Getting the boot

Have you ever realized you had a completely blank schedule on a beautiful, sunny Saturday and thought to yourself: "Omigod! It's absolutely perfect! Today is the day! We can finally get the boot!" 

Probably not. But that's because you didn't know that boot is the Dutch word for boat!

In this city of canals, one of the most popular weekend pastimes is boating. With large cushions and blankets lining the deck, wine glasses in hand, in their preppy-chic Ralph Lauren/Tommy Hilfiger-type sailing getups (on cloudy days) or shirtless (on sunny days), a fluffy dog or two peeking out from the prow, the Dutch are experts in taking cozy chic to the canals. And yes, many of them actually own their own boats. I've seen so many happy Dutchies on boats since spring that I've developed an entirely new form of envy... boat envy. 

I've actually had a standing reservation at Mokumboot, a boat rental company two blocks from my house, since April. Weather had been so uncooperative, especially through our crappy rainy summer, that I feared I would never get to use it. Whenever I had the odd sunny day in my sights, boats would get fully booked up a week in advance.

But September gave us a stunning gift: a rare, two-week stretch of blissful sunshine and good vibes. So on one glorious Sunday morning, the planets aligned. And we could finally, finally get the damn boot.

Marlon and I showed up at the Mokumboot dock at 11 in the morning to pick up our boat. I actually got us out of the driveway, so to speak before handing the wheel to my college friend Jec. She moved here with her boyfriend KD for work, and I'm lucky to have a Pinay friend I already know pretty well!

Steering is not as easy as the Dutchies make it look. You need to keep the steering wheel going pretty much continuously, constantly going back and forth between left and right, to keep the boat going in a straight line. Also, being an electric boat as opposed to a gas-fueled boat, our top speed was pretty pathetic. But it was all good. We were all just ridiculously excited to finally be on a boat!



Jec's boyfriend KD took over as captain of the ship for the first half of our four-hour boat ride. Marlon got started chilling the wine...



... while I unpacked our picnic basket, filled with snacks for grazing: chips, cheese, olives, bread and a highly addictive truffle tapenade from the Albert Cuypmarkt.

I also served up a vegetarian lunch of fusilli with roasted broccoli and walnuts.

We set off from the Olympic quarter, which is our neighborhood, in the direction of Amsterdam's famous canal belt. Along the way, autumn waved its cheery greeting from the apartments of the Old South.

Passing the Rijksmuseum, or the national museum, was a signpost telling us to expect very busy waters up ahead. 

 

As soon as we hit the busy Leidseplein area, huge tourist boats started coming at us from every direction. Boat police patrol these busier waterways in the center of town.

It not unlike being a student driver and finding yourself on the South Super Highway-Sucat interchange for the first time. Except everything moves much more slowly, you have no idea how people will signal for turns, and collisions with large vessels will be documented by the sound of fifty cameras clicking. Chalk that last bit up to experience.

Having run the stressful gauntlet that was Leidseplein, our entry into the famous Grachtengordel, or canal belt, was rewarded with some postcard views... like this one along Prinsengracht. The Anne Frank House lies just behind Westerkerk, on the right.

Sailing along all four major canals that encircle Amsterdam's old center—Singel, Herengracht, Keizersgracht, and Prinsengracht—is something that pretty much all tourist boats do on the standard canal tour. But many of them won't bother into the smaller canals intersecting these major waterways—which, shaded with trees and lined with cafes, have a quiet charm that made all of us breathe more deeply and contentedly.

Heading even further away from tourist territory, we took our little boat into the tiny canals of the Jordaan. Formerly home to Amsterdam's working-class immigrants, this neighborhood is now one of the hippest (and most expensive) places to live in the city. Its narrow canals are off-limits to the big tourist boats.

And as we came up to this alarmingly low bridge, we all realized why.

Marlon turned off the engine. Drifting ever so slowly toward the bridge gave the four of us time to ponder a short list of possible fates, which consisted of a) getting stuck, and b) sailing clean through.

"We're going to get stuck!" cried Jec. "No, I think we'll make it," I objected, discreetly grabbing my phone and tapping out the first few digits of the Mokumboot helpline... just in case I was wrong.

