On the Day of a Thousand Museums
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| Some painting by some guy |
Monday, May 13, 2019
Amsterdam, The NetherlandsOutside the Game:
With three days until the next baseball game, I had an ambitious day planned, and I was up early for a shower and a quick exit into the world. On the train over to Centraal, I called my wireless provider customer support, got someone who spoke engels, and was able to quickly sort out my problem. I was not dialing internationally properly on the new-fangled Euro-phones, which required a "+" to dial, because frankly, no one had told me that.
When we pulled into Centraal, I headed straight for the Metro station and took a long, long elevator down to the stop after activating my three-day all-access card for the first time. A short subway ride got me to the Vijzelgracht Station, and a short walk from there--with even less misdirects than usual to this point--got me to Museumplein ("Museum Square") and the Rijksmuseum.
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| Rijksmuseum |
The imposing structure of the Rijksmuseum is impossible to miss, but the entrance is a little harder to find. The entrances are underneath the main building, and despite apparently getting on the wrong line, I was in (for free--thanks, 3-day pass!) quickly and had my backpack stowed and was on my way. As is my standard operating procedure for popular museums right when they open, I went immediately to the most popular exhibit (in the this case, the Rembrandts), and then proceeded directly to the top floor to work myself down with the most minimal crowds.
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| I guess they flew it in |
The top-most floor of the Rijksmuseum famously holds a FK23 Bantam aircraft, along with a lot of memorabilia from the Holocaust, including outfits and even Nazi relics. The Renaissance area had a Memling or two, so I obviously checked those out, and for some reason, there were also a great deal of hyper-ornate dollhouses, which I supposed was understandable given the Dutch predilection for small and cozy things. The library was amazing, and of course, the large Rembrandt masterpieces (Meagre Company and The Night's Watch) were in the main areas of the old building and constantly surrounded by hoards of onlookers.
The lower levels had some exhibits of arms and armor, but it was marred by a large tour group of Russians who would not get out of the way and ended up blocking doorways and displays, seemingly obliviously. It was enough to make we want to learn how to say "Get out of the damn way!" in Russian.
After several hours, I made my way through the gift shop and out to Museumplein proper beyond the Rijksmuseum. A kiosk there was selling tickets to the Van Gogh Museum, but already had up a happy little sign that said it was sold out for today and tomorrow. Not discouraged I stopped at a sausage house to grab, well, brunch, I guess, of a cheese sausage on the way to the museums on the other side of the park. Suitably fortified, I headed to the second museum of the day, the MOCO.
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| Same to you, buddy. |
This was a small museum in a converted house that displayed more contemporary and counter-cultural content, including an extensive exhibit on Banksy. There were at least two art school classes in there with me gushing over Banksy's use of... whatever it is is art school students would talk about, in Dutch. In addition to Banksy, there were areas on NYC subway artist Keith Haring and several rooms of material from Daniel Arsham, including a calcified room and some other work that I found especially interesting using styrofoam as fake rock and incorporating it into items as faux minerals. I'm not really doing it justice, but I really liked the execution.
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| Understated |
Another run through a gift shop (which included a "wish pin" that I put in a giant cork ball in the outside garden), I took the short walk to the Diamond Museum, stop three for the day. After getting my free ticket with my pass, I went through the small museum. While it had some interesting history and a giant, diamond-encrusted monkey skull (The Coster Skull), for the most part, the museum's core message seemed to be defensive ("They're not all blood diamonds!"), and a computer kiosk that let you see yourself in the Danish crown jewels didn't work, so a mixed bag all around.
After leaving, I waited in line at the aforementioned Van Gogh ticket kiosk and found out the earliest I could go to the museum was the Saturday I was going to be back in Amsterdam, so I picked up my pass-free ticket for a week or so in the future and headed back to the metro stop for a long escalator ride (that showed a map of the subway system to keep you occupied on the way down), and scooted back up to the old city center.
