v.k. visits (part 2)

monday (con't):

before i keep going on our dining experience at cafe de punt, i forgot to mention our process of getting to amsterdam. v.k. was staying at an airport hotel in an place called hoofddorp, which is one of those places that grew up out of the fact that the airport was near. we took the train to schiphol and then took the airport shuttle to the hotel. we check in. then we proceed to wander and wander and wander around looking for the hoofddorp train station (which the concierge at the hotel said was a 10-minute walk away). it was closer to half an hour. we finally get to the train station and buy our tickets from the convenience store/ticket sales desk and are on our way. pretty funny. theme food of the day: kit kat mcflurry. but we never actually had one. :-(

so cafe de punt. cute waiter, named mark (as i found out later). we figure we'll stop at cafe de punt for a drink and then make our way back to homey italian restaurant. we strike up a conversation with our waiter, who is lavishing attention on us -- likely because we are the only customers except for 3 weird old men, playing video lottery machines in the corner. yes, we went to a classy place with v.l.t. machines. one of the creepy old men was a total lech. he kept staring at us. i made the mistake of smiling at him once when he walked by. apparently in his world that was an invitation to be ogled. perv.

the waiter convinces us that we should eat at cafe de punt. the food, he says, is the best in de pijp. the owner is the chef and he is a fantastic cook. the food is wonderful. in particular, he recommends a salad. actually, he recommends everything. i wonder if he receives a commission for each meal he sells. so we shrug our shoulders and decide to eat at cafe de punt.

the conversation was mostly about our single status and how outrageous it is that two fine ladies such as ourselves are lacking in the romance department. i suspect that the waiter is listening in on our conversation. we talk to the waiter - a lot. we ask him all sorts of questions. he lives in an abandoned office building with a bunch of other people. his room is a former corner-office. and he is legally living in this place to keep out illegal squatters. it's some strange law in the netherlands where you have building management companies filling up abandoned buildings with legit tenants to avoid having illegit ones. strange.

we are flirting like mad with the waiter. all is fun. creepy guys stares. we tell on him - the waiter comes back to announce that he's left. in the meantime, another patron had come into the restaurant: a middle-aged dutch man. he sits to my right and also orders a drink and dinner. he starts doodling on the paper place mat. we pay him no mind, until we strike up a conversation with him. v.k. asks him what dutch men are known for across europe. he tells us that dutch men are known to be good husbands, but kind of boring. haha. turns out he went to law school but never practiced - he ended up working for an academic publisher. he was pretty curious about our work as lawyers, and said that he could tell we had lived in ny because of how quickly we bantered with one another.

it turned out that the dutch man -- his name is martin -- was doodling a picture of me in side-profile. as v.k. noted (and i agree), he made me look older than i am, and gave me some sharp features, but you can tell that it's supposed to be me. there's enough of a resemblance. so, we continue to chat up our waiter, leave a too large for europe tip and head back to the train station.

we'd spent the entire evening at cafe de punt. whew. it was a long drawn-out dinner, punctuated with moments of ridiculousness. for example, i had written a list of all the qualities we want in a man (qualities that no one person could ever hope to have) in a little book i carry around for brainstorming. then i got the idea of asking mark for recommendations of places to go for music, drinks, dancing, etc. he started telling me some places and then told me he'd write them down in the book. he took the book from me, a pen (the pen that the dutch man used, actually, to draw my profile) and started diligently setting out his recommendations. i was convinced that he had seen our list of man-qualities and was laughing his ass off.

anyway, we did finally leave cafe de punt, and make our way back to the aiport, catching the last shuttle back to the hotel. an excellent day.