Okay so you know I visited Europe last summer to see Germany, but I went again at Christmas. Tharash had come to visit me the previous Christmas (for some reason I didn’t take any pictures of that? I guess everything was too normal for me to take pictures of) so I was like “trade!”, and I had never been to Europe in the winter, and I just wanted to see both more in-person Tharash and more Europe. But this really was a vacation to unwind, not to sight-see. Still, I took a bunch of pictures.

First I had three flights to get to Schiphol, so I took some pictures of Canadian clouds. It was interesting to fly over Thunder Bay, but I wasn’t at a good angle to take pictures of it. But it was interesting to me when there were sudden edges to endless fields of cloud, for instance. And the first picture you can see the shadow of the cloud, I think.

Instead of buying dinner anywhere, I had some bread and cheese and cucumber to use up so instead I just made three cheese sandwiches. I also had some of my mom’s Christmas nuts-and-bolts for salt content, and some roasted seaweed. I did not remove my mask on any plane flight because I don’t trust international passengers, especially during the northern winter when more people are likely to have something contagious.

My parents had bought me an amazing new backpack set (40L main backpack with all the support straps I could wish for but they can be zipped away to carry as a hand suitcase, plus a mini-backpack daybag that clips onto it) and I managed to not have to check any of it in checked luggage on any of my flights over, so I just walked off the plane! Unfortunately, then I had train problems; the international IC train to Brussels wasn’t running because of rail construction so I had to take a train to Breda, wait an hour, and take another train continuing from there. So the hour I saved by not having to pick up luggage didn’t actually end up getting saved lol. Still it is SO CIVILIZED to get off the plane and go straight to the train. Can we incorporate this literally everywhere??? (Of course then the free train wi-fi didn’t work for me but that’s a first-world problem : P )

But when I got to my destination Tharash picked me up right on time and we went back to one of his favourite bakeries, the same one I’d been to in the summer, and I had this lovely concoction to warm me up – a mocha with mini marshmallows and caramel bits on top of the whipped cream mmmmmm. And then I had the exact same sandwich that I’d had in the summer: bacon, goat cheese, pine nuts, and honey on a crusty bun. I’d been waiting for it.

I was passed out by like 9pm that day, of course; I didn’t start going to bed at a normal time for 4 or 5 days. Tharash was super accommodating with all my little comforts like letting me have two pillows so I can sleep on my face, and I found out that all his windows have little ventilation slits on top to let in fresh air without having the window open, and he likes to keep them open (I think I know why he has mosquito problems in the summer >.>) but he let me close the one in the bedroom because I was REALLY cold with it open even though it’s just a little vent. I also found out he has floor heating! Fancy.

He also somehow has a more intimate knowledge of my food preferences than my parents (hard no on cilantro, everyone knows that one, but also a somewhat lengthy list of things I will swallow without chewing if I come across them in my food, like chickpeas (texture) or celery (taste)) and went to a lot of effort to make sure the food we had together largely did not have those things in them. The first thing we ate was leftover vegetarian shepherd’s pie he’d made the day previously which did have chickpeas, but it was really good anyway.

The day after I got there we went for a walk through the farmland surrounding the village he lives in, and… I found out my left shoe had a hole in it. Not a visible hole, but my left foot got consistently damp on the metatarsals through my trip so definitely some kind of porous situation. I was also so tired from travelling that I needed a sit-down break halfway through an hour-long easy walk. Another thing that lingered for several days was a twinge of neck pain on the right side of my neck; I blame it on my weird nap on the plane.

The day after that, I think, we went grocery shopping which was actually really fun for me, looking at all the things that are just different from North America – for instance, the extensive alcoholic aisle of really affordable wines! Or the bread slicer. Or which vegetables seem more popular here than at home. I got a package of sour-cream-and-onion Tuc crackers, though I didn’t open them until I got home again.

And then for dinner he introduced me to the Hokkaido pumpkin, and omg I need to find where I can get it here. It’s so easy – you just slice it up, coat it lightly in oil, sprinkle with salt, and roast it in the oven and then it’s super delicious. And then we had it with creamy mushroom sauce which is another of my favourite foods and it was absolutely mindblowing.