My goal was Oude Kerk ("Old Church"), the aptly named oldest remaining building in Amsterdam, as well as by default being the oldest church in the city. Fun Fact: It is located smack-dab in the middle of the Red Light district. And you might ask yourself: Are there prostitutes working in the early afternoon on Monday in Amsterdam? And I'm here to tell you there are. Because I picked the longest way to walk around the church to find the entrance, and all the ladies were out and ready to service tourists or any locals looking for a long lunch break. I eventually found my way inside, and the staff were in the middle of setting up for a special event or some such, with a giant crane in the middle of the church, putting up lights.
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| Sausages |
The church itself was ancient and historic, obviously, in that blase' way that only Europe-old things can be. You walk over 400-year-old graves as though it was nothing, trying to get a look at something even older and more amazing. There are walls full of the coats of arms of the church sponsors, and there is a requisite giant organ, plus a pit where they dumped bones of the residents of graves in the church that needed to be reused. This all was voiced over by a friendly audio guide voice that told you the score when you beeped it in the right place.
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| Light me up |
An imperialist with a dirty history, Jan Pieterzoon Cohen's statue has gotten new life as an art exhibit, with his ruined statue being re-formed as a candle and repeatedly burned down in an act of symbolic contrition. I don't often like overly metaphorical art, but I found this satisfying nonetheless. The remnants of the church's original stained glass remains in one of the windows and was the kind of beautiful old that really strikes a primal chord. There was a rather awkward moment during my visit, however, as in one of the rooms, if you look out the window, you are all but forced to make uncomfortable eye contact with the prostitute in the red window not more than fifteen feet from where you're standing.
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| Sneaky papistry |
Done there, I took a short walk over to another, more covert church, Our Lord in the Attic. The famed Dutch tolerance had certain limits, as when the Protestants took over, they didn't kill the Catholics or prevent them from worshipping, they just forbid them from doing it publicly. This led to the creation of several undercover churches that appeared as normal canal houses from the outside, but contained fully equipped Catholic Churches inside. Our Lord in the Attic is the last surviving one of these house churches, built into a conjoined multi-house block. The modern tour begins in the basement ticketing area, where you are issued your audio tour, and then you walk up through the house, seeing the seemingly normal domestic lower floors, until you walk up to the upper three floors which had been formed into a full church, with organ, sacristy, altar, and retractable pulpit, all with two upper galleries for worshipers. If nothing more than as an architectural enterprise, it was profoundly interesting, but it also was a spiritually interesting endeavor. The altar is still consecrated, and they still hold monthly masses there. The way out had the kitchen and living quarters for the priests, as well as a full confessional and baptismal font, also tucked into the structure.
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| And they also sell tulips. |
I stopped in the museum cafe for a late lunch sandwich with old stinky cheese and then went up towards Centraal again. I got my free ticket for a canal tour later that evening and then took the tram west to my next stop, The Tulip Museum. This small museum was another pass freebee, and I followed along the numbered path in the cramped townhouse museum that walked you through the flower's origin in Turkey and to its importation, craze, and bust in Amsterdam. The last room in the museum was a display of multiple VR helmets. Suitably intrigued, I put one on, and you were transported to a tulip field at harvest, seeing harvesters and farmers walking around you tending to and collecting the colorful plants at their peak. Another gift shop stop later, and I was off.
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| Fresh symbolism |
More walking took me back to the Dam, and I decided to climb the mountain that was Madame Tussaud's. I heard that this one was a little less objectionable than most because it was localized, but that turned out not to be too true. I only got a discount on this one and not free admission, but I had to get this over with at some point. The museum tantalizes you by sending you up four floors in an elevator, but only two of them are exhibits, and the other two are just stairs you have to walk down to get out.
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| We have failed as a people because this exists. |
The museum did have some local flair in addition to the regular movie stars and pop culture, for both good and bad. There was the Dutch royal family (as well as many European and American politicians with a notable, orange, exception), as well as a two-eared Van Gogh. There was a tiny pop star called VanVelzen that I had never heard of, and--there's no way else except to just say it--Anne Frank. I don't get offended by too much, but I found that in insanely poor taste for some obvious reasons. Wrong tone, wrong reasons, murdered teenage girl... I mean, just... really.
