Day 8: Amsterdam

Before I go any further, first, an announcement - my parents have absolutely no idea that I went around Amsterdam by myself and will NEVER know for fear of sending my mum into hysterics, so on no grounds should anyone mention this fact!

Now, the reason for my solo jaunt around Amsterdam is the aforementioned illness that plagued us since London. Unfortunately, Laura and Luke were in a worst shape than I and needed to stay in and rest up. On my part, though I wasn't exactly in the best of conditions, I also knew that I won't get another chance to ramble around Amsterdam again for a long while, so despite intial trepidations at exploring a foreign city on my own (especially one with legalised pot use), I woke up bright and early and began my sightseeing.

The first stop of the day was the Rijksmuseum which I got to with minimal difficulty after boarding a tram at the Central Station. It was pretty easy since there was a straight tram there and I knew I got on at the "Central" stop and could thus track my route the whole way.

You can see the ice-skating rink in front of the Rijksmuseum, though at that early hour in the morning, things were pretty quiet everywhere.

The Rijksmuseum was under renovation at that time and thus, had only a few selected works on display, the masterpieces of the Dutch Golden age. Up to now, I still can't decide if that was a good or bad thing. I mean, it was good cause I didn't have much time to spend at the Rijksmuseum and the fact that they condensed all their masterpieces into a few galleries was a great time saver. However, I only got to skim the surface of all the art that they actually had at the museum and I left feeling as though I didn't get to see the Rijksmuseum in all it's splendor and rather unsatisfied at the limited works that I got to view, nice though they were.

But ah well, such things can't be helped.

2006 was the 400th Anniversary of Rembrandth's birth, so there were special exhibitions going on all around Amsterdam and in the Rikjsmuseum which had a large proportion of it's second level devoted to the painter. Below is one of the Rembrandt rooms and amongst the paintings, you can see "The Jewish Bride", better know to us as "hey, that guy's touching the girl's boob" (it's not really an artsy comment, but hey, it's the truth, google it). The rightmost portrait is of "Catrina Hooghsaet".

I loved the detailing on the Rembrandt portraits. An image which particularly sticks to my mind was his "Portrait of Maria Trip" when you look at the pearl bracelet she was wearing close up and the play on light and shadow, the reflection on the pearls... breathtaking...

Other highlights I found in the Rijksmuseum included Verspronck's "Portrait of a girl dressed in blue" which is below.

Also saw Vemeer's "The Kitchen Maid". Gijs also talked to me about the Ruisdael's in the museum and the mastery of the Dutch landscape and light.

By far the most famous of pieces showing in the Rijksmuseum had to be Rembrandt's "The Nightwatch", where he employed a revolutionary style of creating portraits by showing the company of Captain Frans Baning Cocq in "motion". Each of the gentlement who appeared in the painting had to pay a fee to be painted and because of Rembrandt's chosen style of portrayal, supposedly some of them wouldn't be too happy as they were blocked by another person and had only half their face showing the stuff like that. However, the painting was still accepted and Rembrandt got his pay.

Read with pangs of regret that in order to fit the painting in some previous display location, they actually trimmed the sides (something that wouldn't happen in modern times of course). So there was also a picture showing what the painting in full would have looked liked. Which reminds me of my X-files movie poster at home and how my dad had to slice of the sides so it could fit into that IKEA frame... But I digress.

It was also here that they again employed the x-ray to peer beneath the painting and see the underlying sketches and changes that Rembrandt made to his painting, which was pretty interesting.

Also, do you guys know that in 1975, a psychotic man actually slashed the painting and it was seriously damaged. I mean, parts of the painting were lying on the museum floor if I recall correctly... They have since fully restored it of course, however, a small sign of damage can still be seen in person if you go really close to the painting. You can see traces of cut marks above the dog in the bottom right corner.

After the Rijksmuseum, the next stop was the Van Gogh museum, my absolute favourite museum of the trip!! It houses the largest collection of works by Vincent Van Gogh in the world and has a very well thought out chronological layout.


