Boat ride and rijsttafel

Anouk on the boat

Saturday was a beautiful day here — the sun was shining and it was actually warm — a perfect day for a boat ride. Lucky for us, Anouk and her parents (Jan and Ria) invited us to join them on their boat for the afternoon to be followed by rijsttafel in the city afterwards. In between we got to visit their home in Amstelveen.

Jan and Ria keep their boat, De Walrus, at Leimuiden on the Westeinderplas. For those who aren’t familiar with the country or area, the Westeinderplas is a large shallow lake south of Schiphol airport. De Walrus is a British-built motor boat that is mostly enclosed with a nice deck on the back. It’s very comfortable, and with the nice weather we were mostly on the rear deck except for Jan, who manned the helm inside, sometimes with company from John.

Jan at the helm

Shirlee and Ria on the deck

Nursery barge

Recreation islands

Jan took us out of the lake to the Ringvaart, a canal that is part of the staande mast route (standing mast route) linking Amsterdam and Rotterdam. There was quite a bit of traffic on the canal including some commercial barges like the one in the photo, which was moving containers of shrubs from a nursery. The town of Aalsmeer, which borders the lake and is bisected by the canal, is home to many nurseries and greenhouses. It hosts huge flower auctions of tulips and other flowers that are shipped all over the world from Schiphol, both as cut flowers and as bulbs.

Between the canal and the lake Jan and Ria pointed out little islands with docks. These are recreation islands. People from the city buy (or sometimes rent) them as a place to take their boats for a picnic or a weekend get-away. They aren’t allowed to sleep on the islands, but they can sleep on a boat moored at the island. Some were quite developed with picnic tables and playgrounds in addition to the docks, but others were left in their natural state, except that the weeds were cut.

As comfortable as it was on the boat, it also looked like it would be fun to ride a bike along the canal. The bike paths are very nice, and there are plenty of places to stop along the way. Unfortunately, my folding bike was stolen soon after we unloaded it from the boat. I didn’t even get to ride it. Yes, it was locked, but bicycle theft is rampant here. When I mentioned it to Anouk and her family, they said, “Welcome to Amsterdam.” On the website for Boom Chicago, an English-language theater here, the directions by bike read, “Bike to the Leidseplein. Lock bike nearby. See show. Replace stolen bike.”

After the boat ride, we drove to Anouk’s family home in Amstelveen where John got to see a Dutch house from the inside for the first time, and we met Anouk’s brother, Patrick, and their dog, Kai. Then it was back to Amsterdam and the Indonesian restaurant Tempo Doeloe for a wonderful rijsttafel. A rijsttafel is a dinner of many small dishes of varying spiciness. The idea is to start mild and work your way up. (I have to record the name of the restaurant because we couldn’t remember the last one we went to in 2004 with Jeffrey, Karan, and Esmeralda. It turns out that it was just next door, but I still don’t know its name.) The food and service and wonderful, but we couldn’t finish it all — except that I think we did manage to eat all of the dessert.

In all it was a wonderful afternoon and evening that we are sure to remember as one of the highlights of our stay here. Thank you so much, Jan, Ria and Anouk!