Amsterdam

April 23, 2014 (by Ben)

It was another nice day, we got up at around 8ish, showered and then had a hearty breakfast of bread, cheese, meat and vla.  Oma had tasked me with finding information about the park-and-ride near Amsterdam, so after a bit of googling I found one that I figured was at the best location (close enough to Amsterdam, but not so close that we would be stuck in traffic etc).

We all piled into the cars, and were off at around 9:30ish. After about  45 minutes we arrived at the location of what was supposed to be a 250+ car parking lot etc, however the lot was only about a max of 30 cars and it was full.  We drove around a bit but couldn’t find another lot so once the other car had arrived my mom and I walked over to a nearby hotel and asked someone (in Dutch) about this parking situation.  Apparently there was a large lot there, however it was filled in a year ago. Nooo… So we decided to drive to a nearby parking complex to see if we could park there. As we were leaving someone was pulling out of the smaller lot, so Uncle Rick went into that spot, and I decided to park at the Planetarium, as it was right there but didn’t have any signs about parking or how much it cost. At least we were parked now and ready to head down town.

One thing about traveling in a group of 10 people well there are lots of opinions, everyone has different ideas about where to go, and how to get there, etc etc.  With that said it took a while for everyone to figure out how to get 24 hour Metro passes.  Once we were on the train we could relax a bit, as we headed to the first stop of the day, which was the Apartment where my Aunty Joan was born and where the family lived for about 3 or so years.

We managed to switch trains, and get off at the correct stop however some of us were having issues scanning out of the train station. Oma was one of those people, so a nice Black youth decided to help her out. He reached through the divider grabbed, her ticket from her, and used it to open the doors. As she walked out he also went into the station, gave her the ticket back, and high fived his buddy.  So Oma gave someone a free ride on the train today. J

We took the tram from this point a couple of stops, and then got off. At this point we were going off Oma’s memory, and she is a lady in her 80’s so her memories are a little faded, so we wandered one way, and then the other way. Finally she wrote down the name of the street that she was looking for, and I just put it into my GPS, and Bam we found it. 

A 4 story complex on the corner, no Elevator, and very steep staircase.

My mom and Uncle Rick (The most chatty/Ballsy ones in the group) went up and knocked on the one door. A young American lived there, but his placed wasn’t the right one, however he knew the girl that lived in the top floor of the other side, and that’s the side there were sure they had lived in. So he called her for them, and asked if 10 strangers from Canada could look in her house.

After a couple minutes she came out and we all walked up the very steep staircase, Oma had lived here with 5 little kids, and walked up and down these stairs multiple times daily, with kids, grocerys etc. Crazy.  At the top we got to the Apartment but it turns out it was the wrong one. So on the way down Uncle Rick just knocked on the door of the apartment on the 3^rd floor, and my mom started talking to the guy that opened it. He was dressed in biking shorts and making lunch. But didn’t seem to have an issue with letting us all wander around his home, and it was the right place, small and compact, with only a few changes from the what it was when Oma, and the kids had been there last.  (50 years ago)

By now it was around 1pm, and people were getting hungry however we were walking to the next stop, which was the school that Mom went to Kindergarten at.  This was a couple blocks and mom and Aunty Nora both remembered it, walking/running there, playing with the other kids around there. Mom also vividly remembered one Christmas when Saint Nicholas and Swarte Piet came to the school and she was so terrified of Swarte Piet that she ran out of the school and all the way home. She said as she peered in the front window, “oh ya this is the gym right here, I remember because its right by the front door, that’s how I got away so fast”.

At around 2:30 we headed to Amsterdam Central, this is where having 10 people gets hard, we were all still hungry, and people were getting a bit snappy. First Oma led us all to a café on the side of the canal, however after sitting down we realized that it was going to take too long, and we had dinner plans with a second cousin of my moms.  So we wandered around the streets for a bit before stopping at a random place for fry’s and Krokets.

Then we hopped a Tram back to the Train, hopped the train back to the parking lot and hopped back into the cars, heading for the cousins house.

When we got to the area that she lived we were impressed, it wasn’t very old, and was arranged in a nice grid pattern, unlike the rest of Europe that was just thrown together in a large mess. Her place was a 3 story building with a garage overlooking a lake. They were happy when we arrived and greeted us with drinks, and snacks.  She is an engineer, her husband is a retired school teacher and her 21 year son is going to university.  She told us how the area that we were in was all ocean 20 years ago, and it was reclaimed and all these nice new developments were built on it.

We had a huge dinner (there are 10 of us plus 3 of them); she had curried chicken, Beef, Rice, Pasta, enough food to feed at least 20 people. Everything was super delicious and flavourful and all of the family (and random people) we have met have been very friendly, welcoming and hospitable. After a couple more hours of stories and small talk we headed back to the cabins, and went to bed, it was another long day.