The Full Van Gogh Experience, complete with depressed weather.

Day two in Amsterdam, 24th of June (Happy birthday Mum!)

Today it rained. A lot.

Based on the forecast we had decided that today would be museum day and when we woke up to find it pissing down we were glad we had planned it that way! After breakfast we headed to the Musuem square – we were going to check out the Van Gogh museum and the Rijksmuseum (even though the Rijksmuseum only had one wing open as it was under renovation).

We got to the Van Gogh museum. Well, turns out everyone else had the same idea. So we had the joy of queuing in the torrential rain for over half an hour.

The museum itself was also really expensive (and I am writing this after we had been to the national museum in Cardiff which was free and arguably as good/better...). Inside was steaming as all the wet punters took of jackets and umbrellas.

The collection is undeniably comprehensive and rather fantastic. I had already prepared myself for the fact that none of his starry night pictures were there. However they had a very good Sunflowers one as well as other ones which the audioguide taught us were famous and were rather good. They also had a painting done by his friend (although soon to be his ex-friend) of Van Gogh actually painting one of the sunflowers paintings. The travel through the museum was slow due to the crowds – at the more popular paintings you had to wait until you could get a spot where you could actually see the painting!

Hearing about his life and how that influenced his art was really good, although Greg who was coming from absolutely no background knowledge of Van Gogh didn't find the audioguide informative enough. He was particularly confounded by how someone who was not considered very good or important during his own life could come to be so famous – the guide didn't really mention about how or why he became considered one of the great impressionists during the 20^th century...

Once we had seen everything, we were half starved and it was still raining, so we decided to eat at the museum cafe. Apart from being crazy busy, it was actually pretty good, it had basically everything you could possibly want for lunch available. The system was "cruise around with your tray grabbing things then queue up and pay at the end" system. We decided we wanted something hot but we had to wait for a fresh dish to be ready. Trying to be clever and beat the crowds Greg sent me to line up with my coffee to pay, so that when the hot food was ready he could just slot into the line beside me and we'd be away. But the pay queue moved so fast and the hot food came so slowly that I had to bail at the last minute and go back to the end of the line no fewer than 3 times.

After lunch we contemplated the weather and our museum-weary feet. It was already nearing mid-afternoon and we knew that to go to the Rijksmuseum would mean yet another queue due to the weather, and we also knew that it was only partly open due to the renovations. We were also just so weary of being tourists at this point! (Also I had spent way too much money in the Van Gogh shop and didn't fancy another steep museum entry fee!). So it was an easy decision to flag the second museum and just head back to base, rest up, and then have a nice dinner later on.

We caught the tram back to base and kicked up our heels for a while.

Our seach for a dinner place later on found us in an extremely well established Italian restaurant where the price was right and food was hearty and good. A large (in all the ways) family of Italians were happily eating there so that's generally a good sign anyway right? Incidentally there was an Italian soccer match on that night and the whole restaurant was holding it's breath waiting for kick off. But we were all finished eating and paid before it started (but we still hurried home so Greg could catch it on the B+B's TV). Greg has really enjoyed been in Europe for this European soccer match – it's as big as the rugby world cup was to us!

We Like Science and Stuff

Amsterdam day one, 23rd of June

Our first day in Amsterdam. Started with an exceptionally yummy breakfast at the B&B. Then after taking our time, we were off. We were definitely starting to wind down in our enthusiasm for jumping out of bed and running all over town. We had both done a bit of research into the city and there were a few things we wanted to see, but overall it seemed the joy of Amsterdam was just to walk around and soak up the vibe (and not the pot....).

We took the tram all the way to Centraal station, and decided, randomly, to visit the science and technology museum first. Aimed at children but still rather fun, the museum was packed with interactive science based 'experiments'. Favourites included the large bubble making things and the time when Greg pulled the keystone out of a wooden model arched bridge, causing it to collapse. Then when he went to put it back together he did it wrong and the museum man rushed in to show him how to do it properly. It was too priceless! There was also a whole section on puberty for the 'teens' with a rather hilarious video (mainly hilarious if puberty is a thing of the past for you... if you were about to start it I imagine it would be terrifying!!).

The museum was in the shape of the hull of a ship!

A water clock, using just gravity and surface tension to accurately tell the time. Greg was in love!

Bubble making! I was poos at it

Greg was good!

*Queue evil scientist laugh*

This was a series of contraptions that formed a presentation in which 'energy was transfered' to make everything fall over, mouse trap/dominoes style. I thought I had videoed the whole thing as it happened... turned out I hadn't pushed the button properly... Doh! 

Greg breaks a bridge

Greg tries to put bridge back together

Greg was doing it wrong - helpful member of staff comes over to assist (sorry about nauseating blurrycam)

Have to bite my tongue from laughing as Helpful Museum Employee instructs Doctorate in Structural Engineering Man on how best to build a bridge.

