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After my affair with Vermeer was over, we continued on through Den Haag to the Peace Palace. However, the map I was using was wildly out of scale and it took us roughly 2 hours to walk to the Peace Palace. Because I had not made an appointment for us to visit the grounds, we did not stay long, but looked outside, which was gorgeous, saw the beautiful building in which Rockefeller donated lots of money to build, and then took a trip around the World Peace flame. Hardly worth the hike, but interesting none the less. After a irritatingly slow-late lunch in Den Haag, we jumped the train for Delft.
This is the “small” little town famous for it’s hand-painted, white and blue porcelain. Though Delft is a nice place, we didn’t see too much of it. The Royal Porcelain Factory closed at 5pm, so we had roughly 30 minutes to walk there, pick some things out and leave. I personally felt like a tool for not going through the factory on a tour, but so be it. It was a beautiful place! I had my mind on getting something for my mother for her birthday. We “toured” the gift shop and found some lovely Delft tiles, a porcelain pitcher for my mother, and various other items. It was quite fun. After that we walked back to the train, amidst many rush-hour professionals making their way back to their homes for the weekend. It was Friday, after all.
Our last day ended with a not-so-big bang. It ended, like every other day in Amsterdam had. With us wandering around looking for food. We decided to take an detour on our search, and ended up with a large crowd meandering down one of the canal streets. Up ahead I saw many windows reflecting a bright red out of them. They dotted the street like fireflies, or those lamps that attracted fireflies. Except these attracted a different kind of fly…the human fly. We had found ourselves in the Red Light District at night. as we walked down the street, we came to one bright red window, and in it stood the most interesting mannequin I’d ever seen. Then it BLINKED. OOOHHHHHH, silly girl. These were the women of the red light district. Moving ever so slowly in order to emphasize their figures in their scandalous dress. As I nudged Brother Bee to get his attention, his cheeks turned the same color as the lights, and we didn’t spend much time admiring these women with interesting career choices. And what about the empty red light windows???
Never mind that. It was back to the hostel, packing, and getting ready to shove off. Bon Voyage!
On our final day in the Netherlands, we decided to get out of Amsterdam and into “the countryside.” Apparently we went the wrong way because all we saw where buildings, homes, buildings, farms and buildings. Oh yeah, and people. We took the train to Den Haag, which is the capital of Holland. There wasn’t too much to do here, except for one amazing thing. Maybe amazing to girls, not so much to boys.
The Maritus Huis in Den Haag is home to Vermeer’s Famous Girl with a Pearl Earring. The Maritus Huis is a beautiful building that used to be a family residence. However, it has sense been turned into this art museum. The great thing about the museum is you wouldn’t know it was there unless you KNEW. It’s tucked away off of the main streets in Den Haag, and there’s relatively no advertising for it. But thanks to Frommer’s, we knew exactly where we were heading. Inside you can see all kind of art by many famous Netherlands painters, from Rembrandt to Van Gogh to Vermeer. They have quite an extensive collection of beautiful art from all periods and all types and mediums. The most wonderful feeling, however, is when you are looking for Girl. Let me paint (ha!) you the picture:
You enter The Maritus Huis from the basement through the servant’s entrance. You can see the gift shop, so the excitement of seeing the original Girl is building up inside you. As you climb the staircase that leads you gracefully into the center of the first flower, you look around, take in the art, but all the while knowing that Girl is there somewhere, waiting for you to seek her out. You try to keep yourself calm by reminding your anxious heart, “She’s here! She’s here! Don’t worry! We’ll get there. Just enjoy the wonderful art and don’t miss out on anything!” But that becomes increasingly hard as you wander through the rooms and yet, you’re looking for someone. Climbing the stairs to the third floor, you’re surrounded by still lifes of tulips and Lilies and various other flowers as your audio tour hums in your ear, “Naturally, these flowers wouldn’t bloom all together, but here (such and such artist) portrays the eleg”….blah, blah. I KNOW! But where is she???
