also, it's nice in seattle right now. for the rest of the year, we live for july and august, and maybe a few days in september. as this was the summer that gave us 78 minutes of sun and temperatures over 80 in all of the days before practically august? i can't believe i'm gone. especially gone to a place with weather as capricious as seattle. i'd been checking the weather in amsterdam all summer, and up until about 2 weeks ago, it was 57 and raining pretty much constantly. i'd chosen to leave seattle summer, for seattle-rest-of-the-year-but-without-actually-being-seattle. awesome.
so when we woke up to overcast on tuesday, i wasn't too happy - but wasn't too concerned either. i mean, if i traded summer for seattle rain, at least it wouldn't actually be RAIN, right? just some drops and wet but mostly just overcast. right? right.
not right. tuesdays and thursdays are also our days for guest lectures, so we all got up earlier than usual to hike out to the meertens institute, which was awesome right up until it started raining. and we made a turn. and another turn. and kept walking. and it kept raining. and soooon... torrential downpour. there were some not so happy faces.
after our brief directions stop and another long walk in the rain, we finally made it to a fabulous guest lecture, and even more gratefully made it home afterward. though the rain continued. sigh.
in spite of the rain, we ventured forth across the city! well, first we stopped for lunch at the kiwi meat pie place next door. (omg it was fabulous. vegetable curry was scrumptious - i can't wait to go back. new zealand lamb? pumpkin sweet potato? thai chicken? what will be next?! mmmm.
post-meat-pie, we were allowed a reprieve for our walk over to the van gogh museum - or, as the dutch like to say, the van g*cough-hack-cough* museum. (i've been here for days already, and i'm still butchering the language. this was unexpected.) since i missed the museums in paris, i was super excited to start museum hunting in amsterdam - and van gogh was a perfect place to start. of his 900 paintings, they have about 200 in their permanent collection, plus others on loan and a bzillion sketches and letters. i think one of my favorite parts was seeing the sketches he sent his brother - what an awesome way to document his works. they also had a bunch of his contemporaries' works, and those whose work he emulated in his own paintings. highly recommended.
and this was our walk home.
(minus the cat i found on the way. my cat lady powers continue, and i managed to charm her right up until a dog walked by and she freaked. but i found a kitty friend! ... i miss the kitten cats.)
sadly, the rain continued from tuesday into wednesday... we had class inside while the torrents came down around us... for hours. it lightened that afternoon again long enough for us to run back over to the rijksmuseum - basically the major art and history museum in amsterdam. sadly, it was mostly under construction at this point, but that made it manageable enough to get overwhelmed by the delft pottery and the exquisite doll houses, the rembrants and vermeers and countless others masters. and then a room of rembrant and degas self portraits! fabulous.
the most interesting part, i think, was the room with the night watch - rembrant's most famous painting, and it DOES take up an entire wall. it's clearly phenomenal. but across the hall is another painting of the ubiquitous black coated men all discussing something, with some women in a doorway in the background. the description of the painting? these men work in a home for "wayward women" in amsterdam... what? who decides which women are wayward? as rachel asked, what are the characteristics of division? excuse me? i was not terribly impressed. intrigued, not impressed.
after the rijksmuseum, i made my way up the western side of the city toward the tulip museum - and alex's parents! way back when this whole trip was still in the planning process, there was this moment of realization that alex's parents were taking a trip to belgium-netherlands-luxembourg at the end of the summer, too. isn't that funny? ... turns out that we're not only taking a trip at the same time, to the same place, we'd all be in amsterdam during the exact same week! to celebrate our parallel adventures in dutchland, we did a bit of pre-reading about the tulips and tulip mania during the sixteenth century - clearly a visit to the tulip museum was necessary. and, while teensier than expected, it was awesome. of course, i will think that anything involving tulips will be beyond amazing, so i may be a bit biased. but i'm ok with this. it was awesome :) lots of history and pictures - who knew that tulips grow wild in central asia, and the turks were the first to have a tulip mania? had no idea.
afteraward we wandered through the canals - in the rain, and alex's father chastised me for my lack of umbrella, much like some other people i know... :) - happened upon a lovely restaurant for dinner, and had a generally lovely time. it was wonderful to see them again, and so great to see familiar faces so far from home!
on the way home, i had my first taste of wandering around the lighted canals at night. this is such a lovely city.
by the time i got home, it was definitely time for bed. our days of rain were more exhausting that expected... and still only wednesday! this is going to be a very, very full trip.
the most interesting part, i think, was the room with the night watch - rembrant's most famous painting, and it DOES take up an entire wall. it's clearly phenomenal. but across the hall is another painting of the ubiquitous black coated men all discussing something, with some women in a doorway in the background. the description of the painting? these men work in a home for "wayward women" in amsterdam... what? who decides which women are wayward? as rachel asked, what are the characteristics of division? excuse me? i was not terribly impressed. intrigued, not impressed.
after the rijksmuseum, i made my way up the western side of the city toward the tulip museum - and alex's parents! way back when this whole trip was still in the planning process, there was this moment of realization that alex's parents were taking a trip to belgium-netherlands-luxembourg at the end of the summer, too. isn't that funny? ... turns out that we're not only taking a trip at the same time, to the same place, we'd all be in amsterdam during the exact same week! to celebrate our parallel adventures in dutchland, we did a bit of pre-reading about the tulips and tulip mania during the sixteenth century - clearly a visit to the tulip museum was necessary. and, while teensier than expected, it was awesome. of course, i will think that anything involving tulips will be beyond amazing, so i may be a bit biased. but i'm ok with this. it was awesome :) lots of history and pictures - who knew that tulips grow wild in central asia, and the turks were the first to have a tulip mania? had no idea.
afteraward we wandered through the canals - in the rain, and alex's father chastised me for my lack of umbrella, much like some other people i know... :) - happened upon a lovely restaurant for dinner, and had a generally lovely time. it was wonderful to see them again, and so great to see familiar faces so far from home!
on the way home, i had my first taste of wandering around the lighted canals at night. this is such a lovely city.
this was the oldest fortification in amsterdam. still standing, but no longer fortifying anything other than the wijn they serve in the restaurant in the ground floor of the building.
by the time i got home, it was definitely time for bed. our days of rain were more exhausting that expected... and still only wednesday! this is going to be a very, very full trip.
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