Discovering New Beauty
This weekend I traveled somewhere that was completely new to myself but that has very sentimental value for my parents. After marrying, my parents jetted off to Amsterdam for a romantic, art-filled honeymoon and the entire time I was there, I couldn’t help but thinking, Did my young parents stand on this very sidewalk all those years ago? Did they see these same sights? What has changed since they were here; would they recognize it now? What was running through their minds when they were here? Needless to say, at almost every moment I felt as though my parents, or rather my parents-of-the-past were right by my side.
As soon as we landed a rollercoaster of emotion ensued. We had decided to try to go to Keukenhof, the famous tulip gardens outside of Amsterdam, straight from the airport since there is a direct bus between the two. We were ecstatic to discover that there was in fact a huge tulip festival and parade happening through the gardens that day! Little did we know that there was a line of hundreds of people with an expected wait time of 1.5 hours who already knew this. After we had bought our tickets we discovered the winding line of visitors ready for the tulips and walked all the way to the back of the line, but to our surprise, the line was moving quite quickly. Then the rainstorm hit. Clouds quickly filled the sky and a (granted, light) downpour began to drench the crowds waiting in this line. But we persisted! “Do it for the tulips!” I shouted! After a much shorter wait than we anticipated we were almost to the bus when we got news that they had closed the park due to an overwhelming amount of entrees. We were enraged; why would they sell more tickets than they were prepared to accept in the park?! We thought they definitely could have thought this through better and just not sold us tickets. So 24 Euros down, we skulked towards the train station to head into the city to our hostel.
Eager to make up for lost time spent waiting in the tulip line, we immediately set off to the Moco Museum to see an exhibit on Banksy. But we decided to take the hour long walk there form our hostel to take in all the sights. Amsterdam truly looks like nothing else. It’s magically unique and I felt immediately transported into another world. The willows draped over the banks of the canals, the herds of bicyclists filling the streets, and the narrow houses one after another left me breathless. Before we arrived at the museum, we had to stop and get stroopwaffle, which is like a slightly soft, very thin waffle cookie sandwich with a thick caramel syrup in between. Needless to say I was immediately in love – I couldn’t get enough! Within the Moco Museum, we saw some of Banksy’s original work – literal street cones and portions of concrete walls on display – but also some prints and paintings of his work. Many of the pieces I had seen before but others were new to me but either way it was powerful to see the defiant and aggressive political statements that Banksy shamelessly makes. In the basement of the museum, there was a small exhibit of Salvador Dalí, who I am truly fascinated by. He is absolutely someone I wish I could have a dinner with or be a fly on the wall in his life; his work is so expressive and he was an extremely eccentric man.
I had only heard of traditional Dutch sweets, and not much about their savory foods, but somehow we managed to eat mountains of it for dinner. I had split pea soup and Hienekin, which are both quite authentic, apparently. Among us we also had a few huge salads, some french-fries, and pasta. Somehow, we managed to wipe our plates clean! But of course, after we left the pub, we couldn’t just go back to the hostel without dessert… We found a store that was just what we needed: waffles, crepes, ice cream, donuts, and churros – what more could we wish for?! I got a small donut ball – bigger than a munchkin – filled with Nutella. Truly wonderful. Happy tummies, we returned to the hostel to rest before another great day.