So our first little trip was to his parents’ place, but we stopped in Leiden in first because there was a special exhibit at the Museum of Antiquities.

The Museum of Antiquities is HUGE. It’s three massive floors and we saw one and a bit.

The first thing is a small Egyptian temple, which you don’t even need tickets to see (though we got tickets first, I think it’s polite), it’s in the middle of the lobby (which used to be a courtyard but then they put a roof on when they acquired the temple iirc). You can go inside it. Then we went to the top floor, where they had a display about Roman occupation/settlement in the Low Countries – and I noticed that several modern place names appear to be directly descended from Roman names, like Utrecht from Traiectum (which just means ‘fort’ actually apparently) which poked at my interest in linguistic evolution.

Then there were a number of small shrines to a nearly-lost local sea goddess named Nehalennia, which were donated to her temple largely by merchants who were grateful that their ships returned safely from overseas trade. There were also some neat Roman finds such as coins, weapons, tools, even shoes, jewellery, of course pottery, and a jewelled helmet that the museum is rightly proud of. There was a stone sarcophagus for a noblewoman which was carved on the inside to look like her house, with furniture and everything. That’s somehow really cute to me, to be buried in basically your own dollhouse.

The next room was about Greek pottery from 3000-500 BCE. It was interesting to see the influence of their trading partners, for instance imitating Persian facial hairstyles and winged sphinxes – but also Egyptian-style sphinxes. But my favourite parts were: the tiny pot shaped like a hedgehog (I didn’t know there were hedgehogs in Greece? Wikipedia confirms there are. How come I’ve never seen them in Greek art before??), and the cosmetic jar with the most perfect concentric rings on the lid. They were perfectly round, perfectly spaced, and while I guess the technique is no great secret if you have a potter’s wheel, the execution was so exquisite I still can’t get over it. Bravo, ancient human. I hope you were proud of your work.

Then we got to the main part of the top floor, which was about human civilization in the Low Countries from the dawn of humanity to the present. The beginning had a LOT of flint arrowheads, but apparently they could plot trade routes from figuring out where the flints and other stone objects originated. One of the most beautiful things was a set of bronze swords; apparently there are six, and they were for ceremonial purposes only – sacrificed to bogs, it seems. And being bronze, they are in the most pristine condition possible. They’re a beautiful shape, too, a graceful fantasy-looking leaf-blade shape. They also had of course many artifacts from the medieval period, including swords and spears. There was quite a bit of jewellery, and looking at the delicate tiny metalwork on the gold brooches was… well, I like shiny things. They finished off with some explanations on how different subsets of the artifacts had been discovered and recovered, and some of the challenges in properly identifying the origins of things when half the surface soil of the urban parts of the Netherlands has been moved around at some point. Though it gave me a feeling like you could dig in any old field and find something interesting eventually.

And we got through all that, and I looked at Tharash and was like “good museum, I’m tired now” and he was like “oh we didn’t even see the exhibit we came here to see” so we went down a floor to see it. It’s a temporary exhibit about the Year 1000 and life in the Netherlands at that time. So they had things like some charter papers granting rights to towns and abbeys; more swords and jewellery; some overly jewelled religious books; and a golden astrolabe. Some presentation on how the world was expected to end in the year 1000 but then it didn’t. On the walls they had the biographies of famous people from around the world during that time period, presented like resumés with “Education”, “Work Experience”, “Publications”, which was pretty amusing.

So it wasn’t a super-long exhibit, which was nice. But we finished our visit there; I’ll have to come back for the rest of the Roman and Egyptian exhibits. We spent some time in the gift shop, where I bought a children’s book at my reading level! Though it is actually originally in English and translated into Dutch. It’s really freakin’ cute. (Here’s a video of someone reading it in English, because I’m sure all my readers are English-speaking.)

Then we continued on to Amsterdam.

We had something called boerenkool stamppot (mashed potatoes with kale, and with smoked sausage) for dinner. For breakfast the next morning, I was admiring the egg-cups on the shelf, so… we had boiled eggs! They were made by Sami people and look how cute they are!

