Last Day in Utrecht

 My days in Europe are coming to an end. I have been on the road for about three weeks, it is time to go home.  But before I go, one last day around Utrecht!  To the Flower Market we go!  Every Saturday throughout the year, near the church square is the flower market, selling beautiful cut flowers, small shrubs, and bulbs for incredibly cheap prices.  E tells me that it is because the Netherlands is a flowering-producing nation so flowers have to be cheap.

 There were so many flowers and bulbs that I would have loved to purchase to bring home.  Alas, none were certified to bring into the US.  Instead, I watched E by several varieties of flowers so she could make some arrangements.

 We then wandered around the city and went to the best bakery in Utrecht. The desserts on display were mouth-watering and two more Dutch specialities only available around Christmas were purchased for me to try.

The first was Borstplaat: small discs of sugar.  It is the closest thing to Tablet that I have found.  We ended up having to go back to the bakery so I could purchase some to bring home to Will, the Tablet expert.  In the Netherlands, it comes in three flavors: chocolate (pictured), mocha, and vanilla.  I bought a sampling of all three, ya know, for taste-testing.

The second was Gevulde Speculaas: speckuloos (ginger and cinnamon) cake with marzipan inside and decorated with marcona almonds.  It is a perfect tea cake.

We then had lunch-- cuz everyone knows it is best to eat your dessert first!-- at a very sweet deli where everything is organic.  I had a delectable carpaccio sandwich. 

We then walked around Utrecht and ended up at the botanical gardens.  It is always fun to see gardens, no matter what time of year.  The persimmon tree still had fruit on it, if no leaves.  The Japanese maple was dropping its red leaves and the several reading areas were easier to spot through the bare trees.

The coolest thermometer was spotted: it measures both air temp and ground temperatures.  I have a feeling that one will be appearing soon in our garden.

And what is a last day without a wonderful home-cooked meal of pumpkin gnoochi made from roasted pumpkins from E's house in Freiseland.

Watching her smashing the pumpkin, rolling out the dough, and shaping the gnoochi was fun-- and it was so much easier than the potato gnoochi I have made before.  

 While the gnoochi dried a bit before cooking, we had a few appetizers and a swing in the hammock-- because every house needs a hammock inside.  It is pure brilliance.

 My final (for this trip at least) European meal: pumpkin gnocchi with sage and browned butter, cooked to perfection.

I can't wait to come back for another helping! Thank you E for a marvelous time.

Amsterdam + Risjtaffel!

The next day was a trip into the Netherlands, my fifth country on my European tour.  I have a dear friend there and she and her husband are kind enough to let me take over their second bedroom (her office) and monopolizes her time/take advantage of her to make her my tour guide.  

We raced into Amsterdam from Utrecht today so she could pretend to be a scholar at a meeting while secretly wishing she was with me.  Though, I think she would have preferred to stay at the meeting since I went to the Anne Frank House.  I missed it last time I was here (about 13 months ago!) since I arrived just as it closed.  This time I was there just as it opened, and avoided the lines.  Though, to be honest, I am not sure how many tourists Amsterdam has in mid-November.  

 What you see from the outside isn't the house where Anne lived in hiding for two years.  There is a protective facade on it so that the house/warehouse aren't harmed by the elements.  There is a quick biographical movie about Anne and her family and then you slowly climb the stairs into the Secret Annex.  Per Otto Frank's wishes, the rooms remain empty with just photos on the wall of what it was like with the furniture.  I can understand why he didn't want have the rooms exactly as they were during their ordeal, but at the same time, I feel that you can't really appreciate how claustrophobic it would have been with two families, their limited stuff, and constant fear of being discovered.  It is almost devoid of feeling because you are just walking through empty rooms.

There are two moments which made me catch my breathe: Seeing the bookcase for the first time it is the real bookcase, with the real files still on the shelves; and seeing pages of Anne's real diary and looking at her handwriting.  These  two displays made me stop and really think about how in the world they lived for two years in silence and darkness during the day and with only a bit more freedom to make noise and move around during the night.

