Thanksgiving in Maastricht

Thanksgiving with Alex at Cafe Rilette

Today is Thanksgiving. We couldn't find a restaurant with turkey on the menu on this day, but with some help from the neighborhood we got into the Thanksgiving spirit anyway. We ate a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at our favorite Maastricht restaurant, Cafe Rilette. One of Jim's students, Alex, joined us for the feast. No turkey, of course, but we brought along Thanksgiving decorations and some delicious cranberry chutney that was made fresh this morning by the people at Adriaan de Smaakmaker. This cozy shop at Sint Pieterstraat 36 makes their own mustards, jams, chutneys, salad dressings, vinegars and more from seasonal fruits and vegetables (much of it organic, made with produce provided by local farmers). A while ago I asked if they would have any cranberry sauce around the time of our American Thanksgiving holiday. I don't think they normally make cranberry products until Christmas- but they made a batch early so we could enjoy it with our Thanksgiving feast.  

James and Angeliek, who make all the delicious edibles at Adriaan de Smaakmaker.

The cranberry chutney was delicious- LEKKER!  We thank you, James and Angeliek, for helping to make this a special Thanksgiving away from home!

The First Thanksgiving, by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe (1914)

The first American Thanksgiving was celebrated in the autumn of 1621 in Plymouth Plantation, a Pilgrim settlement in the British colony of Massachusetts. The Pilgrims were religious dissenters who were persecuted for their views in their home country of England. A group of them left England in 1607 and settled in Leiden, Holland. The Dutch people were more tolerant of religious differences, and life was much better for the Pilgrims in Leiden. In 1620, 28 of the Leiden Pilgrims left there to sail to America, along with a group of others who were also looking for a better life in the American colonies. They sailed on the ship Mayflower, leaving from Plymouth, England in September of that year. It was a difficult crossing. Huge waves pounded the ship, and the passengers suffered from food shortages.  In November, when they arrived in Massachusetts, things got worse. Winter snow made it impossible for them to begin their settlement, so the passengers stayed on board the Mayflower until March. Many of the passengers and crew died on board the ship that winter because of outbreaks of contagious disease. By the time they left the ship to build their huts in the new Plymouth colony, only 53 of the original 102 passengers had survived. With help from the Wampanoag Indians the Pilgrims learned to catch eel, and grow corn. The Indians also donated food to the starving colonists. To thank the Wampanoags for their help the Pilgrims invited them to share in a feast to celebrate the Pilgrim’s first harvest. The Wampanoags hunted together with the colonists to provide meat for the meal. For 3 days the English settlers and the Wampanoag men, women and children feasted together. It is this feast at Plymouth Plantation that inspired the citizens of the new United States to set aside a special Day of Thanksgiving, beginning in 1777.

Speaking of Indians…earlier in the week I met a friendly Dutch Indian tribe in the stairwell of our apartment building. They live upstairs from us. The leader of the tribe, Chief Ralph, wished us a Happy Thanksgiving. We gave him and his tribe of 3 boys a few small Thanksgiving gifts. Today Chief Ralph stopped by with a special Thanksgiving gift for us. It's a beautiful pen & ink drawing of Maastricht, done in the style of a New Yorker magazine cover. Jim LOVES the New Yorker, and he LOVES Maastricht- so this is a perfect gift, a nice souvenir of our happy stay in Maastricht. We thank Ralph for being such a good neighbor and for this wonderful, special gift. 

And we thank Alex for joining us for this Maastricht Thanksgiving dinner. He was great company and we all had a very good time at Cafe Rilette.

We have a lot to be thankful for on this wonderful day!

Turkey Greeting
in the window of our building

                            

Taking Beer Seriously: Special Beers in Special Glasses

Beer delivery, Belgian style.

Do Europeans take their beer seriously? I'd say so! Every beer is special, and every one of those special beers has its own special glass. We haven't photographed EVERY special glass of beer that we've downed. But we did photograph a lot of them. Here are a few:

And we've enjoyed drinking our beers in some of THE BEST places. Some of our favorite imbibing establishments:

Take One Biercafé, Maastricht, Netherlands. 

Canal-side at Het Waterhuis aan de Bierkant-a.k.a. the Bierhuis, Ghent, Belgium.

A la Mort Subite, Brussels.

Victor and Mary Jane introduced us to something new (for us) and delicious to eat while drinking our beers- currywurst!

Queuing up for Pommes Frites

Jim & Victor wait in a pommes-frites line in Ghent

In the USA we call them french fries, and naturally, we think they were invented in France. WRONG! 

