Now, that isn't actually what the cheese market is. If I had know that it was a wholesale show of cheese weighing, would I have been as excited? Probably not, but Alisa knew what the market was (because she had read about it) and we still went.
It meant getting up to get out there when the market started at 10am, so out the door at 8. We got breakfast in the station - Alisa, a croissant and coffee, and me, an overnight oats cup coated with peanut butter sauce, bananas, and chocolate. That's a good breakfast!
Granted, my stomach was a bit upset from some combination of the Indian food, Heineken, and waffle, so the mildness was good. Also the fact that the market was more looking at than eating cheese was probably for the best.
The ticket machines at the station didn't take our cards, and the cashier said it was because they didn't have pins. I definitely used a pin with one of them during Iceland, but I'll have to look into that again. Because we had to go to the cashier, we bought our tickets to head back to the airport on the train on Sunday as well.
We joined the throng of people taking the 15-minute walk into the city center once we got to Alkmaar. A few booths were up, but it was the crowd of people around the main square that fascinated me. Because of my misunderstanding of what we were there to see, I thought the production going on was just the opening ceremony. A bell rung, announcing the beginning of the morning.
But no - the cheese market was rows and rows of wheels of cheese set up in the middle of the square, with men from the cheese handler's guild taking eight at a time into their sleds, then pairs of them using their suspenders to pick them up and speedwalk over to the weigh station. Two sleds would be balanced on giant iron scales against a set of weights. Then they would be run back to a cart, loaded up, and sent on their way to parts unknown (to me at least).
After fifteen minutes of my fascination right in the thick of the crowd, Alisa explained to me that the production that we were seeing - that was the cheese market. No giant farmers market of cheese and samples, just this "show" that the host at Reypenaer had warned us about. You see, the cheese isn't made in Alkmaar, he had told us, it is just there to make the tourists happy.
The cheese museum was built right into the building that housed the scales, so we went up to the second floor to buy our tickets. It was maybe 11, and we had some learning to do. But first, the windows afforded a great vantage point over the market. We watched a kid get a ride around on one of the sleds as the cheese kept getting carted around and disappearing.
The main floor of the museum had a lot of artifacts from the long history of cheese making in Holland, and it ended at an auditorium with a movie showing. The attendant told us it was eight minutes long, and what tour group was going through dictated what language it was going to be played in.
We paused for the end of the current showing only to learn that it was Italian next. We moved on to the upstairs.
More displays, including the transition from farmer's wives making cheese to factories using milking robots (which were the coolest things ever), were in the rafted attic. The final room had a video playing with tablets around with a variety of games. A few groups were trying to master a "business game," balancing milk production with cheese factories and storage. I was intrigued, but there were no empty tablets.
We tromped back downstairs to see if the movie was playing in English yet. The attendant gave us cheese samples and told us it was up next, after the Dutch version. With those eight minutes, I went up to get two games of cheese production under my belt. No idea how I did, since it crashed on me the first time, but I got to try it.
The movie had some more explanations, including following the cheese along the factory process, but it was over quick. I still don't understand why they don't have subtitles in another language so at least two different groups could be happy listening at the same time, but we made it.
It was nearing noon, and there hadn't been enough cheese samples (including the one that came with our admission to the museum at the very beginning) to satisfy us. A few cafes were scattered around the square and the one called 'T Hartje amused me the most. (A close friend has that last name, though we totally missed the opportunity to take any pictures with it).
I decided to get the tomato soup and "bitteballen." They'd been on menus around, but we hadn't tried them yet. A half dozen fried balls came out, and inside was a creamy potato with tiny cubes of a sausage-type meat. My soup came in a crusty bread bowl, so I was super satisfied after that.
We wandered and shopped and shopped and wandered, looking for an ATM and wooden shoes, before stumbling into the town church.
The building was now a civic hall for performances, so not a working church, but the organ was playing and there were pews to sit in. It was "austere" - typical of Dutch churches. With that, our half day in Alkmaar was a wrap.
