Madam, I'm Your Only Amsterdam

Delightfully, cleverly irreverent. That’s how I’d describe the city of Amsterdam, where anything from a tipping can to a billboard outside a house can have something both comical yet emphatic written on it. My only regret is that I was too shy to take pictures of all of the snide comments I saw, and could only manage to take this one --

Get the point?

But with only two days and one night in Amsterdam, snark had to take an unfortunate backseat in favour of the museums, canals and kinks (pun intended) the city offers to all its young backpackers. We decided to explore as much of the city we could, beginning with the Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum.

Rijksmuseum

Our entry to Rijksmuseum was heralded by live classical music played by an orchestra of two violinists, an accordionist and a bassist. I initially thought this performance was a Rijks special, but later realised that in Europe, live classical music plays in every public place, from restaurants, to subways to town squares.

After three massive queues (one for entrance, one for security and one for bag deposit) we finally began our tour of the museum. Rijksmuseum, which also forms the backdrop for the famous ‘I Amsterdam’ sign, is known for housing the works of the Dutch artists Rembrandt and Vermeer amongst other paintings, sculptures and antiquities, from the 1100s to the 2000s. The “Mona Lisa” of Rijksmuseum, however, is Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, which is a group portrait of militiamen and has an entire room dedicated to itself. What makes the experience of Rijksmuseum truly unique are the slightly snarky, yet true descriptions of paintings and the information cards, which dissect every element of the painting and provide context to art-illiterates such as myself. I mentally praised the museum curator for the wonderful job they had done and wished we could do the same with our museums in India. Little did I know this would be the first out of many times I made such ‘wishes’ in museums in this trip!  

The information cards

One of the many captions!

A poorly clicked picture of The Night's Watch

Our plans of loitering around in the beautiful gardens  of the Rijksmuseum were thwarted by the rain, so we had no choice but to grab a quick lunch and head to our next stop for the day - The Anne Frank House.

Tips:

1. The basics - travel light, preferably with a small bagpack, because although the museum is huge, it gets very crowded and there’s a fair chance of bumping into people. Also, you did read the line about the huge queues, right?
2. Don’t get stuck at The Night Watch itself - there are beautiful stained glass paintings, intricate antiquities and a library to explore as well
3. The gift shop is a good place for souvenirs - not only are they decently priced (when compared to gift shops in museums in USA), but also you will find cool, fun stuff, like Lego-ish models of paintings.

The Anne Frank House

A statue of Anne Frank on the main road near 'Het Achterhuis'

If Rijksmuseum greeted us with music, The Anne Frank House greeted us with *surprisingly* no queues. A stop at the cloak room and an audio guide later, we were in the building that housed the dim attic that sheltered eight Jews, including a chirpy young girl, for two years from the Nazis.

It is believed that every place has vibrations, especially a place that has been the site of a great tragedy, like the World Trade Centre in New York City. Merely spending ten minutes in the premises of the WTC during my trip to NYC left me feeling morose the full day. I was expecting a similar, sinking feeling on visiting Anne Frank’s House, and was puzzled when I didn’t feel that.

The Anne Frank House had been on my to-visit list ever since I first read The Diary of A Young Girl at age ten. I wished the see Het Achterhuis, or the Secret Annexe, in person, because it was beyond my capabilities to imagine eight people cooped up in one small attic.

Noisily climbing the narrow steep steps behind the bookcase that concealed the entrance to annexe, I wondered how the Franks and the Van Pels managed to walk without creaking the wooden floorboards. Looking at the Franks’ living rooms, I imagined Otto reading his novel on a sofa, Edith reading her prayers by the dining table and Margot busy practising her Latin. In Anne’s room, I imagined her petty fights with the dentist who shared her room with her, and her writing in her red checkered diary. Looking at the wall where she had stuck newspaper and magazine cutouts of celebrities, I spotted a familiar face - that of Queen Elizabeth, at age 5.

Anne’s wall was the only wall in the entire annexe that wasn’t bare. Out of all the writings on display, Anne’s were the only ones that were full of hope. Out of all the pictures, Anne’s were the only one with a wide toothed smile. At that moment I realised while I did not feel morose. Despite the dangerous situation the Franks were in, Anne believed in a brighter future. Despite the despot that ruled them, she believed in the inherent goodness of people. And despite the dinginess of that annexe, Anne believed it was a happy place.

The positive vibrations of one twelve year old had masked all the negative vibrations that could have ever been trapped in that house. It’s indeed a tragedy that Anne didn’t live to see the good people she wrote of and the bright sunshine she dreamt of. It is little solace that she did, quite unwittingly, become a writer.

Anne Frank was clearly sending us positive rays from heaven that day, for when we stepped out of the museum, we had our first glimpse of the sun in Europe, after a day of rain.

Tips:

1. Buy tickets online, because there is no ticket counter as such at The Anne Frank House. It’s advisable to buy the tickets ASAP, preferably on the day you get your Schengen visa itself!
2. Don’t take pictures. Not because of the rule, but because it is plain rude.

At night we go red light!

Amsterdam’s red-light district is ironically a street of sin between two churches, centered around a completely railing-less canal and surrounded by sleazily-named restaurants and sex toy shops. As we entered the street, I couldn’t help humming the whimsical background song that plays when Rani from Queen (2014) first goes to meet Roxanna. Much like in the movie, there were a lot of women dressed in bare essentials gyrating through long picture windows, but unlike the movie, the women here looked uninterested and (for understandable reasons) tired. I felt a little sorry for them, before quickly realising that they were better off in terms of both society and benefits when compared to their Indian counterparts.

