Standing On The Outside Looking In
Trip Start
Sep 07, 2008
1
19
33
Trip End
Oct 10, 2008
Amsterdam,
Noord-Holland,
Netherlands
Saturday, September 27, 2008
We started our day at the Rijksmusuem and were pleasantly surprised to find no line at all to get in. The museum is undergoing quite an extensive renovation and as a result only a small part of the collection is on display. The most famous and certainly the most impressive work on display is Rembrandt's "The Night Watch". It is an enormous canvas that fills a whole wall and when you stand back and look at it from a distance you can see that it's height is actually a little out of proportion to width
Rijksmuseum
. This is because the room in which it was originally housed was too small, so the geniuses cut a piece off one side of the painting. This poor painting has also survived an attack by a knife-wielding psychopath and you can actually still see one of the wounds if you look closely. The museum also displays a many other paintings by Rembrandt and a couple of Vermeers, although unfortunately for us at least half of the Vermeers were out on loan. My attempts to show Matt why I like Vermeer so much seem to have been thwarted at every attempt on this trip, although he did like the few that he saw. The lower floor of the Rijksmuseum is a display of a variety of riches from the Golden Age. I had never realised that the Dutch were one of the richest nations in the world in the 1700s due to trade with the East by the Dutch East India Company. I also never realised how much this shaped the architecture of this city. Amsterdam is a gorgeous city of canals lined with narrow houses of up to 3 and 4 stories high. Many of these were built in the 17th Century during the boom time of the Golden Age. Each of them has a gabled roof facade in a shape that is unique to the Netherlands. We wandered for hours down cobbled streets and along canals marvelling at the many canal homes, some of which still have the plaques which show the profession of the original owners. With the help of our guidebook we did manage to find the narrowest house in Amsterdam in Oude Hoogstraat
Narrowest house in Amsterdam
. It is only 2.02m wide and it is impossible to imagine how anyone could actually live inside it. Our walking tour through the Oude Zijde (Old Town) took us to Nieuwmarket which was the site of town executions in medieval times. We also discovered the Oude Kirche which is the oldest church in Amsterdam. It has the proud honour of looking out over the Red Light district, which I had never walked through during the day before. Even in broad daylight there are semi-naked women in their little windows flaunting their wares. I was probably looking more than Matt was as I couldn't believe they don't bother keeping themselves in better shape. The most disgusting thing though was the two heavily-pregnant women we saw in one of the windows offering themselves up for sale. Quite vulgar really.
Our plan for the afternoon had been to visit the Heineken experience, which has been closed since I last visited in 2006. Much to our disappointment we discovered it was still closed for another month. We did however have a back-up plan which was to drink Heineken at all the bars with a Heineken sign hanging out the front that we passed on our walk back through town. Sadly this also involved Matt stopping for croquettes at all the Febo's we passed as well. For those of you that haven't had the pleasure, Febo is a fast food joint that has all it's food displayed behind little glass doors. You put your money in the slot and it allows you to open one of the little doors and remove the deep-fried goodness that lies inside. They are mostly croquettes which are basically deep-fried goo of either meat or vege varieties, but you can also get burgers or pomme frites with fritesauce (fries with mayonnaise). I know I'm not really selling it but it is really good, especially when you have had enough beers that you don't really care what the goo is
Us in Amsterdam
. Anyway Matt loves them and seems to be able to sniff them out all over Amsterdam. In true Wells fashion we decided to spend the afternoon climbing the highest thing that we could find. This happened to be the tower of Westerkircher. We were initially a little disappointed to find that we would have to do a guided tour, but once we got inside we realised why. We climbed 300+ steps up a tiny staircase that was more like a ladder in some places. I couldn't even wear my backpack as there wasn't enough room to fit through the stairwells with anything on your back. Our guided tour turned out to be more of a spiel on the history of Amsterdam by a lovely local guy named Adrian. He explained that this church is where the Dutch Royal Family hold their weddings. The tower had also played an important role in the city until the 1900's as it had been the watch tower for fires in the city. The bells would sound to bring the locals from their home to pass buckets of water from the canals to put out the fire. The view from the tower was amazing and it was great to see the city and the canals from a different perspective. It had turned into a beautiful clear day and we felt very lucky when one of the fellows on the tour remarked that he had lived in Amsterdam for 10 years and never seen a day as good as this.
Feeling quite thirsty after our climb, we found a little bar to have another beer
Matt at Febo
. This time we tried Amstel, another local beer which I actually like even more than Heineken. We discovered that we had wandered into a part of town called Jordaan, which is where the cool kids hangout. People were sitting outside in bars drinking and even outside their own homes on the steps drinking with their neighbours. Further exploration of this part of town revealed another little highlight of Amsterdam that we hadn't known about until today. Some of the houses have secret gardens which are called Hofjes, which are a little courtyard in between a group of houses. They are very quiet and peaceful places away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the city. The locals are happy for you to walk through them as long as you keep quiet. This brought us to another observation about the Dutch. They don't seem to bother with curtains on their windows. Apparently it is a sign that you have something to hide from your neighbours. Not surprising then, that the Dutch also invented the TV show Big Brother.We dined in a little Italian Restaurant in an area known as Spui. (Not pronounced spew despite my giggling). Apparently this is the part of town where the intellectual crowd hang out in cafes and debate life. We had a lovely meal, crammed into a tiny room no bigger than our lounge room, next to a group of very large Dutch boys. It was nice to be able to use my Italian again, although it has become somewhat rusty. Still better than my French though.