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| Anti-establishment commercialism |
There was also a display to encourage you to be rebellious by virtual spray painting on a brick wall. The act of spraying an anarchy symbol in a Madame Tussauds in the Dam in Amsterdam filled me with an emotion that does not yet have a name. Speaking of, they actually had a mannequin of Madame Tussaud herself, which I don't think I've seen anywhere else.
That nightmare completed, I took the tram back to Centraal and took the ferry again to the Nord to visit the Eye Film Museum. As the name implies, this was a visual arts museum, with a history of film and equipment, as well as some conceptual film exhibits that were interesting, but impossible to explain. (So, there was one of a kamikaze pilot in WWII and his wife having dinner at home, but it was also during his last mission, and they were both blind, and it was shown from three perspectives... as I said: impossible to explain). There was also a giant audio-visual experience in the basement where you could see different exemplars of certain filmmaking techniques in clips around a dizzying, mirrored room.
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| Hi, Liza. |
One other thing the museum had were giant yellow pods where you could sit and watch the films they had in their collection. One was an early Disney film that entered public domain called Alice's Spooky Adventure, which was troubling in many, many ways. When a baseball is hit through a window of a haunted house, a little girl goes to retrieve it, and ends up battling the resident ghosts. At one point, a ghost screams at the little girl to "Take it off!", which, fair enough, is modern usage interposing itself. Less so was the subplot of trying to get the black boy of the group blamed for the act, but he sensibly runs away when the white police officer shows up. Fun times, fun times.
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| Light dinner |
I took the ferry back to Centraal, and--it being a suitable hour--called my parents with my newfound phone knowledge, speaking to them for a bit as I was picking a place to eat. I decided on Wurst & Schnitzelhaus, where I ate a big plate of veal and potatoes. Having walked around all day and finally stopped, my legs started to cramp up, the first indication there was a bit of a problem.
After dinner, I powered through it and went out to the canal for my tour. I boarded the boat and grabbed a window seat, opening the sliding window open for some good vantages and plugging myself into the tour audio tour for English. A German couple got into the same table booth as myself, and the woman immediately began complaining it was too cold and to shut the window. I explained that I was on the tour to take pictures, and she was welcome to sit somewhere else.
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| Every damn evening... |
The tour was nice, but the amount of tour boat traffic on the canals from the various companies got ridiculous at several places, especially a locale where you can look down all the canals at once, which resulted in a pile-up of tour boats waiting to take their swing past the photo spot of all phot spots. We arrived back in Centraal just as the sun finally gave up the ghost for the evening, and tired as I was, I trudged back to get a train back to the hotel. I just missed one train, but another came shortly.
Back at the hotel, I figured out what clothes I wanted to leave for the laundry service the next day, had some tea, and went to bed early, having walked a ridiculous amount over the course of the day, with eight museums and a boat tour under my belt, no doubt a personal record.
The Accommodations:
I spent next to no time here today. I got up early, didn't come back for a nap, and was asleep fairly soon after returning for the evening.
On a Roller Coaster of Emotions
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| I'm with you, buddy. |
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Outside the Game:
I woke up pretty early after a fitful night of sleep. This was mostly due to horrendous leg cramps and painful chaffing from doing a full-city blitz the day before. I compensated with a very long, hot shower (damn the Netherlands' tiny tub-less bathrooms) and judicious appointment of ointments. The only good news was the lack of blisters or foot pain, which elevated my new sneakers quite highly in my estimation.
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| Another light breakfast |
As put together as I was going to get, I went down to breakfast, dropping off my laundry at the front desk (to ensure I'd have it back before my Thursday departure). I had another overloaded breakfast of meats and cheeses and sundries, throwing down glass after glass of juice to try and mitigate my legs cramps with some serious hydration.
