Amsterdam, Part 2

So I'm back with stories from Amsterdam.

The Corrie ten Boom House in Haarlem

The "Beje," Corrie ten Boom's house

Just a quick FYI for anyone who doesn't know: Corrie ten Boom and her family hid Jews in their house, the "Beje," during the Nazi occupation of Holland.  They eventually were found out and imprisoned.  Corrie and her sister Betsie, who were in their fifties, ended up in a concentration camp.  Their father died in prison, and Betsie died in the camp.  However, Corrie was miraculously released due to a clerical error and later wrote a book called The Hiding Place.  In it, she talked about her family's decision to hide the Jews, the suffering she endured in the camp, and the lessons God taught her about love and forgiveness.  I had read the book, so I was really excited to go see the house with the "hiding place."  It was amazing to see everything that I had read about and to think of the events that had taken place there.  If you want to know more about Corrie and her family, here's a quick link to the museum's "History" page.  But the best way to hear the story is to read The Hiding Place for yourself and hear it in her own words!

Ineke
So here's the complete story of this totally random and awesome evening I had in Haarlem: I was outside the ten Boom house after the tour, drawing the house, and a lady who was probably in her mid- sixties came up to me and said something in Dutch.  I told her I didn't speak Dutch, and then she started speaking English to me.  She asked me what I was doing.  I told her about going on the tour of the Beje, and we started talking and found out that we were both Christians.  Her name was Ineke, and she was born in the Dutch East Indies and moved to Haarlem when she was still young.  After we had talked for a while, all the shops were closing and so she said, "Have you had dinner yet?  Would you like to come have dinner with me?"
Now, usually I would never agree to have dinner with a total stranger, but this lady seemed very nice and friendly and had just been talking about Christian values, and she was of course much older (and smaller) than I was.  Plus, to be honest, I was lonely.  Traveling alone is easier than traveling in groups, but when you're alone in a crowd all the time, the loneliness kind of intensifies.  I had been dreading eating dinner by myself.  So I said, "Sure, that would be great!"

The street where we ended up eating.  So nice!

Well, she walked me to a supermarket, and we went inside and she bought food for both herself and me.  Everything she got for herself, she got one for me too: a half loaf of raisin-nut bread, a lentil salad and carrot salad, a cup of whole unpitted green olives.  She kept asking me, "Do you like this?  Is this all right?  Would you rather have this?"  I told her to get whatever she wanted, and that I would eat anything.  I was just thinking, "I hope she doesn't take too long," because I didn't know what time the last train left to go back to Amsterdam, and I didn't want to miss it (after Berlin, I'm super nervous about being on time for trains and buses).  But Ineke took her time, and so I just had to be patient.  Then she said, "I will take you to a bistro.  We will find one."  We ended up walking for at least 20 minutes, up one street and down another, and I was starting to think, "What have I gotten myself into?  Does she even know where she is going?"  But she had been so nice to me already that I knew it would be totally rude and ungrateful to bail out, and I still needed dinner.  So I just went along with it.  We finally stopped at a cheese-and-wine restaurant next to a church on a little quiet street.  It was really nice.  They didn't have any indoor tables so we sat outside.  Ineke said she had been there before with some house guests she had a while back.  She took a long time to decide what we should order, and I think the waitresses must have thought she was nuts, but finally we chose an appetizer that sounded good to us both.  It ended up being amazing: really fresh mini-shrimp on thin disks of phyllo dough, with a super delicious creamy green sauce (Ineke saw the head chef and asked him about the ingredients, and he said it was anchovy sauce!).  After that, Ineke asked me if I wanted dessert or coffee or something.  She said, "Do you like chocolate?"  I told her I did, because by then I was realizing she wasn't going to let me pay for anything and that she was determined to buy for me what she wanted to buy.  So she ordered the handmade truffles.  They came, two on a plate, each the size of one of those Truffle Egg things you get at Easter, but so much fancier than Truffle Eggs.  Each was basically straight cream on the inside, with a layer of dark chocolate rolled in cocoa.  Ineke told me I could have both.  I tried to get her to eat one, but she said no, so I ended up eating both of them.  It was so weird!  She was treating me like I was a princess, and I had no idea why.
It was after 8 when I finally told her I had to go back to the train station.  I asked for her address, and I gave her mine.  I knew that even if I couldn't ever go back to Haarlem and visit her, I could at least write her once in a while.  She gave me the bread loaf, the lentil salad, and the olives from the supermarket.  She tried to give me a carrot salad too, but I told her I didn't have a refrigerator at the hostel to keep it in.
After that, she walked me all the way back across town to the train station.  We walked back through the Grote Markt on the way, and the farmers' market was done.  In its place, they had set up a stage and there was a concert going on.  They had all these colored lights shining up onto the cathedral and the other old buildings, and the music was booming across the square.  It was really cool!  On the way to the train station, we talked about Billy Graham.
When we got to the station, Ineke walked all the way up to the platform with me.  I gave her a goodbye hug and told her thank you for being so nice and buying me dinner and walking me back to the train.  I got on right before the doors closed.  The conductors were chuckling at the whole scene because Ineke had gone right up to the door of the car with me, telling me to call her to tell her I got back to Amsterdam safely.
On the train ride home, I thought about the whole thing.  My experience in Haarlem had turned out very differently from what I had expected, but I think that because of Ineke, I saw the Haarlem that Corrie ten Boom knew and loved--the town where people cared for each other, and where Christian love and Dutch hospitality were combined.  I'm not sure where Ineke came from, why she started talking to me, or why she showed me so much kindness, but she made my day for sure!  When I went back to the hostel, I ate the lentil salad (which had goat cheese with it), along with the fancy olives and some of the raisin-nut bread.  Funny how in the morning, I had eaten plain (and dry) bread and an apple for breakfast, and at dinner I ate like a queen!  God REALLY blessed my socks off through Ineke!  I'll be sure to write her a nice thank-you postcard . . .
But unfortunately I never did get a photo of her.

