Tall and Thin

The Long Suffering Husband and I are on a mission to visit as many Cities as we can, so we've spent the last few days in Amsterdam.  

I saw a mouse in a windmill in old hamster jam

"Did you like it?" you want to know and the only answer I can honestly give you is that it's interesting. Amsterdam is a really weird place for old square people. The young and hip seem quite at home here.

I have travelled the world through books but haven't read much set in Amsterdam. I was expecting somewhere colourful, like Bruges, with canals, green spaces and window boxes everywhere but there was an overwhelming sense of grey. The weather didn't help as it was colder, windier and wetter that most of the winter in England.  No one was daunted by this, bravely sitting outside to eat and drink, or queueing for hours outside every museum. 

Queue for Anne Frank House

The Diary of Anne Frank was my main reason for wanting to visit this city.  This was the first book I stayed awake all night to read and one that I've never forgotten. Since that night I've wanted to see the actual place they were hiding. We'd heard about the queues.  We thought we were prepared.  The guidebooks suggested buying one of the few online tickets, which allow you to queue-jump but there were none available for the time we were there.  Every guidebook, blog and tourist office advises you to get there early.  They don't say how early.  We were there at 8.50 (it opens at 9) and we waited for just over 3 hours. It was freezing in that line but a couple of small shops were doing a roaring trade in woolly hats and gloves. Otto Frank has insisted the annexe remains unfurnished to represent the emptiness of world now that it is missing the Jews slaughtered by the Nazis. "What a fantastic idea," I thought, as I read about it in the guidebook that they'd given us in the queue.  Once inside, we shuffled round in a long line, filling the space and without furniture it was difficult to gauge the size of the living accommodation. I heard someone say, "There's quite a lot of room, it wasn't so bad after all."  I left with a feeling of quiet melancholy and a determination to read the book again with an adult head.

The other book I've read that's set in Amsterdam is the Minaturist by Jessie Burton.  This is a book inspired by a visit to the Rijksmuseum, where the author saw Petronella Ortman's dolls house. 

There is inspiration on every floor of this museum.

The Minaturist also sent us scuttling to the Oude Kerk, which is the setting for the opening of the book (actually the ending)  I wanted to see the miserichords and the inside graves, where people were buried 4 deep.  As we left the church, I looked up to see a large dark skinned woman in a bikini, pressing her breasts against the glass door in the direction of the LSH.  My mum had said that we had to visit the Red Light District, "to look, at least." We chuckled about this several times on our visit but the LSH was struggling just to look.  The same couldn't be said for the little boy I came across with his nose pressed up against one of the windows.  The odd thing about this area of Amsterdam is how you just stumble upon it and how parents can be completely oblivious to what their children are looking at.

Looking down, as you leave the Oude Kerk

Amsterdam's liberal attitude to sex and drugs appeals to many tourists, especially the British, who can't quite believe that you can talk about and do these thing openly.  I admire the country's attempt to separate alcohol from soft drugs but I don't think they've thought that people can get drunk before they go into a coffeehuis.  The big signs in every square saying, "Beware of street traders.  White Heroin is being sold as Cocaine.  3 tourists died last year and some are currently in hospital," made me think that the liberal attitude isn't working.

The Minaturist also made me want to explore the canals and look at the canal houses.  These houses are tall and thin, just like the residents.  Everywhere you look there are tall slim people on sit up and beg bikes, which only make them look taller. Did these people grow to fit their houses?  On the top, by the roof of the houses resides a hook.  This hook became a topic of conversation for the LSH and I.  I thought that the houses had been warehouses and the hooks were there to get goods up to the top floors from the canal deliveries but then we noticed that they were on houses not next to a canal and to modern houses.  The LSH suggested they were for the window cleaners to attach themselves to, where they could sway around in the wind to polish the glass.I wondered if they were hooks to hang your enemies from.  I googled for the answer (Amsterdam has amazing fast and free Wifi everywhere) and  the LSH asked people, particularly women in cafes and restaurants (he likes to ask) but no one seemed to know.  Finally, I found the answer on a tiny blog (which I can't cite because I've forgotten).  These houses are so tall and narrow with steep tight staircases and the hooks are so that a sofa, bed or piano can be hoisted up and delivered through one of the large windows.

Hooks

Hook on a modern house not near a canal

The canals don't look very clean and many of the houseboats aren't connected to a sewage system so they probably aren't.  Beside the canals there are strange green metal objects: men's urinals.  From the canal you can see the men pee.  It's probably to stop drunk and doped up men falling into the canal, while trying to relieve themselves into it.  

Urinal

DutchAmsterdam.nl states that 15000 bikes end up in the canal each year.  I'm not surprised.  Most of the canal has no barriers and if it's as windy as it was during our visit then bikes could easily go the way of the LSH's hat.  I wonder how many people end up in there as well?  Luckily, the tall, thin Amsterdammers can probably reach up and get out but I do worry about the stoned, short, fat British.

A door for visiting British guests