It is heartbreaking when you realize that she died within the one month of Auschwitz being liberated.  It is devastating to think that someone turned them in and no one knows to this day who that was.  It is with utter horror you watch the films of the concentration camps and think about the pretty house in Wannasee where all this death was planned, where Nazi officials gathered to discuss the final solution and saw numbers and problems instead of people.   It is just another reminder that has to be constant: this can never happen again.

the bell tower of the Westerkerk

A few buildings over is the Westerkerk, the church mentioned in Anne's diary.  Under renovation, it was the first church to be built as a Protestant church, and not turned into one from a Roman Catholic church.  It was built between 1620-1631 and where Rembrant is buried-- though no one knows exactly where, as there is no headstone.  

lamppost on the place in front of Westerkerk

After leaving the Anne Frank House, I walked along the Keizersgracht Canal. It was a beautiful crisp Autumn day in Amsterdam,with the sun shining and the canals glistening.  I happened along the Homomonument, the memorial dedicated to all gay men and lesbian women who are persecuted for being homosexual.  It was opened in 1987 and has three pink triangles in the road.  I was standing on the bit that steps into the canal, where several photos of people who had died because of they were homosexuals/transgender were tied to whites roses.  These were all recent photos, which made it especially poignant.

I met up with my friend and we had a lovely lunch at this French cafe.  Afterwards, she deposited me on a ferry and I crossed over to the north side of Amsterdam to go to the Eye Museum, the film museum, where I went through an exhibition by Péter Forgács: "Looming Fire," which is all about the Dutch in Indonesia from 1900-1940.  It is 6 hours of home movies, letters, and original music that shows what daily life was like in the colonial era of the Netherlands East Indies.  The movies are home movies showing family vacations and trips, scenic views of the East Indies, and daily life of the colonialists.  These films are juxtaposed to audio recordings (in my case, reading the English translations) that describe the underbelly of empire. It is very interesting and worth spending an afternoon there.  Also, my awesome friend did the research for it and what she discovered was amazing.  

The south side of Amsterdam

my awesome friend and me

 To cap off my colonial day, we then went back to Blauw in Utrecht, that amazing Indonesian restaurant where I had my second risjttafel (rice table), with 18 dishes of deliciousness.

The dishes include: Kerris Chicken, spicy meat, turmeric beef, pork soy sauce, chicken satay, pork satay, lodeh vegetables, stir-fried vegetables, mixed vegetables with peanut sauce, perkedel, sambal goreng eggs, sambal goreng potatoes, oerapan, pickled cucumber, fried banana, sambal goreng tempe, and prawn crackers.

Yes, I took a photo of the menu as I would have no idea what I was eating, let alone remember it.

some of the vegetables dishes

All you need to know is that it is amazing, delicious, crazy flavoring, and the goat satay is my favorite. Yup the goat.  And after we stuffed ourselves silly, it was nice to have the short walk home in the cold November night so that our bellies weren't too full by the time we went to bed.

some of the meat dishes

Goat satay

Finished!

The Best Meal of My Life (So far)

At Restaurant Blauw, an Indonesian restaurant, I had the best meal of my life.  My friend, unable to join us, sent her husband as my date and guide through the Rijsttafel ("Rice Table"), which is an elaborate meal consisting of several dozen small dishes of Indonesian fare-- hence filing "an entire table."  This is a very popular way of eating Indonesian food, though it is rarely served this way back in Indonesia, a former Dutch colony. It was a way to make the colonial food understandable for those back in the home country.

From what I can gather (from the interwebs and remembering what we had), I think I had the following (though this may may me accurate or comprehensive).

