Monday, September 9

We joined the AmaViola, our river ship for the week, around noon on Sunday. It was a breezy and cool day but there was finally some sun. The five of us all were given our rooms right away so I unpacked my suitcase and got everything hung up. Hopefully, the wrinkles will fall out a bit. The ship does not allow irons or any kind of heating device in the rooms for fear of fire.

We then met up in the lounge and started day drinking. The boat slowly filled with people and it seemed everyone was doing the same.

At 6:00 there was a cocktail hour with the captain where we met the crew and then were given our safety lecture. We signed up for the Chef’s table dinner for 7:00. It is a fixed multi-course meal that is the same every night. Th meal is served with wines to fit the various courses – Usually local wines

It started with an amuse-bouche of Heirloom tomato carpaccio and eggplant caviar.

Next was lemon pepper, turnip-cucumber tartar, vegetable vinaigrette, and chick pea mousseline.

The soup was a carrot and ginger with a dollop of tabbouleh crème fraiche topped with cumin ciabatta.

The next course was skin grilled sea bream with citrus sauce, celery mash, and beluga lentil ragout. Not a one of us remembered to get a picture, we just dived in and ate it right away! But it was artfully arranged and tasted great too.

The restaurant seats 25 each night and there is just the one chef who prepares it all and a couple of waiters to serve.

There was a palate cleanser of vineyard peach sparkling wine before the main course. It was green pea velouté, wild broccoli, guacamole, beet root, and Nebraska beef tenderloin. The beef was perfectly cooked and very tender and the little sides definitely enhanced the dish.

Dessert was rum raisin crumble (no one cared for it much) apple tartelette and vanilla ice cream on a little cookie plus thinly sliced apple chips.

lt was wonderful and we all had a fun time. The only thing that ruined it was there was a table of ‘ugly Americans’. The one man had a very annoying and extremely loud guffaw laugh. I embarrassed Frankie by imitating him hoping he would take the hint but of course he didn’t. The people at the next table came over and commiserated with us. (Not sure if the link will work but he was loud and constant.We have continued to hear him all over the ship.)

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0ei0qQZ4vdduauAAkmyIkc-tw#Amsterdam_-_Haarlemmerbuurt_&_Noord

After dinner we ended up back in the lounge and had more drinks and danced to the DJ tunes. Maybe we didn’t really need those extra drinks but we had fun while it lasted.

Went to bed and slept very well until about 5:45 am. Would have been nice to just lay around all morning but I had to get up and get some coffee and breakfast before our canal tour at 9:00.