Placing the keystone

Removing the supports...

Success! Structurally sound, as bravely tested by resident engineer.

Greg teaching me about more structural design principles. Apparently I had put the yellow cross thingies on wrong

This was a really creepy robot!!!

Lunch had been proposed to be on the rooftop terrace of the museum but the options were average and prices too high. Also no cover, and it was drizzling on and off. So we headed into the main streets of the city to find somewhere. Amsterdam is expensive!! We rejected restaurant after restaurant (and were reduced to buying a sandwich in a dairy-type shop and sharing it to avoid being so hungry that we just walked into the next restaurant and paid a fortune for something crappy).

The hunt for food revealed some pretty photo ops.

"Millies" 

Finally, we came across “Millies Cookies” which turned out to sell normal cookies (not dodgy ones) as well as paninis and cake, for not overly crazy prices. We sat at the window bar and enjoyed our sandwiches, cake, and hot drink, feeling like we had found somewhere properly Amsterdam (I later found out that Millies was a chain and there were Millie's Cookies all over England...).

Cafes, we discovered, were the thing when it was sunny. But we didn't find that properly until we left the crowded very central shopping area and got into the canalish part of the city.

View during lunch.

After lunch we wandered, heading towards a street recommended for nice typical Amsterdam houses and good canal views. We stumbled upon a central square which by evening was Amsterdam's Euro Soccer Fan Park and by day seemed to have school children performing with drums and be otherwise generally flooded with locals and tourists alike. Some prominent buildings surrounded the square.

We carried on to the street and eventually made it. Out here was where the cafes had come to life, people thronging the streets and stuffed onto the outdoor tables and chairs with coffees and beers, socialising with their neighbours. 

We stumbled upon a Saturday market, just winding down (as it was 4pm). 

Our next ultimate goal was the Anne Frank house. We had thought about going home and then coming back, as it was open until 10pm on a Saturday, to avoid the lines. But we decided that as we were already very close to just go and see it, queue or no.

On the way, we passed these things...

They said 'museum' but they meant 'shop'

Tulips! In Holland! It's a thing!

The queue.

Queue there was, but it was just a 30minute wait which I think is about average. The house itself was interesting and basically what was expected. Chilling and sad, but also triumphant in a way, that little Anne's story has become so famous and so well read, when that was always her dream to be a writer. Small blessings I guess when you died in a concentration camp at such a young age and never knew of your own fame, but more than most other children of the holocaust got. It was interesting as well to be reminded about the other people in and supporting the 'secret annexe' as it has been a very long time since I read the book. Seeing the actual rooms they all hid in gave a very real sense of what it must have been like – cramped and tense and horrible, basically.

When we emerged we were well really to find some dinner and call it a night. As I said before, we were definitely wanting to take it easy from here on in. The end of our time in Europe was something we could both feel coming very close and even though everything was still amazing and still being appreciated we were looking forward to the feeling of being back close to friends and family in UK/Ireland and also being somewhere where we spoke the language again!

The tram ride home was interesting – barely 5 minutes into the journey the tram came to a stop. After a period of time passed Greg and I came to realise that it didn't seem like it was going to be going anywhere. There was an announcement in dutch over the loudspeaker, and the tram person came out and spoke to us (also in dutch, obviously). Everyone began to file out of the tram. Greg and I shrugged and followed suit. There were three more trams stopped in front of ours, and outside the frontmost tram a small crowd and a man who seemed to be deaf was shouting/wailing unintelligibly. We shrugged again and joined the throngs of Amsterdam communters who were now walking home.

For the next ten minutes we walked in the direction of home, and stopped into a shop curiously called “The New Zealand Auckland Shop”. Turns out it's an expensive outdoorsy clothing shop. Who knew?

At length an ambulance came screeching passed us and then a few minutes later we noticed the trams were running again. Still no idea what had happened but we were feeling slightly put out – our 24 hour card which had still been valid when we first got on the tram (and therefore would have gotten us home) had now run out. We explained this to the tram lady when we got back on and she wasn't very sympathetic – she told us we could still get on but it would be 'our fine if there was a control check'. So we sweated a bit all the way to our stop (but we refused to buy another ticket – blimmin expensive in Amsterdam!) but there was no 'control' so we were safe.

Dinner was in a little pub round the corner from the B&B. The food was average and quite expensive – but probably normal for Amsterdam, we were learning. The most exciting things was Greg figuring out that as the restaurant had free wifi he could translate whole chunks of the menu at a time using Google Goggles (on his smart phone). The guy who ran the place was also very interested in where we were from and where we were staying. He wanted to get in touch with the B&B as it was nearby to see if he could do a deal with them. We told him the name of it but we were thinking 'good luck' since the B&B already has it's own, rather upmarket, restaurant(s)!

