Wednesday, May 07, 2014 – Amsterdam redux I
Even with all of the sleep we had
yesterday, we had a relaxed morning.
After all of the early mornings on shipboard and all of the mornings we
were ready long before Edwin arrived to drive us around Zeeland, we had no
place we had to be or a time when we had
to be there. So we goofed off.
We made coffee in the room even
though it was instant and broke into our hoard of stroopwafels for
breakfast. We spent enough time in the
hotel restaurant yesterday to last for a while.
The stroopwafels hit the spot and we were ready to go, finally.
Today was a day of trains and
trams and buses, oh my! We started with
the shuttle bus to Schipol airport and then found our way, with some
assistance, to the money exchange where we bought train tickets to Amsterdam’s
Centraal Station [no, that is not a misspelling]. The round trip tickets cost 8.50€ each which
we thought was reasonable. At least we
were not being driven around Holland by a rogue taxi driver.
Schipol is a city unto
itself. In addition to a bazillion passengers
and airplane landings and departures, there is enough shopping at all price
points to satisfy anyone. The stores run
the gamut from high-end, like the terminals in Singapore and elsewhere, to the
downright cheap. One of Holland’s
institutions, HEMA, has a store in the terminal here [and in Centraal Station,
we discovered]. HEMA caters to the Dutch
passion for thrift. We have tracked the
price of stroopwafels across the country, literally, and found that HEMA sells
them for less than anyone [On the other hand, the duty-free stores at Schipol
seem to be the most expensive].
Centraal Station is a slum
compared to the airport. Even though it
is tremendous for a train station, it can’t compare in any other way. It, too, is crowded with passengers, but many
of these are commuters or other locals who are all in a hurry. The station is cold and dirty, the platforms
an embarrassment of trash. MA did
experience the ladies’ room in the station – at the standard European cost of
.50€ -- but found it clean and well maintained.
We walked out of the terminal
building and walked to the tram stop.
The concierge on the ship had told us that trams 2 and 5 would take us
to Museumplein, the square in the middle of the museum district [hence its name]. We had considered returning to the
Rijksmuseum to see the paintings without the holiday crush we faced last week
and, indeed, walked there from the tram.
When we realized that it was already 11:45, we changed our plans and went
in to have lunch in the museum café.
The café is cozy – read “crowded”
– but tables turned over quickly and we waited only a minute or so before being
pointed to space at a table large enough for 8 people. We didn’t mind sharing the space and people
came and went as we ate. We settled on a
cheese plate which turned out to be delightfully good and just the right amount
of food. We even had soft drinks with
the assorted cheeses and onions and finished the meal with a cappuccino and a
hot chocolate. Steady readers know who
drank what. A trip to the lavatories
after lunch [no charge!] and we were on our way.
The one item on our schedule
today was to meet Skip and Fran at the van Gogh museum around the corner. Despite some false starts and touristic
oblivion, we arrived just at 1:00 as scheduled.
They were already there and we all hugged and greeted each other as if
we had not seen one another last week.
Fran had recovered from her malaise
and looked great.
We had bought our tickets in
advance while on the River Navigator. While we paid an extra 2.50€ apiece, we were
able to avoid the long and growing line of tourists waiting to get in. Even with so-called priority tickets, we had
a short wait. Once at the head of the
line, we found that our tickets were really vouchers which we had to exchange
for tickets in order to gain admission.
It was worth it.
We took the lift to the top floor
where there were, actually, no van Gogh paintings. We did not stay long and walked down a flight
of steps to the second floor which in the US would be the third floor. The ground floor [street level] in Europe is
called 0, our second floor is 1 and so on.
It takes a little getting used to.
The second/third floor was better and we were in Heaven, Fran
especially. We followed the crowd so as
not to feel like salmon swimming upstream and read displays about van Gogh and
his work, especially his use of an adjustable frame to help him keep things in
perspective.
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| The Potato Eaters |
We were not supposed to take
pictures in the museum. In many,
non-flash photography is allowed, but not here.
There were even explanations of the overhead light system and how it was
designed to have as little effect as possible on the art. Long exposure and/or bright lights [like a
photo flash] contribute to the deterioration on the paint. Skip was caught two of the three times he
tried to take pictures, but David was luckier.
We blamed the camera, not Skip.
All of the van Gogh pictures in this entry were taken illegally, but
David promised to send them to Skip. As
our friend Ed says, “If you don’t have a picture, you weren’t there.”
Once we finished ogling the art,
we separated. They had a full schedule
of things to do and places to be and we didn’t.
Even so, we all ended up in the gift shop where we bought a print of one
of van Gogh’s last paintings, a still-life of poppies and butterflies. Our purchase complete and the weather
threatening, we retraced our route and caught the tram back to Centraal; the
train back to Schipol; and the shuttle back to the hotel. We did check out the HEMA in Centraal to no
avail and consoled ourselves with drinks at Starbucks which was across the
concourse. It may have been heresy to go
to Starbuck’s but it tasted good after three weeks in Holland.
Dinner at 7:00 in the hotel
dining room was gigantic bacon cheeseburgers for both of us. And fried.
And more bread. We have met the
carbs and they are now us.
Back in the room, we read and
David transferred pictures and did some work on the journal, but he hasn’t
written a full report or posted since we met Edwin. Maybe people will think we are dead.
Tomorrow -- More Amsterdam
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