14 July Amsterdam

The local bar we would hang out at, Onder de Oodvaar.










Reistoffel, or "rice table," the indonesian meal we ate.

Lynne's conference is over, and all the epidemiologists have either flown back home or gone on to further adventures in Europe. We decided to walk around a bit, exploring the environment near our hotel and towards the Maritime Museum. Our good friend Dan Hall recommended this to us, and it was well worth the visit. We spent about 2 hours there, looking at the ship models, astrolabes, swords, and sextants. They had exhibits dealing with the history of colonialism and slavery as well. Outside there was a full size clipper ship, the Amsterdam (a modern replica of the Batavia which sank off the coast of Australia in 1629). You can walk all over the ship and get a sense of how the space was used. Very interesting. Now we both want to go rent 'Master and Commander' again...Pretty amazing museum.

We ate lunch over in the Niewmarkt square. In the middle there was a market set up and it looked like there were a lot of records so we went over to check it out. Lucky us! It turned out that the special record market is only ONE DAY A MONTH and we happened to hit it. Robby was in seventh heaven when he found a guy who specialized in Dutch beat records from the '60s. They had a lively discussion of the scene back then and the guy told us all about all the shows he used to see and about how he used to live next door to the drummer for Shocking Blue. For those of you who don't know Dutch Beat, Robby assures me that this is EXTREMELY COOL. Robby walked away from the transaction with a healthy stack of vinyl.

Then we visited the Rembrandt house, which had a dazzling display of Rembrandt's etchings. Rembrandt had lived there and did many of his most famous works there. But, he was a big spender and ended up losing the home in bankruptcy. The legal documents of the sale of the home were used to reconstruct its contents. It was interesting to see but the collection of etchings was by far the highlight. We closed that place down and then split up for a while.

Lynne headed to do some shopping at Hema (the Dutch version of Ikea) and Robby went to the internet cafe. We met up later at our bar and then headed out for dinner. We decided to do Indonesian again and it was an excellent choice. We found a tiny place in our neighborhood (Soenda Kelada). It was one of the best meals we have ever eaten. We got a rice table, which means that they give you rice and about a dozen little dishes full of different spicy concoctions to put over the rice: fish with chili sauce, chicken with peanut, green beans in coconut milk. Marvelous! We have yet to have a bad meal in this town.

We went for a walk after dinner, through the canals and then back to our hotel for some sleep. More museums and markets tomorrow...