Drawn to our obvious (and by now, rather loud) distress, an old man in a battered coat tottered up to the bridge. "Geen problem," he said with an amused grin and a vaguely encouraging wave of his hand. "No problem!"

"O, no problem daw sabi ni lolo! He must know what he's talking about, right? He's Dutch!" I said.

Asserting the ultimate faith in the innate goodness of humankind, Marlon switched the engine back on to its lowest setting. Which left nothing else for us to do but plaster ourselves to the floor of the boat and laugh like hyenas on crack.

It was the longest minute of my Amsterdam life.

As we emerged, laughing hysterically, nerves shredded but boat and bumbunans intact, lolo waving cheerfully from the bridge, I knew we had just made another awesome Amsterdam memory.

We sure could have used one of these, though!

Apart from our hilarious/harrowing encounter with the bridge, plus an unexpected stretch of large choppy waves on the Overtoomse Sluis, it was smooth sailing all the way home. 

Water seems to be the Dutch element. They seem happier, warmer, more relaxed and more gracious in their boats. People in passing boats will joke with each other, like this dad who played at throwing his squealing toddler over to us. Naturally, we pretended to prepare to catch the little boy. Everyone smiles and waves at each other, sharing good vibes in passing. 

We might not share the confidence or adeptness with which this boat-loving culture navigates the waters. That can only come from a relationship with the water that begins from childhood, and is woven into the very history of a people.



But the sunshine sparkling on the water, the sound of the water lapping gently against the boat, the calming stillness in in its movement—these are available to all.

So though we are not adept in the intricacies of boat and water, we can partake in their pleasures... even just for a little while. 

Maximum occupancy

Palazzo Plazo reached maximum occupancy this summer with the arrival of not one, not two, nope not even three, but five guests!

My friends' post-wedding visit to Amsterdam was a huge deal to me and something I'd been looking forward to for months. It just so happened that during the week they were slated to visit, my sister ended her year-long assignment in Oslo and needed a place to rest and regroup before embarking on a new adventure in Portugal. 

Marlon and I had never hosted such a big number, and I'll admit I freaked out a bit at the beginning. Did we have enough bedsheets, towels, blankets, pillows, cutlery, plates and glasses for everyone? (Yes to everything except the glasses, a shortage solved by a quick trip to the nearest Blokker.) What would we cook and how could we make all the meals affordable? I was squeamish about asking everyone to contribute towards the grocery expenses; eventually I got over the discomfort of "charging" my friends by just having to accept that Marlon and I couldn't afford to feed everyone gratis.

We arrived from Mimi's wedding and went straight into a frenzy of cleaning and organizing—moving boxes upstairs, bringing down the spare mattresses from the attic, even fixing up the mess that is our hallway coat closet so it could accommodate the shoes we used to keep in the guest room. When we were done, I was pretty pleased with the way our house looked. We took a few minutes to just sit in the living room and enjoy it. 

This deluge of guests made me really appreciate all the hosts we had on our various Glee Club tours. It is not easy, and to think I was already hosting people who are quite close to me. To take on hosting duties for total strangers, while juggling kids and work, is nothing short of heroic.

It also made me realize how much extra space our home has. Space over location was a conscious decision we made when me chose the apartment and now I feel that our choice has been justified. We're lucky to have it! #blessed

The calm before the storm.

By the way, that's our new Nest beanbag from Sukha. I was terrified that Rogue was going to scratch it into oblivion, but she actually seemed scared of it. I suspect it's because the wool of the yarn may smell strongly of animal to her. It's taken her almost a month to even just sit on it, so I'm happy with its chances of survival.

My sister got first dibs on the daybed! We were able to borrow an extra air mattress from a colleague of Marlon's to complete the girls' "dormitory." All the suitcases were stored outside in the hallway.

On the day of their arrival, I was lucky to have an able assistant (a.k.a. sister) to pop lunch into the oven (and turn it over!) while I went to collect Pia, Jonel, Trina and Cathy at Schiphol. At the airport, we met up with Charlie, a Glee Club alum who's lived in The Hague for 13 (!!!) years and is now working as a chef. He lent them his spare OV-chipkaartjes, the reloadable passes that are used on buses, trains and trams.