You enter the room, resigned to the fact that you might have to go back through again and find her. As you stare into the stamens of another tulip, you look to your left. Here, Brother Bee is looking at a painting, then back at you, and then at the painting. As you turn, you realize, your senses weren’t on radar. Here she is! In all her splendor. The Girl with the pearl earring is staring back at you. She’s not on her own pedestal or behind glass. She’s hanging on the wall with other pictures as plain as can be. But you can’t help thinking to yourself, that this is how she should be. In fact, Girl with a Pearl Earring was never supposed to be that big of a deal, but yet, it’s Vermeer’s simplicity with this painting that makes her stand out beyond all others. Not to mention that Tracy Chevalier made her famous with her book, Girl with a Pearl Earring. Oh yes, and the movie.
I was enchanted, charmed, stunned, and moved. It was almost as good as seeing a celebrity…without the paparazzi, flashing lights, and “I make millions of dollars” attitude. It was surreal to say the least, and completely wonderful. Am I in love? Quite possibly. But I can only imagine what goes through one’s head while traveling around The Louvre. I assume it’s much of the same.
After our second not-so-restful night in our Piggy Beds, our second day in Amsterdam was to be glorious. We started off our day doing what else? Searching for our breakfast. It is a surreal experience~one part adventurous, one part frighting having to search for your food. However, once you find food, you’re filled with the sense of accomplishment and nourishment. We were in search of the narrowest house in Amsterdam. It was somewhere around that square that was filled with school children dressed in bright yellow construction vests do some sort of exercising/sitting around/loud music/completely confusing.
We grabbed some food at a nearby bakery and wandered around questioning the point of children being out of school to do nothing…unorganized fun, apparently. We found ourselves in Amsterdam’s Chinatown. It is, from what I could tell, only a couple of block long, but surprisingly ornate. A wonderful little street to find yourself lost in. We traveled around the square marveling at the students, while keeping a weathered eye open for the narrow house. But we failed. We did not find the narrowest house, we merely gave up!
But we were bound for the Heineken brewery! After a short walk we found ourselves at the doors to the brewery. As we entered we were enveloped in the smell of hops and freshly created beer. We paid our wages to go inside and drink in the art of making beer. Touring the facility was a lot like the tours of Lehrkind’s Coca Cola factory back home, but this time in a purely adult world. As we saw the vats, boilers, copper machinery that worked hops into liquid, we were tempted by the fact that our ticket got us two free beers from the pub attached to the factory. And all at 11am! Wahoo! After that wonderful dip into what Frommer’s calls, “Alternative Amsterdam,” we crawled our way to some lunch.
Lunch was in the form of a small, family owned diner where I experienced some traditional Netherlands food, Gouda with mustard and these potato and meet fried balls of which the name escapes me. It’s like balls of shepard’s pie fried, but without the peas. Quite delightful.
After a nice lunch, we headed back to the Dam to visit the royal palace. This is a spectacular residence in the heart of the old Amsterdam. Intact and beautiful, it is a vision from the outside, but the inside is radiant. Flowing with furniture from all times, your guided tour floats from room to room as you absorb the reality that the current family still lives there. You don’t get to see the family, of course, but you do get to view the court rooms, and everything but their private areas (not THOSE private areas). We completed the tour and headed to the hostel for some showers and to ready ourselves for the movie!
Now, I’ve already described our first encounter with the Amsterdam movie theatres, but our second was delightful! As we approached the Theatre Tuschinsky that I had pictures of, I was genuinely excited to see the movie. Some might call it a waste of time, seeing a movie in a foreign country, but still, this was an experience to be had! It was wonderful. The 1920s Art Deco was amazing! We bought our tickets outside, and wandered inside and around the modern part, passing through the lobby which was decorated with sharp angle contrasts, but wild colors. I felt like Greta Garbo or Grace Kelly wandering these halls. Inside the theater were perfect plush red velvet seats. We settled in as some of the first people there and watched and listened to people as they came in. Apparently we had “Americans” tatooed on our foreheads, but it didn’t matter to me much. After the movie, we sleepily headed out ready for a good night of sleep. This definitely was the wonderful end to a slightly made up story. But I will leave you with this…
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!
