Hallo! Welcome back to my Amsterdam blog: day 2! Today, we started the day well-rested at 8AM for our first breakfast in Hotel Meininger. It was better than any hotel breakfast I’ve had in the States, and my favorite part was the cream puffs, which were light and fluffy. I also enjoyed the free espresso machine, which made me a delicious latte in seconds. The Dutch take their coffee seriously.
Next, we took the train to center city for a canal cruise. Although very touristy, I thought it was quite interesting to hear more historical facts about the city, such as the fact that the houses are priced by width and amount of windows. Certain old mansions are so wide that even high-class people cannot afford the price, so they are used as businesses and hotels now. We also learned that the houseboats are so popular due to the housing shortage. In the 1960s, the government gave tax refunds and stipends to those who decided to live in houseboats. But now, houseboats are around 1-2 million euros and are luxury living. From the canal, we could see inside well, they were especially clean and looked like something out of an IKEA showroom. My next new dream is to reside in an Amsterdam houseboat (shown in highlight photo).
Another interesting historical fact we learned was about the gevelstenens, which were identifiers used on houses before house numbers were popularized in the 1800s. They are large blocks that consist of a unique design or symbol, such as a rabbit or (my favorite) a moon. I love that instead of describing to your friend where you live and saying “I live in 314 Main Street,” you could say “I live in the moon house.” Add this to my lists of dreams: to have a gevelsten house.
After a break, we reconvened for the Cacao and Spice company visit. This is a fair-trade, single-origin chocolate shop owned by the lovely couple Salome and Ian. Their mission is to combat issues such as child slavery, deforestation, and monoculture, which are common in chocolate sales. Salome was telling us many facts about chocolate, including that 75% of cacao is grown in Africa, but only 5% of chocolate is made in Africa, meaning it is not single origin. They wanted to provide a more sustainable chocolate option in the city of Amsterdam, which is one of the world’s largest cacao hubs. I was interested to hear this information, because of my passion for sustainability. Salome discussed greenwashing, which is marketing a product as sustainable but harvesting/making it unsustainably, which reminded me of large clothing brands today. This shop also supports women-owned businesses and cacao harvested in biodiverse climates, because it enriches the flavor due to soil nutrients. This business showed me that Dutch people value small businesses much more than Americans, who prefer cheaper, large corporations with loose sustainability and labor initiatives, such as Hershey or Wonka to make chocolate. It shows the importance of understanding where your food comes from, and how to support the right businesses in order to be a more sustainable consumer.
We tasted many different chocolates, my favorite was Original Beans milk chocolate from Africa, which is women-owned and plants tree per bar sold, promoting biodiversity and reforestation. Next, we learned that white chocolate actually is more sustainable because it uses the waste product of cacao, the butter from the fat around the beans. We also had some homemade chocolates, first a truffle based on Dutch Soekkoek spice cake, and next a raspberry chocolate which was delicious. The last tasting was a Carolina reaper chocolate, which hurt my mouth due to the spice but was a funny experience to say the least.
Next, Ian (Salome’s hilarious husband) took us on an intimate tour of Amsterdam, giving us the inside scoop on places to go, with a lot of interactions with locals he knows because of his business. It was cool to hear about the hooks on the top of houses, used to haul furniture through windows, as well as stories of heroic civilians who hid Jews during the Holocaust, such as Marie Bossart, who was a Salvation Army worker who took in orphans during WW2 and saved 75 Jewish babies from concentration camps, taking them on her bike to addresses of relatives given by their parents before they were captured by Nazis. This tasting and tour from Cacao and Spice was an extremely informative experience, and it was my favorite activity of the day due to topics covered such as sustainability and LGBTQ+ and Jewish history in Amsterdam.
After this impactful walking tour, we headed out for some light shopping, Italian dinner, and gelato to follow. Now, I am headed to bed preparing for the early rise for tomorrow’s Tulip Farm visit!
Doei!