Meeting new people
Like I said before, traveling alone gets real lonely real fast.  So it was really fun to meet people in the hostel and just get to talk to someone for a while!  My friend Mary back home told me all about staying in hostels, and she said that one of the best parts is getting to meet new people and hear their stories.  Mary, if you're reading this, you were totally right!  :)

Hostel Mêvlana
The hostel I stayed in was awesome!  It was a tad cramped, and the bathroom wasn't the best, but it was in a really cool old building--typical Amsterdam style, really tall and skinny.  It was in a great location too: right in the city center, literally next to a cathedral and the old city hall and within walking distance of everywhere I wanted to go.  I was on the third floor, so I had a great view of the street and all the neat buildings!  The funniest part of the building was the stairs!  They were so steep it was almost like climbing a ladder!  (Check out the picture.)

Random observations/fun facts about Amsterdam

• Amsterdam is a lot different from Berlin.  It's not oppressive-feeling at all.  The whole mood is much more light and carefree (and the weather is warmer, which helps).  The old city center is really beautiful to walk in.  Practically every street has a canal, and there is no end of the tall, skinny houses . . . I was drawing and taking photos like mad.  But to be honest, it's really hard to capture Amsterdam in a photo.  You kind of have to be there,
• Like Hamburg, it has a kind of dark side with a lot of vice.  There is, of course, the famous red-light district (which I was careful to avoid since it was near my hostel), and marijuana is EVERYWHERE.  You probably smell dope 50 times a day when you're out and about.
• Bikes are far more common than cars are.  Amsterdam seriously epitomizes the term "bike-friendly city."  Every bridge is full of locked-up bikes.  People ride all kinds of bicycles, mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles.  There are special bike lanes in the street, and these are far more of a threat to pedestrians than the car lanes are.  Cyclists in Amsterdam are psycho.  They can and will run into you if you don't watch out!  People have a dozen different ways to double-ride: on the handlebars, on the crossbar, on the rack over the back wheel, in a box on the front of the bike.  It's crazy.
• When they're doing dirty or muddy work, construction workers still wear wooden shoes!  I saw some men laying new cobblestones, and they had 'em on!
• The city really doesn't wake up until 12 noon.  If you go out during the morning, there are some people out, but for the most part, there's no real action until the afternoon.  Apparently they're all into their nightlife.
• Things Amsterdam is known for: Bicycles, canals, sex and marijuana (unfortunately), cheese, Delft porcelain, chocolate, pancakes and waffles

It was a fun trip!  I definitely enjoyed myself . . . and I'm happy to say that God took excellent care of me and gave me everything I needed!  (Not that I thought He wouldn't . . . He is always so good to me!)

Here are some photos!!!

The Grote Markt in Haarlem: Farmers' market and St. Bavo's Cathedral

St. Bavo's interior

Christian Müller organ in St. Bavo's.  Handel and Mozart both played here!

Me in front of the "Hiding Place" in the ten Boom house

Amsterdam canal at night

A typical Amsterdam street scene

The view out my hostel window!

 The line outside the Anne Frank House!

Me with a copy of the Seal Beach Sun newspaper . . . the pic made it into the paper!

Evening on a canal