Belgians deserve credit for coming up with this culinary treat, which they call pommes frites or frites for short. And Belgians LOVE their frites. If you're in Belgium and you see a lineup of people waiting near a takeout stand, it's probably a friterie. The Dutch love frites, too. They call them patat in the north and friet (or vlaamse frieten) in the south. Most Belgians and Dutch like their frites with a healthy dollop of mayonnaise on them. But there are many other toppings to choose from: mustard, curry sauce, bicky ketchup…

Bicky ketchup? Bicky ketchup is just regular ketchup, but sweeter. It gets its name from the Belgian Bicky Burger, a deep fried burger made with a mix of chicken, pork, and horse meat (to Americans, who don't generally eat horse meat, that might be an icky burger).

A cornet of frites 

In Belgium and the Netherlands most frites are made up fresh while you wait: crisp on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside. Michel Mes, a Dutch guy whose mission is to find the best "Belgian frites" all over the world, has a website devoted to them: belgianfries.com. He describes the cooking process: "Belgian fries are double-fried. First there is the cooking process, then the fries need to cool down and finally, just before serving, they are fried again to make them crispy and golden brown." Bintje potatoes (developed in the Netherlands) is the potato of choice for making frites.

Frites are traditionally served in a paper cone called a cornet, with a tiny plastic fork. Mayo and the other toppings are an additional charge.

Jeffrey 

At the best pommes frites stands there is often a waiting line. But waiting in line for frites is part of the fun! In the Belgian city of Ghent, Victor and Jim met a great Canadian guy named Jeffery in the pommes frites queue. Jeffrey told Jim he had lived in a town near us in Pennsylvania for a while! He was touring Ghent by bicycle and took a break for pommes frites. Jeffrey asked for brown gravy topping on his frites. We ate ours with mayo, of course.

There are tons of friteries in Belgium and the Netherlands and many of them advertise with a giant cornet of fries out front.  Some have found other creative ways to get our attention:

Belgians love their frites, but they are not allowed to take them everywhere. Mary Jane snapped this photo of a "don't" sign that was posted at the entrance to a church in Dinant. According to Wikipedia, it's recorded that the folks in Dinant were eating pommes frites as early as 1680…but not in church :-)

Oosterschelderkering: Ruling the Tide

The Oosterschelde Flood Barrier gates.

The Dutch have a saying: "God made the Earth, but the Dutch made Holland." For more than 800 years the Dutch have been building barriers to hold back the North Sea. Dunes, dikes, dams, barrier gates, sluices and pumps shield the low flat territory of their country from the invasion of sea water. When it comes to flood control, nobody beats the Dutch.

The Dutch lowlands: flat, as far as the eye can see.

About two-thirds of the Netherlands is susceptible to flooding. Its land area averages eight feet below sea level (one area of land called the Zuidplaspolder is 23 feet below sea level!). This "Low Country" is getting lower by the day. Much of the Netherlands' reclaimed land is comprised of drained peat bogs, and peat bogs contract when drained. The reclaimed land sinks about a quarter inch each year. Preventing all that North Sea water from flooding their lowlands is a major preoccupation for the Dutch. Flood control is the country's number one priority.

There have been some major floods in the Netherlands' history, of course. The last big one was in 1953 when a North Sea storm surge killed more than 1800 people. In response the Dutch government has added new flood control works, including the Oosterschelderkering (Oosterschelde storm surge barrier) on the southeast coast. This enormous delta works has 62 floodgates, 19 to 29 feet high. The gates are left open most of the time but are shut when the high water alarm goes off (about twice a year), to prevent flooding from the North Sea. 

On the Neeltje Jans

On our way to Amsterdam we drove out to see this engineering marvel, declared to be one of the modern Seven Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Once we entered the province of Zeeland, the landscape was the classic Dutch lowland, dotted with picturesque villages and ancient windmills. It was a long drive along the Midden-Zeeland Peninsula to the Neeltje Jans, an artificial island that was created during the construction of the Oosterschelderkering. This is a great place to view the delta works. The scenery out there is spectacular! 

There are many modern windmills in the neighborhood of the Neeltje Jans. I was able to stand at the foot of one, something I've always wanted to do back home. The windmills we have in our part of Pennsylvania are perched on mountain ridges, and are not so accessible; it's difficult to understand how huge they are from a distance. Standing next to one is a humbling experience. The windmill I got gezellig with is about 300 feet tall. The enormous blades made a powerful swooping sound as they turned. It made me feel very, very small…




Walking from the windmill to the barrier gates road we came upon a curious group of large boulders, arranged on intersecting white lines in what looked like a parking lot. There was no sign nearby to explain what it was.