• Babi kecap – Pork belly braised in sweet soy sauce common in the Netherlands
• Gado-gado - Vegetables (cooked or fresh) with peanut sauce (sambal kacang)
• Nasi goreng – Fried rice
• Nasi kuning - Indonesian yellow rice
• Pisang goreng - Banana fritters
• Sambal iris – Onion, tomato and chilli pasta
• Sambal kacang - Peanut sauce
• Sambal ulek – Spicy chilli paste
• Satay (sometimes spelled Sate or Sateh) - Various thinly sliced meats, marinated then broiled on a skewer, such as: Sate Ayam, chicken; Sate Babi, pork; Sate Lilit, seafood
• Semur daging - A type of stew of beef braised in sweet soy sauce
• Serundeng - Peanuts with sauted shreded coconut
• Telur balado - Hard-boiled eggs sautéed in chilli sauce
• Sayur lodeh - Vegetable stew (spicy) in coconut milk
• Rendang - Aromatic spicy caramelized beef, braised in coconut milk, chili and spices
• Opor ayam - Chicken coconut curry

It was seriously the best meal I have ever had.  The tastes were sweet, salty, savory, fruity, spicy, tangy-- every possible combination of flavors.  It was amazing.  And though we had 17 dishes of food (not to mention two types of rice), it was not too much food!  It was the perfect amount.  You got a good taste of the various dishes of Indonesian fare.  I also had very good Indonesian beer(s).  If you are in Utrecht (or Amsterdam), you *must* go to Blauw and have this meal.  You will then be able to say that you have had the best meal of your life so far too.

Utrecht

A dear, good friend, E, invited me to visit her in the Netherlands, in her home of Utrecht, which is about 20 minutes by train south of Amsterdam.  Having never been to the Netherlands, I hopped a train in Brussels and was to her in about 3 hours.  Upon arrival, E, being ill, sent her surrogate (otherwise known as her husband, Ferd) out to meet me and then serve as my tour guide on my walk around the ancient city of Utrecht. 

Although there is some evidence of earlier civilizations, which date back to the Stone Age, the founding date of the city is usually related to the construction of Roman walls, probably built in around 50 BCE.  It is a city that has three canals encircling it and is location of the singing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which settled the War of Spanish Succession (which was fought amongst the European powers to prevent a united monarch of Spain and France).

 

 But enough of a history lesson (though you know I could go on all day).  Ferd and I wandered around this charming town for several hours.  He showed me lots of very interesting architecture, including these beautiful glass porch entries.  Absolutely stunning.  

Dom Tower

 Though we didn't go up, the Dom Tower is the tallest tower in the Netherlands.  It also has the largest collection of bells on the continent. The tower was part of the Cathedral of Saint Martin aand was built between 1321 and 1382. In 1674 the nave collapsed in 1674 the Dom tower became a free standing tower.  The Dom Church is behind the tower, separated by a cobblestone street.

Dom Church

Graf Jan Van Nassau

 Utrecht is home to the largest university in the Netherlands and there were several students walking around with tubes holding their newly-received degree.  We were able to go into the main university building, which has a stunning grand entry way and staircase.

The grey building with the red shutters is one of the oldest buildings in Utrecht and it still functions as a....  museum? government office? I can't remember.  It was just striking though to see the red shutters against the grey stones.

an old CV2 with a trunk!

 The canals really are pretty and unlike in Amsterdam, you can walk right along side them and below street level.  Taking up every possible place for a house, you can even live/work i some of the small dwellings right on the canal. There were several private houses, but also hotels and cafes.  It was fun walking alongside the water and seeing what business was being conducted.

autumn leaves in Utrecht

another CV2

 Another sweet feature is under the street, below every street light is a sort of frieze of an activity that once took place along the canal. This one is a windmill; but there were cobblers, coffee peddlers, saints slaying dragons.  They are meant to tell a story or illustrate a saying.  It was fun picking them out and trying to decipher their meanings. 

And this photo really is for Will. Someone didn't want to waste any run-off water from the street above. They rigged up a shoot to the downspout and now can water their plants.  Because walking two yards to the canal might be too much effort.

 Ferd also showed me this very narrow, close streets with houses stuffed in.  These are close communities and they don't really like to see strangers walking along the picturesque allies, but I think that they are used to it.  It is about 6 streets with similar shutters and it is almost like a rabbit warren of homes.

And of course, this being the Netherlands, you are never far away from a million and one bicycles.  It truly is the preferred mode of transportation.  They are in all sorts of shapes and sizes and adapted to have carts, bags, people attached to them.  You also have to watch out when walking around-- you really could get run over by a bike!