NeL, a jazz café

One of the intern hang-out spots in Amsterdam was NeL, a jazz café. Vince came upon NeL one Monday night and discovered that they had a jazz jam every week. It was a really nice place to hang out, talk, and listen to some jazz!

Sweets

On my last days in Amsterdam I visited two chocolate shops, Jordino and Puccini Bomboni, in the Grachtengordel West neighborhood of Amsterdam. The shops were recommended by my Amsterdam Rough Guide (given to me by a certain travel-savvy professor).

At Jordino the atmosphere was very welcoming. The owners put out chocolates for everyone to try and the shop was packed with people. I had a chocolate-balsamic truffle and a raspberry-chocolate macaroon (for the first time!). I'm still not exactly sure what macaroons are, but the one I had was very good! Anyone know what macaroons are exactly? The chocolate truffle made with balsamic vinaigrette was a little too strong for me. I ate it after having dinner at an Italian deli. As I made a face at the interesting taste of the truffle I looked across the table and suspiciously eyed the bottle of balsamic vinaigrette innocently sitting there, thinking get out of my chocolate!!

I walked into Puccini from the pouring rain, glad to be somewhere warm, or at least dry. I was the only one in the shop most of the time, and he lone woman working was honestly a bit snobby. She seemed to get annoyed at all the questions I had about what the truffles were, but there were just so many interesting ones I had to ask! The shop seemed more high-end and less welcoming than Jordino. But honestly, the milk chocolate-honey bon bon I had was perhaps the best tasting chocolate I have ever had! The honey was not over-powering at all, but rather just lent its sweetness to the chocolate to make for a perfectly sweet and smoooooth chocolate. Delicious. I also had a dark chocolate one with cranberries on top, which was also excellent. The (dried) cranberries were a perfect taste combination with the dark chocolate- a little sweet, and little tangy. See pictures below.

 

Best taste: Puccini

Best environment for patrons: Jordino

Officially on the road

As of this morning, I am officially out of Amsterdam and on the road again. Which means living only out of my backpack and a small carry-on size suitcase for the next month. Looks like I'm "roller-bagging it" around Europe again (term coined while traveling with Genevieve after studying in Rome).

My internship doing social psychology research at the VU in Amsterdam finished up last week. For the past week I've been hanging around Amsterdam soaking up the sun (but more so rain...), exploring parts of the city I hadn't before, and getting to know Eren and Arash, who let me crash with them for the week.

Now I'm currently in Belgium (outside of Brussels) for a week, staying with two psychologists. I'm glad for the change in scenery and psychology environment, and I'm excited about what I will encounter this next week! Images are from some of the last sunny, summery days in Amsterdam.

An Amsterdam Speakeasy

 

lemon + vodka

Per request of my dad, last night I made a visit with two friends to Door 74, a sort of modern speakeasy here in Amsterdam. Modern-day speakeasies are cocktail bars that have an air of mystery about them to recall the speakeasies that existed during the prohibition era in the U.S.

 

 To get in, you have to call a number and leave a message to make reservations the day of, and then someone calls you back later in the day to confirm. The outside of the bar is completely inconspicuous: a regular, black Amsterdam apartment facade with some graffiti splashed on. When we arrived, we rang the doorbell. Before letting us in, the bar man quickly opened a small window (I think a sort of speakeasy regular practice), secretly covered by a dingy "no bike parking" sign. We slipped inside the sleek black interior of the small bar, sat down in some comfy leather chairs and looked at the interesting cocktail menu. In the end, the choices were so varied that we each told the bar man flavors we liked and he mixed something up for each of us.

 
 My cocktail had gin, raspberry syrup, and lemon, among other things. Eren's was a gin and lemon mixture, and was a bit bitter. Arash asked for a drink reminiscent of an amazing lemon martini he had once had in Dubai. What the bar man made was excellent! Someone recently told me that good vodka tastes like water, which at the time I thought sounded kind of odd. But trying the lemon-vodka cocktail last night, I could very much see that. It tasted.... smooth or something, and almost watery- not the nasty "regular" vodka taste at all.

Eren's gin and lemon drink.

