Day 2: Accidental Red Light District Adventures, A Coffee Shop, and Art as Therapy

 Opening with a picture is a classy way of apologizing for falling asleep in the middle of blogging last night. Well, not night. Like 5 or 6 in the afternoon. Sorry, I was jetlagged and tired and mostly jetlagged. Duebuchi. Wrong language but I speak zero Dutch, haha.

Today started with another train adventure after waking up at 10:30 and eventually meandering out of the apartment where we're staying at oneish. I haven't talked about that situation too much, so here it is. We're staying with Marcus, Pilar, and another girl whose name I don't know. I've met Marcus twice now and the other two once even though it's the second night we're staying in their home. I only met the girls since they were up hanging laundry. It was a little awkward since they're Spanish and speak little English but they work all day most days so it'd be hard to communicate much anyway.

Marcus keeps trying to sell us things. Like, he provides breakfast and a bed and he let us borrow a train map but the bikes he keeps offering us are for rent (how much? He hasn't mentioned it yet) and he let me borrow Pilar's museum cart for the museums I wanted to see but he said we'd pay him to rent it--however much we think it's worth. How much do I think it's worth? I have no idea.

Here are some bikes right on a canal we found today. Wouldn't it be fun to live on the water like this?

After breakfast, we made a genius trail mix of this granola with chocolate and freeze-dried raspberries, peanuts, and dried fruit, loaded up on water and apples, and went out to the train station. We made it to Duivendrecht and had to double check with information about which train to get on. We missed the first one but the information lady gave us a good way to figure out if the thing we're getting on is the train or the metro: trains are blue and orange, the metro is blue and white. Would've been good to know before hand but it's useful information.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the day and it took four or five tries to get it just right because stupid tourists kept walking into the frame.

Before I get too into the details of the day, I should explain about pictures. Casey and I agreed that we would take turns with the camera so there aren't too many pictures of either of us. Today was his day, yesterday was mine. Tomorrow will be mine again. He seems to take pictures of scenery and ads, which is different from my picture-taking style. It should be a good mix of things.

Anyway, once we got into the city itself, we decided to take a leisurely walk to the museum district. Casey bought his fast-track tickets for the museums by the Central Station and we started out trek. I should mention I've been having either a dehydration, caffeine-withdrawal, jet-lag, or all of the above headache since this morning so the sun wasn't helping much. I remembered to wear my hat today though so we looked generally more touristy.

Wish you were here, Tiff!

The journey to the museum took much longer than it should have. We found the Red Light district on the way and tried unsuccessfully to not make awkward eye contact with the women in the windows. One thing I did like about the district: there were all kinds of body types and shapes of woman there. Of course, it was mostly large-breasted, tiny-waisted women with long hair (your standard type) but there was at least one very large woman and a couple who were more mature than I'd expect. There are no pictures because 1. it's not allowed, and 2. Casey was in charge of the camera today. He was perhaps even more awkward than I, and that's hard to do.

One thing I didn't like about the district (aside from your standard gut reaction of women being exploited for their bodies, though that's certainly not the case here as theoretically all the women in the windows choose to be there) was the creepy feel of everything there. We were straight-up offered cocaine, which we declined of course, and there were a lot of peep shows which awkwardly large groups of touristy guys walked in and out of. We were definitely too weirded out to check out any of the coffee shops along the way and walked in another direction as soon as we could.

Rembrandt with a bird on his head. Such a jokester.

We did some price-shopping at different gift stores and found the Rijksmuseum eventually, though it took a bit. We got there at about 4:55 and the museum closes at 5. It being Friday, I assumed the Van Gogh museum would close early as well, but as it turns out, Friday is the one day a week the museum stays open until 10. Woohoo!

Unfortunately, photos at the Van Gogh museum are strictly verboten, but it was a beautiful experience and I love that museum with all my heart. I don't love the lines or the pushy tourists but it's an amazing place. Right now, they have an extra exhibit by a photographer from the 1950's who was so influenced by Van Gogh she went to Provence to do a photo series dedicated to him. It was lovely and her work is exquisitely poignant as well.

I got to see my sunflowers, which I love, along with some of Gaugin's portraits of Vincent, a few colorist masters, and of course all of the Van Gogh I could dream of. There was the picture of the field with the crows, the irises, the boats, the skeleton with the cigarette, and a few more I couldn't recall. A couple of things I loved: when praised by Gaugin about his sunflowers, Vincent wrote "Yes I, before others, have taken the sunflower." Isn't that a beautiful, simple, poignant phrase? I want it in a poem. The poetry of the art world is the self-portrait, I think.

I also thought about Van Gogh's landscape scenes with working peasants. Something about how the artist can capture nature around the working man and make it beautiful and shining as if the working man could just look up and be surrounded by all this ringing nature everywhere. If only we weren't so distracted by the stupid occupations of ours, we could see the world as artists do and appreciate the inherent beauty around us. Like the reaper who doesn't realize he's swimming in a golden ocean. I also enjoyed how Van Gogh's paintings seem to place the viewer in the position of the artist as if to say we elevate the world ourselves by appreciating art. This put me in a bit of a mental funk because I was thinking far too deeply.

Something about writing makes me unbelievably insecure and powerful simultaneously. It makes me question myself and be confident at the same time. Art does that, I think, and real artists go with the tides of creativity. They are intuitive and free and allow the world to present itself the way it does, then refract it so others can see. I would like to learn to do that.

The gift shop was hilarious: anything you could ever want with a Van Gogh print on it and marked up to at least 20 Euro. There was a little wooden card holder that cost 7 Euro, a tea pot with the flowering almond branches that cost 130 Euro, scarves that ranged from 50 to 70 Euro. Who buys all this crap, I'd like to know?

There was live music on the ground floor so there weren't as many people coming in but it was still fairly crowded and in order to see anything properly, it took some time. We were out of the museum by 8 or 9 but it still wasn't sunset.

After the museum, we retraced our steps to a coffee shop and relaxed after a long day of walking. After that, we passed a large grocery store and I convinced Casey to try a local delicacy: french fries smothered in mayonnaise. He put up a bit of a fight but I won him over in the end and he said they were delicious. Then, realizing it was 10, we made our way back to the train station, hopped on a train (not a metro!) back home, and walked in to meet two of our three roommates for the first time. Fun and awkward times.

Random other tidbit from today: I love overhearing other people's conversations. For example, there were some Russian tourists complaining loudly about bike culture today. If the Dutch could understand them, the tourists would probably have been kicked out of Amsterdam on principle. Another one happened between two Essex-sounding guys walking behind us. I quote: "Yeah, some people think of the Queen during because it makes them last longer." I'll just leave that one without comment.

Tomorrow, the plan is to see the Rijksmuseum because we have tickets and it looked beautiful from just walking by, and then to explore some of the parks at the outskirts of Amsterdam. We might even end up doing some souvenir shopping--who knows?

Signing off because I should sleep eventually,
Maria