Palazzo Plazo's welcome lunch consisted of chicken marinated in milk, lemon zest and herbs, with a Parmesan herb breading.

After lunch, we gathered in the living room to plan the next few days. At this point in their travels, my friends were tired from a rather punishing determined sightseeing schedule. While we tossed around quite a few ideas for outings and even out-of-the-country day trips, a lot more time was spent at home just chilling and taking it slow. This seems to happen to all my guests. It's the Amsterdam effect!



A stay at Palazzo Plazo is not complete without a meal by its resident chef.

For our one big sit-down dinner together at home, Marlon made a crackin' chili con carne, which we served with sangria, salsa (both homemade) and tortilla chips. It was the first time we had seven people seated at the dining table! Thankfully, there was enough food (and chairs) for everyone.

After getting used to living, shopping and cooking for two, it was a definite eye-opener to have lots of people at home. I told Marlon that my epiphany for the week was that I would be perfectly happy with a very small family, thank you very much! Haha.

But with lots of people comes lots of fun and laughter, and that's what made everything worth it. Not a single day passed without peals of loud, you-know-it's-Filipino laughter ringing out into our quiet street. Thankfully all my guests are considerate, responsible grown-ups trained over many Glee Club tours in the art of being gracious guests. And that gets a thumbs up from Palazzo Plazo!

It was wonderful having you guys over. Sa uulitin!

Ancient stone, flowing water

With temperatures soaring to 32℃ and our friends flying off to Rome, Marlon and I knew exactly what we wanted to do the day after Mimi and Pete's wedding: take it slow and go swimming. We had the option of driving an hour from Caissargues to the nearest beach, or to drive 20 minutes to see the Pont du Gard, a UNESCO World Heritage site. 

All it took was for me to see "swimming" among the list of activities allowed at this ancient Roman aqueduct, to decide. Pont du Gard it was!

Aside from being an incredibly picturesque sight, Pont du Gard is an architectural marvel. (Wondering what an aqueduct is? Read here). Built between 40 and 60 AD, this aqueduct was as a pathway down which 40 million liters of water a day flowed from a water source in Uzes to the Roman town of Nimes, 50 kilometers away. 

Thanks to the simple physics of gravity, homes, public baths and fountains in Nimes were assured a steady, efficient supply of water—something which the Romans enjoyed in 60 AD, but citizens of Paranaque did not until the 21st century. 

Today, the Pont du Gard is a major tourist attraction as well as a public recreation area used for kayaking and (most importantly for Marlon and myself) swimming.

There is a small sandy area by the riverbank, as well as a few roofed sunbeds where we saw families  picnicking.



This was when I started feeling that I was really on vacation. Things began to slow down and take on a dreamy haze. To have this time to just lay in the sun, watch the sunshine turn the ripples of the river into so much gold and soak up the atmosphere felt like the ultimate luxury. Time is indeed gold.

Venturing into the river was like getting foot reflexology, which my mom was nuts about for a time (remember those painful, fugly slippers that were big in the 90s?) and which I absolutely abhor. In one word: pebbles. It got to a point where I felt like I couldn't move another step, and regretted leaving my faithful tsinelas at home. 

But once we got in deep enough to float... yahoo!

Yes, the water was cold. And no, river swimming has never really appealed to me. But how many times in my life can I swim in the shadow of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and let my body drift lazily under 20,000 years of history?

Not many, I would think. And that's what made this Sunday afternoon swim so unforgettable.

Once the sun started to set and the families around us began packing up, Marlon and I were left by ourselves, not wanting this day to end, waiting for the last rays of the sun to dry us off. It was suddenly so easy to picture a battalion of Roman soldiers clad in armor, stopping to let their horses drink from this cool river on a hot summer's day. I swear, I got goosebumps. And I know it wasn't the water.

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Check out more lovely photos of Pont du Gard at Apol's blog!

