WHERE DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN IT RAINS?

There are times when the destination is the point of the journey, times when the journey itself is the point. And sometimes it is neither. The way-stations of the journey are what is important.

I was watching the cat-bus scene from My Neighbor Totoro recently, when I realized that only the large dignified furry creature was actually going somewhere. The two little girls were just waiting - the place itself was the purpose, though neither the beginning nor end of their journey.

There should have been a restaurant or café at that bus-stop. Or perhaps a noodle shop. But if there had been such a business, they would not have shared the umbrella with the troll.

Really, there's only one indoors environment in the universe where I could imagine the troll waiting for transit in the company of two little girls.


THE STATION RESTAURANT
One of the pleasures of life is arriving early at Amsterdam Central Station, so that one may refresh oneself while waiting for the train to Bun Futz in Brabant (or wherever you are going). You do this at the Grand Café Restaurant in the terminal, next to track 2B.
High ceilings. Palm trees. Coffee. A parrot.

[Address: Stationsplein 15, Centraal Station, Amsterdam; Postal code: 1012 AB. Tel: (020) 625 01 31 Fax: (020) 625 01 31]


SUMATRA HALF-CORONAS
Until a few years ago you could still smoke inside, now alas that is verboden. Times change.

In 1975 and 1976 I was there several times, enjoying the typical Dutch pleasures of a cigar and a demitasse. Sometimes a pastry, sometimes a light meal. And sometimes a big bowl of ice cream - I was, after all, still in my mid-teens, and still had childish tastes. But always a smoke, timed exactly for the period before boarding.
Once, when it was crowded, I shared the table with an angular elderly gentleman reading a newspaper. Our only moments of contact had been when I asked if he minded me sitting there, and when he had borrowed my matches to light up. After finishing his cigar he folded his newspaper very neatly, stood up, and said "bedankt voor de vriendelijke stilte, het was zeer aangenaam" ('thanks for the friendly silence, it was very enjoyable'). He then went to catch the train for the Hague, which was arriving at that precise moment.

Twelve minutes later I finished my cigar just as the train for 'sHertogenbosch pulled in.

No wasted tobacco - there's something to be said for a Dutch sense of time.


Whenever you go to Amsterdam, visit the Station Restaurant. Same thing in Antwerp. These two places are, really, the beginning and end-points of the Dutch world. Both train stations evoke the era of foreign possessions and prosperity born from tropical imports, both speak of a different time, and a different sense of our place in the universe.
They have outlived the empires. One no longer drinks coffee from "our" Java, the cigars are no longer from "our" Sumatra. The Dutch coffee and Tea companies are now largely owned by Sarah Lee, the cigar companies are almost all held by Swedish Match, and many of the great mercantile enterprises are now headquartered elsewhere.
Even the rattan in the chairs comes from 'just someplace warm'.
At the other end of the platform there is now a Burger King for the feckless. Times have changed.


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