Number of days in Amsterdam – 255
Number of days without a bike theft – 251
Days since it last rained – 0
One tradition that was pretty strong in our old lives was the Thursday night dance in the living room. We’d often go out for dinner with friends, hang out for a bit, then head home to listen to music in the living room until way too late.
This tradition appears to have weathered its Transatlantic move quite well.
This evening, we loaded the Kitten up in her pram and headed to Restaurant De 3 Vrienden (“The 3 Friends”). It’s become a favorite place of ours in the Pijp. The atmosphere is cozy, the staff is really friendly, and there is plenty of room to park a snoozing baby in a pram next to your table.
The most amazing thing we’ve had so far there is their Salade met bospaddenstoelen, Brie en een stroop van port (“Salad with mushrooms, Brie and port syrup”). It’s a delicate thing, with the flavors completely in tune with one another. The mushrooms are lightly sauteed and served warm, so they melt the brie just a bit, and they’re seasoned with just a touch of sea salt, providing the occasional pop of salty flavor, while the dressing provides just the right amount of acidity.
And “just right” sums up why I love this restaurant so much. It gives us the sense of having a neighborhood spot to frequent. It’s a bit quiet, a bit romantic, a bit quirky with a different light fixture over each table, and the chef pays careful attention to every dish leaving his kitchen. If I were to run the restaurant of my dreams, it wouldn’t be far off from this.
And the staff loves to see the Kitten, and she loves it there too, being the type who wants to be out and about, seeing things.
After we returned home, it was time for music night. Tonight it focused on a lot of bands from when we first started dating. Fastball, the Wallflowers, the Refreshments, they were all bands that supplied a soundtrack to our early college years and our early years of dating, and not only is it always fun to hang out and listen to music,now I feel like we’re transferring our love of music to the baby.
For example, this one makes her smile every time she hears it right now. It’s a sort of one-hit wonder from the band that probably made most of its money for performing the theme to King of the Hill:
Music figures heavily in our lives, and its always on in the house. We play music while we’re cooking dinner, with the person holding the baby also assuming DJ responsibilities, and we also just listen to it every other time as well.
The Kitten really enjoys music now, too, and has an ear that shows she loves what we love. I don’t know if it’s a true affinity for the same music we love, a love generated by a familiarity to the music we always play, an identification to certain beats that speak to her ( we dance with her to a lot of classic ska tunes), or just the fact that she likes what we like because it makes us happy, so she’s happy, but the baby’s music education is progressing famously, and I love sharing Thursday nights dance in the living room night with her.
I’m sure at some point, she’ll want to become a typical girl and embrace the latest pop sensation, or perhaps she’ll go for the one thing out of sheer rebelliousness that her parents aren’t in to (what form that will take remains to be seen – probably whatever is newest and most unlistenable at the time), but for now, we play the music, and she smiles.
It’s a good setup.
It’s just right.
