Haarlem, Delft and Spaarndam

Left Tullamarine Airport, flying Singapore Air to Amsterdam via Singapore. 

23 hr flight from Melbourne to Amsterdam not everybody’s idea of a good time, but I had a bulkhead aisle seat w plenty of leg room, a baby in the same row. No noise from baby, but across the aisle 2 deaf and insomniac old Dutch ladies kept up a marathon gossip session.

I am now privy to their life histories and all the scandalous secrets of their nearest and dearest. Thanks to Dramamine and copious amounts of red wine I managed to get some sleep amidst the unfolding soap opera. I never got to the bottom of exactly where they came from, but I’m tipping Peyton Place.

(Skinderstories is Roddelverhale in Hollands – my vriend Arno kom more uit Leiden kuier en hy het beloof om my "al de roddelverhalen van de koningsgesin te vertelle" – dis nie net die Engelse wat skandale in die paleis het nie)

Stopped 3 hrs at Singapore. … Airport like a small extra-terrestrial city. I bought some stuff, paid w my Visa card and they gave me a sort of griffel and told me to sign on the tv screen. Machine spat out my receipt w perfect reproduction of signature. Wat sal die Ingelse nog uitvind!

Caroline was at Schipol as advertised and we caught the bus to Haarlem. Daffs in all shades of yellow by the roadside, green fields, black and white cows, swans on little canals …. In the bus everybody smoking evil-smelling little cigarillos. Coming from the land where it is less heinous to pee than to smoke in public, I was rigid with culture shock.

Caroline’s house is v cosy and cute, although cat-swinging is not on. I am destined never to see her bedroom, as access is via a ladder through a hole in the ceiling. I am developing good basketball skills b/c after we retire for the night, she yells down at me to lob various forgotten items through the hole so she doesn’t have to swarm down the ladder again.

Caroline's living room - the kitchen is visible through the door and hatch. The open door on the right at the back is the bathroom and the ladder in the kitchen leads to the bedroom.

Lovely spring weather, the TV weather girlie says. Yes, indeed … pale watery sun, blossoms on the trees, Dutch toes, elbows and knees freely displayed. Even Caroline in a t-shirt has forgotten than when the thermometer says twelve degrees, a self-respecting Australian wears a scarf and woolly jumper. I was amused to see the seasonal display of sunscreen in all the shops: the highest available is 8+, if you hunt for it. The popular strength seems to be 3+ or 5+. (I don’t think anything below 15+ is available in Melbourne … 3+ would have to come w complimentary pith helmet.)

Got my museum pass, valid for a year in the Netherlands, Belgium and various neighbouring countries. Given it a bit of a workout already: the Frans Hals is 5min from Caroline’s house and I have been twice. It is nice to be able to spend an hour just checking out one or two rooms at a time. When I go to Frans Hals, I always spend a bit of time with lace-bonneted Dorothea Steenkamp, these four hundred years and more in her grave, who looks just like my Tant Hailie. I like to think there is a strand of Dorothea’s DNA somewhere on my double helix.

5 April 2003 … Went to Amsterdam, spent a lovely afternoon in the Rijksmuseum. Admired the obligatory Night Watch and all the usual suspects, but my favourites are the four luminous little Vermeers al in a row. I went back several times for another fix of the woman pouring milk. Hardly A3 size, but it shouts more loudly than a wall-to-wall mural. Vermeer can make your throat ache and your eyes water, he is not for sissies.

Yesterday I saw his grave in Delft, in the Oude Kerk, the church that dates from the 12th century. There he lies, under a paving stone with only his name and dates on. You can walk on it. Five yards away, there is the imposing gilded marble sarcophagus of the Dutch admiral Tromp.

They should swap places. Oh, well … the paintbrush is mightier than the sword, anyway. Admiral Who? We all know who Vermeer is.

Delft has lots to see besides the Oude Kerk - the Nieuwe Kerk, a mere 400 yrs old, is Holland's answer to Westminster Abbey: all the Orange-Nassau royals are buried there. Tomb-fest!

Delft is touted as being the prettiest town in Holland, and it puts up a good fight, with canals, leafy footpaths, cute little markets, lovely old facades, etc, but Haarlem still gets my vote.

Friday we went to Spaarndam, only 1/2 hr by bus from Haarlem, through lovely water meadows. Spring is bursting out all over - daffodils like weeds along the roads. Fluffy creamy sheep and black-and-white cows.

Spaarndam is v small: the bus that goes there is Kombi-size, a big one won't fit. We strolled round the harbour - tiny pubs, cobbled streets, humpbacked bridges. Had lunch there and on way back to bus stop, happened upon the statue of the little boy who stuck his finger in the dike. In Australia we would regard this as a gross liberty, but the Dutch thought it worth a statue, his fictional status notwithstanding.

The inscription says his action is symbolic of the country's incessant battle against water. We in drought-stricken Oz would like to fight a battle like that for a change, even if it entailed offending any number of persons with an alternative lifestyle.

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