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Published: November 10th 2006
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Two weeks ago, I was in Amsterdam with my friend Sarah (from Seattle). From Tuedsay at noon until Wednesday at 9pm, we wandered the city. It was my first time in Amsterdam (well, first time outside of the Schipol Airport/trainstation), and my first time in a hostel (if you've been to a summer camp like many of the ones I've been to, consider yourself hostel-ready). We got in a noon, and it rained all day. We walked from the Central Station (in the north of the city) to our Flying Pig hostel (in the south), and by the time we got to the Pig, we were soaked. Especially me, with my pants too long and soaking up all the puddles until my pants were wet up to above my knees. We dropped off our stuff and grabbed a beer at the bar in the downstairs of the hostel. Finally! Pints! (beer in Groningen comes in a cup just slightly larger than a dixie cup, with at least two-fingers width of foam on top, thats how they like it). We wandered and shopped for the rest of the afternoon, then ate some delicious Indian food and grabbed another beer at the hostel.
After that we went to the
Torture Museum. Sweet, huh? It is just a big house that has been converted to look dungeon-y and has on display implements of torture from throughout European history, but primarily the Spanish Inquisition. There were plaques describing the method, etc. It didn't cost much, so it wasn't really disappointing that it was kind of ghetto... and a little falling apart... Some of the things really did make me and Sarah gasp, so I guess we got our money's worth. I swear its not a skeevy as it may sound, and I link my interest to the criminology aspect...
Wednesday morning we woke up at 9am, had breakfast in the hostel, then headed out to the
Anne Frank House. Its good that we went early (which we only did because of the things we were planning for the day, it opened earliest), because the line was already 15 minutes long, but it wasn't raining, so we just enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate while we waited... The house was neat, and the features (like documentary clips about the house playing while you walked through) were very good. It was hard to really get
a feel for it because there is no furniture. After they were caught, the Annex was emptied and Otto Frank later requested that restorers not try to mimic the furniture that was there, but simply leave it empty. The result, however, is that the space doesn't seem all that small, as it surely was for the 8 living there.
After the House, we wandered back to the south of the city to the
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. This museum was
very good. There were a lot of good pieces, but their most prized piece is
The Night Watch by Rembrandt. I had been told before that it was large, but its so big that the figures in the painting are just under
life-sized! I wonder how long it took to paint... The whole museum was very enjoyable, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone.
After the Rijksmuseum, we grabbed lunch at a Bagels & Beans (a coffee place that is apparently the only place you can get bagels in the Netherlands). We then headed to the
Van Gogh Museum. This one is under renovation, so only "his most important" works are on display. It was a bit of a disappointment.
They don't have ANY of his famous works there, at all. There are one or two paintings of sunflowers, but it is my understanding that he painted TONS of those, so I'm not overly impressed. It was neat to see the actual paintings that he had made, to see the brushstrokes, etc, but I was really hoping to see something that I at least
recognized, but no. Guess I gotta go to France sometime...
All-in-all, it was a good trip, and I'm glad I got to see so much... In two days I head to The Hague for the weekend, and back to Amsterdam for another Awakenings concert at the end of November. I believe my classes will be done around December 7, so hopefully I'll make it over to Germany and Belguim in December, provided I can find people to go with (for some reason most of the people I'm friends with here are not really looking to travel much... and many already live in Europe, so they've often been-there-done-that).
At any rate, thanks for reading, and leave comments if you want. :-)
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