South Africa - Day 1 - Alexandria, drop the i

First (and only!) full day in Joburg, so we prioritized before we came and had two things we really wanted to do: 1. A bike tour of the Alexandra township 2. Explore the Maboneng neighborhood.

Despite a late night arrival and some last minute planning, we set an alarm and jumped out of bed bright and early to take care of a few things (ATM for some local currency, breakfast, sunscreen application, etc.) before heading out to meet the bike tour at 9:30.  We grabbed a cab from the hotel to the Marlborough Train Station where the bike tour was picking us up. We stumbled upon the Alexandra bike tour in searching for an alternative to the typical Soweto township tour.  Soweto is the most famous township and has commercialized its tourism to a surprising degree; most people see it from the comfort of a tour bus stopping at key points.  Alexandra was the original township in Johannesburg (founded in 1912) and is less commercialized; plus, it’s just one letter off from Alexandria.

We certainly found a lot of contrasts between our home and the township.  Upon arriving at the train station, we were picked up for a ride into the township to a youth center, where the bike tour is operated out of.  The bike tour was founded by an entrepreneurial Alexandra youth named Jeff in 2010 when he was just 18 years old.  Since then, the operation has grown to include five employees, though it still has a “startup” feel.   We met our tour guides, learned a few Zulu greetings, and then headed out on what turned out to be a private tour.

We spent the next three hours visiting the sites of the first primary school and high school in the township, one of our guide’s house, a day care, a gym Richard Branson is financing, the local “mall,” the poorest section of the township and finally Nelson Mandela’s house when he first moved to Johannesburg.  Overall, we were struck by sense of community in the township (our tour guides seemed the most popular guys in town) and also a bit humbled by how different our lives are.  Our tour guides were fantastic and we felt safe the entire time.  This was a fantastic way to see this unique place.

After the tour, we took the train to its downtown terminus (Park) and then grabbed a quick cab to the Maboneng precinct.  Basically, this is Johannesburg’s Williamsburg; there are a lot of shops, art galleries and unique places to eat.  We had lunch at a braai (bbq) place called Sharp!, then spent some time visiting Arts on Main and the various shops, including the David Krut gallery, which had some very cool prints.  Afterward, we lucked into an Uber dropping off another passenger (we can’t be the first people who have Ubered without mobile phones, but it was still a great experience!) and headed back to the hotel for some rest before dinner.

Dinner was at a restaurant called Cube Tasting Kitchen in the Rosebank neighborhood – turned out to be a cool neighborhood, somewhat more residential but also with more restaurants and shops than Sandton, where our hotel is.  The restaurant was fairly small, with an open kitchen, and served a multi-course tasting menu.  It was also BYOB, so we showed up with wine picked up just beforehand.  The meal was great, though there was a LOT of food; it felt like they could use an editor to rein in the chef.  Otherwise, though, excellent, and worth the cab ride.  

Now off to bed and then safari tomorrow!

Amsterdam/South Africa- Day 4- In Which We Cross the Sahara (and then some)

Got up this morning nice and early to take the tram & train to the airport to catch our flight to Johannesburg.  Hard to believe we’re leaving Amsterdam already and on our way to the next leg of our trip!

Really nothing to report: we went to the airport, got on a plane and were on a plane for around 12 hours. Long travel day and very excited to get to Joburg.  New continent claimed!

Amsterdam- Day 3- Clogs, Windmills, & Cheese- oh my!

In typical fashion, there’s always something stereotypical that I get in my head before we go to a new country. In Argentina, it was tango. In Budapest, it was the baths. In the Netherlands, it’s windmills.  Thankfully we’re both game to occasionally play the tourist card in a big way, so this morning we headed out to a town called Zaanse Schans.  From the Centraal train station, it’s about a 20 minute train ride and then a 15 minute walk from there to this little slice of Holland—nice and easy for a quick half day trip!

The best parallel I can draw is a mini colonial Williamsburg; this is clearly a tourist destination but as long as you accept that, it was definitely cool to see some of the oldest surviving windmills rotating in the strong wind.  Zaanse Schans itself was an industrial hub in the 1700s and 1800s—one of the mainstays was shipbuilding but also producing everything from paper and oil to chocolate and starch.  History is covered in a suprisingly modern museum on the grounds that describes the town’s heritage and also has a separate section dedicated to the Verkaden biscuit and chocolate factory.  The latter was pretty fun and interactive with games to have you digitally sort cookies and chocolates into their boxes—Bren and I clearly took up the challenge and needless to say, he crushed me. 

After having some fun inside and returning to a better temperature (it was freezing and the wind was so strong in this area!!), we stopped by their restaurant on property to have Dutch pancakes, popped into the clog shop, and then went to investigate the windmills. Since windmills are clearly not an important part of industry anymore, there aren’t many left so we were pretty excited to get to see a cluster together—definitely more visually impactful than a one-off.  The windmills had been around since the late 1600s so it was a neat slice of the past, especially when contrasted with the dozens of wind turbines we passed on the train ride out.