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| Why you don't land in the panther cages |
Even with all this activity, I was heading out the door at 8:40 AM after a brief stop back in my hotel room. I took a train to Centraal, the metro to close to my destination, and then a tram to get me the rest of the way to the zoo, my first (and free) stop for the day. The ARTIS Royal Zoo is quite delightful, and remembers that "garden" part of the full name of "zoological garden." The layout of the zoo was just as important as the animal exhibits themselves, which certainly added the experience. The animal exhibits were all cleverly laid out, and it made for some good picture taking. There was some unintended reality of the nature exhibits as a panther got a hold of some local aviary life that should have been paying a bit more attention to where it landed. Of the pictures I took, only one was of minimal gruesomeness to share with the world.
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| The map that doomed a people |
After my visit there, right across the street was another museum on my pass: the Verzets Resistance Museum. It would seem to be a self-congratulatory affair from the name, but I appreciated that it put the experience of being in an occupied country into three real possibilities: collaborate with the occupiers, adapt to life under the occupiers, or resist the occupiers. They also made it very clear that your real chances of being in the third category were very, very slim. The museum had the detailed and accurate map that the Dutch made for their new German occupiers on religious affiliation of citizens, which the Nazis used to very efficiently remove and murder nearly the entire Jewish population of Amsterdam and the Netherlands. Letters thrown from the deportation train cars by Jewish prisoners made up another rather harrowing exhibit. And a third one that stuck out was a special exhibit on pictures that German army troops took during their initial occupation of The Netherlands, showing a side of things you don't get to see too often. It was quite a thought-provoking place.
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| Your average 17th-century cargo ship |
A short tram ride took me to the National Maritime Museum, covering, of course, the long Dutch history on the sea. This was another well-done museum, with a lot of hands-on and technology enhanced pavilions. My first stop was the reproduction fluyt The Amsterdam. It had everything you'd expect of a trading ship reproduction, except for the futuristic VR theater in the bow of the ship. At regular show times, you get led into a mirrored room filled with futuristic-looking swivel chairs, strap on a headset, and get a sweeping virtual tour of the Amsterdam docks during Golden Age of the Dutch Republic.
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| Don't pretend you're not jealous |
In one of the other areas of the museum, there is a quiz area where you walk around with a digital bucket and answer questions on the exhibit. I'm not sure I'm explaining it right, but I'm definitely not explaining it incorrectly. A section on maps had an interactive projection on a "book," and an "explorers club" room had beaten-up lounge chairs where you could sit down and look at picture books on the table while the chairs told you the story of what you were reading. It was all quite nifty, and I escaped with only a moderately expensive trip through the gift shop, where I also picked up a pack of stroopwaffles that substituted for lunch on this afternoon.
I walked to the National Holocaust Memorial and the Jewish Historical Museum, both nestled in the old Jewish section of the city. The small museums really touched off a lot of emotions, especially in this day and age. The story of how efficiently and effectively the Nazis were able to murder most of the Jewish population of the country was an obvious tragedy in itself, but it was only amplified by the things going on today in America. We already have concentration camps on our borders, and at least a third of the country is cheering it on. We aren't doing enough to stop this from happening again. We just aren't.
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| It could just as easily be any of us. |
One particular exhibit in the Jewish Historical Museum hit particularly close to home. If you enter your general demographic statistics, it will match you with someone of identical statistics who died in the Holocaust. I got a gentleman named Leon Huisman. Born in The Hague, this unlucky fellow moved to NYC to be a musician and then had the misfortune to return to his home country in the mid-thirties. He died in Auschwitz on February 11, 1944. We aren't doing enough to stop this from happening again.
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| Therapy |
Definitely needing to clear my head, I made my last stop of the afternoon at de Hortus Botonical Garden. Walking around in the peace of the garden--and especially the butterfly garden--put me in a better mood, but frankly, I didn't know if I deserved to be in one. The humidity of the hot houses was a pleasant discomfort after my last stops, but by the end of my time there, I was at least a functioning person again.
