danish Botanical Gardens, wandering along the meandering paths basking in the glow of excellent landscape design. The glasshouse has gorgeous wrought iron spiral staircases to a catwalk around the inner edge of the dome to view the canopy of tropical plants. The temperature went from 85 degrees to above 100 in the distance of eighteen feet. One lap around the dome only; being up in the heat and humidity high in the air didn't seem like the safest of places to be for long.

Copenhagen has been incredibly cooperative weather-wise, sunny every day with temperatures creeping towards spring heat. Each day I was able to leave another piece of winter clothing at home.

On our last morning before leaving Denmark I went to Osterparken across the street to draw in the sunshine for a bit. I sat at a picnic table and drew a church tower in the distance behind row houses, a swan on the pond and people meandering the path around the water, taking in the birdsong.