Brother Bee and I spent a fantastic night (dripping with sarcasm) in our hostel. I’m pretty sure if it wasn’t the fantastically loud slamming of our hostel door that woke me up every ten minutes, it was the wonderment that I’d have to spend another 3 nights with these people. I mean really. I forgot to add that right before we crawled into our beds for the night, I went to brush my teeth (good, good) and returned to find our lower bunk-mate’s clothing spread out across my suitcase! Not to mention their stuff strewn about the room covering not only their 1 square foot of space, but ours as well. So, I oh-so-tactfully tossed her sweaty shirt back onto her own suitcase, moved her tooth brush away from mine, and made sure that my Sherpani bag was tucked next to me the whole night. But I’m being facetious.
We woke up, dressed, and headed out. Having no desire to kill more brain cells by way of marijuana smoke, we headed to a local pastry shop to grab breakfast. Delicious. We then charted our way to the museums and through Day 1 of my Frommer’s Amsterdam Day-by-Day book. This lead us to the Rijksmuseum, which is currently 90% under construction, but they have moved all of the “important” works to the last 10% so you don’t really miss too much. Here we saw all kinds of works from important artists like Monet, Manet, Rembrandt, and my favorite, Vermeer, who was a Dutch painter, so most of his known works have stayed in the Netherlands. There was also a casket with a dead guy inside, his armor, and parts of his own art collection…never know what you’ll find.
From there we made way to the Van Gogh Museum. This is the largest collection of Van Gogh originals in one place in the world. It was fantastic. Set on three floors, it includes numerous paintings, over 900 letters to his brother, and collections of his contemporaries and students. Most famous is on of his 5 sunflower paintings which was amazing…so bright and brilliant in brush stroke. Another highlight of this museum is the multiple self portraits. These two museums took up the better part of our day. However, we still had one more stop. But it was lunch time, and conveniently, the Hard Rock Cafe Amsterdam, was right across the street, so we had to stop. I purchased my third Hard Rock Cafe shirt while we were waiting to pay $20 for a burger. Actually, it was a quite good burger, there were hardly any people there, so it made for a great, quite lunch. Frommer’s recommended we visit our last stop after 4pm to avoid the crowds, so our late lunch was perfect. I know, sounds kinda cheesy, but planning is everything!
After our filling lunch, we made the 30 minute trek back to the north side of Amsterdam to visit our last stop, not a famed coffee house, but the Anne Frank Huis. This is the actual house in which the Franks and 4 other companions hid from the Nazis in the Secret Annex. The Museum starts in the lower level, which acted as the warehouse for Otto Frank’s spices company. The beginning of the tour also starts with an instant hush over the crowd. Because there is a crowd, but blindfolded, you’d think you were all alone. Here you can watch a preview of what is to come, and a summary of the museum, along with words from Otto Frank and excerpts from Anne’s diary. The self-guided tour then winds its way up the stairs onto the second floor where all the main offices for the company where. Here you come to a bookcase with suspect hinges (put on during museum renovation). Pull back the giant bookcase and you are faced with a hole in the wall and a staircase. Climb through the whole and you enter the Secret Annex. These next two floors were the living spaces of the Frank family, and the 4 other companions. Inside, there is writing, encased in glass, where the Frank family measured their growth during the years they were there. There is also a reproduction of the wall in Anne’s room where she hung picture of her favorite actors and actresses of the day. The actual wall has been removed and placed in storage for safe keeping. As you wind your way back down the narrow staircase and into the new part, where you can find a tourist trap cafe, you pass by what I thought was one of the most touching things. You pass by an actual Academy Award Oscar. Next to it is a plaque the explains that the Oscar is from Shelley Winters, who won Best Supporting Actress for the movie. The story goes that Otto Frank visited the set during the filming of The Diary of Anne Frank and Ms. Winters told him, “Mr. Frank, if I win an Oscar for my role in this movie, I’m going to bring it to you and to the Anne Frank Huis.” He replied with, “Well that would be a very hard thing to do, wouldn’t it?” And she then said, “Yes, it would. That’s why I’ll keep it for a while, and then bring it to you.” She did win the Oscar, and there it was. That’s probably the closest I’ll ever be to an Oscar, but it was really touching. After a quick stop in the museum store to buy my own copy of her diary (I had finished my book club book), we headed out. Back to the hostel we went for a shower and then to hunt down some dinner.
