Those of you following along from my last post will remember how I said that I wanted to complete a full circuit of the market before indulging in the gluhwein that was on offer. I’m sure all my highly intelligent readers can see the foreshadowing in this scenario.
Yes. By the time we got back to the wine truck, they were out of gluhwein, and would not have any more available for another half an hour! I think if I’d suggested that we wait for another half hour before imbibing something hot, Himself would have become violent (if he wasn’t too frozen to move).
Being that this is Amsterdam, we decided the best course of action was to find ourselves a traditional Dutch café in which to place ourselves for a while to defrost. We ended up at the Café Lusthof.
Dutch Brown Cafés are all over, and you can almost walk down any street and find one. They are named for the warm wooden interior stained from years and years of nicotine use. (Not that that staining continues today!)
As with many of these cafés, when they have the room, there is an enclosed “outdoor” section which allows you to be warm and protected while feeling like you’re sitting on the street.
We settled in and made ourselves comfortable and watched the passing traffic, all of whom were dressed against the inclement weather. Feeling all warm, cozy, and “gezellig” we thawed out with our gluhwein.
As an interesting side note, last year the local supermarket was swimming in litre bottles of pre-made gluhwein. This year I haven’t seen hide nor hair of it. This neatly illustrates my frustration with grocery shopping in the Netherlands so far. Nothing (even regular stuff like shampoo or cat food) should be assumed to be found at any given moment in a supermarket. Nothing. *sighs* Plan ahead!
As the sun does go down so early now it is the perfect time to wander the streets (when properly dressed for it) and check out all the street lights. So this was exactly what we did!
The Amsterdam Light Festival has begun for 2013, and I’m hoping to be able to go to a few of the events on this year’s program! Hopefully I’ll be able to report back on that with some wonderful photography as an accompaniment shortly!
See you all soon!
ghoti industries 
Glad you were able to stop and warm up and still enjoy some gluhwein!
I appreciate what you mean about unreliable selection in shops, as this happens to us here. It’s frustrating and leads to many disappointing shopping trips for things they carried once but never again 😦
Like that fact that I finally found the refills for our mozzie baits a month after I’d thrown the contraption out because I figured I’d never see them again. To add insult to injury, they were found again in September too, so prime mozzie season was over! *grumbles*
Eugh it has taken me an hour to write this comment as it required a WordPress password reset and rejig of profile and etc etc. What I was *trying* to say (now I have rewritten it!) is that it’s nice to back in Australia with the supermarkets here but the array of choice is overwhelming and I would sometime prefer less choice. For example, Andreas has not managed to buy free-range eggs yet-‘cage-free’, yes, ‘barn-laid’ yes, but not free range due to the confusing wording on the cartons!
This is really interesting! Because I’d read a blog post (ages ago now) about a re-patriated expat from the US who siad something very similar! She now went into information overload when looking for orange juice, because there were so many different variations! I find it fascinating that you’ve found this too!
(Poor Andreas! You’d best give him a hug from me! ;))
And if you wondered why I have not commented on previous posts that’s why-it’s not for lack of trying!
Hehe. It’s ok! *hugs*
We’re having a glass of gluhwein in just a few moments (having found a bottle today). I know what you mean about availability of all sorts of things. We tend to go in with multiple shopping lists, depending on what’s available.
It’s just so random what is, and then isn’t available. *confounded* I mean, it’s not like these are small brand/manufacture things … *shrugs* oh well 🙂
Well done you for finding a bottle of gluhwein! I’m still hoping some turns up here before the season is over. Until then I have a really good recipe I can fall back on!
Yup. Replace “mozzie baits” with “cat water fountain filters” and we’ve been there, too. Booo!!