When I got to Amsterdam I did some sleuthing online and found out that this is a work of "landscape art" by Dutch artist Marinus Boezem. It's the layout of the Reims Cathedral created with lines and stones. Boezem created an earlier, more famous version of this using growing Lombardy poplars in Almere: http://www.depaviljoens.nl/page/286?lang=en 

Interesting.

Reims Cathedral layout, birds-eye view of the Neeltje Jans "Cathedral."

Near the road that runs along the flood barrier gates, overlooking the Neeltje Jans "cathedral," we passed a stone monument with an inscription that poetically proclaims the engineering genius of the Dutch people :

Hier gain over het tij, de wind, de naan en wij

Here the tide is ruled, by the wind, the moon and us. 

An Evening With Vincent

The "Yellow House" in Arles where Vincent van Gogh lived in 1888

When Vincent van Gogh died in 1890, all of his work that was not sold went to his brother Theo. Theo died six months after Vincent, and it was left to Theo's widow to decide what to do with Vincent's artworks. Theo had supported his brother both emotionally and financially for all of the troubled man's life, and Theo's widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, continued the family's devotion to Vincent. Her wish was to spread awareness of her brother-in-law's unusual paintings. She had saved all the letters that Vincent and Theo exchanged from 1872 onwards, and she published them in three volumes in 1914. She knew that the brothers' letters to each other were important, as well as the artworks. The correspondence would give the public a better understanding of the eccentric, complex artist.

Portrait of Theo van Gogh, 1887,  by Vincent                        Portrait of Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, 1905, 

                                                                                                                               by  Johan Cohen Gosschalk  hfyfyfyfyfyfyfyfyf

Johanna sold some of Vincent's artworks, but she kept many that she considered to be the most significant. These were exhibited along with the works that were for sale. She wanted the public to see these special works, and she was determined to keep them together as a collection. Her son Vincent (named for his uncle, of course) inherited the collection when Johanna died in 1925. He sold the entire collection to the Dutch State, and it is this remarkable collection that became the foundation for Amsterdam's van Gogh Museum, which opened in 1973. 

Self Portrait, 1887

The van Gogh Museum has the largest collection of Vincent van Gogh's work in the world: 200 paintings, 400 drawings, and 700 letters by the prolific artist. The museum's main exhibit tells about Vincent's life and artistic development in great detail, which added to this wonderful museum's charm. We were lucky to be there on a rainy Friday evening, when there were no crowds. 

The van Gogh Museum is the most visited museum in the Netherlands, and it's easy to see why. Theo and Johanna's wish for Vincent's work to be valued by the public as they valued it came true. Thanks to them we can be immersed in the amazing artwork and thought of this uniquely talented man. I loved every minute of the two hours I spent there. The time went by fast... 

Vincent's palette!

We were able to take photos (without a flash) and I photographed some of Vincent's works that I found most interesting. This is a great advantage when visiting a museum, because when I'm home I can review the artworks that were of particular interest, and learn more about them and the circumstances of the artist's life when he or she created them. 

Many of Vincent's letters were on display (as well as his oil palette and tubes of paint!) I hadn't seen his letters before, or known about the beautiful little sketches that he added to some of them. And I'd seen very few of Vincent's drawings and watercolors until now. At first he struggled with drawing, particularly with issues of perspective in his paintings. But his hard work and determination to improve his artistic skills paid off. 

A few of  Vincent wonderful drawings .

Everyone is familiar with van Gogh's beautiful paintings of Sunflowers, with their many shades of yellow. Two of them are the van Gogh Museum, and they are spectacular. But I found another of Vincent's yellow-toned paintings there that I thought was just as beautiful. It's titled Quinces, Lemons, Pears, and Grapes. Vincent had extended the paint onto the wooden frame, and the effect was wonderful!

Quinces, Lemons, Pears and Grapes, 1887 (but my photo doesn't capture the vibrance of the original's colors)

Detail from Still Life with Red Cabbages and Onions, 1887

There was another painting from Vincent's "Paris period" (1886-88) that I especially loved, Still Life with Red Cabbages and Onions, painted with his legendary yellows, oranges and reds. The warm colors were enhanced with a good dose of complementary lavenders and blues. I could have stared at that painting for hours! I found its rhythmic brushstrokes and soothing colors mesmerizing…



Which brings me to something I discovered this morning, reading Johanna's sensitive memoir about her famous brother-in-law. Check it out: http://www.vggallery.com/misc/archives/jo_memoir.htm. 
Vincent and I have "a moment" in common! In her memoir Johanna often quotes from Vincent's letters. Here is an excerpt telling of an incident during a visit that Vincent made to the Rijksmuseum with a friend. It describes Vincent's reaction to a painting by Rembrandt:

Vincent could not tear himself away from the "Jewish Bride" and said at last, "Would you believe it...I should be happy to give ten years of my life if I could go on sitting here in front of this picture for a fortnight, with only a crust of dry bread for food?"

