This past weekend Susan was in Amsterdam after having spend 3 weeks in France on a farm and a week in Germany. I was so happy to see her! We had a very busy weekend and our final tally was 7 seven museums, 2 churches, a botanical garden, and a canal cruise.
 |
| Anne Frank statue |
We started Saturday morning by getting to the Anne Frank museum early and only had to wait in line for about 45 minutes. It was very emotional to see the rooms they lived in and to see pages from her original diary. I bought her diary in the original Dutch so my goal is to be able to read it before I leave the Netherlands.
 |
| Susan in the Tulip Museum |
Next we went across the canal to the Tulip Museum. This was a tiny museum but it was interesting. We learned that tulip bulbs used to be super expensive and at what point were worth over 100 times their weight in gold. We also heard a song about the history of the tulip bulb and the crash of the tulip market so that was pretty funny.
 |
Blurry picture of the chart comparing tulip bulb
prices to salaries...CRAZY!! |
Right next to the Tulip Museum was a cheese store that had a free "museum" in the basement. So we went in there, sampled a lot of really good cheese, and dressed up as cheese farmers.
 |
| Cheese farmers!! |
In the afternoon we rented some bikes because, as I told Susan, if you visit the Netherlands you have to ride a bike while you're here! We went to the Dutch Resistance Museum which was so informative and I really liked the set up of the museum and how they displayed the information. This and the Anne Frank museum were my favorite museums of the weekend. The museums also had an exhibit on the Dutch East Indies (present day Indonesia) under Japanese occupation during WWII. I really liked that exhibit because it was all new information for me.
We went to the nearby botanical garden which, although many things were dead and not in bloom, was still nice. It was a nice change of pace from walking around in a museum. It looked like it would be really pretty to visit in the spring or summer.
In the evening we went on a canal cruise and learned more about the city including the fact that Amsterdam has over 1200 bridges!
 |
| One of the many bridges we saw on the canal ride |
Sunday we got up early once again to go to the Van Gogh Museum. That museum was really nice but I wish there was a no photography rule! People would just go from painting to painting taking pictures of them and block your view. I kind of just wanted to stand right in front of their cameras. Van Gogh is a famous artist; just do a google search of the painting and you'll see better pictures of it than your smart phone is taking. Ok, rant over. I liked
Wheatfield with Crows because it's very fall/Halloween looking I think. We also saw one of Susan's favorites:
Sunflowers! At the museum they also have pictures of x-rays they've done of the paintings. He re-used his canvases a lot so you can see parts of the old paintings with the x-rays. They also had paintings done by some of his artist friends and others who inspired him so it was interesting to compare their paintings and techniques.
Then it was down the path to the Rijksmuseum, a national art and history museum. It was very big so we didn't go to all the rooms but we still saw a lot there! They have a lot of well-known paintings such as the
Milkmaid by Vermeer and
Night Watch by Rembrandt. I remember learning about all these paintings in AP European History so it's really cool to get to see them for real now. They also had rooms full of ceramics, Deltfware, jewelry, clothing, and even a room of model ships!
 |
| In front of the Rijksmseum |
 |
| Susan and I in the "S" of the sign |
In the afternoon we went to the New Church. It had an exhibit on the Ming Dynasty in China which was interesting and they had a lot of gorgeous paintings and embroideries. The church was built in the 15th century and is where the current King and Queen were married.
 |
| The New Church |
The last museum for us was the Rembrandt Museum which was good too. They have so many paintings but they don't put next to the paintings the name of it or the artist (not all of them are by Rembrandt) so that was kind of annoying. You have to listen to the audio tour to get that information which we didn't feel like doing. But we did see an informative demonstration on how to make oil paint.
 |
| Bikes, canal, and bridge...typical Amsterdam |
It was such a fun weekend and I'm so happy Susan was able to come here! I already miss her!