First, you go to the permanent exhibition of his works which showed his evolution from when he first started out in the Netherlands and moved around there, to Paris, Arles, Saint-Remy and his final days in Auver-Sur-Oise.

In the Netherlands section, there was what Van Gogh himself regarded as his first masterpiece and which he was extremely proud of - The Potato Eaters. it was done after more than 40 studies of the heads of peasents and such and such in order to get a realistic portrayal. He declared to his brother, Theo and a painter friend (can't remember who) that it was his best work yet, only to be met with criticism from his friend who pointed out how the painting still looked posed and some of the perspectives in the painting were false. Which cheesed him off royally.

In the Paris Section, they showed the beginning of his experimentation and him being influenced by those Japanese woodprints, producing paintings such as "The Courtesan" And "The Bridge".

In Arles, his painting of floral still life's began. In Saint-Remy, his bold brushstrokes and distinctive technique really emerged. I loved how they showed paintings in which Van Gogh took masterpieces by Rembrandt and the like and reinterpreted them. He redid Millet's "The Sheep Shearer" and Delacroix's "Pieta" as well. It was interesting to see the "original" and "reinvention" and you could see the different worldviews and technques that these painters had.

Anyway, after you see the chronological progression of his work, you ascend to the next level where you see the other paintings that were done during that period - the works that inspired Van Gogh and what other artists were doing concurrently to Van Gogh. Some of the notable works include Rousseau's "The Forest at Fountainbleau", Seurat's "The Seine at Courbevoie" and Monet's "Bulbfields and windmillsnear Rijnsbury". There were Gauguin's and Cezanne's as well. Thus you can see other examples of the brushwork techniques and painting theories that Van Gogh experimented with, such as pointillism and impressionism.

There was also a temporary exhibition going on entitled "Van Gogh and Expressionism" which showed the works that Van Gogh inspired. This was very well executed as they had first the specific Van Gogh painting and beside it, the painting that copied it's style and because of the layout, the similarities in style and technique were easy to observe. For instance, they hung Van Gogh's "The Zouave" next to Max Pechstein's "Young Women with a Red Fan" and you could see their similar use of bold contrastive colours... Google it =) Naturally the Van Goghs seemed much better to me and in my notebook, for that section of the exhibition, I've failed to note down any other artist's work's that impressed me, only the Van Goghs. But hey, what do I know about art? I'm stil learning =)

So I left the Van Gogh museum with much regret in order to catch the 2 something canal tour of Amsterdam - I figured a Canal tour is a MUST in Holland afterall. Before I left, I entrusted my camera to the hands of someone else for the first of two times in the whole trip to get a picture in front of the museum. The painting on the left is one of Van Gogh's self-portraits, the one on the right is an expressionist's usage of Van Gogh's style for his own self-portrait.


Now I'm on the boat to tour the canals. I have to say, it was quite a disappointment. The first 5-10 mins was all "wow. I'm on a canal boat in Amsterdam and it's so purtty"... Then it became

nothing's happening

nothing's happening

nothing's happening...

I can't help but wonder if my time would have been better spent at the Rembrandt house instead, which I couldn't visit due to time constraints....

Anyway, after the Canal tour, I had to get back up to the center of Amsterdam for my next "pit-stop". I couldn't take the same tram I took down to the Rijksmuseum as I'd walked away from that stop to the canal tour. Ok, no problem right?

WRONG

Here's when wondering around alone in a foreign country with no grasp of the local language can get you into trouble. I looked at the map and knew roughly which route to take. I then hopped onto what I thouht was the right tram and thought "right, now just to figure out which stop I'm at, which, from my experience in the morning, the tram's system would announce".

Any of you ever heard the dutch language before? All I got was "(next stop) ker-urgh-argh-errrr"... Seriously, I don't even know how to use onomatopoeia to convey what it sounded like to me... Perhaps it sounded like a man chocking on his own saliva while gargling the alphabet with a foul tasting salt-water concoction he took to alleviate his sore throat.

