Amsterdam II

Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006).

I have eaten two fried eggs and three crumpets and am drinking coffee so now feel able to delve deeper into Poul Anderson's Amsterdam.

Janne Floris' apartment building is "...one of a row on a quiet street, handsome relics from around 1910." (p. 481)

1910: we immediately think of decades of history and also, in this context, of time travel. A directory states Janne's name, floor and profession. Standard practice in Amsterdam? (Cover profession, of course.)

(While speaking to Janne, Everard thinks, "With half a million years or more to guard, the Patrol's forever undermanned..." (p. 485) Only half a million? Has the timeline changed without anyone noticing?)

On returning from horrors at the Roman old Camp, Everard:

"...walked the Amsterdam streets for hours on end, bathing in the decency of the twentieth-century Netherlands." (p. 521)

This next venue reads to me very much like a place where Poul and Karen Anderson had been while holidaying in the Netherlands: the Ambrosia, a Surinam-Caribbean restaurant is on Stadthouderskade and also on a canal in a quiet neighborhood near the Museumplein. The black cook discusses Manse's and Janne's meal with them in fluent English.

They leave the restaurant into mild air smelling of spring after cleansing rain and see a canal boat with a glistening wake.

"They turned from the water and passed between old facades." (p 522)

Walking home, Janne describes her parents. Her father was in the Dutch navy and her mother in the resistance as a schoolgirl during the War. After that, they settled in Amsterdam where she taught Dutch history! Janne also describes her fifteen years among the Frisii, from 22 to 37 AD, and how much she appreciated hot baths, electric lights etc on her return.

Another cyclist passes. Those are the main details about Amsterdam.