Four things that stick with me on every visit to Amsterdam
Bitterballen. “A Dutch meat-based snack” orderable with your strong Dutch beer in any and every bar, throwing steam into the air when bitten open, served with mustard and in quantities of 6-8. My cousin tells me he reckons they all come from the same frozen bag which is probably why they are each so equally satisfying.
The lighting shop along the artery canal of the Kaisergracht, casting its crystal glow onto a rain-slicked pavement and a golden arch over the canal after dark. Sometimes it’s chandeliers, other’s it’s fashionable mid-century wall fixtures. I photograph it every year to send to my friend Christine who told me in passing many years ago that she enjoyed the sight of lighting shops at night.
Everyone’s huge and un-curtained ground floor windows. Some Amsterdammers glaze a portion of their front windows - some even invest in blinds - but I’m glad that the majority throw their everyday domesticity open to an audience. Toddlers building tower blocks on the kitchen floor; a middle-aged couple chopping vegetables for dinner; a dog left alone of an afternoon; a man reading in a high-backed chair crammed into his bay window; four old women playing bridge.
Cats, everywhere. On every corner and in every window, poking heads out of cracked open doorways, claiming the best seat in a coffeeshop which is sometimes your lap. Amsterdam is a city of small and expensive dogs and street cats that could destroy all of them in a fight.