My Amsterdam.

Gareth's Photos of The Beautiful Welsh Countryside.

Yesterday I was putting together some useful tips for a good friend,about markets and shops and coffee shopsin Amsterdam.

Places that I used to go to and was surprised how many of the shop and street names I could recall so long after going to them.

Some places I have not been to for a couple of years, others still went to regularly until last summer, since I have been in bed last August I did not think too much about what was unobtainable.

But now I can dream again about the places that I liked to visit and who knows soon I can go there myself.

Here are my recollections of the Amsterdam that I want to visit soon:

The Pijp is good neighbourhood, one our favourite shops, a Bangladeshi shop is on the Ceintuurbaan on the last bit before the Amstel brug/kade, it is an excellent shop for caribean vegetables as well as Indian and they have a wide range of Bombay mix and on the Van Wou is a Polish shop with loads of good dry soya products.

The Albert Cuyp market is good but can be abit more expensive than the Ten Cate and Dappermarkt, I used to shop there daily, when I worked in the Pijp.
You can pick up bargains, if you look, they have alot of clothes and knick knacks as well as some good plant and flower stalls

Oh and other big favourites,is coffeeshop the Katsu on the Ist van der Helststraat, street crosses Albert Cuyp market, great neighbourhood café, full of interesting people, such as poets and writers.
Good coffee and toasted sandwiches.

And not far up the road is one of our favourite Suriname/Chinese sandwich shop Tjin's,they have an even better shop, if that is possible on the Dappermarket and they both are a great source of other good things like Tempe/Tofu and other delicacies and excellent Tempe sandwiches in both shops.

One of our other favourite coffee shops is the Yo Yo on Hermony straat it is on a road off the Amstelkade, it started as a squat run by a great woman called Josefien (very fond of her).
Great select ion of teas and good coffee and homemade cake and biscuits.

Oh and if you cycle past the Okura hotel cross the water and cycle into Scheldestraat on the other side you will find the only authentic Jewish bagel shop in Amsterdam, excellent bagels and cream cheese and salmon if you eat fish.

Have heard that Gary's Muffins here on Kinkerstraat is good to, it is actually run by Gary.

Ten Cate markt.
At the beginning of the market is Surima, an outstanding Saurinamse shop, feels like being home in Trinidad whic is a lovely feeling.
The shop has good v egetables such as ochra, plantain (banana you fry)indian auberegine (smaller and tastier)and the sandwich shop sells excellent food and sandwiches such as Tempe or Prawn or saltfish to name 3, it is well worth a visit and open daily until midnight.

Richie gets fish on the Ten Cate markt and there are always excellent bargains to be had, the cheese stall on the other side of the Kinkerstraat is the best I have found in town for quality, variety and price much better than the one on the main market, just down from the Cheese stall is an excellent Moccocan vegetable stll, bargains to be had, Saturdays around 4 pm great time to pick up great bargains, in Dutch koopjes.

Dappermarkt.
Good veg and cheese, Dutch and Turkish cheese and fish and lots of Turkish olives, olive oil and other goodies.
Lovely shops, on and around the Dappermarkt, got some great posters of Indian gods in a Sri Lankan, Tamil shop, sadly only two of the posters survived our move, we had quite a few more at the Passeerdersstraat, miss them they are so colourful, great way of adding instant colour to a room without having to paint.
Cafe de Pontanneur corner Van Swindenstraat and Javastraat has good coffee and appeltaart, applecake.

Asian Supermarket.
Cheapest shop for Tempe/Tofu is the Asian supermarket on Nieuwmarkt, opposite the Waag, they make the Tofu/tempe themselves and have all sorts of pulses and coconut cream (thickest is cents more than milk) Richie makes ice cream and custard and uses it in food cooking, like curries and dips and soups and stews.

Great shop used to stock up once a month, Tofu/Tempe is about 1 euro each, lots of good things and round the corner on the Kloveniersburgwal is the best fresh fish shop in Amsterdam, it is the cheapest, best days are Tuesday and Friday.

And round the corner from the Asian shop on the Nieuwmarkt direction Waterlooplein, on the Antonius Breestraat are a good record shop and best of all a great second hand shop, full of wonderful clothes and run by a rather nice and grand queen.

Up the road from the fish shop on the Kloveniersburgwal, walk up along the canal and cross to right over the second bridge and go into the Basjoe coffee shop this is my/our absolute favourite shop,

Excellent coffee and hash, best weed cake, James’s special/secret recipe and great fruit smoothies, James used to roll me the best pure joints.

