City of Cyclists and Joggers

 I was intending to post last time I visited Amsterdam in August 2020, but life got in the way and now, 1.5 years later and still in a pandemic lockdown, I'm here again.

A note on travelling during covid - especially when you're in a more locked-down country, travelling exposes you to a world that is not the same. The plane was full. People were privileged enough to wear N-95 masks on the plane, but everyone of all sorts were going here, there, everywhere - families, backpackers, etc.

The plane ride this time around, I was unable to doze off completely so when I finally got into the city centre, bleary-eyed and jet-lagged, dawn just starting to peak through the blanket of dark, I stepped onto the street and almost got run over by a train of bicycles. That woke me with a jolt. I always forget that bicycles rule the cities in The Netherlands.

After taking a nap, I saw that it was sunny outside so my first inclination was to go to my favourite place from last time I visited: Westerpark. Past a shopping street, across a roadway is a long park that runs along the river and then widens out again, going for kilometers onwards. In it, there are kindergartens, shops, cinemas, restaurants, playgrounds and more fields. Of course these were all closed due to the lockdown. I noticed many more people out and running than last time, it looks like during a lockdown and after two years of pandemic people had taken up jogging. It reminded me of somebody who says to concentrate on what you can do (in a lockdown, as well as in life in general) instead of what you can't or can no longer do. In Canada during a pandemic, do winter hiking. At 3-6 degrees in sunny weather in Amsterdam, go jogging if you're able to.

A Little Free Library...in the middle of the park!

 

Gnarly tree branches on a tree with a great big trunk.

A cow in a field, with a Pontsteiger hotel across the IJ river.

 

The way the faint sun interacts with the buildings, along with the temperature, really make it feel like springtime in winter.

Springtime-like sunlight

After that, the day was pretty much spent napping and then going shopping for groceries. No ingredients too out of the ordinary, I thought. However, I was surprised to find the eggs on a store shelf, and when placing groceries away, I was tempted to put them in the fridge before I remembered that they don't have to go in there. The salad that we had was crunchy and fresh-tasting even though it had been in a bag, it must be from somewhere near here instead of transported from thousands of kilometers away. Also, I couldn't stop eating the small new potatoes. They were sweet and waxy, not bland and chalky, and the skin was alright to eat as well without having that acidic taste. After dinner, when I was watching a movie, instead of going to grab the chips, I grabbed a few baked potatoes out of the fridge and munched on those instead. Such tiny details, but they were things that jolted me awake, not unlike the bikes.