Amsterdam

Some of the hightlights...

Van Gogh Museum
Amazing! What a prolific artist. You really realize when seeing so many of his works together how versatile he was. He changed styles continuously throughout his career. I also appreciated seeing how much his style changed once he moved to France. There was a series of paintings describing how much his colour palette changed. And he was untrained! The number of paintings he produced in such a short time was unbelievable, and we both left feeling like we had some catching up to do.

Anne Frank House
Moving. And well worth the wait in line. This museum chronicles the period that Anne and her family, along with four others spent hiding in the upstairs annexe of her father’s business. Quotes from the book displayed on the wall really brought the situation to life. Neither of us had read the book before, and I'm now halfway through it, and wow. It's even more powerful being able to visualize the space and the people.


The city itself.
Neither of us had any idea how great this city would be. It had never been on my list of places to go, but now I'm imagining us going there for long weekends....it's the same amount of travel time as we would do between Toronto and Ottawa. My first impression of Amsterdam as we left the train station was that we were about ten years too old to appreciate the city. We got in around noon, and the streets were swarming with the 'I'm backpacking around Europe before starting university' types who looked like they'd just rolled out of bed (or been kicked out of their hostel), and were looking for a quick greasy meal to soothe their stomachs after a wild night on the town. However, the farther away you get from the red light district, the more laid back the city gets. The city centre is ringed with canals, with many of the buildings facing out over the water. We spent a good part of our time there hopping from one patio to another. The weather was great while we were there, and the canals were packed with all sizes of boats as people cruised around the city. We couldn’t figure out why this isn’t done on the Seine…


There's a concert going on in the middle of all the boats

(blurry, I know...)
We also had a great meal at De Kas, a restaurant basically inside a greenhouse that serves mostly locally grown/raised foods. Our waiter warned us that our duck main course might have bullet shards in it....not a very appetizing description, but the fact that it was wrapped in bacon and then barbequed made us forget about all that! Delicious! Erik also appreciated the solar panels.



We of course visited the Heineken Experience, which I think Erik enjoyed more than I did. It's not that there was anything wrong, but I couldn't get past the fact that a brewery tour could cost more than the Van Gogh museum.


We spent a morning walking around the Jordaan neighbourhood. It was full of markets and cute stores. Had a nice tapas lunch.


Our hotel was pretty cool too, not bad for a Radisson.


After visiting the Resistance Museum (excellent, if poorly displayed, and incredibly dense) we stopped on a bridge and had drinks while watching the continual parade of boaters.

On Sunday afternoon we hopped on the train and headed out to Utrecht, a small university town where Erik's conference was being held. Utrecht was a great little town, kind of like a miniature Amsterdam, with the same great canals and architechture, but minus the hoards of tourists. Not that there's anything wrong with tourists. I'm happy to be one, and I'm getting used to the Paris lovers in our neighbourhood. But I can appreciate their absence.

We had tapas canal-side, and once again, watched the boats. We saw a couple that were set for little dinner parties or barbeques. We'll look into that next time.


Walking back to the hotel, I saw this door to nowhere. And this:

I'll take one, please.

Getting back to Paris was a bit less fun (remember the lady on the TGV to Basel who was complaining about how slow the train was going? Hah! That was me this time!!!). First of all, the train station in Amsterdam is completely devoid of any signage to tell you what track your train is on. I finally found an info counter, with a long line of people, all asking the same question. The two ladies 'manning' it had just turned their screens around, and so when each person asked what track their train was on, they'd just point. So I get 'directed' to my track, which has a sign advertising the arrival of another train. There was another poor employee on the track, whose sole purpose, as far as I could tell, was to deal with all the people, who like me, wanted to make sure they were in the right place. Because, you know, the train is supposed to LEAVE in five minutes and hasn't arrived yet, and the sign says something else. Yes, we were in fact in the right spot, and the train did arrive, pulled out of the station five minutes late, made an 'exceptional' stop in Utrecht (where I'd come from much earlier that morning) then pulled out of the station and stopped. We sat on the tracks for at least 45 minutes before continuing our journey VERY SLOWLY. The Thalys is supposed to be a fast train. I could have walked faster.

I'm on a roll today! Don't even get me started on the post office....