So I think, ok, no problem, I'll just stay on the tram till I recognise either some of the stops or where I'm going. Flashback to the previous night where I'm asking Laura how safe is Amsterdam for my solo day tour. She replies that as long as I don't wander off into the wrong areas, it's perfectly safe. I began to worry that I'll drop off in one of those "wrong areas" without realising it... Then I'm totally screwed. With that in mind, I left the tram and walked back to where I began the ride, concluding that I should just walk around Amsterdam instead.

It was actually quite a rewarding experience and I got to see a few gems along the way. Here's a nice view of Amsterdam.

And a bunch of people playing chess on this large chessboard. How cool is that?!?

So I made my way back into the center of town and stopped for a tea (I skipped lunch) of croquette - a typically dutch snack

After the croquette, I made my way to the Amstelkring museum, the second oldest museum in Amsterdam. The highlight of the museum was a whole church hidden in the attic of this house. This was set-up in a time when practicing catholicism was against the law and catholics had to hide their churches in houses. It was pretty amazing to see that whole church squeezed into a narrow elongated room. The width of the room was just slightly bigger than a tutorial room in NUS. It was interesting to see the way they decorated the central altar to draw your eyes vertically instead of horizontally in order to give the illusion of space.

So, by the time I left the Amstelkring museum, it was already dusk and I headed for my last stop of the day - the Anne Franks House. Now, I had three maps of Amsterdam with me, all of which were woefully inadequate in terms of directions. This essentially meant that I was wondering around central Amsterdam in the gathering dusk, lost. It didn't help that I was supposed to meet Luke at the Anne Frank's House at 1700 so I was in a rush for time...

I decided to ask for directions and resolved to enter the next shop I saw. Now, this is a true story. The shop had a very zen like name - peace or something like that. Know what I mean? So I think, ok, could be a spa or somthing like that. Next thing I knew, I'm surrounded by window displays of pot plants and pipes and such and such and I think "oh my god, I just entered a pot shop to ask for directions!... Ok, no problem, just back out the way you came and it'll be fine".

So back out into the streets and off to wander the canals again. By this time, it was already dark and I couldn't just get out my map anywhere as that'll show me to be a helpless, lost, female tourist. There I am, hopelessly disoriented when I run into Luke, who's also lost among the canals. What were the odds of that? He says he just came from the Anne Frank's House and couldn't find a way to get in. I decided to give it a go myself and he points me in the direction he came from and we parted ways (he was heading back to Gijs and Dea's apartment).

Little did I know that he pointed me in completely the wrong direction. Fortunately, I went into a proper shop and got the directions I needed. After wandering the canals awhile longer, I reach the Anne Frank's House, only to find that it closed early today. I later learned (at the tourist office the next day) that they closed early for a company christmas celebration. ARGH!!!

I then begin to make my way back to Gijs and Dea's place and get hopelessly lost among the canals AGAIN!!! I'm wondering around in circles, about to breakdown. Lost alone in the sidestreets in Amsterdam among the canals in the dark... I was getting desperate. When, all of a sudden, I bump into Luke again! He got lost heading back to Gijs and Dea's apartment and there we both were wandering the canals. Imagine the coincidence!

Pooling our heads together, we made our way back to the apartment only to find that we couldn't get in!! We couldn't call Laura cause her phone wasn't working and we couldn't call the main apartment as we didn't have the number. After ringing the doorbell several times with no luck, Luke and I gave it up and went to the playground to sit on the swings and scout the apartment for signs of movement. Fortunately, around 15-20 mins later, Gijs came along and let us in.

We went to this great Thai place for dinner before heading over to the infamous red-light district of Amsterdam to have a look-see. It seems wrong to say but the women in the live window displays were good-looking. Gijs brought us to the most upmarket district in Amsterdam so we got to see the best girls. No nudity or anything like that. At most, girls were in lingerie and some other outfits depending on personal interest (such as nurse uniforms).

Anyhoo, I won't elaborate any longer since this is turning out to be a really long post. Suffice to say, it was a hectic day in Amsterdam with clearly insufficient time for all the attractions. I wished I had one more day there...

silkstalkings reminds you all to keep quiet about this post!