Sunday, 26 March, The rest of the way to Amsterdam and embarkation

Written 26 March 2023

The airline served us quite a nice breakfast. David and I both chose the wild mushroom frittata, which was excellent. Warm, fluffy, creamy, not overcooked. It came with asparagus, roasted ratte potatoes, a grilled tomato half, and (almost hidden between the eggs and the potato), a lengthwise half of quite a tasty chicken sausage. On the side, a warmed, lightly toasted seed bagel with not enough herbed cream cheese and a fruit cup made up of grapefruit, orange, kiwi, and lots of dried cranberries. English breakfast tea.

We were originally scheduled to arrive in Amsterdam at about 6:45 am local time, but that slid to something like 7:30 am (including, really, a solid 20-min of straight-line taxiing to the terminal). When we emerged from passport control (quick and easy), baggage claim (quite speedy), and customs (vanishingly unobtrusive), we were met by a phalanx of Viking agents, who asked us, to our surprise, "What ship?" Amsterdam is a major Viking hub, and several ships were sailing from here today.

When we specified Freya, one agent peeled off to escort us to a waiting area and assured us that our driver would be there within 10–15 minutes. He was, so she came back to guide us to our vehicle. We were the only ones to arrive on that flight, so we got a private ride to the ship in a comfortable 8-passenger van. When we arrived on the pier, we found that the entire senior staff—captain, tour director, hotel manager, housekeeping chief, maï:tre d', and everybody else—had turned out on the dock to meet us! They escorted us en masse to the reception desk, where we were issued our keys and invited to move into our rooms immediately. What? What happened to disembarking passengers vacate by 8 am so that the staff can clean and new passengers can move in starting at 3 pm? At that point, we were surprised by the arrival of a large tray of glasses of sparking wine so that we and all the senior staff could drink a toast to our arrival. We were not just the first passengers of the day to arrive, but their first passengers of the entire season! All the staterooms are freshly cleaned and ready to receive their occupants. And all the crew are very excited to have us and to kick off the season. It's not even raining, which it has been, continuously, for at least the last three weeks. Wow.

Written 30 March 2023

We spent part of the morning settling in, unpacking in unhurried fashion, and testing the amenities. Much to my annoyance, neither the bow cam nor the lounge cam was operating. Maybe once everyone's aboard and the tours start . . . .

I also took my "orientation" photos—the portrait of the ship's godmother by the reception desk, the portraits of the senior staff by the lounge entrance, protrait of the ship's namesake at the top of the central staircase. The floor-to-ceiling portrait of Freya is not very informative—I can't spot a person in it anywhere. And when I opened the image to embed it here, I thought drat!, it's got way too much glare on it from the windows! But when I went back to try for a better picture, I discovered that, no, all that "glare" is part of the image—go figure. At the right here is the legend beside the portrait; who knew about the pigs?!

Now I'm sitting in the lounge working on this diary, and since 8 am, I've had to beat off with a stick all the solicitious offers to bring me something, do something for me, show me around, etc. But other guests are starting to filter in, so the onslaught will be diluted soon.

As for the ship's godmother, I was surprised to see that she's Rebecca Eaton, of Masterpiece Theater fame! Glad to see she's getting the recognition she deserves.

From 11 am to 3 pm, a "light meal" was served in the Aquavit Lounge for us early arrivers. It included "reuben" sandwiches, which a chef was grilling, slicing in half, and setting in this box for us to take. The corned beef and sauerkraut were authentic, but the cheddar and dill pickles were not, and the sauce was missing entirely.

I went instead for the steamed rice and (traditional Dutch) Thai green chicken curry, together with some oddments collected from the salad bar. The third choice was pasta with tomato sauce.

Dessert was Nutella-flavored panna cotta with crispy granola sprinkles on top. Excellent; I'm going to have to try that at home.

Back in my stateroom after lunch, I found a large vase of flowers, presumably still a propos of being the first to arrive.

I had hoped that, after lunch, we would get an Uber to the Rijksmuseum, since Viking had nothing formally planned, but as I suspected would happen, David resisted doing anything that ambitious. Instead, since Viking had laid on a quick "orientation" walking tour of the area nearest the ship, we joined that.

The first thing we encountered, walking from the ship to the central train station, was this giant abacus, updated periodically, that enumerates those suffering from AIDS in the Netherlands. It's currently 19,000+, but the guide said it's going down.

