Getting to Know You

After the craziness that was finding an apartment, it was finally time to start settling into our new city. In order to be locals there was one purchase left to make and no it was not weed. It was a bike! So Saturday our adventure began with a trip to the Albert Cuyp market to the used bike shop there. The Albert Cuyp is a long street market set up everyday except Sunday in de Pijp. They have everything you can imagine for sale from bread to fish to olives and spices to tourist trinkets and of course, used bikes! While we were there we figured we could try some of the local fare as well (no, still not weed). First on the menu was a local grilled cheese stand called Greg Monsieur. I wasn’t hungover this morning but whenever I am one of the top things I crave is a good grilled cheese. Carby and cheesy and delicious. I am so thrilled this stand is now minutes from our house for the next Saturday I wake up hungover. Fort Worth was limited in grilled cheese speciality restaurants. Aside from being great hangover food, grilled cheese is basically delicious in every situation so this was a perfect lunch. If you find yourself in Albert Cuyp (which you should) make a stop at this stand. You can even build your own sandwich. They guy in line in front of us asked for a grilled cheese with chorizo and, wait for it, peanut butter…. At first the guy thought he was kidding but when it was clear he was not they made it for him. So you can really have anything your heart desires. The star of our Albert Cuyp foodie experience, however, was the Stroopwafel. A Stroopwafel is a traditional Dutch cookie you are probably familiar with if you have frequented Delta or United Airlines flights. It is a thin cookie sandwich with delicious caramel type filling on the inside. If you have ever tries a sticky bun made by Ann Oster – the center basically tastes like the sticky bun syrup. I am now mildly addicted to them. The stand we went to in the Albert Cuyp is the “Original Stroopwafel” and they make them fresh right before your eyes so they are warm and delicious and googey. Heart meltingly delicious.

Post food it was time to refocus on the reason we actually went to the market – bikes. No one told us the bike place is literally the last stall of the market itself but we made it. I had assumed they would be fairly inexpensive since a brand new basic bike at Target in the states is like $100- $150 or something. Wrongo. The man informed us the bikes were 200-250 Euros. Gross. Standing there we decided to call an audible and go with a different option. Swapfiets. Swapfiets is hip new subscription bike service in the Netherlands. For 15 Euro a month they deliver your bike to your apartment and take care of any maintenance issues you may have – flat tire, broken light, etc. They come in fun colors – red, orange, blue, tan, etc. and are marked by the signature blue front tire making them easy to distinguish in a crowd. Each bike is also chipped so it is less likely to be stolen but in the event it is stolen, a new bike only costs 40 Euro to replace. Based on what we have heard from everyone who lives here, you can count on your bike being stolen at least one time during your rotation. As accountants we did some quick mental math and considering how expensive the used bikes were, we decided this was probably a decent deal for someone living here short term. So we left the Albert Cuyp with full bellies and no bikes.

The remainder of Saturday revolved around the most important thing to any former college frat boy – college football. TCU was playing its inaugural game of the season vs. Sourthern. If you have never heard of them don’t feel bad. Even now I am only 90% confident that was actually the name of the school. Bill is obviously going to miss college football a little more than me but I am definitely going to miss walking over to TCU from the Waits house on Saturdays to support the Frogs, eating some tailgate food (shout out to the Goats Tailgate), and the energy of the stadium when you walk in. In our attempt to re-create a college football Saturday, we simply had to “tailgate”. We decided on Bier Fabriek which is a brewery in the middle of Amsterdam near the Rokin metro stop. The beer was really inexpensive and pretty good. They had 4 on tap when we went – a pilsner, an amber, a whit and a porter. After trying all the varieties I think the amber and the pilsner were the winners. They also have a very nice cheese board. Bless the dutch and their love of cheese. They have a board for 2 people and one for 4. The board for 2 people was a lot of food though so you could easily spilt that amongst 4 people and still be fine. Now that we had a tailgate pre-game buzz going we needed the za (pizza). Bill did his research and found a place called Il Sogno where we could carry out some pepperoni pizza. It was Neapolitan style with a nice thin crust. I don’t know if it was the absolute best pizza I have ever had but I would give it a solid 7/10 probably. With pizza in hand we went home to cheer the Frogs to victory through our VPN app that tricks our computer into thinking we are in the US so we can still watch American television. Thank you technology.

Sunday started with a healthy jog through Westerpark. I can’t remember if I have mentioned in the blog before but we found it a day or so after we first arrive and had been running there ever since. Once you got out of the busy centraal area, the park is about a mile or so west. It has nice paths, shaded areas, fresh air. There is even a large grassy area where people were picnicking on the gorgeous Sunday afternoon. Once we checked the heath box, it was on to the main event – food journey – starting with a traditional Dutch snack, frites. I will say I call them Dutch in a loose sense because I don’t think the Dutch can really claim fries. The way they are served is pretty unique though. The put them in a paper cone and slather them in sauce. We went to Manneken Pis which has a signature blue cones and is just up the road from Dam Square. They sell these things everywhere though so don’t feel like you need to necessarily seek this particular venue out. One nice thing about Manneken Pis, however, was they have a wide variety of sauces to select from. The regular sauce is mayo – weird I know – but it tastes a little different than mayo in the US. We also got the Amsterdam sauce which is basically mayo with green onions. I would say it was the better of the two but I am looking forward to going back to try more options. I think peanut sauce is on the top of my list for next time. Also expert tip – the portions are super big, even the small. I would get a small to split and ask for 2 different sauces on the side. Then you can try a couple and dip your fries as opposed to having the sauce all over. It’s much less messy.

Post fries we tried out another of Rick Steve’s free walking tours – the Red Light District tour. The Red Light district is not my personal favorite area but I liked the tour Rick Steves gave. First it’s free which you can’t really go wrong with but he also focused on the history of the area which is the oldest part of Amsterdam. It was also fairly short – only about 45 minutes to an hour. I would recommend going in the middle of the afternoon so it’s lively but you don’t have all the crazy party people out yet and there are fewer ladies of the night in their windows. But maybe you’re into that no judgement. By this time our bellies were rumbling again. We walked for what felt like forever to a place called Foodhallen. It is in the southwest part of the city and has about 20 international permanent food stands serving everything from traditional Dutch bitterballen – more on that later – to Vietnamese fare to oysters and burritos. Many choices.  Although I still have some regrets about not just taking the tram down there, it was 100% worth the walk. We started with a sampler of bitterballen which are essentially the Dutch version of a croquette. I LOVE croquettes so I was very excited to give these bad boys a try. They lived up to the hype. My favorite of the ones we had was probably the truffle one. They put truffle on like everything here it feels like and I support them in their truffle love. After some debating as to what to commit to next, we settled on the dim sum. The duck gyoza and the pork dumpling were the stars of the show. I can’t wait to go back to foodhallen with visitors and try more stalls.

Our last activity of the day was a visit to Vodelpark, the central park of Amsterdam. You may remember me mentioning it in my House Hunters International blog. It was so pleasant on this beautiful 70 degree Sunday afternoon. Bill and I found a spot on the grass near the tea house and listened to the free concert happening behind us. Side note – the grass is so soft here. I could legit have fallen asleep and been perfectly content. I can already picture spring picnics with friends and family. There were also runners and bikers everywhere. This could easily replace Westerpark as my new outdoor running area. After about an hour of relaxing in the sun, it was time to head home. I had my first day of work the next day so back to the “real” world. Already can’t wait for the next weekend of freedom in our new city.