Amsterdam

This leg of the trip was basically just to fill in time between Paris and Berlin, but I'm glad I went. I have learned over the years that being near water (excluding floods) is something that helps me feel calmer, more at peace, so the canals of Amsterdam meant that I loved the city. I didn't do much here, because I wanted to give myself a chance to rest and recuperate from the nonstop schedule in Paris.

On my first full day I set a goal of seeing the flower markets, which were not so amazing, considering it was the middle of winter (it has been an unseasonably warm winter, but winter, nonetheless). I really wanted to buy and ship some bulbs to Mum for her garden, especially after seeing signs that read "We send bulbs to anywhere in the world". Turns out that's anywhere but Australia (and I'm assuming NZ), due to our super-strict customs regulations. So Mum doesn't get to have special flowers that no one else has. Sorry, Mum.

In addition to making my way to the markets, I wandered around some more of Centraal. Amsterdam was crazy when it came to crowds, especially in shops. I assume they had post-Christmas sales happening, but you could barely move in some stores. I found an English bookshop and picked up a couple of David Crystal books. I love David Crystal books.

My only other day in Amsterdam was the Monday, which was not a good day for my brain/med withdrawals (I've been fine since that day, though). But I powered through, and visited the Van Gogh Museum, which had a special exhibit comparing his work with that of Munch. I had no idea that Van Gogh had painted such diverse topics and styles, and it was cool to see one of my all-time favourite paintings in person (Almond Blossoms, btw.). And, the Munch exhibit was interesting. I can honestly say, that apart from The Scream, I had no knowledge of anything he'd ever painted. I liked some of his stuff more than others, and to be honest, it seemed a bit of a stretch to create an entire exhibit comparing the two artists (Look! They both painted something that has a bedroom, or the inside of a house!). My biggest shock came from actually seeing The Scream. I went home and read up about it, because I was a little surprised by what I saw: "Crayon on Cardboard". Isn't this the painting that broke records when it sold for US$19M or something like that a few years ago? AND IT'S CRAYON? ON CARDBOARD? Turns out that Munch did about four versions of the same painting, and the word "crayon" can be interchanged with "pastel", which sounds much more arty and grownup, and if he wanted to paint on a piece of cardboard, so be it.

So that was pretty much Amsterdam. Apart from the crowds, I really liked it.