Amsterdam
It's finally time to go to Amsterdam. I've been looking forward to
this trip because I lived in Holland in the late 80's. Last year I was going to
move to either Holland or Belgium, but since the move was in November, I thought
about how cold it would be. I opted to start my adventure in a warmer climate,
so I came to Malta instead. Living in that area is most certainly still on my
to do list. I checked the weather forecast and it looked chilly, so I brought a
jacket. Sadly, I should have brought a parka because it was cold, windy and
rainy the whole week!
We landed and hopped on the train. The train station was attached to
the airport, so it was by far the easiest transport we've had. We were talking
about what we were going to do after checking into our hotel when a man 2 seats
up turned around and glared at us. We looked at him like WTF? He then looked
up at the silence sticker on the window. Apparently we were in the silent car,
and oh man did they adhere to it. When the train stopped, several people
whispered to us that we could talk in the next car. Good to know.
We headed to the city center to get the I Amsterdam pass. It's one
of those city passes where you pay €70 and you get access to various tourist
attractions like museums and the canal cruise as well as unlimited use of most
public transportation. Some of the places I saw included the
Van Gogh, Rembrandt , Ann Frank, and De Nieuwe Kerk museums. I also visited a
canal house, 2 photography museums, a church in an attic and a house boat.
Normally I wouldn't have spent so much inside, but like I said before, it was
very cold and rainy. I just added up what it would have cost had I paid for
each attraction and it was €129. I guess it was a good bargain then! https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/i-am/i-amsterdam-city-card
I'm sure most people know the basic story of Ann Frank. She was a 13 year
old German Jew. The Frank family moved from Germany to Amsterdam in 1933
when the Nazis gained control over Germany. By May 1940, they were trapped in
Amsterdam by the German occupation of the Netherlands. As persecutions of the
Jewish population increased in July 1942, the family went into hiding in some
concealed rooms behind a bookcase in the building where Ann's father worked. On
13 July 1942, the Franks were joined by the van Pels family: Hermann, Auguste,
and 16-year-old Peter, and then in November by Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist and
friend of the family. In early August 1944, the group was betrayed and
transported to concentration camps. Ann and her sister Margot were eventually
transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they died (probably
of typhus) in February or March 1945, just weeks before the camp was liberated
in April. Otto Frank, the only survivor of the family, returned to Amsterdam
after the war to find that Ann's diary had been saved by one of the helpers,
Miep Gies, and his efforts led to it's publication in 1947.
I had been to the Ann Frank house before, and it was pretty much as I had
remembered it. Walking around in the house, it was hard to believe so many
people were successfully hidden in there for as long as they were. In reading
up on their story, I was surprised that they still don't know who betrayed
them. Two of the suspects were Miep's sister or the stock room manager. Others
suspect it could have been someone who noticed movement in the office building
after hours.
I visited both the Van Gogh and Rembrandt museum, but I'm not really
interested in art so they were pretty quick visits. I was more interested in
two photography museums I found. The first was the Huts Marseille Museum. This
was a small building that basically showcased 2 collections. The first was the
Finnish photographer Esko Männikkö titled Time Flies. Männikkö lived in a remote area of
northern Finland. He saw beauty in his immediate surroundings and in the people
who lived in this sparsely populated area. He took thousands of photos of the
every day decay and deterioration. Doorposts whose paint is peeling off,
weather beaten buildings, faces that showed a hard life etched in every line,
and abandoned buildings that were falling down. Basically he hoped to capture
scenes that expressed the passing of time. I would say he succeeded. http://www.huismarseille.nl/en/
The next artist was a young Dutch woman name Hanne Van der Woude. In 2009
she became friends with an older married couple. 83 year old Emmy and her
husband Ben. She lived with them for 5 years; sharing their joys and sorrows
including Ben's terminal illness and passing. Her photos showed a pretty
graphic glimpse of their daily life, including Egbert's underwear and catheters
drying on the line, Emmy brushing her hair, scenes from a trip the group took to
France, Ben taking a bath the day before he died, and Emmy caring for her bed
ridden husband. It was a touching collection; a very personal insight into
their lives.
The 2nd museum, Foam, was much more up beat and had the type of photography
I prefer. Like the previous gallery, they rotate their exhibitions, showing a
new artist every month or two. During my visit, they had a fantastic
collections of African wildlife. When you walked in, the first thing you saw
was a massive picture of a bull elephant looking directly at the camera. There
were many pictures of elephants, zebras, lions and other wildlife, as well as a
large collection of nature shots. There is a National Geographic museum in DC
that shows the work of various National Geographic photographers. They get the
most amazing pictures of wildlife, and nature herself. I saw one collection of
storms and weather photos. It was amazing, especially when you consider what
the photographer had to go through just to get that one impossible shot The
photographs at the Foam were for sale, but at €500 a shot, it was a little above
my souvenir budget. http://www.foam.org/
I visited a small canal museum that basically told the story of how the
city was build and the part the canals played. The exhibits were really
interesting, the first one had everyone stand around a big conference table and
told the story of the different ideas the city planners initially had, while
projecting images of their sketches onto the table. In the next room you were
surrounded by images of the houses under construction, and they explained that
the city was basically build on huge pilings driven into the soggy ground. The
next room had a huge doll house in the center. You could look in each room and
see different scenes from the past. Along the walls were murals of the city,
with rooms built behind it. You could look through a small eye hole at the more
popular buildings like the Ann Frank house or the Van Gogh museum for example.
