Update, Home Edition
Sep. 23rd, 2009 07:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthI know it might sound odd, but I was so ready to be home. It's kind of surreal, too, it almost feels like I never left. Like, those last three weeks were some other life, and here I am. Not in a bad way. Just in an odd way.
We only had four days in Amsterdam, but in comparison to Paris and London there's not all that much to do there, and I did a lot of the things I wanted to do most when I was there last year (though I was only there for two days then).
We arrived on the 17th, but didn't do much that day. On the 18th, I went with my grandfather and mom to the Jewish History Museum there. I wasn't terribly interested in it one way or the other, and it wasn't nearly as impressive as the similarly themed museum in Paris, but it was still nice and interesting, was set in two of the cities old synagogues. It told the history of Jews in Amsterdam and the Netherlands, where, in comparison to other places in Europe, they were relatively welcome. I got to learn, unfortunately, just how fricken hard it was to push the wheel chair around Amsterdam. Even if there wasn't construction everywhere, the curbs were often not raked, and the sidewalks were a mess, and the canals make getting around a little complicated anyway. It was no fun at all. :(
Saturday, I cut off on my own and ended up having a very nice day. I went to Rembrandt Huis, one of the main attractions I wanted to see that I didn't get to see last time, and learned a bunch about one of my favorite artists. He lived in the house for several years before he was forced to declare bankruptcy. They reproduced the house pretty faithfully, and they had a wonderful collection of the etchings that he did in his life. I also got to see a demonstration of how etchings are made, and learned what the difference between the three types of etchings are, though - being me - I only remember the name of one of them now (drypoint).
From there, I wandered around a street market at Waterlooplein, and found some nice stuff, but it was an expensive market and I only bought one thing, an old Victorian-style top.
Next stop was the other place that I really wanted to go - earlier this year, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg opened a branch museum in Amsterdam. This proved to be the highlight of my trip. The exhibit that they had on was about the Tsars, and was filled with the astonishing dresses made with for the women of court, including the Tsarinas, along with portraits, uniforms, decorative arts, thrones, and all manner of other stuff. It was really wonderful, and I have never been so glad that I COULDN'T take pictures, because if they'd allowed me to do that I'd have never escaped.
On Sunday, I once again headed out with Mom and Pop and we went to the Van Gogh Museum. I proved to be about as unenthusiastic about this as I was last time I went, and to make matters worse, I only went in the hopes of seeing one specific painting, which was no longer on display. Frustrating, to say the least, and not helped by the fact that Pop was the one who had wanted to go, and ended up not being interested in it in particular, making it all rather pointless since both Mom and I had been there before.
Finally, on Monday, we ladies got massages, and it was wonderful; in the afternoon, I went on an hour and a half boat tour of the city in a little bitty motor boat, which was also pretty nice.
One of the main highlights of Amsterdam was the food. Among other places, there was a great Argentinian place, an Italian place that had this awesome desert called something like Torrontino and which was, as far as we could tell (it was only IDed in Italian and Dutch) frozen nougat with hazelnut and chocolate on top, it was delicious), and I had Indonesian for pretty much the first time - I shared a rice table with K, and it was an astronomical amount of food and every bit delicious. There was this pickled mango cabbage type stuff which I couldn't stop eating.
All in all, it was a nice trip...guess that's about it. :)
Last night, back from Europe, watching baseball, catching up on Supernatural, and feeling pretty good, I decided that, really, life is good....
Now that I'm back, it feels like I've got a ton to do, though the truth is I can probably do most of it in the space of a few days, it's just a matter of starting. Writing this post was one of the first - so scratch that off the list. :)
We only had four days in Amsterdam, but in comparison to Paris and London there's not all that much to do there, and I did a lot of the things I wanted to do most when I was there last year (though I was only there for two days then).
We arrived on the 17th, but didn't do much that day. On the 18th, I went with my grandfather and mom to the Jewish History Museum there. I wasn't terribly interested in it one way or the other, and it wasn't nearly as impressive as the similarly themed museum in Paris, but it was still nice and interesting, was set in two of the cities old synagogues. It told the history of Jews in Amsterdam and the Netherlands, where, in comparison to other places in Europe, they were relatively welcome. I got to learn, unfortunately, just how fricken hard it was to push the wheel chair around Amsterdam. Even if there wasn't construction everywhere, the curbs were often not raked, and the sidewalks were a mess, and the canals make getting around a little complicated anyway. It was no fun at all. :(
Saturday, I cut off on my own and ended up having a very nice day. I went to Rembrandt Huis, one of the main attractions I wanted to see that I didn't get to see last time, and learned a bunch about one of my favorite artists. He lived in the house for several years before he was forced to declare bankruptcy. They reproduced the house pretty faithfully, and they had a wonderful collection of the etchings that he did in his life. I also got to see a demonstration of how etchings are made, and learned what the difference between the three types of etchings are, though - being me - I only remember the name of one of them now (drypoint).
From there, I wandered around a street market at Waterlooplein, and found some nice stuff, but it was an expensive market and I only bought one thing, an old Victorian-style top.
Next stop was the other place that I really wanted to go - earlier this year, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg opened a branch museum in Amsterdam. This proved to be the highlight of my trip. The exhibit that they had on was about the Tsars, and was filled with the astonishing dresses made with for the women of court, including the Tsarinas, along with portraits, uniforms, decorative arts, thrones, and all manner of other stuff. It was really wonderful, and I have never been so glad that I COULDN'T take pictures, because if they'd allowed me to do that I'd have never escaped.
On Sunday, I once again headed out with Mom and Pop and we went to the Van Gogh Museum. I proved to be about as unenthusiastic about this as I was last time I went, and to make matters worse, I only went in the hopes of seeing one specific painting, which was no longer on display. Frustrating, to say the least, and not helped by the fact that Pop was the one who had wanted to go, and ended up not being interested in it in particular, making it all rather pointless since both Mom and I had been there before.
Finally, on Monday, we ladies got massages, and it was wonderful; in the afternoon, I went on an hour and a half boat tour of the city in a little bitty motor boat, which was also pretty nice.
One of the main highlights of Amsterdam was the food. Among other places, there was a great Argentinian place, an Italian place that had this awesome desert called something like Torrontino and which was, as far as we could tell (it was only IDed in Italian and Dutch) frozen nougat with hazelnut and chocolate on top, it was delicious), and I had Indonesian for pretty much the first time - I shared a rice table with K, and it was an astronomical amount of food and every bit delicious. There was this pickled mango cabbage type stuff which I couldn't stop eating.
All in all, it was a nice trip...guess that's about it. :)
Last night, back from Europe, watching baseball, catching up on Supernatural, and feeling pretty good, I decided that, really, life is good....
Now that I'm back, it feels like I've got a ton to do, though the truth is I can probably do most of it in the space of a few days, it's just a matter of starting. Writing this post was one of the first - so scratch that off the list. :)
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Date: 2009-09-24 01:55 pm (UTC)How has your own housing search been going?