After dinner, and a brisk walk back to the hostel, we settled down for night two in our pig pen. (No pun intended as we stayed at the Flying Pig Hostel Downtown).
Alright, you’ve read about the last our adventures in Germany. Now on to THE DUTCH. I must warn you though. The details of our trip to Amsterdam will neither shock you, nor alarm you. We’ve all heard stories of “Amsterdam After Hours.” However, this is not the Amsterdam we experienced, and though you might find some of it amusing and truly fantastic, our Amsterdam tour was definitely not what you’d expect from two people of such age.
Sorry.
Ok, I mentioned that there was a couple that insisted on making out in the children-friendly Botanical Gardens. Well, this seems to be a common theme in Europe…the making out part. Maybe it’s my prudish ways, but QUIT WITH THE MAKING OUT. This isn’t some quick, “HI! I’m SO glad to see you” peck on the cheek or on the lips. It’s the, “HI! I have no awareness of my surroundings, so I’ll kiss you like they kiss on Soap Operas,” full blown make out session. When does this happen? When one of said couples gets off the airplane, meets in the train station, meets for lunch, is in the romantic botanical gardens with Foreign people walking all over, waiting in line for the train, waiting in line to be seated for dinner, waiting in line to check out at the grocery store, picking a bottle of wine, picking out a book at the bookstore. Ok, maybe a BIT over dramatic, but so is the making out. Ok, I’m done.
I mentioned that we had put our luggage into storage before we took the train to Centraal Station into Amsterdam. Well, when we arrived back at the lockers to get our stuff out, the most amusing incident unfolded. Turns out, NO ONE knows how to use these lockers. They’re very confusing, and they only take coins and credit cards. No bills. Europeans are big on coins. I get dirty looks everytime I don’t pay with exact change. This could be because 1 euro and 2 euros are both coins, along with 50 cent, 20 cent, 10 cent, 2 cent and 1 cent. I can’t help it that I have a 50 euro note, and I need to break it down. I certainly don’t do it for a 4 euro purchase, but this doesn’t seem to matter. Even if I use a 5 euor note for a 4.30 purchase, dirty looks inevitably ensue. So, here’s what I over heard:
Some people looking at the screen, confused: “Ok, what do we do? How do we get English? Do we just put the money in?”
Attendant: “What language?” (Because you can select up to 8 different languages)
People: “English.”
Attendant: points to the British flag button.
People: “But we’re not British, we’re Canadian.”
UHHHHHH. I about peed my pants. That should give all you Montanans some ammo.
From Sunday, 3-23 (I wrote this in my journal before writing it here):
I’ve never considered myself the type of writer that people would read, not to mention actually find funny. Yet, when you’re sitting in a FREEZING train station for 7 hours, you have little more to do. Yes, we tried going into Amsterdamproper this morning, but that was a bust. We got on the train ok, left Centraal Station and started to freeze. Of course, we put our luggage in storage, so we didn’t have access to our coats and Brother Bee was in shorts. So we walked about 6 blocks to the Dam (a square) where the palace of the current royalty lives. There is also a WWII momument in the Dam. But it was cold! So, we decided to find a place to eat something. This turned out to be a little bakery called Delifrance. We ate apple tart and some croissant thing with berries and cream. But the second I sat down, I started to feel jetlag and I’m exhausted. I think as I wrote this note in my journal, I had been up about 24 straight hours. All energz to actually do something has left me. Only the cold and fear of missing our train is keeping me up. (this was the low point of the trip) Maybe this $8 mocha has something to do with it. Culture shock? Not really, money shock? Totally. I mean, I knew it would be expensive, but this is nuts. We’ll see how two weeks goes! Also odd is the sensation that everyone looks Anglo or English-European, but I can’t understand them. This is an amaying phenomenom. One last word- boots. BIG in Amsterdam. From ankle boots to knee highs, the are B-I-G.
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