On the way back up the stairs, we ran into the B&B's cat "Furry". We may be guilty of calling him "fatty" when the B&B host wasn't around...

He was a pretty kitty and very friendly.

There was soccer on the TV when we got home Greg watched that while I read, and then it was bedtime!

Take it Easy, Take The Train...

Hamburg to Amsterdam 22nd of June

The trip from Hamburg to Amsterdam turned into a little bit of a faff but was overall ok. I had ascertained that we needed to reserve seats so we went to the counter of the station in the morning to sort it out. The lady at the counter was pretty grumpy, so naturally that makes you want to end the interaction as quickly as possible to stop ruining her day with your stupid questions. So the upshot was I didn't tell her that we wanted to go to Amsterdam Schipol station (airport station) rather than Amsterdam Centraal, and I also didn't mention that we had a first class rail pass. I knew there was supposed to be a train change on the journey but I was surprised when the bit of paper she handed be revealed two changes.... This confused me, but we got the reservations anyway. As we left the info counter I realised we had got second class reservations instead of first class. Oh well.

On the train the first journey was fine but it was embaressing when the ticket checker kindly pointed out that with our railpass we could go and sit in first class if we wanted. We had to explain that our reservation was for second class and he shrugged and smiled. Then we changed at this random little station in the middle of nowhere. A lady was in our seats and when I asked her to move she rolled her eyes and looked at me like I was being really unreasonable. Then a crowd of drunk Germans got on directly behind us and proceeded to talk and laugh loudly for over an hour straight, without pause, I kid you not. I really wasn't in the mood for it! I feel like such a snob saying this but the 1^st class carriages are always so peaceful it's really a lot more pleasant....

Then this announcement started coming over regarding the change to Amsterdam Centraal... and that's when I remembered that we wanted to be going to Schipol not Centraal and if we changed we would be ended up at the wrong place. I panicked for a bit until the guard came by, and he reassured me that if we stayed on the train we were on we would get to Schipol... so it was only one change after all. When the change came most of the passengers got off – including the drunk Germans, to my relief. But then this other family came and sat in front of us and this ten year old girl who probably had ADD proceeded to turn around in her chair and stare at me and giggle intermittently pretty much constantly until they got off, one stop before us. So not my favourite train journey (but still tops the next one we took... more on that later).

At Amsterdam, I tried to buy our reservations to Brussels in a few days just to have it sorted. But it turned out the train I wanted to take (the fast train) was sold out for the times we wanted and also hideously expensive to reserve a seat! The lady reassured me that the slower trains left every hour and we wouldn't need a reservation at all, so I decided we would just do that then.

From the station we took a cab to our accommodation as it was awkward to get to via public transport. The driver was Turkish (although born in the Netherlands) but I could have guessed that before he said from his (rather adventurous) driving. So we had some good conversations about where we had been in Turkey and stuff. He was very nice, making sure we had the address right before he drove off – but it was crazy expensive ride!!

Then were at our lovely B+B in Amsterdam. A nice Bulgarian girl greeted us and gave us all the usual information. We had one free meal at a restaurant owned by the B+B owners so we decided to cash that in that night as it got rid of the problem of where to have dinner. Our B+B was quite a ways out of Amsterdam central – I had originally intended us to enjoy nice walks into town through the large park near the B&B but as it turned out the weather while we were there wasn't really conjusive to that! The B+B girl explained to us how we could get to the restaurant via the tram and we nodded, barely understanding her accent, hoping that we were taking it in correctly!

Then we enjoyed a few hours R+R in the rather lovely room.

Revitalised, sort of, after a harrowing day, we headed out to try our hand at the trams and get into Amsterdam centre for tea. We managed successfully but end up in crappy seats where we rode backwards, getting thrown from left to right constantly – which wasn't great for Greg's tummy right before dinner! We got off at the right stop, and thanks to the maps on our phone and the GPS Greg got us to the restaurant but what we thought was one or two blocks turned out to be a bit more than that! The layout of Amsterdam is straightforward but the stretches of streets are deceptively long! Or maybe it just feels like it is taking ages on foot because so many people are whizzing past you one bicycles constantly.

 

The dinner was fairly amazing, and still fairly expensive even with the free meal! We were going to go for the three course but our main was so enormous that we couldn't bear the thought of anything more even though the dessert menu looked very tempting! The vibe of the restaurant was great and the quality of the food top notch.

Ordered a coffee to finish and got a wee dessert for free!

Stuffed, we waddled back to the tram stop and made it onto the tram just as the rain began to fall. It was also fairly freezing after the recent warm temperatures we'd enjoyed, especially in Berlin!

Walking to the tram on the way home, at 9.30pm, enjoying the blue skies (while they lasted) and the canals.

Near the entrance to the B&B, and average Amsterdam suburban street - FULL of bicycles!

Then it was home to bed!