How to Navigate the DIA on Calle Venecia: An insider’s guide to the not-so-super market

DIA on Calle Venecia has 3 magnificent aisles of goods for purchase.  Walk straight past the produce as you enter: you have no idea where it came from or how long it has been sitting on the shelf.  Next, you stumble upon the shrine to olive oil.  Olive oil in all different shapes, sizes, textures, and labels… and yet they are all somehow the same.  Finally, aisle one concludes with an ode to pasta.  Penne or angel hair is the only difficult choice you have to make when debating your pasta future.  If you want wheat pasta, find the nearest airport out of Sevilla.  

The second aisle opens on the beverage selections, and only the beverage selections.  Coca cola, water, fanta, and endless boxes of cheap Don Simon wine await you here.  This brings us to aisle three: the final aisle.  Here rests frozen boxes of pizza with jamón, frozen veggies, queso fresco and yogurt.  If you expect to open your strawberry yogurt and find a pink substance, think again.  DIA’s latest cost-cutting measures include cutting the food dye.  I hope you like white strawberry!  Skip most refrigerated items, specifically including the premade tortilla Española.  Unless of course you want your entire kitchen to fill with the delicious smell of ASS.

Finally, just to the left of the one cash register, where a surly employee is waiting to grimace at you, you have the meat counter and cleaning supplies.  A classic combination.  Macarena, the friendly meat counter worker, wears no gloves, and slaps the meat on the counter with such a force that I’m surprised it doesn’t get bruised.  Despite all of this, I go back week after week, like the fool that I am.  Maybe it’s the convenience of knowing that Macarena already has my weekly chicken order memorized.  Or it could just be that the food is dirt cheap.  As it should be.

Semana Santa at Maria Zambrano

Nazarenos in the parade

Today, in a celebration of Semana Santa, many of the kids in my school dressed up for a traditional parade through the school and the surrounding neighborhood. Walking into school, I saw teachers dressed up in black dresses, little girls in black lace and rosary beads, looking like grieving widows, and little boys in suits. The activities commenced at 9:15, as drums and music could be heard outside through the open windows.  At this point the kids were goners – standing up on their chairs to look at the musicians outside. The band then entered the school and marched through the hallways playing traditional Semana Santa music. The kids and I all ran to the door to have a look. I at least had an excuse to look – it was my first time ever seeing this happen!

Little weeping widows

procession

kids watching the parade

little ones holding the insense

 

After the band made their way towards the hallways, the classes were excused one by one to walk to the patio and sit, waiting for the procession. The first kids out were wearing the traditional Nazareno outfits. To sum up these outfits, they look just like the KKK. It has taken a lot this year to see these outfits everywhere and not get a sense of fear upon looking at them. Most Spaniards I talk to have no idea why these outfits would have such a bad connotation in America. The teacher sitting next to me, however, leaned over and said “this must remind you of the Ku Klux!” I was shocked that somebody had actually heard of this! So I responded yes, it is extremely weird and slightly frightening watching a procession of four year olds marching with crosses and white hoods. Next in line came the little girls dressed in black dresses, lace veils, rosaries, heels, red flowers and lipstick. They looked like miniature 60 year old women, and were of course adorable. Next, the sixth graders held tiny versions of the floats used during Semana Santa. In the real parades, 40 or 50 men stand underneath these enormous floats, carrying life size effigies to Mary or Jesus and about 100 burning candles. These versions were carried on small tables, and featured small figurines of the holy family.

waving to the audience

little women

guiding the parade

For many of the kids and teachers this parade was just business as usual. They had seen the pasos so many times that it no longer was exciting. Kids saw it as a great way to get out of class for an hour and talk to their friends. I, being the American, was snapping away photos on my cellphone and cursing myself for not bringing my camera. Looking around, my excitement was only matched by my little Chinese friend Hitao, who also had never seen the likes of a Semana Santa parade in school before. His look of excitement and awe mingled with a “what the hell is going on” look matched mine perfectly and made me laugh, knowing that at least one person shared my sentiments.

holding the torches

angry?

After this adorable parade, I went back to my next class, the fifth grade, where I was giving a presentation about American Easter. I talked about the Easter bunny, painting eggs, and showed some hilarious photos of me and Mark as kids dressed in our Easter best. The kids thought that the photos were hilarious, asked numerous questions about Mark, and could not believe that I used to be blond. The biggest deal for them, however, was that we didn’t celebrate Semana Santa, or holy week! One boy even asked “y donde está Jesús?!” (where is Jesus?). Instead of explaining about America's politically correctness and freedom of religion, I simply replied that for many people in America, Easter is not a religious holiday, but a day to get candy. This clearly went over their heads and they scoffed, pronoucing “que raro. Que raro seño!”

decorations in the school hallway

All the Girls Standing in the Line Waiting for Adele

This week Rachel and I were off to Amsterdam!  Our journey began Thursday evening, when we took the train down to Malaga before our extremely early flight the next morning.  When we arrived at the train station, we saw lines of over 100 taxis idling near the entrance.  Before we could think how convenient this would be for getting a taxi, we saw that all of the cars were empty, and their drivers were huddled in large groups nearby talking, smoking, drinking, and looking agitated.  We learned from a woman near us that there was a problem with the police, and no taxis were running from the station.  We then walked away down the road to catch one before it got to the station, and informed this driver of what was going on.  He radioed in to his company, and we found out via his walkie talkie that something had happened with a taxi and a gun outside the station. Yet another example of us having absolutely no idea what is ever going on.

