Day 1 Amsterdam

Sunday, 5/24 9am
Kris

We arrived in Amsterdam @ 7am yesterday. The architecture & interior design of the airport blows away anything I've seen in the states. They actually allow for creative freedom. Ha. We validated our rail passes, used the ATM to get some euros, and bought 2 coffees for 3euro each. Ouch! Look out Starbucks, you have a solid contender for most expensive coffee.

Then we hit the trains for Amsterdam. 1st class is spacious and comfortable. Our train was completely empty, and no one even bothered to check our ticket. Anyone could have walked off the street onto the train for a free ride. No chance that would have happened in the states.

Coming out of the station, you're greeted by an awesome view of the canals, churchs and stations. There were bicycles EVERYWHERE.

We decided to wander through the city rather than take a tram to our hotel. It was a good decision...the city ended up being waaay smaller than we thought, based on looking at the map. We ended up walking twice as far as necessary before realizing we'd passed our side street. The city was nearly silent at 8 in the morning on a Saturday, and every direction you looked could have been a postcard. We went through Dam square and looped around to the Singel Canal and checked into the Hoksbergen Hotel, a quaint little canal house. There might be 20 rooms here, max. We dropped off our larger packs and headed back out towards the Rijksmuseum.

We stood in line for about 35-40 minutes before entering, which sort of gave us a chance to catch our breath. The museum is known for its collection of Rembrandts, Vermeers, Hals, & Steens: 1600's Dutch art at its best. The lower level contained Delftware, some really incredible doll houses (thought I'd never say that), various metal craftware, and various artwork. The piece that caught my eye was a painting that showed Protestants vs Catholics fishing for new souls in a lake with a large blue and white rainbow overhead. I'm going to have to look that one up.

The upper levels contained the most famous paintings. There were many portrait pieces that captured the style of the day and paintings depicting everyday life. Most paintings conveyed a sense of merriment or peace --rather straightforward, you're not really asked to figure out what the artist was thinking or trying to convey. The style of most artists was sort of soft edges, with soft and minimal use of color. There were also many still-lifes that captured every detail--water droplets, reflections, etc.

The Rembrandt collection was very impressive. The details in his paintings are unbelievable. He knew how to draw the eye of the viewer to the most important aspects of the painting by using targeted areas of detail and the use of light. What I loved the most was how his paintings could convey an impression of motion, making the paintings seem alive. The best examples were the Drapers Guild and the Night Watch. Let me tell you, you have not experienced art until you have stood in front of Rembrandt's Night Watch. I was in awe. The painting must be at least 12ft tall and 16ft wide and the details are absolutely incredible. It alone is worth spending 11 euro to go back in and see again.

The Vermeers were interesting to me, mainly because I know the history behind the artist from "Girl with a Pearl Earring". It was really satisfying to stand in front of some of his works in the country where he lived. His ability to capture fine details in an otherwise ordinary subject matter was impressive. Similar to Rembrandt, he used lighting to draw the eye to specific locations in the painting.

After the Rijksmuseum we wandered around looking for somewhere to eat, settled for outdoor seating in Leidsplein square in front of the concert hall at a Heineken restaurant. Then we headed towards the van Gogh musuem. We were both pretty wiped out, so we followed the example of others and laid down in the grass for about a half-hour in the Museumplein park area. I could have slept for hours out there.

The van Gogh musuem painted (no pun intended) an excellent picture of the life and evolution of van Gogh. His early work was very dark, then he went through the phase where he adopted the slashing brush strokes, ultimately using it the rest of his life, but in shorter strokes. Then he began his color phase, even to the extent that he went back and redid some of his own works and Rembrandt's in color. There was an entire section that was devoted to sort of his "decline" -- the years he spent in the mental institute just before he shot himself in the chest. These works were still impressive, but noticeably not as intricate as his previous works. He was quoted as saying that he felt like he couldn't paint anymore. To me, the struggle in his later work seemed to indicate that maybe he had done everything he could with the bright colors and short, abrupt brush stroke style, but couldn't determine what to do next with his art.

What we didn't realize until the end is that the musuem had a temporary "colors of night" side gallery containing van Gogh's works that featured dusk & night. Again, here is the emphasis on directionality of light. Many were images of wheat fields and common laborers heading home after a days work with the sun setting in the background. Mixed in with these was a work called "The Potato Eaters". Check it out. Pretty powerful. Basically a dark room with a light fixture glowing over a table where 4 or 5 women are seated. After viewing this, we moved on to some of his most popular works: The two starry nights and the sowers.

We went back to the hotel afterwards and crashed for a few hours, then went out to Rembrantsplein for a good dinner at a small italian eatery and then on to Coco's (Australian pub) for a beer. We then ended up at this tiny local pub...no one seemed to speak English...which is the first place we really encountered this. We couldn't figure out the music...it was all Dutch I guess. Everyone in the place was singing along. I asked the bartender if it was traditional local music or more modern..I have no idea what she replied with... We checked out of there by 00:30 and headed home for some much needed sleep.