Six months

On Sunday, July 10, Marlon and I celebrated our first six months in Amsterdam.

Update: I just remembered a few months before we left Singapore, when we were agonizing over whether to move or not, give up the bigger (joint) income or not, and basically freaking out all the bloody time. We couldn't talk about anything else for weeks. Finally one afternoon in the pool (pool! I miss swimming!), Marlon said, "You know what, six months from now, we'll be in Amsterdam laughing about this and wondering what took us so long to decide."

Well we are now at that six-month point. And what do you know... we are laughing. No regrets.

We used to ignore our Singapore anniversaries (left before I hit my third), but as you can probably tell, things are different here. We slept in on Sunday morning and spent a long time cuddling drowsily on the daybed. Though it sounds normal, it's actually rare for us to do that on a weekend, so the day started off feeling pretty special.

Then, a huge milestone for me: I went out on my bike. We brought our bikes to Haarlem one weekend and spent some time cycling along the canals. But Amsterdam, with all its traffic (pedestrians, bikes, scooters, cars), is a different animal. Since my goal is to bike by myself regularly, I thought becoming familiar with the route to a place that I actually frequent would be a good start. So with Marlon as my guide (and hawi boy, haha), we biked to the Albert Cuypmarkt.

Intersections are the bane of my beginner's existence. I'm completely atrocious at starting up again after a stop, so I veered and wobbled into quite a few cars' path, and probably left quite a few bikers behind me rolling their eyes. One particularly tricky intersection where the bike lane disappeared completely shredded my nerves, and I took to wheeling my bike across the pedestrian lane on several occasions. 

The market was closed when we got there, but... I got there! Woohoo! So we took to a bench in the Sarphatipark to calm my frayed nerves, celebrated with some excellent lemon cheesecake ice cream from Het Ijspaleis, and I resolved to keep at it until both my biking skills and confidence improve.

It was only on my bike ride home that I noticed that I had been wearing a tight frown and chewing on my lip all throughout. I made a conscious effort to iron out my features (like my flamenco teacher used to insist we do). And looking calm and collected—even happy—was easy, because the ride home was much, much better. Marlon led me down a different route with fewer intersections and less traffic, and I had a much easier time of it. 

On the way home, my big loving bear of a husband bought me yellow roses to celebrate. Yes, arriving home in one piece, insurance intact, deserves flowers. He also pulled a first by biking home one-handed, with a bouquet of flowers in one arm. So very Dutch! Now all he needs to do is mount a baby between his handlebars and start texting with the other hand, and he'll be a full-blown Amsterdammer.

In the evening we got all dressed up for dinner at Lucius, a seafood restaurant in the city center. And no, we didn't bike there. But I look forward to hopefully, someday, becoming one of the legions of Dutch superwomen who get dolled up in heels and a dress and think nothing of biking to dinner.

Just as I look forward to more adventures in Amsterdam with my one and only partner in crime. Happy six months to us, Amsterdam. Let's make the remaining (at least) 4.5 years count.

Watercolor lessons

I've always been into drawing and painting. The first medium I ever learned to use was watercolor. My mom hired an artist to give me and my sister watercolor lessons when I was about 9 or 10. He was a really precise, uber-detailed kind of painter who came to the house once a week. We would move a big desk from my mom's study outside onto the front lawn, where he taught me how to mix colors and manipulate water and brush on paper. 

Over the summer, I produced two obsessively detailed watercolor paintings: a still life with fruit that still hangs in my mom's house, and one of unicorns (another lifelong interest of mine) in a cave. He liked to go over my mom's art books to find "inspiration", and the unicorns' cave resembled Da Vinci's Madonna of the Rocks in quite a few places. 

Since then, though, I've kind of... lost the knack for watercolors. I started getting really impatient if I couldn't finish something in one sitting. There are ways to pull off really quick watercolors, but because that wasn't my tutor's style, I never learned how.

It was a flyer posted on the bulletin board of the Van Beek art supply store on the Weteringschans that led me back to watercolors. Penny Johnson, an artist based in Haarlem, was offering watercolor sessions at her studio. After trading a few emails with Penny, I signed up for the last of the Tuesday afternoon sessions before her summer break.

