Boatgirl #6: Past & Present – Amsterdam, Netherlands

5: Past & Present

Kirsty Kalkhoven sitting in front of Cafe Kalkhoven.

February 24, 2002
In the morning, we went back to our original hotel to complain and change our clothes, and they apologized and went off to interrogate the night porter.

We went back to Leidseplein and looked for strippen-kaarts, the tram tickets that you validate yourself on the trams in some obscure system that I just pretended to understand. Our plan for the day: Cafe Kalkhoven and the Anne Frank House, but it was Sunday and we weren’t sure if the cafe would be open or serve food at all.

We decided to try Cafe Americain, one of Amsterdam’s famous “grand cafes” and a “must-see” according to the guide book. It was a jazz brunch in a gorgeous art deco building with marble floors, dark wood, and stained glass, and a great quartet playing 30s and 40s jazz. I highly recommend this place if you’re ever in Amsterdam, but I certainly missed my dance partners (Adam, Peter, Burke)… There were a few old couples dancing and I was very jealous. We could have made quite a scene.

This bookcase doorway concealed the entrance to Anne Frank’s hiding place.

The Anne Frank House was fascinating, but sterile. The rooms are all empty and re-furbished to better accommodate the thousands of visitors. It’s possible to get a much better sense of Anne Frank and what it was like for them in hiding, from reading her writing. Still, I’m glad I saw it. It’s creepy to think that they still have no idea who betrayed them, and that Anne actually died of typhoid only a month before the liberation. There were some very moving video clips of her father, and the woman from his office who helped them, brought them food, and saved Anne’s diaries after they were discovered.

A few metres east, is the Homomonument, a memorial to the homosexuals who were persecuted during the German Occupation and at any other time. A pink triangle of marble, it projects out over the canal where people have left bunches of flowers.

The Homomonument.

Cafe Kalkhoven is actually right around the corner, across the street from the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church), where Rembrandt is buried. It’s a cozy pub with red wallpaper and old candle holders on each table, dark wood casks behind the bar, and family pictures on the wall. According to the waiter, it hasn’t been owned by Kalkhovens for 200 years, but the workers who built the church (in 1630) used to drink in there. We drank some beer and debated whether it was rain, snow or perhaps sleet outside.

We went on a canal cruise in the evening, on one of the touristy glass roof boats. It was dark and rainy and the windows fogged up with all the tourists getting chatty from the wine included with the cruise, so the view wasn’t as spectacular as it could have been. Still, we got to voyeuristically peek into the windows of the house boats to see families sitting down to dinner, and the city is very pretty all lit up. The cruise also takes you through neighborhoods you might not see otherwise, rich residential neighborhoods, and through the medieval canals in the oldest part of the city.

After that we wandered around the dock area, where Dick had told us we could find restaurants open late. We ended up in the Red Light District, watching all the tourists ogle the women in the windows. My favorite place was the Oude Kerk (Old Church), built in 1340, and now surrounded by “coffee shops” and prostitutes showing off.

The Dutch take this as all very normal. It must be interesting for the women to look out on to such a beautiful old building, and it doesn’t seem to deter their clients. The girls stand or sit behind glass doors, all crammed together in their narrow old buildings. Their rooms look like tiny cubicles with twin beds or stairs visible behind them; they just open the door to let in their customers and then draw the curtain.

Some actually make an effort, tapping the glass with their rings to attract passers-by, but most just look bored. Some talk on cell phones and ignore all the onlookers; one girl put both hands on the glass and glared at everyone walking past. They come in all ages, dimensions and nationalities, posing in lingerie or bikinis. They even have a union. It’s all very surreal, but more logical than pretending it doesn’t exist or cloaking it in shame and doing it anyway. It’s quite civilized, really.

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