Friday morning we woke up at what I deemed to be “Abu Simbel time” (see post about Egypt and waking up at 2:30am for sightseeing).  Basically, waking up at any time before 7 am is now “Abu Simbel time,” i.e. nobody in their right mind would ever want to wake up then. We took a plane to Eindhoven, the completely out of the way and across the country airport that Ryanair of course flies in to, and then a bus and train into Amsterdam. After getting settled, we wandered around looking for a lunch spot. We ended up at Wok to Walk, a make your own stir-fry place that was of course delicious.  After lunch we headed to Albert Cuypmarkt, a street market I had heard a lot about beforehand.  The merchandise was only okay, but you know how much I love a good street market.   

Afterwards, we headed to the Heineken Experience to learn more about beer.  Now, I have gone on brewery tours all over the world (well Boston and Belgium to be exact), but the Heineken was definitely my favorite.  It combined a bit of history on the company with a short intro on how beer is made, and ended in an amusement park.  There is a motion ride near the end that literally transports you into the brewing process, so that you become the beer.  It was pretty impressive.  Next, we got our first little tasting and learned how to properly drink a beer.  Finally, there were some interactive components where we got to make fools of ourselves singing along to Dutch music and take some souvenir photos.  At the end of the tour we each got 2 free beers, which Rachel and I hurriedly drank because we had places to go and people to see.  On our way out, a little more than slightly drunk from shotgunning 2 and a half beers each, we excitedly ran through the awesome looking gift shop, asking the clerk “CAN WE COME BACK HERE?!”  Well duh, its a gift shop; of course you can come back.

Let me explain a little about why we were in such a hurry.  A few weeks ago Rachel and I saw that our new music obsession Adele would be performing in Amsterdam while we were there. Tickets were already sold out and ridiculously expensive, so we resolved to try our luck buying scalped tickets.  We checked out the venue earlier in the day, and a funny security guard told us that we may have a shot at it if we arrive an hour before the show.  So, running through the streets of Amsterdam with a beer buzz, we were running for Adele.  We made signs in English saying “WE WANT 2 TICKETS PLEASE!” and decided to ask a mother and daughter in line for their help translating to Dutch.  You can imagine why I may have been paranoid that they were messing with us and wrote something other than the translation after Rachel accidentally drew on the girl's coat with her pen.  My suspicions became worse when people saw our signs and laughed.  A Dutch couple next to us, however, assured me that it was the real translation.  So people were just laughing at the two stupid Americans holding signs begging for tickets.  Kind of makes sense.  After waiting in the cold for 2 hours, we made countless new friends (including but not limited to: many Dutch people, a creep trying to sell tickets for 300 euros, Americans living in the Netherlands, and a Hare Krishna rapping "all the girls standing in the line waiting for Adele") but had failed to acquire the tickets we so badly wanted, and sadly called it a night.  One couple we met from the Midwest recommended a great Mexican restaurant, which we were excited about as nobody outside of the US and Mexico knows how to cook real Mexican food.  The food was good, but the atmosphere was great, and we made friends with the Mexican waiters, showing off our Spanish skills.  We ended up getting two free tequila shots at the end of the night, and made our way back to the hostel to fall asleep.

Saturday morning we woke up early (ish), ready to tackle the day in Amsterdam.  Our first stop after breakfast was the Anne Frank house, where she lived and hid with her family for over 2 years during the Nazi invasion.  The house is exactly as it was 60 years ago, only without furniture.  Set up on the walls are photos, videos of people who knew the family, and chilling excerpts from Anne's diary.  It was amazing to step through the tiny rooms, ducking our heads as we walked up the stairs and imagining how difficult it would have been to tread around not making any noise.  The thing that struck me the most, however, was the darkness.  Although I knew they had to black out the windows so that nobody could see them, it never occurred to me how dark and dank it actually would be inside.  To imagine living there for 2 years in fear of being discovered was difficult.

