Amsterdam

From Central Station is a magnificent view of the New Church. We arrived in Amsterdam in one of the few weekends left after the tourist season concludes and before Europe’s cold, wet winter settles in. There were no wannabe American college students loitering about looking for drugs, eager to enjoy Amsterdam’s “progressive” drug laws. The line at Anne F.’s house was almost non-existent. Having read the diary many years ago, walking through the house was still the first time the reality of Anne F’s confinement was driven home for me. A tough way to start my first visit to Amsterdam, to be sure, but then one of Europe’s greatest assets is its history, encapsulated in churches and homes, monuments and streets.

We met our friend AZ and grabbed lunch at Dos, one of the city’s many Spanish restaurants overlooking the seemingly endless canals that follow their own course alongside the sidewalk’s and streets’ foot and bicycle traffic. After making our way to a Portuguese-Israeli synagogue, Vondelpark, and the Stopopera we walked through the infamous Red Light District where my AZ and M were careful to shield me from anything the slight bit offensive. At the Royal Palace at Dam Square, AZ proved his brute strength (as testified in the photo). Despite the distracting Times Square-like lights of the RLD and the drunken tourists, the Amsterdam is a magnificent city at night. The street lamps reflect in the canals and illuminate the romantic side streets that weave through the city.

After a wholesome breakfast of apple strudel and a slow walk through a delicious-looking food market, we made our way to Dam Square where we took a walking tour of Amsterdam. At the Rijksmuseum, we viewed Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” among other of the museum’s “greatest hits collection” now that the building is undergoing renovation. Not a fan of large museums, opening only one wing of the museum to tourists was fine by me. At Tempo Doeloe we explored the tastes and smells of Indonesian cuisine, the most popular international food in Amsterdam. The rice table was exquisite, a vast tasting menu including chicken in a peanut sauce, beef cooked in scallions, and baby shrimps steamed in their own juices. Too full for desert, we walked off our meal by taking an exploratory walk of the RLD, a somewhat disturbing excursion for me that gave a whole new meaning to the phrase “window shopping”.

Our final day in Amsterdam was a rainy one. We retreated to the Vincent Van Gogh Museum, a small museum that reminded me a little of NYC’s Guggenheim Museum but without the spiral staircase. The museum interprets the collection based on the artist’s autobiography which in some ways reduces his work rather than allows it to stand on its own. However, the collection was astounding and included the works other artists such as Paul G. After a brief visit to the Concert Hall and the House with (Six!) Heads, it began to rain. We treated ourselves to the anti-intellectual, nonsensical whims of American teenagers as we enjoyed, for the “desert” we were always too full to fit, the drivel of America’s MTV programming in the warmth of a hotel room.