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Tapping to fast. to continue, a little bit tipsy.
Yes, nice the way you responded. Good that you can enjoy Gouda and Edam cheese in America.
I did not know that our exellent cheeses (yes, I am patriotic about our Duch cheeses and so cows) are available in the USA. They must be expensive as import cheeses? I always eat Gouda cheese (old or Mature). Good expression about England and the USA.
I hope that you can understand that the British influence is nearer than the Yankee one. Sometimes I feel that I am in a crossover transatlantic Anglo-saxon language, because of my own British-English education (highschool) and American family and Forum contacts.
My English South-African family of Cape town is more British oriented, because they descent directly from the British colonials (ties with Great-Britain and English Rhodesia -now Zimbabwe-).
With the Gitanos, you mean the Spanish gypsies who play Flamenco music? I have never tasted the latin fries, but your story is interesting.
I always thought that the Belgians were the inventers of fries, anyway the best fries or "chips" I ate in Belgium, and in Amsterdam I prefered the Flemish (big) fries, above the Duch fries and the french fries of McDonalds.

Pieter

Pieter

We can get the Gouda and Edam here in the states and the price is not bad. The only problem is that I could ear myself sick on that cheese, it is so good. Here we usually get the imported but there is also the domestic type which includes the smoked Edam. Perhaps it was the Belgins that invented fried potatoes, I don't know, but I enjoy them. Yes i mean the Spanish Gypsies. I have attended some of their juerga flamincas that lasted all night. The usual drink at these doings is a tall glass filled with rum and a shot of Coca-Cola added for one heck of a cuba libre. Flaminco music is one type of music that has to grow on you and sometimes it is hot, steamy and fast but always a story is to be told in the lines. There are many types of Flamenco and much of it depends on who is giving the rendition. Suffice it to say that the music, singing and dancing never stops.
Glad to hear that you had a good time at your party and I hope you don't have too much of a hangover the next day. Take care pieter. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Bob thanks for your respose.
Like you enjoy our cheeses so much I enjoy your Four Roses (kentucky) bourbon (whiskey), Jack Daniels abed Jim Beam with the good old jazz of Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker or Gerry Mulligan.
Two weeks ago I visited my classical branch of the family in the East of Holland. My aunt is crazy about Rag Time music and Gershwin. Her son has his own small quality classical cd company (Ottavo Recordings;
www.ottavo.nl). From this aunt I learned that Shostakovich not only made havy symphonies, but also light jazzy "Boogie Woogie" work. I heard it at her place for the first time. The Spanish Gypsy music Flamenco is very temperamentful and tense.
In Amsterdam I sometimes go to the old Amsterdam neigbourhood (now a yuppy area) to the Spanish music pub "El Duende", where on saturday evenings often is a peformance of a real Spanish singer and gitarist, with a mixed crowd of Spanish. latin-american and Duch people. I love that place and the authentic music they perform overthere. Rum I drank for the last time in Austria in 1989, during a highschool winter sport holiday. Stohrum is very strong (85%), is that rum you drank as strong as that. I got very drunk of it that time.
Yeah, it was a very good party in the Factory where I went last week too. There were not that many people,
but I met som of the people who were at my afterparty last week. With one chap I had a long discussion of the Interbellum (1918-1939) period, and especially the writer Joseph Roth (far family of Philiph Roth).
He said that I had to read this writer, because of my obsession with Middle-Europe at that time and especially the old Habsburg area, Austria, Hungary, Chechoslowakia and the South of Poland (Krak�w).
He also said that I was to obsesses with Poland and my Polish roots, and that that was because of my being cut of by that part of me, due not being able to speak Polish. I just ordered a thick dictionary Polish-Duch/Duch-Polish of the only Duch quality dictionary, Van Dale. I hope that with this dictionary and my course (books and cassettes) I will be able to get back on the track of learning Polish.
I stil find that the best thing to learn Polish is to have a Polish girlfriend. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Pieter

Sorry I forget to mention the name of the Old Amsterdam neighbourhood, the name is "De Jordaan".
In the past it was a real ordinary Amsterdam folk (common people) neighbourhood, where people spoke the really typical (hebrew, Jiddish and Flemish) influenced Amsterdam singing dialect, real Amsterdam people stil speak today. See: http://www.jordaaninfo.com/

Now the usable link of Ottavo of my cousin Edo Santman: www.ottavo.nl/ - 1k -

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner pieter but I was feeling a little under the weather. I don't remember the name of the rum I had but at the time it was good. Today I cannot do what I did when I was young but the memories are treasured. On your end it is good friends, good conversations, good drink all leading to a very nice evening. I have heard some very good Flamenco guitar players and if you close your eyes it seems as if there are 2 or 3 guitars playing at the same time. Flamenco is a blend of music from India, the Middle East and North Africa, It has a culture all its own and I do enjoy it very much. My two daughters use to dance Flamenco. My youngest daughter was also taking horse riding lessons (Spanish style) no reins and dancing horses. Both my daughters have families now and they are occupied with that large job. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

pieter. By the way, I did visit Rotterdam and that was quite the place. I saw the big ships comming in but it was the small harbor boats that were very interesting.

Good memories Bob. In Holland there is a Spanish influence, because of the Spanish occupation centuries
ago. In the South-Western Islands I come from (Zeeland-Sealand) the people are dark (black hear and dark eyes due to the Spanish unfluence, where in other parts people are more blond). The family from my fathers side comes from Rotterdam. From Rotterdam I like the open space, the seawind and the Museums.
I do not often come there. I do remember there HAL (Holland-America-Line; A big gathering hall were people from all over Europe gathered to go to the USA),
and behind that at the water of the Maas river Hotel New York. Rotterdam is the Modern city where Amsterdam is the historical city.
My father experianced the bombardement of Rotterdam
in may 1940. When they went into hiding in his fathers Bank building (his father was a bank director) the City was intact, when they came out the city was in flames and the sky was dark with smoke like it was night .
How older he gets my father more often talks about the old Rotterdam of his youth and shows me books with old black and white photographs of the thirties and paintings of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. His world is gone, the Romantic world of the Old Rotterdam.

In this site you can see that lost world: http://www.engelfriet.net/Alie/Charles/fotoscharles.htm

Pieter