The city of Haarlem is about 20 minutes by train from Amsterdam. A lot of Marlon's colleagues actually live there because of the lower property costs, which makes it a good alternative to living in Amsterdam. Since I was running late (as usual) for my first lesson, I didn't get to look around much. 

I went back with Marlon the following Saturday to walk around the center and explore a bit more. It seems like a pretty town, a lot smaller and quainter than Amsterdam, with not as many tall buildings and far less tourists (which is nice). Still, I haven't quite decided if it's a city we'd want to live in further down the road.

Penny, a late-middle aged British lady with a brisk and cheery manner, welcomed me warmly with a cup of coffee and my art materials for the day. I immediately felt at home in Penny's studio. It was bright, with high ceilings and enough work space for a small group, with heaps of interesting odds and ends piled together in small vignettes... a charming kind of clutter.

I liked her little collections of ceramics and glass bottles, all ready to be captured by paintbrush and water. I suspect I'll be like this someday. I already have a starter collection of wine bottles on the kitchen counter, which I kept just because I found the colors so pretty.

One wall was covered with cards, posters and various bits of paper showing different styles of watercolor. Some were loose and fast, with luminous colors bleeding together; others were more precise and detailed. These two pieces in particular caught my eye, and I snapped a photo with my iPhone. I would be more than happy if I could learn to paint like this.

Penny, and the two ladies who were here students that afternoon, stopped. "What are you doing?" Penny asked. "Are you taking photographs?" Then they all started talking about picture-happy people, how this tourist on one woman's cruise couldn't stop snap-snap-snapping away, blah blah blah.

I didn't realize that taking photos could be annoying to others. Is it just the generation gap showing here? I didn't want to be one of those "annoying types" so I meekly put away my phone, and resolved not to take my DSLR out of my bag for the rest of the afternoon...

... which was devoted to painting, of course. Penny started me off with a relatively easy project: getting a feel for the wet-on-wet technique, or painting on wet paper.  Wet paper makes the paint (which is also loaded with water) blend and bleed together, so it's for quick, loose work; vastly different from the style of my first tutor, but perhaps more suited for the less deft and more impatient me.

I surprised myself by starting out... cautiously. Timidity is not something I normally expect of myself, but there I was dabbing tentatively at the paper, producing pale, washed-out landscape. Penny took one look at my work and pronounced: "Color, my dear. You need more color. Let's put it this way: the paints are free."

By the end of the two and a half-hour session, I had gained a measure of boldness with my colors and strokes. I was re-learning how to see things differently, to look closer at light versus dark, since with watercolors you start with the lightest colors first, before building up the darker shades. I was beginning to learn how to be patient with mixing colors to achieve just the right shade, and not to settle for what I thought it looked like, out of impatience. And I was remembering how to just... play. All of these things that I thought I'd forgotten were reawakening in me. 

And I have to say: I kind of like it.

Welcome to Palazzo Plazo

The joke about running a hotel began a couple of years back in Singapore. Being so close to Manila and a regional hub for flights, Singapore was a frequent destination for a long list of friends, whom we happily hosted in our spare bedroom. It was Pauline who dubbed our one-bedroom "hotel" Palazzo Plazo, and the name has stuck. 

After our "soft opening" and first official guest this spring, Palazzo Plazo Amsterdam got busy. Mom came over after our Oslo jaunt in May, and Jon and Gutsy arrived within days of each other in June. 

Al fresco dining on Palazzo Plazo's charming terrace

There's something about Amsterdam that makes all my guests so chillax. Not once did we make it out of the house before lunch time! Luckily, the days have gotten so long that my visitors and I got to do and see so much even with our late starts.

While I've had far more than my fair share of visits to the Holy Trinity of Amsterdam tourism (the Anne Frank House, Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum), I'm happy that I got to do a little something different with each guest. There's really so much to still do and discover in this city!

Mom was pretty low-key. She was content to stay home and share my domestic diva lifestyle. She also spent a lot of time bonding with Rogue.