Walking back out into the light, we headed to Dam square to embark on my favorite New Europe tour.  This company provides free walking tours all throughout Europe, and has easily become one of my favorite things about visiting new cities.  Our tour guide Jo told us about the history of Amsterdam, the tolerance, the red light district, the marijuana laws, and finally the Dutch response to the holocaust.  Our first stop was a walk through the red light district, which I immediately realized is nothing like how I imagined it.  We weaved through a tiny little alley of cute little Dutch houses, which could have easily been an area of homes.  Through the windows, however, instead of dining room tables were prostitutes.  They stood behind the windows, many of them looking bored or talking on cell phones, waiting for customers.  It may have just been the time of day (morning) or the fact that we were clearly on a tour group and not looking for any service, but they did not seem too aggressive or interested.  Our guide told us that each street in the red light district caters to a different need: fetishes, transvestites, particularly pretty girls (called the elite street) and the street we chose to walk down: big momma alley.   She also told us about the olden times when the church would make money from confessions of sailors in Amsterdam.  Oftentimes the sailors would confess in advance for sins they were inevitably going to commit during their time in Amsterdam, and would be asked by the priests to pay double for their sins.  What a system. 

Next on the tour we learned about Amsterdam's strange drug laws.  Apparently it is illegal to grow or deal drugs, but it is legal to sell in the coffeeshops.  So, it is illegal for the coffeeshops to GET their drugs, but legal for them to SELL the drugs to customers.  Makes a lot of sense, huh?  Our guide pointed out the interesting fact that coffeeshops are also not allowed to advertise their sale of marijuana.  Nowhere in the city do you see marijuana leaves, or advertisements about selling joints.  Instead, places put up some psychedelic posters, blare Bob Marley, and call themselves the “Feel Good Coffeeshop”.  Very subtle.  So, if you were completely naive to the implications of Bob Marley, you could wander the city being completely unaware that weed is being legally sold behind closed doors.  This takes me to my next point: the unfair reputation that Amsterdam gets.  The reputation as a place for drugs and prostitution, either good or bad depending on what you want out of your vacation, is not really true.  The drugs are behind closed doors and you have to go looking for the prostitution, and could easily avoid it if you wanted.  What is left is an absolutely beautiful city of canals, a rich history, and some of the nicest people I have ever met travelling.  It could just be that I was coming from a place where the people are notoriously rude (especially to foreigners), but the people of Amsterdam astounded me with their friendliness.  Our guide told us there are three main rules that the Dutch live by.  You can pretty much do anything you want as long as: 1. you don’t hurt anyone, 2. you don’t hurt business, 3. you don’t do it in public.  This carefree lifestyle of tolerance certainly made all the difference.  The locals weren’t just tolerant of difference, they embraced it.  They were up for having a good chat with anyone, from any walk of life, regardless of race, origin, religion, sexual orientation, etc.  And their English was damn good.  Seriously, don't just go to Amsterdam because of the sex and drugs.

After our walking tour, two members of our group recommended a pancake restaurant that we simply had to try for lunch.  Rachel and I both opted for savory pancakes, which consisted of something somewhere between a pancake and a crepe topped with spinach, goat cheese, and pine nuts.  Needless to say it was delicious.  After lunch, we headed to the Van Gogh museum, where we saw one of his famous sunflower paintings (did you know there were 3?) and some other of his masterpieces.  Next we visited the famous “I Amsterdam” sign where tourists climb the letters to pose for awesome pictures (which we also did of course).  In the afternoon we wandered back over to the red light district and saw some more red lights before a quick dinner.

Saturday night we went on a New Europe pub crawl, which for 15 euros included free drinks, entrance to 5 different bars and clubs, and a free t-shirt.  We ended up meeting and hanging out with two nice British guys who of course gave me travel advice for my next travelling adventure: London.  Overall it was a really fun night and a great way to meet more people and see more of the great city.

Sunday we had to drag ourselves out of bed early to take the bus to Keukenhof, a tulip and flower garden in the countryside.  I would describe Keukenhof as Disney world on crack with a side of flowers.  The music, hordes of tourists, overpriced food, long lines and lackluster flowers really didn’t justify the steep entrance fee, so we were obviously disappointed.  The day was saved, however, when we left the lame park and rented bicycles to see the real countryside.  Surrounding Keukenhof were fields filled with flowers as far as the eye could see.  Brilliantly colored yellow, green, purple, pink and red flowers covered both sides of the street, providing for great photo ops and great riding.  The weather was perfect, the sun was shining, and I even got a little tan.  Who could ask for a better day?

We headed back into Amsterdam in the early evening to say goodbye to the wonderful city.  We had one last dinner, collected our bags, and were back on the bus to the airport, where we were staying the night at an airport hotel before our flight early the next morning.  Of course there were some adventures finding the hotel: including running down the street in the dark searching for it (flashbacks to the Glasgow airport hotel were playing in my mind).  But we finally found it, and despite the fact that there was no reception for the day and we had to be let in through the restaurant next door, it ended up being a decently nice place.  So, overall, I would have to say that Amsterdam may just be one of my favorite European cities so far.  The friendliness, beautiful canals, architecture, museums and quirks made for a different and great trip.  Now I just want to figure out when I can go back!