 Some of you may be surprised at the alcohol report, but besides enjoying the occasional tasty cocktail, I mainly wanted to check out Door 74 as a favor to my dad. As many of you know, one of his recent hobbies is cocktail mixing and finding out about interesting or unique bars. After we each had one cocktail and enjoyed some good conversation, we headed home. We all agreed that Door 74 was an interesting bar with a nice atmosphere.

My cocktail. Too frou-frou looking... but tasty nonetheless.

CHEESE.

Cheese. What a wonderful thing.

The shop's oldest cheese ("oude kaas")- aged 3 years. Great flavor.

 Today I stopped into a cheese shop- one thing Amsterdam/Holland is famous for. I sampled some delicious cheeses and had a cheese croissant. I could live off of croissants. But cheese is even better :) .

Buttery, flaky, CHEESY goodness.

This one tasted strongly of wine (had either wine or grapes in it).

The youngest cheese in the shop was aged 9 months ("jonge kaas"). The labels of "jonge" and "oude" kaas in the grocery stores finally make more sense.

Sage cheese... looks funky.

Is this not one of the most appetizing bread displays you have ever seen?!

Modern Dance

Sophia and I stumbled upon- ok, well more like snuck our way into- the most amazing dance performance I have seen in a while.

Part of the Uitmarkt, we saw a breathtaking, raw, modern dance performance by a large group of young people. I still can't find the name of the piece or the choreographer, but I stopped one of the dancers after the performance to ask who they were. He said they were all first year students at some university or another that I couldn't quite understand. I was shocked to hear that they were so young/early on in their training! The pure energy running through their movement and collective body was amazing.

The performance was in a small room in Paradiso, a famous nightclub/cultural venue in Amsterdam. They weren't letting anyone else in, but Sophia and I snuck in when one of the guards left. The room was absolutely jam packed, as well as nice and hot and sweaty. I climbed up onto a small table with some other random girl to be able to see the dancers.

The music was blasting from one corner of the room and the audience was shoved to the walls to make room for the dancers. From the silence and stillness of the crowd, I could tell that everyone was captivated. If not by their movement (some of which reminded me of the vibratory movement from the Seán Curran Company performance I saw at ND last year), by their energy and dedication to the performance.

It was awesome. I felt like I had fallen into a room with a wonderful secret to share. It's that moment when you're not sure if something so captivating really happened or not.

Monteverdish

One amazing performance I saw at the Uitmarkt was - get this - a hip-hop breakdance opera! It was called Monteverdish.

Based on the opera L'Incoronazione di Poppea by Monteverdi, it was performed by the dance/theater/music company ISH ("the name comes from the suffix ‘ish’, which is added at the end of a word when something cannot be precisely defined because it’s both one thing and another") and an "international atelier for innovative music theatre," VocaalLAB.

A hip-hop breakdance opera sounded like a crazy combination, but I wanted to see as much dance as I could at the Uitmarkt. It did not disappoint! There were about 4 opera singers and 4 dancers, who all interacted with each other-the dancers dancing around the singers, the singers joining in the movement... so neat. The storyline involved love and war, of course.

There was such passion in both the singers and the dancers, which might have been what brought it together so well: both opera and (break)dancing involve PASSION. Which is something I definitely learned while dancing at SMC- you have to have passion, and you have to be into your movement, music, performance, whatever, if you want the audience to buy it... and love it as much as you do! These two groups combined had that down. Very professional. Especially the lead female singer (in black & white)- she was amazing, and participated the most in the dance portions.

What an awesome mixture of art. You can actually see the whole thing here (about a minute in)- but it's not nearly as good as in person.

A character

After trying to take a creepy stalker shot of this man, I just asked him if I could take his photo. 

"Of course," he said, very matter-of-fact.

The Walrus of Love In Amsterdam

For my family especially:
At the Uit Markt, one of the prestigious Dutch orchestras was playing a Barry White song. It was so unexpected that when I first heard it I started grinning... and then they repeated the song at least 4 times! Which was kind of puzzling. But great. Because who doesn't love a little jazzy Barry White to swing along to?