Sunday in Amsterdam

Random pieces and bits on my way toward shutting down …

1. A trio of us went into Amsterdam today — a bit later than expected, as I got waylayed by a Big Boss into a project review meeting that ran an hour-plus. It was a rainy day pretty much all day — not serious rain, but a serious drizzle. We took the Canal Bus canal boats — that let us get a tour of the canals and get on and off at their stops at will for the day. We didn’t take as much advantage of that as I would have liked, but it was still handy.
2. The Rijksmuseum is another of the fabulous 19th Century buildings in Amsterdam, with a huge collection of fabulous mostly-Dutch art. It’s currently undergoing a multi-year rennovation, so “only” a side gallery is open, which “only” has about 400 of their top pieces (“The Masterpieces” collection, rightly named). It still took us a couple of hours to work through, and it was really spiffy. Very highly recommended for art and history fans. Lots of Rembrandts but also works by Vermeer, Hols, and Steen. It is (for those who “get it”) the anti-“Tate Modern” — lots of vibrant, realistic, enjoyable masterpieces.
3. The Van Gogh Museum … not so much. It has the largest Van Gogh collection in the world, which now means I have officially seen as much Van Gogh as I ever need to. On the other hand, they have a faboo John Everett Millais exhibition going on (Ophelia sinking beneath the water; the Princes in the Tower, that Millais). A much more enjoyable area than the titular Van Gogh stuff. Ironically, in the lower gallery of the museum, which includes works by artists who inspired Van Gogh, my attention was drawn to a really spiffy painting that looked Pre-Raphaelite in subject, but far too sketchy/rough for one of that school; it turned out, though, to be a lovely unfinished Alma-Tadema, who’s one of our favorite Pre-Raphaelites (there were two others of his pieces, portraits, in the collection).
4. Weather was drizzly all day, which both made it a bit annoying to take photos and, worse, meant the big glass windows of the canal bus were nearly impossible to see through about water level.
5. The Dutch countryside reminds me, not surprisingly, a lot of the English countryside — save it’s much flatter, has waterways, and is uniformly neatly manicured. Many swans and geese (the big fat Dutch kind, not Canadian) about. Also, in the city, a fair amount of graffiti.
6. Amsterdam’s canals — there are 60+ miles of them in the city, with 1250 bridges, I’m told (500 from the 17th Century) — are full of houseboats — 2500-odd of them. Some of these are the low-slung houseboats of the Parisian style. Others are, literally, boats that people are living on. Some are, basically, mobile homes on large concrete piers. It’s kind of crazy, but fun.
7. A lot of Amsterdam was built in the 17th Century. The harbor used to be open to the sea, but eventually got locked off, so the water in the canals is “fresh” (well, not salt). The canals themselves have locks, too, and nightly they are closed and pumped to move the water through them (since there are no tides or other natural currents). The canals themselves were used to transport goods in from the harbors to the warehouses. The buildings are all row houses (or housing from former warehouse space), all of them very quaint looking, most with very narrow floor plans — property taxation was done based on length of street frontage. As a result, most houses have very narrow, very steep staircases that you can’t move furniture into. As a result of that, most houses have a hoisting beam at the very top so things can be hoisted to the upper floors (which always have doors or large windows). The locals say that’s one reason why the facades of the buildings tend to be cantilevered outwards a bit, but given that they also tend to be a bit crooked — and that most of the city is built on wooden piers pounded into the ground in the 17th Century — I think subsidance is also a culprit.
8. We went to a great Italian bistro, the Ristorante Savini, not too far south of the Centraal railway station. Best food I had all trip, though I didn’t object to most of the meals, and I’m always a sucker for osso buco. Also the best service we’ve had on the trip. Pleasant meal, though I ended up in a conversation with two older English couples at the adjoining table, who started off by interrupting us to ask if I was (from my accent) California. That turned into a free-ranging discussion of George W. Bush, McCain, Clinton, US immigration policy (both countries), the war in Iraq, national health care, etc. (Interestingly, while we were on the train back to Leiden, some Russian (?) young ladies coming from the airport asked me, “Do you speak English?” in order to find out if they were on a train that went to Rotterdam, which they were).
9. Two UK slang terms I picked up here: pukka (from Indian, for A-1 Okay), and plonker (stupid git). The terms came up in discussions of some UK TV shows, in particular Only Fools and Horses. Alas, nobody was impressed by my knowledge of Torchwood and Doctor Who, though they were pleased to find out we get Graham Norton in the US. Sadly, they’d never heard of Coupling.

Phew.

Off to the airport tomorrow early in the morning (hopefully before the impending big storm). Need to do some shopping, since all I’ve managed to find is a couple of small things for Katherine and some museum collection books (ahem). Didn’t even think to shop for something for Margie at De Wallen last night …

Anyhow, time for a last pint with the gang, head up to pack, and hit the hay. Or something like that. Chat with folks in-time-zone soon …

Note 1: I have expanded my post on the Red Light District from last night with various impressions. This post ought to have been updated this morning, but MT’s annoying AJAX interface meant that when I clicked on the Save button, it only gave it focus, not actually, oh, a command to save the thing.

Note 2: Many thanks to both Les and De who texted with me on the long boat trip back to Amsterdam Centraal. Ain’t technology grand?

Note 3: See you soon, my love.