The terrace is a good spot and the atmosphere is relaxed and tolerant of all and good music.
If you go in please ask for James, big dreadlocks or Leo and please say Herrad and Richie recommended their place, please give them my love, miss seeing them we went there at least 3 times a week.

Great stroll there through the old centre of town, the Nieuwmarkt and such a good reception on arrival from the ‘boys’ miss hugging James and kissing them both, we had been going in there since 1989.

Starting to feel confident that soon we can go by some of these favourite places, for now I shall sit and day dream about future outings.

The sun has been shining all day which is good for the spirits.

Slept late again it is now 12.23 and is only now slowly getting going; we slept until 11 again which was good.

Not too much street noise apart from a couple containers being placed, funny thing is this year the development down the road is finally finished.

Felt like living on a building site, every morning all the blokes met up across from our bedroom and shared a cup of coffee and loud conversation.

Very social and nice for them but not at 6 am in very loud voices outside everyone's bedroom windows.

After the workers had coffee they picked up their power tools and started work.

All the time waste containers were being delivered by Lorries and would be tossed off with a huge thump.

The daily chorus would start in earnest then; it was murder when they were doing the foundations and later on mass drilling.

Luckily that has stopped but now there is the odd house plus the latest redevelopment right next to our building.

They are extensively renovating and redeveloping the bottom of the house, which means some bits are being taken back to the foundations.

Hope they are done soon as it could get quite noisy and dusty out the back, still in August all building sites close for the month and it’s peaceful.

Most cars on the street are gone too as there is a mass exodus of people going on holiday and life round here is very pleasant indeed.

Always daydream about digging the road up and planting the street with flowers and fruit and veg.

It is a lovely fantasy can just see this oasis of plants and fruit trees.

Now can only hear some heavy machinery next door, Richie tells me it is sand they are lifting in to the back of the house.

Writing yesterday about Marianne and Karin being volunteers made me remember a visit I had from my first prospective volunteer, a strange woman that came to see me one day.

Our last front room Richie had to paint while very ill with flu; I was even worse and had to stay in bed.

Really not the sort of activity for a sick person but the room had to be done as it was only a few weeks to my 50 birthday.

So Richie painted it all blue and bought a few Indian posters of Hindu Gods, which are very bright posters.

These were stuck up and with some mirrors and little glass candles holders dangling from the ceiling it became quite a dreamy room especially as Richie had painted clouds on the ceiling.

So this volunteer came round, she seemed a strange woman who seemed to view all around her with haughty disdain.

After a minute she told me that she could see that I was a very spiritual person.

I was astonished and denied this but she persisted and eventually said but I can see it in your room.

This puzzled me alot, she then said I can see it in your room pointing at the Indian posters.

Smiling I told her we hung them for their bright colour, no, no she insisted you are spiritual I know I can feel it.

Again I said really I am not these are here for the colour but she would not hear of it insisting that having the posters was proof that I was spiritual.

I had after all gone to India to get them she said, at which point I laughed and said that I had never been to India in my life.

She asked me where I had got the poster from if not India whereupon I laughed again saying on the Dapper Markt (market) here in Amsterdam.

This was not a popular answer with the lady, who was indeed a lady visiting the deserving poor.

She then declared me to be spiritual despite this and said she sensed it, and she knew what she was talking about.

Then she said that I was not to worry she would be able to release the spirituality within me, and she would gladly be able to do this for me.

I declined her offer.

Luckily my carer came round then and I introduced them, my carer the lovely Marjan asked
the volunteer what she knew about MS.

She responded by saying she knew all about MS and knew everyone died of it.

At this point I asked her to desist from this discussion right then and there and asked her politely to leave the room as I needed to use the toilet chair in the front room.

She remained sitting seeming not to understand me so I asked again and another twice finally I lost it and yelled please go into the kitchen.

But why she asked?

I roared because I need to use the toilet chair here and do not show my naked arse on the first date.

She left for the kitchen.

After I finished peeing I went into the kitchen to apologise for shouting and the good lady says ‘but why did I have to go to the kitchen?

At which point I had had it and asked her to leave.

She did so.

Later she called me just as I was about to apologise again she said ‘you know I still don’t understand why I had to go into the kitchen’

That is when I said I don’t think we are a match and would you believe it she started arguing that she would be good for me.

I repeated calmly that I did not feel we had hit it off, we were not a match.

Finally could only hang up as she kept arguing that her and me would really get on you wait and see ‘I know we will get on fine’

Felt a brute for cutting her off like that but had to look after myself.

Still look at one of the posters on the bedroom door and think about being seen as spiritual.

More philosophical than spiritual and often more political and even more often more social.