We had a lovely christmas. Jo & Dirk are well set up in a lovely part of The Hague. A beautiful apartment, big enough to hold us & them and another couple Mad & Dave + their 6 month bundle of joy Lilian, sitting atop a pancake house – who could ask for more? We did the oyster thing, the champagne, and the turkey along with some Scottish specialties like bread sauce(!), mashed carrots and root veges, baked parsnips, then home-made lemon sorbet, plus chocolates, and more champagne and more food, then more chocolate. But the icing, so to speak, was their scale. We’d weighed ourselves before leaving… and because their scale was at least 2kg lighter than ours at home, after all that food and drink we left still under our starting weight, just….

Apart from getting a welcome dose of BBC over the holidays with a couple of christmas specials, I managed to ride a bike after at least 12 years without seriously hurting myself…. except my ass that is. I missed a couple of lights, they went green, orange, red, orange, green etc. a couple of times before I managed to push myself off into a big intersection of cars and trams and bikes. But Michelle was very proud, and I was secretly proud. Much thanks to Jo who ambled along at a snails pace to make sure I was ok. (In my defence the bike was very tall… I couldn’t even touch the ground with my tippy toes). And we also made it to the Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery ostensibly to see ‘The Girl with the Pearl Earing’ but also the exhibition of Dutch portraits which was brilliant. We both loved it. It was a great size gallery, the audio guide was free and excellent, and there wasn’t too many pushy people there….

Despite both Mad & Dave getting sick and probably feeling terrible, we had a lovely christmas together. From The Hague we continued on alone to Amsterdam. We stayed at the Chic & Basic Hotel supposedly in the Jordaan but really it was in the Grachtengordel West area. The hotel was more basic than chic, with a tiny room, a toilet that converted into a shower when you really couldn’t wait any longer, and a ceiling that was only a few inches taller than us. We heard entire conversations from the hallway at all hours of the day and night, but the staff were generally very kind, the breakfast was great and free, and the coffee & tea machine downstairs let us have a nice cup of tea every night before bed…. I wouldn’t return because I though it was too expensive for what it was (at €125 a night!!) but perhaps if you got a better room, you might rave about the hotel…. sadly we didn’t.

Our time however in Amsterdam was fantastic. We walked up and down the streets of the Jordaan, each and every corner almost every day. We visited thousands of small, local art galleries, and really got an eye for the Dutch artists exhibiting in the area. It was great, a couple of names we want to keep our eyes and ears open for – like Barbara Wichers Hoeth, Andrea Letterie (my favorite) and perhaps even return for an exhibition of Marie Godest (Michelle’s favorite) in April at the Artacasa Gallery. This definitely was our favorite gallery, and the first we stumbled on, we had to restrain ourselves from going back and buying up all the art we could afford. Instead, we picked up their cookbook in Dutch so that we could have a listing of the artists (Jo if you’re interested…) and I’ve just discovered going on to their site, that they have a b&b, so there you go, our next trip to Amsterdam is pretty well settled.

In addition to the small independent galleries, we made it to FOAM where we saw a great photo exhibition by Ryan McGinley as well as the Weegee exhibition that we missed while it was in Paris. We also made it to the Hermitage Amsterdam where we saw a small exhibition on loan by the Hermitage in St Petersburg of Art Nouveau objects which was very interesting. Essentially as far back as the late 19th century France has been trying to persuade Russia to side with her by gifting some exquisite vases, and crafted jewellery by some of the most amazing artists of the period like Faberge & Lalique. Next stop was the Huis Marseille Foundation for Photography where we saw a very interesting exhibition by Jacqueline Hassink called ‘The Power Show’ her Arab Domains pictures were fabulous. A series of photos of female arab business leaders boardrooms, and their dining rooms at home – side by side. It was genius, and very interesting, the styles mostly were quite similar and the supplementary personal information provided rounded it out. Very very interesting.

In amongst all the art, we managed to fit in a few markets (successfully I might add), lots of good restaurants – the highlights of which were ‘Salle du Jour‘ a seafood restaurant where I had the best lobster ever! and ‘Envy‘ which was a great bar come resto with a tasting menu, which we tasted, lots of… and the wine bar Vyne which was truly superb. If I was ever to open a wine bar in my life, it would have to be like this. The only thing I’d change would be the height of the tables, and that’s only because the Dutch people are on average about 25cm taller than us… which meant that we were sometimes seated almost under the table… definitely couldn’t put your elbows on the table, they didn’t reach!

So that was it. A most successful little holiday to the Netherlands over christmas. We’d love to go back, mostly to see Jo & Dirk, probably in the spring or summer time, but also because Amsterdam is such a cool and happening city. It’s quiet, it’s pretty and the food & art scene is so good, I’m surprised we haven’t been back sooner.

Tonight it’s new years eve!! Bonne Annee!!