Like Vincent, I was struck by the beauty of that particular painting by Rembrandt! I could have stared at The Jewish Bride all day, drinking in in the luscious details of Rembrandt's masterful use of paint. But I had an advantage that Vincent didn't have: a great camera. 

Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette, (1886)

p.s. Vincent had a sense of humor. He added a cigarette to this study of a skeleton, most likely painted when he was studying at the Art Academy in Antwerp :-)

The Rijksmuseum: A Good Dose of Vermeer, and a Delicious Rembrandt

Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, 1895.

Vermeer's Lacemaker

I stood in line for 20 minutes, in the rain, waiting to buy a ticket for Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum. That was a relatively short wait to get into this famous museum, so the rain was a blessing (no doubt discouraging a lot of people from joining the line). Once I had my ticket, I headed directly to the place in the museum where four Vermeer paintings are displayed. I've loved Vermeer from the moment I saw his painting The Lacemaker in the Louvre, many years ago. While I'm in the Netherlands I'd like to see as many of his paintings as I can.

The Night Watch (1642), by Rembrandt van Rijn 

Vermeer's paintings are displayed in an alcove in the museum's large Gallery of Honour, along with many other 17th century Dutch masterpieces. There was a crowd in front of the Vermeers, so I went to the end of the Gallery to see the Rijksmuseum's star attraction, Rembrandt's Night Watch. It's an impressive painting, (11 x 14 feet!) A painting as big as that ought to be easy to see…but there was a mob gathered in front of it, too.



With patience, I eventually worked my way in close to The Night Watch. It is truly a beautiful painting, and it's understandable that this is the Rijksmuseum's most treasured artwork. In fact, the Rijksmuseum, built in 1885, was designed specifically to showcase The Night Watch. The museum's curator of 17th century art, Pieter Roelofs, says that Night Watch "is THE national treasure."

I headed back to the Vermeer alcove and joined the herd, inching slowly toward the four precious paintings. Shuffling along in the crowd, head down (watching the floor, hoping no one would step on my feet). I thought…is this worth it?

Here's a photo of the Gallery of Honour's alcoves from the Rijksmuseum's website:

And here's what it looked like the day I visited:

If you've ever seen one of Vermeer's paintings up close, you know that it is worth the wait. These four Vermeers are small, intimate affairs. The three interior scenes contain a minimum of people, a minimum of action. The people in them are absorbed in what they're doing- pouring milk from a pitcher, reading a letter, playing the lute. Soft light illuminates the rooms. You can feel the silence in these rooms.

            The Milk Maid (c. 1660)           Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (1664)

One painting, Little Street, is a view of a brick house and the passageway that leads to the space behind the house. Again, the people in the painting are absorbed in what they're doing, unaware that we're watching them. Maybe that's what's so delightful about looking at these paintings. Vermeer lets us in on the action. We're emotionally involved, seeing and feeling what the artist felt when he captured the scene with his brush. We're getting a sneak peek at a slice of 17th century Dutch domestic life, and it sure is gezellig.

          The Love Letter (c. 1670)                         The Little Street (c. 1658)

There were lots of familiar paintings in The Court of Honor, ones I remembered from my art history books. But I didn't remember seeing The Jewish Bride before. Here was a painting that didn't have a crowd in front of it, a painting that I could get close to without waiting. I don't understand why, because The Jewish Bride is wonderful! It's a portrait of a contented couple. The man is obviously in love (he can't keep his hands off her!) The object of his affection seems pleased by the attention. 

The Jewish Bride, 1662 

Rembrandt used a palette knife to apply strokes of gold to the man's sleeves, and to build up areas of the woman's brilliant red dress. Light reflects off the raised paint, and the painting shimmers. I could hardly take my eyes off this yummy painting! I could have stayed there all day, basking in the beauty of Rembrandt's brushstrokes.