I took the Waterloo metro back to Centraal, and from there back to the hotel for a well-deserved, long nap, even though it had only been six museums this day. I woke and showered again, looking to scare up some dinner at about 7:30 PM. I wandered around Centraal for a while, and could not gather up enthusiasm for anything in particular, so I ended up gorging myself at the Wagamamas at Centraal before walking around a bit more on the waterfront and in the various malls that run underneath the station. I missed two trains in short succession trying to make one and then missing the other, so I decided to hit the rest button and stop in for some post-Wagamamas munchies at the Burger King in the rail station since I was still hungry (cue Asian food jokes). When I walked out, there was a train back to Sloterdijk ready to leave.
Despite my afternoon nap, it was an early night back at the hotel. I half-heartedly flipped through some TV before giving up and going to bed early again.
The Accommodations:
I sent some laundry out for service and had breakfast at the hotel, but that was about the only time I spent awake in my room this day. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
On One Last Museum Blitz
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| I'm a beer! |
Wednesday, May, 15, 2019
Amsterdam, The NetherlandsOutside the Game:
I had one day left on my three-day attractions pass, and I was aiming to make the most of it, even if I had made my money back after the first day. This was just economic piling-on, and I was okay with that.
The previous day, I had purchased my timed entry pass for my first stop: The Heineken Experience. I got a ticket for the second entry at 10:45 AM, as I've found that getting in the very first groups always results in long lines and less than optimal experience. I had a lazy-ish morning since I had nowhere to be until 10:30 AM, so I left the hotel at about a quarter to ten, and then took a train to the metro, and then I arrived at the location of Heineken's first brewery.
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| Brewery no more |
Even with the first tour having gone in, the line was still pretty long at 10:30 AM, and it got considerably longer once I got there. I ended up right in back of two older ladies from Milwaukee who were in town for a couple of days as part of their tour. Their husbands were too sick to travel with them, but they were still living it up while they could, although they had limited mobility. When we finally got inside, they were spirited off to the handicapped pathway for the tour, and I went on my way.
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| Hide your jealousy again. |
The museum--beg pardon: "experience"--is about what you'd expect it to be. There was the history of the brewery, the beer-making process, the draft horse stables, all with a ton of self-promotion. Perhaps not surprising given the VR boom, there is an area where you become a beer and get brewed and bottled, and in the sports area, there is even a machine where you can practice pulling pints. (In case you were wondering, I got a perfect pint.)
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| Beer for the year |
You end up in a bar area where you can trade in the little chits on the wristband they give you at the start of the tour for three pints. These would entail my beers for the year 2019. The first one went down pretty quickly because I was thirsty. I finished the second one off while I was looking at the exhibits in the bar. Right after I got my last one, I ran into the midwest ladies who had just finished their tour and grabbed their own beer. We talked for a bit about things, and eventually they had to head off to meet another tour they had singed off for, and I was off to notch several more museums. Three beers on an empty stomach had me pretty okay with the world, and I headed out wobbily into the late Amsterdam morning.
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| Because who doesn't have their own livery? |
My first stop on the hit parade was the Museum van Loon, a 17th-century canal house owned by the descendants of one of the co-founders of the Dutch East India Company, i.e. the hyper-wealthy. Unlike the Heineken Experience (which was just discounted), this was another free museum on my pass, although I doubt the van Loons would miss the money all that much. The museum was an exercise in how you would decorate am average canal house if you had slightly less money than god. In keeping with the Dutch concept of coziness, every little nook and cranny was filled with items. It was just, in this case, most of those items were priceless paintings and things such as 400-year-old crystal decanters. The yard was also slightly larger than most, with a cultured garden, 16th-century sundial, and a large carriage house holding the family's livery, carriages, and sleds.
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| Wooden shoes, finally |
The opulence thus experienced, I walked over to the Dutch Costume Museum, stopping along the way to grab a sandwich at a canal-side restaurant to get something besides beer into my stomach. The Costume Museum was another little canal-house exhibit, showing off the regional wear (including, of course, the famous wooden shoes) that are slowing dying out over the years. A secondary exhibit on fisherman's sweaters was far more interesting than it had any right to be, and I sat there reading all the different styles and weaves critically. You never know what is going to interest you, really.
