Museums, Last night in Amsterdam, boarding the Scenic Jade

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Sunday was about the two other famous museums in Amsterdam: the Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum. The Van Gogh is structured as a narrative which takes you through his development as an artist. Fascinating, engrossing and ultimately overwhelming in it's detail. I had heard that many of his famous works are elsewhere which seems to be true. Much of what is on the wall is "developmental"; i.e. he was working on his approach and technique. Many of these pieces seem weaker than those he is known for. Nevertheless, there is plenty of "good stuff" like "Wheatfield with Crows" with that distinctive thick palette and bold color. The Rijksmuseum which is the size of an modern indoor arena has a vast collection but we were there to see the "Dutch Masters" (Vermeer, Rembrandt et al) and the collection did not disappoint. It seems every famous painting from the era is there (1600s). The detail and technique these men (and one women) developed is stunning and a light year's leap ahead of what came before. We did, once again, learn that our tolerance for museums is about two hours. Fortunately, by taking the "highlight" tours, we were able to see the best of each before our eyes started spinning.

The rest of Sunday was about packing, washing our clothes and having a nice Italian dinner at a local place around the corner.

Unfortunately, our laundry did not dry overnight. Our hostess was afraid a clothes dryer will burn her place down (it has apparently happened locally) so my first task Monday was to walk a mile to the nearest laundromat to dry our stuff. A substantial tip was required to get the attendant to let me do this. Finally packed, we were off to the dock where our ship awaited.

There is a story about this. The cruise line does not know in advance where they will be docked in Amsterdam. The passenger has to call the night before to get this location. So, in trying to discover where our ship would be the next morning, I accessed a website which showed where all of the Scenic Cruises ships were currently located. Our ship seemed to be in Budapest!

I called the ship and they said, "Yup, we are in Budapest. You are joining a different ship in Amsterdam". This led me to discover we would be sailing on the Scenic Jade instead of the Scenic Jasper but in a series of phone calls I was given the wrong dock location. Fortunately, someone from Customer Service was notified about our inquiry and called with the correct information. Since early boarding was possible, we got there at noon and were literally the first passengers aboard. The Cruise Director actually took us aside and explained what happened. The long and the short of it was that our original ship had to stay in Budapest in case low water required it to meet us on the other side of the impassible stretch. The good news was that it appears our cruise may be the first one to make it from Amsterdam to Budapest without buses or changing ships since last spring. It has been raining heavily in Germany druing the last week and the prediction is that we will make it all the way. Fingers crossed.

These river ships are amazingly lux and comfortable. When I can get a good shot, I'll post a photo and talk about the vessel. Interesting fact about this cruise, though, most of the passengers are Canadian or Aussies. There are only about 12 Americans aboard.

We are off North Holland early in the morning for windmills and countryside (which we have seen none of since we got to the Netherlands). Hoping for some good shooting.

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