Headed back to the city around mid-day and had a few more things we wanted to see, but really just wanted to spend our last afternoon in the city wandering the charming streets and canals we had fallen in love with.  In a desperate attempt to see some tulips (note: we are definitely coming back for when the tulips bloom and to go to Gouda!), we stopped by the Blomenmarket.  Described as a floating flower market, this was really just a bunch of cheezy tourist stalls this time of year.  We quickly walked through it and returned to the areas we preferred strolling. 

 For a mouse like me, a good cheese shop was definitely on the list and we found it in De Kaaskamer.  Awesome little store and luckily they will vacuum-pack it for you, so hopefully we will have some great Dutch cheese at home for a bit as a souvenir (fingers crossed). 

Wandered around this area and then through the Jordaan until we started getting tired, hopped a tram back to our lovely home and did some packing.  Last stop of the day was dinner at Kip et T’ij (Chicken & The Egg), for a great comfort meal of chicken, frites, local beer etc—the perfect end to our wonderful weekend in Amsterdam!

Amsterdam-Day 2- Did You Know Rembrandt Was His First Name?!

So, apparently Europeans aren’t quite as up and at ‘em on a gray, chilly Saturday morning as tourists are—who would’ve thought?  We got out early this morning, planning to grab some breakfast and be at the Rijkmuseum before it opened at 9 to avoid any potential lines since apparently these can be brutal (they don’t take reservations).  It was very quiet on the streets which was really lovely; we wandered up toward the museum stopping at Village Bagels for what was a semi-decent bagel actually outside of NY.

Arriving at the Rijk, we realized the nightmare lines really must not be applicable at opening, or that we did this trip perfectly since it’s far from high tourist season. Either way we walked right in, scanned our museumkaarts and started moving through the big museum.  It’s in a beautiful building and I have to say I was impressed by the flow and setup of many of the exhibits in addition to being awed by the historic building.  Some of the highlights included the library, the hall of honor where they showcase some of the most famous Dutch works, Rembrandt’s NightWatch, the ship models room, and the famous Van Gogh self portrait.

Continuing our cultural streak, we walked through museumplein and grabbed a quick bite at the café at the Concertgebouw (their major concert hall).  Great space; did some people watching and ate a light lunch and were back out to conquer more art.

We had reservations at the Van Gogh museum, so that coupled with the MuseumKaarts enabled us to jump a huge line and walk right in (in case I haven’t made this clear, the ease at which these two things let you do museums here is unbelievable). The Van Gogh museum was good, if more crowded than some of the other sites we’ve spent time in.  The first floor took you through his self-portraits and timeline, the second floor dealt a lot with inspiration and his circle, the third floor was more about him developing his technique, the fourth was the latter part of his life and  correspondence/personal life.  A good retrospective and we were surprised by some of the works that we had never seen before—particularly liked his orchard series and didn’t realize he had done a grouping of Japanese inspired paintings either! It is funny though when you got a museum about an artist and you know there are so many major works that are held at other museums in the world, make sense but definitely gives you pause I think!

Leaving museumplein, we walked through the Albert Cuyp Market. It’s your typical touristy market, but there were definitely some highlights and when you got about a block off the actual market, there were really cool bread shops, clothing stores, etc.  One of the things we had learned in our research was that there is a strong Indonesian population and heritage in Amsterdam—in the spirit of that, I came across a terrific international store (Tjin’s) that was right off the market so decided to stop by. While we couldn’t take home their homemade sambal since it was not in a strong container (bummer!), we did find one that sounded interesting that was from a Dutch producer so brought that home as one of our foodie souvenirs.

Continuing the walk down the Market street, we stopped for 2 quick snacks—mini pancakes called porffiges (like Swedish ebelskivvers but not filled) and a hot stroopwaffel.  Delicious and the perfect pick-me-up in the midst of the light drizzle we had all day.

We walked along the Amstel River a bit until we reached the last stop of the day, the Hermitage. Yes, your confusion is warranted, we are not in Russia, but they have a branch here which was doing an exhibit we were excited for- dining with the tsars.  A light retrospective on the social side of the Tsars based around the collections of china on display. Fun to read about etiquette and just see some of the splendor in person!  The other half of the Hermitage has a portrait gallery display, which focuses on the power players in Amsterdam’s history and really just tries to provide some groundwork of the history.

Crossing back over the Amstel, we saw the famous Magere Brug (bridge) and made it back to our hotel in time to rest up prior to dinner. After a day full of being on our feet, we were pretty excited about our dinner in the Waldorf at Librije Zusje. This was our big dinner of the trip and it was absolutely worth it—a fairly small dining room with an absolutely delicious menu, we actually decided to order a la carte instead of the set tasting so we could try more. I won’t bore you with too many foodie details, but we started off with several small bites that were phenomenal then had an incredible meal including grilled langoustines, venison, deconstructed apple pie, etc—you get the picture but I can’t express how delighted our taste buds were!