Anyway, we were only gone for three days, same as Brussels, and I was still surprised how long it felt like we'd been gone. It's so nice just to get out of Paris, and see something different.

The Happy Travelers

Brussels en photo

Stocking Up

We bought two chairs off of Craig's List a couple of weeks ago, and of course had a great time transporting them home on the metro.

We are so cool.

And Then There Were Three....

.....refrigerators.

Tomorrow will mark not only the first day of our fifth year of marriage, but also the arrival of fridge #3 into our apartment, thus ending our six day adventure without refrigeration. To be fair, two of those days were spent in Brussels, so really we've only had to suffer four days without, and luckily we're both on vacation and can thus share the required daily shop for food.

You might be asking yourself why we are getting a third fridge.

It's not so much a 'third' fridge as a replacement for our current fridge which no longer works.

Why doesn't it work? you might be wondering.

We seem to have a problem with fridges/freezers and too much ice (but never enough of the kind that you put in your drink!). Our fridge on Augusta Ave in Toronto used to freeze under the freezer compartment, then defrost, melting the water all over the floor. Erik perfected the technique of chipping the accumulated ice off the fridge with a screwdriver....see where this is going?

Our current bar sized fridge doesn't have a separate freezer, just one of those useless freezer compartments, that regularly becomes so frozen over that not only can you no longer retrieve whatever it was you were stupid enough to put in there but you also can't close the door. Erik settled in for what will have been (hopefully!) his last freezer de-icing session, and near the end the screwdriver 'slipped', and all I saw was a big cloud of smoke (think dry ice), heard Erik say some choice words and slam the fridge door. Then he asked me how late Darty was open (well, first he asked me to Google and find out if refridgerant is toxic. Apparently not, and the same chemical is used in asthma inhalers??).

Off we went to our neighbourhood Darty, a store that always irritates me because it's always way too hot. So hot that all you want to do is get the heck out, which I imagine can't be good for business, but in the three years we've been living here, they've never installed air conditioning.

Turns out Darty is really helpful, in that they don't keep a stock of big appliances at the store (it was a Saturday afternoon, and we were ready to carry a fridge in a box the three blocks home), but they do offer free delivery and removal of old appliances. Great! Only problem is that it takes two business days. And because it was Saturday, that would have brought us to Tuesday at the earliest, and our train to Brussels left at 6:24am. Which brings us back to the present, anxiously looking forward to tomorrow afternoon when we can go to the store and buy things like cheese! And yogurt!!

Man, our life is exciting!!

Stay tuned for a more interesting post about our trip to Brussels. We decided today that the overall theme of the trip was along the lines of 'Beer Nouveau, Solo'.....

Sunday

It's been one of those lazy Sundays, filled with baking and (online) newspaper reading.

For all you North Americans just waking up, here is a recipe for Orange Brioche to get your day started. No photo today, the ones pictured in the recipe are much nicer looking than mine. Didn't stop us from eating almost all of them, though. I didn't have any oranges, so I left that out, but I did add some chocolate chips to about half of the buns, for Erik. I also didn't have fresh yeast, and the conversion I found online suggested 10g of the dried stuff. Seemed like a lot, but you can't really go wrong with too much yeast, right? I think they also might have benefited from a second rise.

And some interesting articles from around the web for you to peruse:
No Apologies From the Boss of a No-Frills Airline is humorous (but accurate?) account of the CEO of RyanAir.

Out of the Kitchen, On to the Couch is an interesting (and long) article about how food television is doing just that.

The Calorie Delusion: Why Food Labels Are Wrong is a fascinating account of the science behind how food is digested, and what actually determines the amount of calories your body extracts from a food.

Hope everyone is having a nice weekend.

In the Kitchen

It's tough being on vacation. You know, having time to try new recipes, especially ones that take more than 30 minutes. I had fun baking yesterday. Once I get started, I just can't stop. What's one more dirty bowl in the sink?


First up were these Light Brioche Burger Buns which were remarkably easy, and really tasty. And about a million times better than the spongey buns they sell here. We ate them with the veggie burger from the summer issue of the LCBO's Food and Drink magazine (couldn't find the recipe online).