Detail of The Jewish Bride

But there were so many other wonderful things to see in the Rijksmuseum, I forced myself to move on. I wandered through the museum's many rooms for 2+ hours, until I was on sensory overload. I'm sure I didn't get to half of the galleries in the Rijksmuseum. I'll have to go back…

Other highlights:

          Enjoying the Ice near a Town                                                                 The Drunken Couple

                               Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634)                                                            Jan Steen (1625-1679)

       Young Woman Warming her Hands over a Brazier                                     Still Life with a Gilt Cup (1635)
           by Cesar Botius van Everdingen (1617-1678)                                               by Willem Claesz Heda

Amsterdam's Hotel Nadia, and The Stairway to Heaven

From the covered sidewalk on Raadhuisstraat where the entrance to the Nadia Hotel is, the only evidence of the establishment is a tall, narrow wooden door with a lighted hotel sign hanging above. Our rooms were reserved in my name, so I went ahead with my luggage and pressed the black button for reception near the door. There was a buzzing sound and I pushed the heavy door open, struggling to get my suitcase past the door and into a narrow hallway. Once inside I heard a voice…

The Stairway to Heaven

But there didn’t seem to be a person attached to the voice! It spoke in accented English, instructing me to climb the stairs. I craned my neck to see up the unending flight of VERY steep, red-carpeted stairs in front of me. The stairs curved to the left near the top (I think there’s no such thing as a Dutch stairway that DOESN’T curve). I still couldn’t locate the person that the voice was coming from. There was a prominent RECEPTION sign on the wall at the top of the steps. Above it was a small window...with a friendly face looking out. That’s where the voice was coming from.

There was a narrow hall to the right of the stairs, but no indication of an elevator. My heart froze...would I have to drag my suitcase up those stairs?! I asked the friendly face in the window “Do I carry my suitcase up?” The voice said “No. You can leave the luggage at the bottom of the stairs.”

I obeyed. Climbing those incredible stairs all I could think of was: this must be what it’s like when you go to heaven. St. Peter is way up there, looking down at you from a tiny window that says RECEPTION, telling you in a kindly voice to leave all your worldly belongings behind…just climb the steps…ascend. It felt like I was climbing the Stairway to Heaven.

A friendly welcome at the Nadia; The Angel Mo smiling down from the Reception window.

Hello Kitty

The Nadia Hotel is a heaven of sorts, inhabited by a staff of friendly, helpful angels who really want you to be happy and comfortable. They carry your heavy luggage up and down those stairs without complaint. They place beautiful fresh flowers in your room. If you need advice on getting around in Amsterdam, or getting a good meal for a good price, the Nadian angels are there to help. And there’s a friendly Nadia Hotel cat, too! The kitty’s name is Hello. We discovered Hello on our way to the breakfast room. A window in the hallway looks out into an emergency stairwell. Hello’s kitty platform is attached to the other side of that window. This is where the friendly cat hangs out, surrounded by his favorite toys. We asked the staff in the breakfast room if we could enter the stairwell and pet Hello. Of course! The Nadia cat was happy to be adored by strangers. When I visited the kitty for the last time, my parting words were "Goodby, Hello."

A few of Nadia Hotel's Dutch curios

The Nadia does its best to give its guests that cozy gezellig feeling. Everything is wood paneled, and colorful  Dutch knickknacks are everywhere: dozens of tiny Dutch canal houses and windmills, colorful wooden shoes (clompen) in all sizes, little ceramic statues of Dutch couples kissing (wearing mini-clompen), and more statues of smiling Dutch girls in traditional costume, carrying tulips, of course. 

The hotel is part of a monumental shopping arcade that was built in 1899. It was designed by architect Adolf Leonard vanGendt and his sons. VanGendt is famous for designing Amsterdam's beautiful Central Train Station. The four-story arcade building curves with the street. Shops occupy the first floor. A covered arched "gallery" roof covers the sidewalk in front of the building. When it was built, individual residences occupied the upper floors. The Nadia Hotel was made from some of the townhouses, including the round corner tower at the canal end of the Arcade. The roof of the Arcade has a variety of gables and balconies. Sculpted stone creatures adorn the facade: some are mythical (gargoyles, dragons) and others depict real animals (roosters, crocodiles!) 

         The vanGendt Arcade, Raadhuisstraat; the Nadia Hotel occupies one corner of the Arcade

The Nadia Hotel has very small rooms, steep winding stairways and no elevator. It's not the ideal hotel for everyone. But for adventuresome travelers who are looking for an affordable home-away-from-home in Amsterdam, in a great location just a 10 minute walk from Dam Square, this is a wonderful place. The staff treats you like family. And it's just like visiting the house of your Dutch Oma (grandmother), with all those knickknacks to make it so nice and gezellig. As a bonus, you can have your photo taken in the ground floor hall while you are standing in Nadia Hotel's gigantic wooden clompen (with a view of a Volendam windmill as a backdrop). Heavenly.