Amsterdam
We arrived in Amsterdam yesterday, (Monday) to a very cloudy, chilly day with intermittent rain. As usual, our plane got in early in the morning and our lodgings were not available until early afternoon. We are always desperately in need of sleep after an overnight flight and then getting in at 2:00 am eastern standard time. We have a picture of me dozing in front of the Orangerie in Paris while waiting for our hotel a few years ago.
We made the best of it, but we were just so tired that the day didn't really exist for us. We left our bags, luckily, and set out to see something of the neighborhood and get ourselves somewhat acquainted with the local streets. It seemed like hours and hours before we could return, but actually it was only about 3 hours.
We wandered around a bit, taking in the once-a-week street market which was just around the corner from our accommodations. It went for blocks and blocks. It was not anything like the markets in Paris, Florence or the English countryside that we have seen. It was tents covering vendors selling everything from "collectibles" to underwear, curtains, linens, various types of clothing for adults and children, and blocks and blocks of yard goods and findings.
We stopped and had lunch and then found our way back to check in. All this time, it was raining off and on and my umbrella was packed in my luggage. We were not the happiest of campers at the moment.
Our accommodations that Larry booked for us are in a houseboat on one of the couple hundred canals in Amsterdam. Like so many houseboats, it's a little bit like an oyster -- ugly on the outside and nice on the inside. This is a studio at the end of a houseboat. It is defininittely not as luxurious as the houseboat that we had in Paris for Larry's 60th birthday, but it suffices.
When we first arrived, we were chilled through and through from the chilly, rainy day. We collapsed on the bed and sofa and turned the heat up to warm up and get necessary rest. Here's a picture of the view from our dining table as we look out the window.
This morning, as we were having our breakfast, we were joined by a group of male and female swans looking for their breakfast as well. In the time that it took us to figure out how to open the sliding door and feed them, they had gone farther along the buffet line. Here they are before the moved on, as seen through the porthole of our studio.
The museum was a bit of a disappointment. We have seen more comprehensive exhibits elsewhere in special shows. The iconic paintings were not there. What we did see, however, was an excellent presentation of the progression of his style. Who knew that he had such a dark, traditional earlier period? We saw many paintings that were nothing like his later style. Only a Van Gogh scholar would have recognized them as his work.
The museum was inundated by local high school students. The museum guards, who normally are seen but never heard, were on "sssshhhhsss" patrol. Kids being kids, there was a fair amount of noise in the museum. The museum has a core in the center of the building going straight from ground floor to the top, that allows for sound to travel. The students found great fun in calling to each other on the opposite side galleries across the open center. There seemed to be a bit of a standoff between the kids and the guards. As it was approaching 3:00 pm, I figured that it would all come to an end when the kids had to leave for the day.
I'm glad that we went even though there were so few recognizable paintings there. For the purpose of comparison, they also had some paintings of other artists who influenced him or were his contemporaries in style or time. All in all, it was interesting. I know more about him now than I did before.
By the time that we left, we were both very tired of standing and walking. So, we followed that up by walking through the park nearby, the Vondelpark, It is a very well used park. Hundreds and hundreds of people bicycling through, some with their kids on the back or the front of their bikes and some with their kids in a little wagon that replaced the front wheel. Everyone, but EVERYONE here rides bikes. There must be a million of them in this city. Larry read that 180,000 bikes are reported stolen every year. There are very few cars, which is good because most streets are only one car wide. The "streets" are often paved with bricks instead of macadam. Everyone uses the same space -- the bikes, the cars, the few trucks, the pedestrians. Somehow, it all works and works well.
In the park, we stopped at a teahouse for a bit of capocino. This is a picture of the bikes people parked outside. It doesn't even show the half of them.
I am surprised that there are not more flowers planted along the streets and sidewalks. I expected to see a great display of flowers, but the only ones I've seen are by private citizens.