It was a small museum, but very interesting. http://www.hetgrachtenhuis.nl/en/
I visited a houseboat museum, which was basically just a look inside a
house boat. I was curious how it compared to living in an RV, which I did for
almost 3 years as I traveled around the US. I think the houseboat had more
room. The owner said it's about the size of an average Amsterdam apartment,
which is certainly much smaller than most US apartments. http://www.houseboatmuseum.nl/
The Church in the Attic was interesting because it showed life in a 17th
century Dutch canal house. It was the home of Jan Hartman, a rich
merchant during the time when the country's official religion was Protestant.
Catholic churches were banned but Amsterdam, being a live and let live city,
turned a blind eye to churches inside private residences. From 1661 to 1663,
Hartman converted his 3 story attic in to a church that could accommodate 150
people. The lower levels were his home and the museum was filled with your
typical period pieces.
I basically spent 3 days just hopping from one museum to another to avoid
the rain and wind. I typically don't spend much time at museums and art
galleries, but I did thoroughly enjoy the ones I visited. Maybe because they
were small and quirky. I also enjoyed walking around the city during the dry
periods, and just soaking it all in. Even with the poor weather, people were
out enjoying themselves. It may have been due, in some small part, to the
overwhelming aroma of marijuana wafting out the doors of the coffee shops on
every corner. I thought about sampling some myself, but I didn't really care
for it as a teenager and I didn't expect it to be any different now. There
were many markets selling fresh food, cheese, hot baked goods, flower bulbs, and
typical souvenirs. I got some waffles cookies that I remembered from before and
they were as good as ever. We ate the first 2 packs that night, so I had to go
back for more. I had been talking about Dutch pannekoeken ever since we began
planning our trip. They are a kind of Dutch pancakes, but closer to crapes. We
found a restaurant that advertised the best pannekoeken in the world, not just
Amsterdam and thought, this is the place for us! Sadly, it was a bit of a let
down. Not theirs specifically, they were very good, but the pannekoeken in
general. I don't know what I was expecting, I remembered them being much
thicker, more like a pizza almost. I am happy to say I was not disappointed
with the Poffertjes. These are tiny pancakes, with powdered sugar and fruit or
Nutella on top. There were food stands everywhere selling this delicious little
treat and that made the cold just a little more bearable.
One night was so cold and wet we just couldn't bring ourselves to go into
the city . We decided to eat in the hotel restaurant. I ordered Thai soup and
a Caesar salad. What could go wrong, right? Here's the thing... I wear
contacts to see at any distance. But as I get older, I now need reading glasses
to see up close. If there is good light, I can basically make out a menu if I
forget my glasses, which I do all too often. This was one of those times, but
the restaurant was dim and I couldn't see a thing on the menu! I knew I wanted
soup and salad so Mic read off my choices. No problem, who can screw up a
Caesar salad? When it came it looked like I expected and I dug in. It all
went south at the very first bite. OMG what did I just put in my mouth?
Apparently had we read the description, or if I could have seen the food in
front of me, I would have known there were whole anchovies in the salad. And a
lot of them! Even writing this, I can still taste it LOL. I couldn't even
pick them out and just eat the lettuce because I couldn't see well enough
between the dim light and being blind! Plus, the risk was just too great that I
would bite down on another one by accident. Lucky for me, the soup was a meal
in itself and very good. I know there are anchovies blended in Caesar salad
dressing sometimes but it's very different actually biting into one, especially
when you're not expecting it.
Our last day in Amsterdam, Mic joined me for some sightseeing. We did a
canal cruse but couldn't really get good pictures due to the glass cover. We
went to the Body Works exhibit. I had been to it before in Chicago. If you get
a chance to see it, I recommend you go, its fascinating. According to
Wikipedia, Body Worlds is a traveling exhibition of preserved human bodies and
body parts that are prepared using a technique called plastination to reveal
inner anatomical structures. Body Worlds exhibitions have received more than 37
million visitors, making them the world's most popular touring attraction. The
exhibit states that it's purpose and mission is the education of laymen about
the human body, leading to better health awareness. All the human plastinates
are from people who donated their bodies for plastination via a body donation
program. Each Body Worlds exhibition contains approximately 25 full-body
plastinates with expanded or selective organs shown in positions that enhance
the role of certain systems. More than 200 specimens of real human organs and
organ systems are displayed in glass cases, some showing various medical
conditions. It's a very interesting and education exhibition.
I wanted to take a trip down memory lane and go visit my old house and the
places I hung out when I lived there, but we just didn't have time. After
spending almost a week in the cold rain, it was so nice to get home to 70 degree
weather. Apparently after suffering through the coldest winter in 50 years last
year, Malta is now enjoying one of the warmest Decembers in recent memory.
;
Link to pictures:
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