We are trying very hard during our (rapidly diminishing) time here in Amsterdam to hit all the required tourist stops. This is harder than it sounds, because we are actually living here -- the kids go to school each day, Dennis goes to work at the University, I beat my head against the wall trying to make progress on the new novel, and we all try to keep on top of the regular stuff of life: replacing holey socks, paying the bills (both stateside and here), calling our parents, etc. Visits from family and friends, however, put us back in tourist mode -- and that's a good thing. Thanks to a recent visit from our good friends Dan Kobil and Cathy Johnston, we've done a lot of fun things over the past couple of weeks, including two great nights of jazz, one at BadCuyp (a down-and-dirty nightclub in our neighborhood) and the other at Bimhuis, a huge glass-and-steel performing arts venue that leans out over the IJ -- you enter it by walking across a sort of suspension bridge that connects to a bike path behind the Central Station.
We also took a weekend trip to Bruges, a perfectly restored-and-preserved medieval city in Belgium. Fun as it was to hit the road with the Kobil/Johnstons, we were a little disappointed at how touristy it was -- chock-full of souvenir shops, and with the tourists seeming to outnumber actual residents by a large margin. We enjoyed our share of Belgian beer, and even took the kids to the "Frites Museum," but despite the beauty of the city--and a great art museum--it seemed a bit, well, Disneylandish. Which, in a way, is the case: much of it was rebuilt in the 19th century with tourism in mind.
I guess we've been a little spoiled by Amsterdam's amazing combination of charm and realness. So despite the enchanting canals and slow-drifting swans of Bruges, we found ourselves a little disappointed.
And then we had two "stumble-upon" moments that restored my faith in the enchanting power of travel.
The first was a meeting of the Crossbow Society of St. George. We were walking back to our apartment after dinner. It was in a leafy neighborhood and we had noticed a fenced-in private club across the way. This evening there seemed to be a party going on. We stopped to peer through the wrought-iron fence. What we saw was a gathering of men in dark suits and tuxedos, gathered in a cupola, taking turns shooting a crossbow at a target mounted on a tree. They used a mechanical contraption to load the arrow onto the bow. It was all very decorous and sedate.
They were too far for a really good look, and we don't have a telephoto lens, so sorry, no picture. Internet research reveals that there are two crossbow societies in Bruges, and this one goes back over 700 years. King Charles II of England was president of the society during his exile in Belgium.
The second haphazardly-found moment was a Saturday morning songbird competition -- also on our street! The street was closed off, and competitors were seated in front of wooden boxes at regular intervals along the street. Each was focusing intently on the box, and in each box was a singing bird. The boxes had slats and slightly opaque covers -- to simulate the light of dawn, perhaps? Each birdowner had in his lap a long stick on which he or she was making hash marks with a piece of chalk. Counting the repetitions of a theme, perhaps? The competitors were men and women, young and old. We hushed ourselves and walked along by, reverently observing the ritual, which had no audience but ourselves. Definitely not staged for the tourists. To me, this is the kind of moment that one hopes for in travel: stumbling upon something truly unimagined, and totally authentic.
Here's a video, thanks to Dan Kobil.
http://sharing.theflip.com/session/4813995f33ecca62f41d94de6a295d2e/video/14897463
UPDATE, June 15: Clara sussed out the story on the bird-singing contests. Thanks, kiddo!:
hey mom!!! i got an answer on my question for you about the birdsong contests in bruges...
here it is!!!
"The birds are finches. The winner is the finch who sings the most "suskewiet" in one hour.
All boxes are with birds are place on a line with their owner behind. Then each owner shifts one place so they are behind another bird. They sign the stick everytime they hear a correct song of the bird before them. The stick make it easy to make the totals.
There is a good wikipedia page about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinkensport"
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