Amsterdam, Days 3 & 4

Nearly every house in Amsterdam appears to be what they call a "Canal House." After a couple of museums and the trip up and down the stairs to Paul & Simon's flat, that Canal House, roughly translated, means, "house of many steep stairs." While there are many many many canals in Amsterdam (a fact I never knew until this trip!), there are also many streets that do not sit directly on Canals, but still seemed to follow the same "Canal House" architecture.
The basic Architectural rules seem to be that the houses are very tall but very narrow. Thus one flat would be one or two entire floors of a house- front to back, but they might only be 1 room wide! To accomodate for the narrowness of the houses, they built the stairs very steep so they don't take up much space. The stairs to Paul & Simon's flat (on the 4th floor!) seemed pretty "standard" as far as the other houses I saw. One we walked by (the door was open) had stairs that were roughly equivilent to climbing a ladder!

To accomodate for the steep stairs, you can see a hook on the top of most every house. The people in the house with the super steep stairs were moving out the day we saw their stairs- we only knew that because they came out & saw us looking up their stairs and they told us, I'm not sure if they used their hook but I certainly hope so!

In the Amsterdam History museum there was a replica of a standard Canal house, showing the Wheel used in conjunction with the hook that hung out over the front of the house. The weel was quite large and was generally located in the Attic of the house, but the rope would run the entire height of the house. Apparently most houses, through years of rennovation, lost the wheel and changed over to a simple hook and attached a block & tackle when they needed to hoist things up to the top floors.

I don't know why the Heinnekin horses were out that day, but there they were, so I took a picture. Maybe it's just a normal part of Amsterdam...Maybe they really do haul beer around by horse and carraige still...

I was quite surprised to find, while in the Amsterdam History Museum, that it was the former sight of the Amsterdam City orphanage. They had quite a full display of Orphanage artifacts (dishes, untensils), documents, paintings and etchings. Until the early part of the 1900's (I forget the exact date), the orphanage did not have enough dishes, so each mealtime, 4 girls (or 4 boys) would have to share a single large bowl of food. In the early 1900's, one single benefactor donated enough money so that every girl (and boy) would have their own dish. The museum had an etching of 4 girls sharing a bowl of soup, as well as some of the bowls, and some of the plates that had been donated.

The children in the orphanage also had to wear uniforms. Actually there were several orphanages in Amsterdam at the time, and each had a distinctive uniform. The one shown in the painting above, and the actual uniform below, were the uniform worn by the girls at the City Orphanage. The boys had a very similar uniform, with the left side being black and the right side being red, a basic pair of pants and a suitcoat. Unfortunately the light was reflecting off the display cabinet too much to get much of a photo of the boys uniform. The uniforms were said to have a range of opinions about them, some children wore them with pride, others with shame.

On Friday night Paul & Simon had some other friends in town so we started at their house with a cocktail party, then all went out to dinner. My role of the evening was appetizers for the cocktail party...happily there was wonderful cured meat & figs were in season, so we had prosciutto wrapped strawberries & figs, Pancetta wrapped shrimp, tomato & goat cheese bruschetta, and some really wonderful aged farm cheese & crackers, and plenty of good wine! Paul & simon at dinner:

The bigger crowd after dinner, the woman in the light blue jacket is due with her first baby in just another week or two, she & her husband JUST moved to Amsterdam a couple months ago!
On Sunday was the Amsterdam Marathon. Simon was racing in the half marathon, but wasn't planned to start until the afternoon. We watched the fast marathoners on TV in the morning, then when they came within a few blocks of the flat, we walked out to see them. These are all the super fast guys from Kenya, the guy in front is the one who got first in the marathon.
And Here is Simon during the Marathon! Paul & I walked around while he was racing, but found a good spot to watch for him, actually he saw us even before we saw him! He did GREAT- 1 hour 45 minutes- his Personal best- way to go Simon!!!
I just love the middle house here, it's so....crooked. It was really amazing how many houses were totally crooked after so many years, this one is just so obvious...kinda makes me want to start singing....There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile....
This photo I couldn't resist- Cindy has two little baby doll strollers at her house and one of Dumpling's favorite things when other girls are around (or Aunties!) are stroller races...I laughed when I saw this just adorable little girl and realized, yeah...baby doll strollers are international...!
I have no idea what to call this place, since the sign in front of Paul says "FEBO", I'll call it that. It's like an automat of the 1950's- stick a quarter in, open the window and get your food out. Nice and toasty warm inside...
This is what we bought, they were something like "curry rolls" or "curry sticks"- I have no idea, except that they were these hot little melty twinkie shaped vessels of warm curry goodness. I think I could have eaten 3 more. Just perfect for a cold day!