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| Multi-media meeting |
Another short walk took me to the Canal Museum, perhaps another "gimmie" topic for Amsterdam. This museum really dove headfirst into the interactive digital projection space, as nearly every exhibit used projection and stage lighting to tell the story quite effectively. An example is a meeting of the town fathers discussing an expansion to the canals in the 17th century, with placarded seats around a table receiving lighting and projections when each person spoke, while the larger plans they were discussing were projected onto the walls around the room. It was nifty little place, and one of the last rooms was dollhouses with hologram projections inside showing the everyday life of the people living in the houses through various stages on history (in addition to an attic church, similar to Our Lord in the Attic). The last display before the exit talked about the Holland Land Company, which is a bit of US history I hadn't learned, where the Dutch pretty much bought up all of western New York in the post-revolutionary period.
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| Cozy living room |
Yet another short walk got me to the Houseboat Museum, another iconic topic for Amsterdam. It is a houseboat open to the public, where you can walk around and see the living space that is so coveted by Amsterdammers, along with a movie or two about the lifestyle. There was a rather large school group there when I visited, so there was a good deal of shuffling past each other until they left. What was most interesting for me was that with the additional taxes and upkeep, living on a houseboat is actually slightly more expansive than a regular house in Amsterdam, a far cry from when it was a way for Bohemians to afford to live in the city center. Not to mention that "luxury" houseboats that exist now, which are essentially hipster condos on the water, though I suppose their existence shouldn't be all that unexpected.
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| Paint-making |
After that, being on the cusp of Pride Month as we were, I took a walk over to the unfortunately named "Homomonument," the first memorial to homosexuals anywhere in the world, in memoriam of gay victims of persecution. I went to nearby tram line and headed out to Rembrandt House, which is, as you might guess, Rembrandt's house and studio turned into a museum. I immediately had a problem getting the lockers to work before I got some help from some Brits who were on their way out. The museum's narrow stairwells took you through his living space, his storefront, and his upstairs studio. My visit was somewhat dampened by an old Jewish man making a pest of himself. His modus operandi was to shuffle into a new room and then complain loudly about everything in it. He was getting the stink eye from everyone in the place, and even the constant remonstrances of who I assume to be his daughter couldn't get him to stop, even after he got a talking to by the museum staff. There was an exhibition on paint-making in Rembrandt's time, and he was escorted from the room after he refused to stop his loud complaining and interrupting the demonstration. So there's that. I took a lot of damage in the gift shop before I left, as there was a lot interesting craft things available. I mean, who doesn't want black pigment made directly from bones? Come on.
I made an attempt to get over to the Portuguese Synagogue, as there was no closing time clearly posted in any of the guide books or programs I saw. I arrived after a short tram ride to find that it did, in fact, close at 5 PM, and after the busy day I had, I wasn't too upset. By my count, I had used my pass for 20 free museum entries and two discounts, so I think I got my money's worth.
Running out of gas fast, I took the metro back to Centraal and then the train to the hotel. I picked up my laundry at the front desk on the way up, and then prudently set my tablet alarm and had a nap and a shower. Heading back out, I bought my ticket for Rotterdam the next day and then went back to Centraal, where I decided to take the metro down to Neumarket to see what I could rustle up for dinner. After walking around and looking at places, I suddenly had the craving for Italian, so I selected the Risorante Gusto for dinner. I had a big dinner of rice balls and veal and some wine, and finished off with some nice gelato.
I took the opposite route back to the hotel and spent the rest of the evening organizing and packing for my departure the next day. I didn't take the time to ship anything back to the states yet, but even with all my purchases, I was just about able to fit everything in my luggage and small backpack. Tired again after a long day of walking, I went to bed relatively early again, and was quickly asleep.
The Accommodations:
This was my last day at the Urban Lodge. It had been a welcome surprise as my selection, so I have no complaints, even if the laundry service was a bit on the pricey side. I only wish I had the opportunity to have breakfast there more than I did.
2019 The Netherlands