The second thing was this tiny electric car, called a Canta. It was developed for use by the disabled, who could have it customized according to disability—right- or left-hand drive, hand or foot controls, etc.—and were allowed to park it anywhere. That last feature, in particular, appealed to many more than the disabled population, so now lots of people drive them, and their propensity to park anywhere is beginning to cause problems.

But the bicycle is still king. According to our guide, the city has 990,000 people and over a million bikes (some hundreds of which have to be dredged out of the canals annually). City residents are proud that Amsterdam's bicycles are the ugliest in the country.

This little building used to be something to do with the harbor, but it's now used as offices for the organization of guides. Its trim and the peaked gable apparently reflect the influence of Indonesian architecture—historically, the Dutch had a large (and not terribly benevolent) presence in Indonesia.

Behind the train station is a large terrace overlooking the river, and our view across the river from there was of this modern complex of buildings. The flat white part is a film museum, and the tower is offices and appartments, with a large, square rotating restaurant on top. On the roof of the tower are large swings—you can see their black frame, right at the edge. For a fee, you can be belted into one of those swings and swing forward and backward, right out over the edge of the building! (Um, probably not.)

The flat, streamlined blue and white boat in front of the complex is a ferry (for pedestrians, bikes, and scooters, but not cars). Amsterdam doesn't have bridges, despite the several rivers that run through it. Instead, this is one of several ferries that run, free of charge, back and forth, one every five minutes, and a couple that run lengthwise.

Before all that stuff was built across the way, in North Amsterdam, people who lived over there weren't really considered part of Amsterdam, but now that commuting is easy and housing is cheaper over there, many more people have taken up residence there and now assert their right to be considered part of the city.

The low cylindrical building to the right of the tower, with the flag on top and "This is Holland" in big letters on the side, is a sort of cyclorama or Imax where, in 20 minutes, you can do a virtual aerial tour of this province of the Netherlands (North Holland) and the one just south of it (South Holland).

It's just about at this point in front of us that the River Ij (to the right, pronounced "eye") becomes the North Sea Canal (to the left). Coots were dabbling near the edge of the terrace, and the guide assured us that the water is now clean; you can swim in it and eat fish caught from it. It was once as polluted as any busy port, but the city is now extremely strict about enforcing zero effluents.

Beneath the terrace is a newly opened parking garage for 4,000 bicycles. Another, on the other side of the train station will hold 7,000. If you go in and out every day (or, for commuters from North Amsterdam, out and in, since they take a ferry over and keep a bike on this side), it's free, but there's a fee to park a bike overnight. Just now, the guide said, young people prefer ebikes. Because of a recent change in the law, scooter riders must now wear helmets, but ebike riders still don't have to, so teenage girls, in particular, ride ebikes so as not to mess up or (even worse) hide their hair.

From the terrace, we walked through the train station. The square columns in this corridors are decorated in this style, resembling antique lace but advertising modern amenities (in this case, coffee in a lidded paper cup). It you look at it up closed, it's just white panels punched with round holes of different sizes—clever.

The main hall is much more traditional, with stone arches and a painted ceiling (though with modern escalators and illuminated signage.

The side of the station toward the river is all ironwork and frosted glass, but once we passed through it and out the front, we could see this handsome façade.

When it was built in the 1890's, people were angry to have such an ugly modern building block their view of the river. Besides this center section, long wings stretch out along the river on both sides. The guide said apologetically, several times, that the architect was Roman Catholic; hence the ornate, and very un-Protestant, decoration.

Farther away was the spire of the Old Church. The guide explained that Protestant churches are always called Old Church, New Church, East Church, or some such, whereas Catholic ones are named for saints, like St. Nicholas's.

As we walked around, I spotted this bronze plaque. Who knew that trumpet player Chet Baker died here in 1988?

Across the plaza from the station is the Amstel, the only natural river in the city. "Dam" means "dike," so Amsterdam is the site of the dike on the Amstel. The guide was disappointed today not to see the Nile geese that usually hang out on the river.

This street is the only one in the city where the houses are actually built in the water, on wooden piles.

And at the right, just to the right of the folded black café umbrella, is one of the only two wooden houses left in Amsterdam. It's now a nice bar, called In the Monkeys, but back in the day it was a seedy hotel for sailors. Sailors short of cash would leave their pet monkeys as collateral, so the hotel had a reputation for being flea-infested.

A map of Amsterdam looks like the bottom half of a spider's web. The train station is the spider, streets radiate from it, and canals form concentric arcs around it. The streets do have bridges to cross the canals, but not at every crossing. From one of those little bridges I got this view of a water gate that could be cranked shut by hand as needed to control the flow of water. Now that Amsterdam is protected from floods, it's fallen into disuse.