The egg was a bit too big for the cup but that’s okay. Then for the rest of the day we didn’t do too much. I was reading, mostly (I read three Terry Pratchett books and 50% of LotR during my visit; Tharash read 100% of LotR during my visit). Tharash played a game of chess with his dad in the afternoon, which ended in a draw (with slight advantage to his dad, but playing it to a definite conclusion didn’t sound interesting at that point because it was time to make food). Tharash made a vegetarian Vlaamse stoofvlees (Flemish beef stew (or “beef” – mostly mushroom in this case)), and I made balsamic Brussels sprouts. I was very surprised at how small the sprouts were compared to what I’m used to, only the size of marbles. The stew I could definitely tell was different from non-vegetarian, but it was still good.

The next morning we did a gift exchange. Normally the Dutch only do gifts at Sinterklaas, but I wasn’t visiting at Sinterklaas and I had brought gifts because it’s easier than shipping them! And some things that were not really gifts, like a set of North American measuring cups/spoons, because sometimes I send Tharash recipes that only use volume and not weight (and who can weigh 1/4 teaspoon on a kitchen scale anyway?). So that was just a practical “while I’m here I may as well bring you this” thing. But now I have a book about the evolution of Amsterdam, and a CD set of concerti by obscure Baroque Dutch composers (example) which are really very charming.

Then Tharash’s grandma came to visit for lunch, and I managed to say two sentences in Dutch to her. Then we went back to Tharash’s home.

Next on the trip was a return to Antwerp! Tharash had prepared tickets to a pipe organ concert, and of course the Christmas market was still running, so there was lots to see! And since it’s pretty close to where he lives, we didn’t have to get up super early in the morning to see it.

We first went to the big shopping street to see if we could find me some new shoes. We could not. I didn’t like any of the styles in any of the stores, and most of the stores seemed to have the same styles as each other, and goodness knew if they’d even fit my extremely narrow feet anyway. (The day after I got back from Europe I went shopping at my local mall which has an ergonomic shoe store, and my students had given me a gift card to the mall as a Christmas present, so now I have new shoes that fit quite well and look nice according to my own taste.) We did visit a clothing store to get Tharash some button-down shirts in case he needs to be in a less-casual-than-t-shirt office setting in the future, which was less difficult even though, like my skinny feet, he has a skinny torso so the ‘average’ fit doesn’t necessarily fit very well on him. But they fit well enough. Anyway, take a look at how lovely (and pedestrianized) the shopping street is!

Then we went to a local potato fry chain, which was in a very tiny shop and was PACKED with a line-up leading out the door. For all that, it didn’t take too long to get food. I guess it’s pretty straightforward when most of the menu is fries. XD I had the Parmesan and Basil, which has a basil mayonnaise. Tharash had plain fries with Andalouse sauce (and I think truffle as well?). It was just a bit too much food for me (and I had accidentally had too much granola with breakfast because Tharash’s bowls are shaped differently from mine) so I only ate about 2/3 of mine, but Tharash was happy to eat the last 1/3 and then we both had the right amount of food.

Then we went to the MAS – Museum aan de Stroom. It is 11 stories tall with a viewing level on the roof, and um I didn’t see any elevator >.> and half the escalators were broken.

We were there to see a collection of Pre-Columbian American art, which largely seemed to contain central American art, but there were a couple pieces from Coast Salish peoples and even Alaska as well. It was collected by a private individual, so a lot of it is based on her personal taste, it seems.

What I found fascinating about some of the artifacts made of gold was that I could see similar techniques and shapes to the European gold artifacts I had seen in Leiden – but the way they were used in this style halfway across the world was completely different. A lot of the styles on display were unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Although there was one near-life-sized statue (apparently of a captured warrior awaiting sacrifice, which sucks) which had so little stylization that he almost looked like a real person.

Then we went up the last bit to the roof (definitely no elevator here) and we could see half the city.

We returned to the square outside City Hall, and I was amazed at what I saw of the market already. But we didn’t linger too long, the concert started quite early, at 5:00.