Then I came across this recipe for Cherry Hazelnut Loaf Cake, and figured it would be a tasty way to use up some less than stellar cherries I had bought at the market that morning. It made a lovely moist cake, that isn't too sweet at all. The only problem is that now I have almost an entire loaf cake staring at me from across the kitchen. It will be so nice when we can finally freeze things!

I think I'll take a day off from baking. I'm also busy researching restaurants and places to eat for our upcoming trip to Brussels. The hardest part is narrowing down the choices. Only two dinners!! Three lunches!! And street food (it is the home of frites, after all!). I'm already hungry just thinking about it. I'll have to have some cake to tide me over :)

Last night we went to Japan

Well, it seemed like Japan!

We had a karaoke night at a genuine Japanese karaoke joint in the Japanese quarter here in Paris. We've made some new friends who lived in Japan for a couple of years. They already had a tip on this location courtesy of some salary men that they had questioned on a previous outing. After meeting up at the Opera, we headed over to what appeared to be a restaurant, and were immediately taken down to the cellar and shown into out private karaoke room.


It was nothing glamorous, but what it lacked in glamour it made up for in authenticity. The song books were the real Japanese ones, and the machine showed all the Japanese translations along with the English words.


Our friendly host brought us ice cold Kirin beers, and we basically sang out hearts out for three solid hours. It was fantastic.

Christy's Visit

Photo Recap

Saying goodbye to Anja, who's off to New Zeland for the summer. We met up at a bar close to our new neighbourhood for a vernissage (art opening). She showed off her new blonde locks. Looking good!


There was a huge storm on Thursday night. It was so windy that three trees outside our building snapped. We fell asleep to the sounds of chainsaws, as the pompiers took care of the problem.

Banana Upside Down Cake

I thought I should at least share this recipe, seeing as I've eaten most of it myself, it was so good. Which is remarkable considering that there are three adults currently living in this apartment, so I really have no excuse. Except that it's really good. And so easy to make.

This is also the first recipe that my new Kitchen Aid mixed up, and it performed fantastically.

We're still enjoying Christy's company, and did an interesting walking tour in the 16th this morning looking at art nouveau and art deco style architechture.

Tonight we're headed for the Champs de Mars for a free Johnny Halliday concert, and then, of course, the fireworks. It is Bastille Day today, after all!

Probably the most exciting thing that will happen all summer

Aside from that whole apartment thing.

Now, what do I bake first????

Oops?

Some people celebrate Gay Pride, and others choose to transport a stove.

We picked up a stove that we found on Craig's List today. Luckily it wasn't too far from us, so Erik rented a dolly and we wheeled it home. Our route took us across Boulevard Montparnasse and straight through the parade.

Doesn't he look too happy to be wheeling a major appliance down the street?


Looking up our street from Montparnasse. It was deserted because of the parade, and we had fun walking down the middle of our usually busy street.

Our new gas stove is now living in our bedroom, where we surprisingly found room for it beside the desk.

In other news, we went back to the apartment today so that Erik could get a better look at the fuse box, and so that we could start making a plan for all the electrical work that needs to be done. It's the one major thing that really needs to be done before we move in. Erik was happy to find that there was a ground wire coming into the apartment in the electrical box (none of the outlets are currently grounded), apparently that will make things easier once the work begins. We stopped into Conforama on our way down to the metro, and found a good deal on an undercounter fridge and freezer. They were both on sale (it's the Soldes!), and with the very generous gift card I received from one of the classes at school the price was right, so I think they're next in line to be bought. Only problem is where to store them...

The agent was telling us a bit about our new neighbourhood, and apparently we have the second best croissant bakery (there is actually an award) and a couple of award winning charcuterie stores in our neighbourhood. This means that anyone who is interested in a 'working' holiday in Paris will be well fed. :)

So we signed....

....on the dotted line.

On September 18, if all goes well, we will be proud apartment owners!

The rez de chaussee apartment....

Offer made, negotiated, accepted.

Now the fun begins....

We Went Back...

And we took lots of pictures! Please enjoy the wallpaper.

Outside the building, main entry from the courtyard. The two windows to the left of the door are the kitchen and bedroom.