At the right is the front window of an extremely famous bar, so famous that its interior is exactly replicated in a nearby museum. Bet van Beeren opened it in 1927. She was openly gay and rode a Harley Davidson. If any man came into the bar wearing a tie, she'd cut the tie off and hang it from the ceiling. During WWII, she hid Jews upstairs. When German soldiers came to search, she would welcome them warmly, turn her back to the customers as though to conceal the gesture, and sketch a quick half nazi salute. She had them convinced she was a secret sympathizer, so they never searched her place thoroughly.

Bet died in 1967, and her sister took over, but the bar was soon closed. Bet's niece reopened it later, but it folded during the pandemic. Two ladies have now reopened it on a lease basis and have hotel rooms upstairs. The museum replica even includes the ties hanging from the ceiling.

Amsterdam has over 2000 registered houseboats. A registered houseboat is permanently stationary, pays taxes, has a street address, gets mail from the postman, and is hooked up to water, sewer, and power; no effluents are allowed into the water. They range from converted cargo barges to ordinary houses that are just built on a floating base. The one at the left here caught my attention with its grass roof. The number of houseboats is now maxed out—no more are allowed.

In this photo, note also the complete lack of railing along the canal edge—the railing you see is on the houseboat, not the bank. The guide told us that a few dozen cars also have to be fished out of canals each year but that the number has dropped since foot-high railings have been installed along some of the canals. People routinely parallel park along the canal banks, and the spaces are not wide.

She also assured us that all Dutch children are taught to swim at an early age and furthermore to swim fully clothed, winter coat, mittens, shoes and all, because of the ever-present danger of falling into the water.

The photo at the right is of the "weeping tower" (now a bar/restaurant), from which women waved goodby to their husbands and lovers as they sailed away on long voyages. It's aso the site from which Henry Hudson left for the New World in his ship The Half Moon. He founded New Amsterdam, which became New York; Brooklyn and Harlem are named for suburbs of Amsterdam.

The guide assured us that somewhere near it is a spot where you can commission theft of a bike. You can specify men's or women's, with a child's seat, racing or touring handlebars, etc. and have it delivered within half an hour for about 30 euros. The commissions are only a small percentage of the annual number of bike thefts.

The white building in the distance with a replica sailing ship in front of it used to be a maritime warehouse but is now the maritime museum.

At the right, David poses with our ship as we return from the tour.

Other things the guide told us:

• Amsterdam has 175 coffeeshops. You must be over 21 to enter, and inside you can buy up to a specified small amount of marijuana each day. They also serve coffee.
• Coffee houses (as opposed to coffeeshops) just serve coffee, and maybe tea and things to eat.
• You can legally have up to 5 g of marijuana at home for personal use, but you're not allowed to grow it as a crop.
• Coffeeshops never name their suppliers, because the suppliers always have more than the legal possession limit on hand. They play cat and mouse with the police over that.
• Cars with blue license plates are taxis, ordinary private cares have yellow ones.
• The Netherlands only changed to daylight savings time today.
• The Netherlands is about twice the size of New Jersey and has a population of 18 million about 50% of whom live below sea level.
• The highest elevation in the country is ca. 1000 ft.
• Rotterdam is the "second largest port in the world after Asia." Tour Director Dominic Mulvaney later clarified that each of nine ports in China is larger than Rotterdam. They should just say that Rotterdam is the largest port in the world outside Asia.

At dinner, the bread of the evening was the cheesy breads I like so much.

The table decoration was pale yellow double tulips—very regionally appropriate.

David started with bitterballen (from the regional-specialty menu), always translated "Dutch meatballs" but really much more like croquettes—balls of cooked meat mixed with lots of creamy sauce, then breaded and deep fried—crisp on the outside but creamy and soft inside. Very tasty.

I had the white bean soup with crispy pancetta and basil pesto. Also delicious.

For the main course, I had seared sea bass (European, not Chilean) with lemon, butter, and capers, plus potatoes and grilled vegetables.

David had the "traditional Dutch hachee" (beef and onion stew), with mashed potatoes and stewed red cabbage.

For dessert, David chose the always-available crême brulée.

I had the regional specialty poffertjes, little Dutch pancakes with vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce.

And as usual, after dinner, we found on our beds the following day's Viking Daily, with the day's full schedule of events, plus our excursion tickets for the next day. The tickets are mostly information for us—nobody ever checks or collects them.