In Singapore, she absolutely abhorred walking. But this time, the cool weather in early spring made a huge difference. It was a lot easier to plan her itinerary this time around because she didn't mind walking. So much of Amsterdam's charm lies in these leisurely strolls in the canal district. 

I also got to try my first rijsttafel ("rice table") at one of Amsterdam's numerous Indonesian restaurants while Mom was here. A rijsttafel is basically a meal that consists of rice served with a large-ish number of small side dishes (the usual satay, rendang and so on), which seems to be an entirely Indo-Dutch colonial hybrid; I've never had it at any Indonesian restaurant in Southeast Asia.

We also rented a car one Saturday to drive out to the Zaanse Schans, an open-air museum about twenty minutes from Amsterdam. Truth be told, I found it a little too touristy for my taste, but I think it was just Mom's speed... and made for some pretty pictures.

The best part of the Zaanse Schans for me was getting to see a functioning windmill from the inside. It's pretty amazing what people will think up to get out of having to work so damn hard.

On the way home, we decided to do a big detour and drive along the Afluitsdijk, a feat of Dutch engineering. It's a 32-km causeway that dams part of the North Sea and turns it into the Ijsselmeer lake; salt water on one side of the highway and fresh water on the other. 

Since Mom was such a big fan of the neighbors' roses, I also took her through the Bloemenmarkt, Amsterdam's "floating" flower market. "Hindi ba talaga tutubo sa Pilipinas ito?" she asked, rifling forlornly through the flowers. "Malapit naman ako sa Tagaytay eh!"

With Jonathan, the agenda was completely different and can be summed up in one word: boys. Haha! So our first stop on a scorching Saturday was the Vondelpark, where everyone and his mother/girlfriend/barkada/boyfriend goes to take off his shirt and soak up the (rare) sunshine. While shirtless hunks were in attendance, so were bikini-clad babes.

Still, Amsterdam did not disappoint me us Jon in my our his search for Dutch, er, treats. We were particularly impressed with the array of waiters the city put forth that week. While customer service is far from being one of this city's strong points, we certainly couldn't complain about service from waitstaff like these.

 

Boys aside, we also meandered through narrow side streets...

... and along the canals, which never fail to amaze me.

Jon's visit was a cause for many firsts, such as our first barbecue on the balcony... which also became the last due to a prompt scolding by our upstairs neighbor. We took it to the pavement outside our building, in true third world style.

It was also my first time to hang out at Leidseplein, a big square in the center of town that every single tourist in Amsterdam seems to naturally gravitate to. I really don't get it: they just stand around there like huge flocks of sheep. It's a convenient (but certainly not the best) location to sit down for a drink, but other than that I don't know what's so great about Leidseplein.

Jon's interest in the social sciences led us to the Oosterpark...

... to visit the Tropenmuseum, one of Europe's leading ethnographic museums. It houses exhibits about non-Western cultures, and includes an excellently curated exhibit about the Netherlands' own colonial history.

The biggest surprise about the Tropenmuseum was also the most admirable: it very matter-of-factly stated that the Dutch colonial history was very deeply linked with slavery. No whitewashing (pun not intended), no sugarcoating: the simple facts of slavery and how it contributed to the Dutch golden age laid out for every foreign visitor, every schoolchild to see... and learn from.

An old drawing of slaves packed into a Dutch galley for trading

Just a day after Jon left, Gutsy arrived for a weekend. I wish we had had more time together! Still, we managed to pack in a decent amount of meandering...

... with a visit to Anne Frank...

... and even the Homomonument nearby.

Sunday brunch was at the lovely Cafe Belhamel on the Brouwersgracht, with its gleaming green walls and Art Deco interiors... 

... followed by another Amsterdam tourist staple, a first for us: the canal cruise.

We surrendered most of Sunday to a fog of kabangagan that can most adequately be summed up in this photograph.

Let's just say we were extra happy... because Gutsy was in town! Right Guts? Yay!

It's been weeks since our guests have checked out, and I miss them already. While playing hostess was tiring, it sure was tons of fun. And I hope playing tourist in this town never gets old.

So, who's next?