Amsterdam!

Amsterdam is an incredibly fun city.  Our day began with a walk from the Lehman flat to the Van Gogh museum.  The museum was founded in 1973 and located in a building designed by Gerrit Rietveld. The museum's collection is the largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and drawings in the world. In 2012, the museum had an estimated 1,438,000 visitors, which makes it the most visited museum in the Netherlands and the 30th most visited art museum worldwide.  

Upon Vincent van Gogh's death in 1890, his work not sold fell into the possession of his brother Theo. Theo died six months after Vincent, leaving the work in the possession of his widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger. Selling many of Vincent's paintings with the ambition of spreading knowledge of his artwork, Johanna maintained a private collection of his works.  That collection eventually found its way into possession of the Van Gogh foundation and then into the museum when it opened in 1973.

Through the tour of the museum we learned about the artist life, his struggles with depression, his time in a mental institution and his struggles with money all which came out in his paintings.  Walking through the museum and viewing the paintings was overwhelming. The colors, the thickness of the paint, the brushstrokes ranging from little dots to long half circles all to bring accent or subtle shadows to his works is incredible.  His life was a sad one but his work is awesome.

Sunflowers - one of my favorites

Sunset was recently discovered and authenticated as a Van Gogh original and added to the museum collection in the last month. 

Van Gogh's brush strokes and think paint details are absolutaly incredible

Following the Van Gogh museum we took a tour of the canals by boat. We learned about Amsterdam's rich history, architecture and the layout of the city.  The canals seem endless and the bridges and buildings were beautiful. Amsterdam is an easy city to navigate and very walkable (watch out for bikes and trams) and we enjoyed walking the streets and exploring the neighborhoods after our canal tour.  

Exploring the neighborhood

Coffee house?

 Kathy's work research.

In the afternoon I toured the Ann Frank house and museum.  I first read The Diary of Ann Frank in Junior High as required reading.  At that time it was difficult to put into context a living arrangement of two families stuck in a very small attic for over two years.  The tour through the museum begins in the warehouse where Otto worked.  Up narrow staircases and through tight corridors and past the bookcase which covered the door to the annex.  Seeing the blacked out windows and tight curtains and walking the worn wooden floor in the small space was stirring.  Ann wrote that the walls were plain and documented gluing pictures from cinema magazines on the wall and seeing those cuttings on the wall brought an overwhelming level of emotion to the hardship these families endure in hope of waiting out the war hidden from the Nazi's.  In the end the families were betrayed and taken to Auschwitz.  Only Otto survived there and it is assumed that Ann's remains were discarded in a mass grave at the concentration camp just two months before liberation.  There are too many layers to this story to write about in a short blog post. I will read the diary again this time with more amazement at a 13 year old jewish girl describing life hiding in the annex. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Amsterdam and ended our day with an amazing dinner at an Indonesian restaurant near Russ and Katy's flat.  We both agree it's one of the best meals we've ever had. We were served Rijs tafel (rice table) which consisted of 10 - 12 different dishes of seafood, beef, lamb, chicken and vegetables.  Each dish had different preparation, flavors, spices and sauces from lemongrass to chili spices to coconut.  One of my favorites was sambal goreng telor, a boiled egg with the most flavorful sauce I've ever had with hints of lemongrass and mint.  Also ridiculously good was a banana fried in a cinnamon something awesome sauce, dipped in a light fluffy batter and fried again. An Indonesian cookbook is in the future. WOW!  It was so much fun to enjoy the last step of our amazing journey exchanging stories with great friends.  We loved staying with Russ and Katy.  Now we head home and back to reality.