The program was really neat. The first piece was a Christmas Rhapsody by Guy Weitz (1883-1970) but I didn’t recognize any of the tunes in it. Then there was Variaties en Finale op een ould Vlaams lied (Variations and Finale on an old Flemish song) by Flor Peeters (1903-1986) which had some pretty modern bits that I don’t think really worked for Tharash, but the finale was exciting. Then there was another Christmas Rhapsody by Camil Van Hulse (1897-1988) which I actually recognized some of the tunes in it (though I don’t remember what they were by now). The fourth piece was an Adoration by Joseph Callaerts (1830-1901) which was just a soft palate cleanser and I found my attention wandering during it.

But the last piece was the coolest. It’s Pastoral Symphony by Callaerts, and you can hear a recording of it being played by the same performer on the same organ on Youtube. I highly recommend it, because the third movement is so plainly a thunderstorm that Tharash didn’t need me to tell him that. I really want to know how the thunder sounds are made! Is it a bunch of deep stops and then you stomp on the bottom several pedal keys at once to make a rumbly tone cluster?

Then there was an encore that could have been another Christmas rhapsody but I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been improvised, too. I could actually read large parts of the performer’s biography in Dutch without too much help; apparently he started learning on his own to play organ at the age of 9, and by the age of 12 was organist of his local church.

Then we went back to the Christmas market, because we had some time to spend before our dinner reservations. I went to a stall right outside the cathedral and bought a small hand-embossed leather book for my mom. Then we made our way through a crowded narrow street to the Groenplatz, where there was a skating rink set up. But I’m not really interested in skating, so we didn’t even bother with the line-up.

There were stalls with knitting products, wood products, leather products, other clothing, glass and jewellery and art and puzzles and toys; there were stalls with curry and waffles and fries and wurst and nougat and fudge and chocolate and candy and alcoholic drinks and hot drinks and hot alcoholic drinks. Everything was covered in lights, including these big arches and drapey ‘icicles’ made of warm yellow lights with brighter white lights blinking on and off within them to give a twinkly effect.

But I was just not prepared for the sheer scope of the whole thing. This covered six market squares and incorporated dozens of stalls in each square (we didn’t visit all the squares but we visited enough XD ). And of course there were thousands of people there.

I also bought a wooden 3D puzzle of a plane for my dad, and we bought these desserty things that had a bit of cookie for the base, and then some kind of flavoured mousse I guess, and then the whole thing had a thin shell of chocolate holding it together. I had a lemon flavoured one and Tharash had a rum flavoured one. They were really good! So we had dessert before dinner but I don’t regret it. We also had a cup of gluhwein, and they have a good system – pay an extra two Euros and it comes in a real cup, and then return the cup to get the €2 back. It was a bit less exciting than I was expecting, but it was nice and warm as it was a bit chilly out. But we drank it at the right time for it to go to my head by the time we got to the restaurant. : P

For dinner we went to het Elfde Gebod, or The Eleventh Commandment, which is so popular that you definitely have to make a reservation just to get in. I like the puns and jokes on the menu, such as plain water being listed as ‘holy water’, or the Blessed Vegan Salad. I had their Stoofvlees, a non-vegetarian one, which was a bowl filled with slow-cooked fall-apart beef in a very rich broth/sauce incorporating local beer, with a hefty serving of fries on the side (as much potato as lunch, I feel like), and Tharash had the Chili Sin Carne. We each had a beer, though I can’t remember what kind, so I was quite tipsy by the time I decided I’d had enough food. It was delicious! But more than enough food for two of my small stomach, which was still dealing with all the lunchpotato. Tharash helped with my fries (they went well with his chili too) but even so I stopped before I exploded.

The paper placemats were some crazy idk Hieronymus Bosch-style picture, I took mine home. It’s too big for my scanner so:

The decor in there is pretty neat. Every available square foot has some religious decoration or statue probably salvaged from an old church. I didn’t take pictures, but there’s a gallery on their website if you’re curious. They also had a live singer/guitarist on, and while it was a bit loud for us to be seated right next to the stage, the music wasn’t terrible.

Okay then we needed a rest day. So the next day we went absolutely nowhere.

Next: Ghent