Happy Amsterversary! Day 4

[Gill H]

<<<Day 3

Goededag and welcome to Day Vier, which you’ve probably worked out by now is Day 4!

After last night’s amazing meal and jenever tasting, you might have thought we would have a late morning. But not us! We are up early and pack most of our stuff before heading downstairs for an 8am breakfast slot, as requested the night before. As usual, breakfast is yummy and plentiful, and since Rachel and Pepjin are around, we take the opportunity to ask them about some of the food. Rachel tells us the cheeses were from a shop in the ‘Nine Streets’ area, which is full of quirky little shops. One of the cheeses contains cumin seed, which gives it a really unique flavour.

After breakfast we pop upstairs to finish our packing, and sort out our label for the ‘Leave Your Luggage’ company who are coming to pick up our case. It’s very easy – they sent us an email when we booked, which contained a PDF of the label. We printed it off and brought it with us, and the label even has instructions on how to fold it!

While we are sorting this out, our room phone rings. It’s Pepjin, and he says he’s just had a call from the ‘Leave Your Luggage’ guys “and they say they can’t come! No, just kidding!” It turns out they want to come a bit earlier than planned, at 11.30 rather than 12.00, and called to check where the hotel is as they haven’t been there before. I love the fact that Pepjin felt he could have a joke with us after knowing us for such a short time. You really do feel that you’re staying with friends here, rather than in an anonymous hotel.

We then bring our suitcase downstairs and Rachel lends us a stapler to staple the two ends of the label together round the handle. We leave it in their capable hands, and say our goodbyes as we head out for the day. We are really sad to leave this place, and would stay here again in a heartbeat.

Our first destination today is Christ Church, just a 10 minute walk away. We’re going to the 10am service. It’s an Anglican church and has English speaking services, so we expect there will be quite a few ex-pats in the congregation.

We’re welcomed by a lovely young woman who greets us warmly and shows us in, and we find ourselves a seat. Within minutes we feel like we’ve made a whole load of new friends – people can’t wait to say hello, find out where we’re from and make us feel welcome. There are people here of all ages, and actually quite a few Dutch people here as well as English speakers. There’s also a visiting speaker today from an international organisation called YWAM (Youth With A Mission) who have a long history of work in Amsterdam, having spent years in the red light district helping look after those in trouble.

The chaplain is a friendly Canadian (is there any other kind?) called James. He’s obviously well liked and takes the service with an easy informality. There are one or two technical difficulties when song words don’t come up on the screen quite at the right time, or the speaker’s presentation slides go a bit awry, but nobody seems to mind.

After the service we are invited upstairs for coffee and cake. A helpful lady tells us there are more modern, wider stairs at the back of the building – but by now we’re past masters at tackling the traditional narrow, winding staircase and we easily get up to the room! We’re given a cup of good coffee and a cupcake with a 40 on it. Apparently it’s James’s 40th birthday this week and these are a surprise for him. And indeed, he appears a few minutes later to a storm of applause, an enthusiastic rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ and also a Dutch birthday song.

We spend a while chatting with a few of the congregation and also with James, who it turns out has his birthday on our anniversary. So he turned 20 the day we got married! (Yes, we’re old…)

We leave Christ Church feeling yet again as if we’ve made new friends. Is everyone in Amsterdam this hospitable? It certainly feels that way.