It was finally time to take the rest of the waking tours we had downloaded! Rick Steves main one started right at the Central Station. We had already listened through the second half, so when Alisa said she couldn't find it in her podcasts, I realized that it had deleted them from our storage because we had played it through to the end.
The tourist info center had free wifi, so we wandered toward it and sat inside for ten minutes while it downloaded. Crisis averted.
We were introduced to Damstraat, a few of the restaurants along it, the stock exchange building, and then Dam Square. The square had the palace (one of a few, though not commonly lived in), a church, and an obelisk. Oh, and performers and pigeons.
We made it down another walking street we'd already traversed a few times, learning about the smart shops again (herbs for anything you need), and the coffee shops as well (just marijuana). The tour ended right around 4pm at the Mint Clock Tower - where we had started the second half of it two days ago.
This time, we had time to go check out a view of Amsterdam, so we went up the Blue Sky Lounge. It was on the sixth floor of a mall that was under renovation, but the slightly tilted glass elevator was still there.
A pair of chairs right in front of the elevator opened up just as we arrived, so we sat immediately in the sun on bucket seats made of elastic rope. The table in front of us had binoculars. Creepy... and fun.
The homemade ginger ale with mint was delicious, and not as expensive as I'd expect from a place with this nice of a view. We had a small meal of soup and sandwich while enjoying the greenhouse effect of the sun. We were super toasty when we left to track down the bookstore that said "for wizards" above the door.
We browsed for a bit before heading back to Dam Square to start our next audio tour: the Red Light District.
The hubbub in the square had only increased by the time we got back there, so we cozied up to the crowd and tried to figure out what was going on. I asked a mom with her two kids, and she gave a really thorough answer and answered a lot of my questions!
The king had turned 50, so he and his queen had invited 150 Dutch people who had turned 50, 40, 30, etc. to the palace for a dinner. Afterwards, at 10:30, there was going to be a giant group picture that other citizens could join in at the square.
I was a bit confused, because I knew that King's Day was originally Queen's Day, but how did the king have his actual birthday as well? Turns out, his grandmother, the founder of Queen's Day, had her birthday on April 30th. The next queen kept that day, since her birthday in January was too cold. The king was born on April 27th, so when he ascended to the throne, they moved the day back a few days to represent his real birthday. Pretty cool series of events!
We started off toward the Red Light district. First, a church, the "old" church from the 1400s (just 100 years older than the "new" church on Dam Square) was in the center of it all. The tour took us past windows with ladies in lingerie, an info center about prostitution, and a lot of stag parties. What was most uncomfortable was going down a narrow street after a tour group with middle aged couples had just exited and realizing it was rows of windows with only a few populated, and those women now scowling. These women are independent, no pimps, and have a loose union they can be a part of. It may not be illegal, but the morality of it is still something that individuals can decide for themselves.
The tour ended along a canal with a few marijuana museums and info shops. I had been wanting to spend an evening watching comedy at Boom Chicago, so we headed back towards the Jordaan to see if we could get tickets for the evening.
We got there around 7 and bought the slightly pricey tickets. Their alums are pretty famous - Jordan Peele, among others - so this outpost of comedians making a European tour into a permanent location is well-known. We asked for a recommendation for dinner and popped over to a Thai place. It was quick, delicious, and truly epitomizes the type of cuisine in Amsterdam - anything you want!
We were told if we were nice to the hostess we could get an "upgrade." We also just happened to be in line right away and got a set of one of the unreserved comfy chairs and table close to the stage, but off to the side enough to not get picked on.
I thought it was going to be stand up, but instead, it was improv! With a few sketches between that made fun of the Dutch. We laughed a lot, got some of our suggestions incorporated into scenes, and learned some Dutch ("sappen sappelsop" is orange juice - fun to say!)
It had been a long day at that point, but we were still having a good time. A tram nearby went along the canal to our house in the southern part of the ring, and we had the right amount of change to treat ourselves to a ride. When we got back, we explored behind our building and found a bar still open to finish our conversation. At least, for that day.
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