Not only was this the first time I had ever visited a red light district, but also it was the first time since landing in Netherlands that I had heard so much Hindi. I’m pretty sure that had I started singing ‘ Hungama Ho Gaya’, I would have had both an audience and a chorus!

After soaking in the sights at the red light district, we took a short walk to the nearest bus stop to head to Rembrandtplein, a square commemorating the Dutch painter Rembrandt, with his statue and bronze sculptures of the subjects of his most famous painting The Night Watch.

Rembrandt seeming pretty happy with the 3D version of his painting

Tips:

1. Try not to gawk at the women - they look fine but you’ll look creepy as hell!
2. Don’t get too drunk - you might fall right into the open canal.
3. Don’t assume nobody understands your language and talk loudly, or even worse, yell expletives!

Go Van Gogh!

The Van Gogh Museum, located near the Rijksmuseum, is a journey into the life of Vincent Van Gogh through his paintings. While elements of Van Gogh’s life and a few of his paintings were familiar to me, it was only when I visited this museum that I began to see the trajectory of his artwork, from rough pencil sketches to the trademark brush strokes.

The surroundings of Van Gogh Museum are as picturesque as the artist's paintings!

A trip to the Van Gogh museum is useless without the audio guides. The audio guides take us through about 99 paintings, explaining the backstory, the choice of subject, the brush strokes and Van Gogh’s state of mind while creating the painting. The subject of some paintings are even explained with audio effects like bird chirping, waves crashing etc, to enable the museum goers to actually experience what Van Gogh saw, and how he perceived them. I wished (again) fervently that we could create audio guides for our paintings, sculptures and collections as well , for going through a collection from the eyes of the creator is a whole different experience by itself.

The one picture I innocently clicked in Van Gogh museum before I was shown the ' No Photography' sign (which I had missed!)

A special mention must be made to Vincent Van Gogh’s younger brother, Theo Van Gogh, who, despite having a family of his own, painstakingly supported Vincent both financially and emotionally. His wife, Johanna, is chiefly responsible for Van Gogh’s fame, for it was she who donated his paintings to art exhibitions where it caught the attention of influential art collectors, who preserved his paintings. She also worked on compiling the brothers’ correspondence to each other as a book and wrote a history on the Van Gogh family . Her son, Vincent Willem, set up the Van Gogh museum to immortalize his uncle and his father.

My favourite Van Gogh painting is the almond blossoms, a painting Van Gogh made as a present to Theo on the birth of Vincent Willem, but since photography is prohibited in the museum, I could just stare at it. While the no photography rule initially dampened my spirits a little, in hindsight I realised that it was more of a boon and less of a bane. With the pressures of having to wait for people to move, or for the angle to be right or for the perfect shot off my shoulders, I could relax and focus more on the paintings without any distraction, which was probably the intention.

However, photography was allowed in ‘ The Dreams of Van Gogh’ an exhibit incorporating elements from Van Gogh’s paintings. So one enters the exhibit to find themselves in a field of glass sunflowers, (representative of Van Gogh’s famous sunflowers painting), head to a brightly painted room with just two chairs (representing his ‘chair’ painting) and then suddenly enter a room filled with broken mirrors (to represent the tortured phase when he cut off his ear) and finally enter a dark room with lights arranged in the shape of the human brain.

Sunflowers, from ' The Dreams of Van Gogh'

I came out of the museum quite inspired, but I silently wondered how this man, whose creativity had enabled him to paint 75 paintings in 70 days before his death, found the same creativity torturous. Was that the quality of a genius, or was that just an ordinary man whose frustration turned into insanity? I guess like his art, even his life wasn’t as straightforward as it seems.

Tips:

1. If you’re an art buff, spend at least a good 6-8 hours in this museum or at least cover all the 99 paintings in the audio guide.
2. If you happen to be sensitive by nature, keep a handkerchief ready, for there will be many tearful moments
3. DO NOT miss this museum!

A whole new Amsterdam

The EYE Film institute (left) and the A'Dam Toren (right, d'uh!)

Lots of travel websites quite rightly recommend taking a boat ride in Amsterdam’s canals, but I’d also recommend taking a ferry across the IJ river to get a different, non-touristy perspective of the city. While the old city with its narrow canal houses lies on one side of the IJ, the new northern part of the city with modern apartment complexes lies on the other. The ferry ride across the IJ was only four minutes, but we felt as if we had travelled centuries ahead in time.

The main attractions of the northern borough include the EYE film institute, a futuristic looking building which houses Dutch and certain international film archives and the A’Dam Toren, a tower that boasts of an observation deck, a revolving restaurant and a giant swing! Barring the ferry point, which also has a lovely view of the IJ amidst rows of trees, the rest of the northern boroughs fairly resembles suburbs in the USA.

'New' Amsterdam (NOT New York, mind you :-p)

We couldn’t really visit the EYE film institute and the A’Dam toren due to a lack of time, but hey, if we’d see everything in this trip, would we even have an excuse to visit Amsterdam again? #BeOptimistic

It seemed fated for us to end our Amsterdam trip with some modern architecture, for

Rotterdam (which in my opinion, should be the modern architecture capital of Europe) was next on the list. More on this next week, in ‘ Beyond Amsterdam’