The street side of the apartment, the living room window. Quite picturesque, isn't it? :)



Entry (the bedroom is just to the right of the mirror)



Living room, facing onto the street


Kitchen entry, with a closet opposite the bookshelf



Kitchen facing onto the courtyard


The beautiful bathroom (the toilet is in a separate room right beside the tub room). You can't really fully appreciate the beauty of the wallpaper from this picture.


View from the bedroom and kitchen.

I just realized that I didn't take any pictures of the bedroom! I took one of the view, and one of the crack on the wall, but that's it!


Here are the two big cracks on the walls. The left is in the bedroom, and right in the living room.

Afterwards we went and looked at another place. Smaller at 38m2, and 20 000euros less expensive, but on the second floor of an older building (1930). Large separate kitchen, tiny bathroom (much smaller than what we currently have), chair rail and ceiling moldings in the living room. Electric heat, all the rooms overlook the courtyard which is opposite a school. Clean and in excellent condition, nothing needs to be done. Really, it was perfect, if a bit small. We also thought it might have better resale value than a groundfloor apartment. In the end, we couldn't decide which we preferred, there were pros and cons for both of them. So, we've just made offers on both. Hopefully that will take care of things for us.

The hunt continues...

We looked at some more apartments this afternoon (sorry, no pictures), and one of them was a real winner. The price was right, and it was in a new building (1970) being sold by the original owner. It was in great shape, and was a lot like stepping into a time machine, in that it had pretty much been preserved in it's original state, with floor to ceiling wallpaper in every room (even the ceiling was papered in the bathroom!), and I'll let you imagine what lovely patterns the wallpaper was. Just imagine shiny....

The kitchen, bathroom (comes complete with bidet!) and electrical need to be updated, which is what we want to do, it has a good sized storage space in the basement, has double exposure onto the street and courtyard, has central heating, has a great layout with a big entry way, and it's big!! Almost 50 square meters.

The only thing that's stopping us from making an offer right this second is that it's rez de chaussee, or street level. The bedroom and kitchen open up onto the (very nice and flowery) courtyard, and the main room opens up onto a very quiet street facing an elementary school. All the windows have lockable shutters, but I don't know, how to you get around not being able to sleep with the windows open in the summer? Or just the fact that during the day, anyone can essentially stick their head into your living room as they walk down the street....

What would you do? For more reference, the apartment that I talked about in the previous post that we really wanted has been sold, so we're moving on, to hopefully bigger and better things. If this apartment were on any other floor, I think we would have already made an offer.

Apartment Hunting

For anyone who is interested, here are some pictures, and information about our apartment hunt. We're looking to buy something, along the line 6 of the metro, likely in the 13th arrondissement. With our budget in that area, we're looking at two or three 'rooms' (pieces), around 40 square meters total size, about 5 more than we currently have.

Apt #1: 3 rooms, 40 m2, first floor in a three floor 1920s building (that's the second for all you North Americans), two windows looking out onto the street, three or four looking onto the courtyard. Needs work. Also, our favorite. And, the pictures make it look a lot nicer!

Living room

First bedroom, we'd probably use it as an office/guest room. There's also a closet behind the door on the right that was once a toilet, and another larger storage space around the corner on the left.

The third room, with water hook ups hidden in that slanted wall thingy. We'd like to eventually move at least the shower into this room, and make the kitchen bigger (kitchen and bathroom are currently next to one another)

Kitchen-we'd like to open up the walls here and make it an American style or open kitchen.

Bathroom--the only room in the house that had been recently updated.

This place needs to fixed up. The floors are covered in old linoleum, and the walls have a gross textured wallpaper on them. The windows would eventually need to be updated (double panes), and it has electric heat (but a gas stove!!) It also was originally two apartments, which is why there are plumbing fixtures in the farthest room, which is good news for us. Best of all, this place felt huge! Having the second bedroom made it seem a lot more spacious. The location is great, and well, we just both fell in love with it as soon as we saw it.

Apt. #2- 2 pieces, 42 m2, ground floor, 1960s building, in good condition, not requiring any immediate work. Over looking a park, radiant hot water heating in the floors.

Kitchen


Living area


Bedroom


Bathroom. Toilet was in a separate room.

Don't have too much to say about this place. It was about the same price as the first, but was nothing special. It also seemed smaller.

So there you go. Hopefully we'll see some more places next weekend, but we really can't stop thinking about that first place.