When I arrived in Amsterdam at about 11:30 (it doesn't actually take that long, I just barely missed a train and had to wait around) I had originally planned to walk my way over to the Jordaan and find Anne Frank Huis by myself, but a lot of the area in front of Amsterdam Centraal (the train station) is under construction so the way I was going to walk was blocked. As I was turning around I saw a sign for the Canal Bus hop-on hop-off canal tour. One of my tasks for the day was to go on a boat in a canal. The Canal Bus would take me to Anne Frank Huis and the Rijksmuseum and whereever else I had time for AND take care of the boat-on-the-canal requirement for my trip. It was 20 Euro, but I did it anyway. It was worth it to not have to constantly be looking like a tourist staring at a map and possibly getting pick-pocketed.
The boats were nice, open topped long boats with cushy seats, tables and a multilingual recording that recited interesting things about the surroundings and Amsterdam in general. I learned a lot of things about the canals, the harbors and even the gables on the canal houses.
When I arrived at Anne Frank Huis, there was a line that most people less determined than I might forego. I had planned for this though (having been warned by my tour book and half a dozen people) so I didn't mind standing in line. Luckily, I was only in line for about 45 minutes. I had been expecting something more along the lines of 2 hours, so I was pleased. The museum itself is very interesting. It mostly consists of the house itself, which is bare of furniture as the Nazis left it, per the surviving Otto Frank's request. The various things that were plastered to the walls in the Secret Annex, both by Anne and her Father are all still there though, and that was really cool to see. There were also video interviews with various people who survived the war that told various portions of the story from other people's perspectives. For me, it sort of made it all very...real, I guess, which was maybe the purpose? Because, well, it was real, but being an American 22 year old female in the 21st Century, World War 2 and the terrible events that happened with it were always long ago, in a country far far away. I've always liked historical fiction, and I've read a reasonably large number of holocaust books for a non-Jewish kid, including Anne Frank's Diary, but it never really was a reality until today I think. Walking in that house and seeing those actual rooms, objects, writings and people. Videos of the real people talking about their memories of what happened. It's a good museum. Go stand in line and walk through it. It's not big, but it is worth the 8.50 and the wait. Especially if you've read Anne's Diary.
After that experience, which was concluded with a video of Otto Frank talking about his daughter and her diary, I walked back to the Canal Bus stop and rested by the canal for a while waiting for it. When it arrived I hopped back on and we continued our route towards the Rijksmuseum, which is right next to the Van Gogh museum I visited last week. When we arrived, I got off and decided that I was going to go into the Rijksmuseum and see the Nightwatch, since apparently it's important or something. So I did. And now I understand.
The building behind the wall with the panels on the side is the Rijksmuseum
Most of the Rijksmuseum is being renovated right now so they don't have their whole collection available, but they did have all the important pieces and some Dutch finery. The bottom floor was dedicated to Dutch history and had ships, some paintings, Delftware (thats the Dutch porcelain with the blue dyes) and some metal work. Nothing too intriguing for me. Upstairs was the good stuff. I'm not normally a huge painting person, but for some reason today I was (just like the day I went to Van Gogh, maybe I'm more interested when I pay?). Anyway, while walking through the rooms, there was one artist who had a few paintings up who I liked a lot: Pieter Jansz Saenredam. I thought his composition was cool, and sort of like my photography. I looked at all the Rembrandt and Degas stuff they had up and came to the conclusion that Degas was rather handsome and Rembrandt wasn't really.
Then I walked into the room with the Nightwatch. Most people are impressed by its size, I think. Having seen many large paintings in galleries world wide (the British National Gallery, for example) that wasn't really what surprised me. What caught me was the detail! I stood staring at the thing for what must have been 10 minutes trying to see it all. I don't think I had, until today, ever seen the image before, but now it might be my favorite painting ever. The print I bought of it (on a postcard) doesn't even begin to do it justice though. I'm not sure any duplicate could. There's just no reproducing the way the man in gold jumps off the canvas, or the glitter on each gentleman's hat, or the dimensionality of the rifles. Not happening on a print. I knew that when I was looking at it, which is probably why I stared for so long. Though now, I wish I had stayed even longer.
After the Rijksmuseum, I wandered around a little and eventually got back on the Canal Bus, which meandered it's way back to Centraal, where I caught the train back to Den Haag. My last train ride... followed by my last tram ride, followed by my last time keying in to the apartment. I will miss it here, I like it a lot.
I then set about helping Peter and Jen eat all of the remaining food, before we discovered we needed to go out to get more. Then we went out to one of the restaurants and Jen and I split some pasta. Then we got some ice cream and came back to pack.
I'm all packed now, all 3 of us are taking a taxi to the airport in the morning (their flight for Boston leaves very shortly after mine to Philly). I will tweet when I return to the states. I go to Philadelphia, then Charlotte, then SFO, but we'll see if that sticks.
A reflection post will come with my photo album links in a few days :)
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