Europe Trip Day 8

Today we slept in and had a lazy morning so we could get a later start to make sure we missed any traffic going into Amsterdam.  We didn’t have a whole lot on the itinerary today.  I really wanted to see the Van Gogh Museum but it is under renovation and only a part of the exhibit was moved to another building so people could still come see some of his paintings.  I didn’t feel like paying 17 Euro to see only a portion of the museum and my favorite painting of his isn’t even here.  Instead we chose to see the Rijksmuseum instead. 

We first ran into this huge sing.  The “I am Amsterdam” sign was a popular picture-taking place.

At the Rijksmuseum we saw a ton of Rembrandt paintings that were incredible, along with other Dutch paintings, artifacts and historical objects. 

One of our favorite artwork pieces was the “Grandfather Clock” by Maarten Baas. 

This clock depicts the artist inside the clock and every minute he erases the minute hand and redraws the minute hand to the next minute.  He continually does this through the course of the day and it looks as if he is actually inside the clock doing this.  It was pretty awesome to just stand there and watch what he would do.  Sometimes he would eat or drink or look out at us. 

As I was looking through our pictures of the day I found a lot of pictures Mark took of me reading the plaques.  Good thing I wasn’t doing anything embarrassing in them. 

We could take pictures of anything in the museum as long as we didn’t use flash.  Here’s Mark in front of The Night Watch by Rembrandt which is his most famous and the museum’s most prized painting. 

Here’s the painting, sans Mark.  It’s a huge painting.

After the museum we were starving so we searched for a place for lunch.  Unfortunately, the best we could come up with was Burger King.  We decided to go cheap for lunch and then have a nice dinner.  After lunch we walked around a good portion of Amsterdam.  The canals were beautiful, but the city…not so much.  Don’t get me wrong.  The architecture was nice and a lot of the old buildings were amazing but the city itself was filthy.  There was trash everywhere and it was not a nice atmosphere.

I did love all the canals everywhere. 

We did a lot of shopping while we walked around and ran into a carnival in the middle of the old part of town.  I couldn’t believe the rides they had.  Their swings went higher than the buildings.  I’m not usually afraid of heights but there was no way anyone could have paid me to go on that ride. 

We tried to visit Anne Frank’s house but the line went out the door and around the block.  We didn’t realize how busy it would be.  I guess we really should have taken the website’s suggestion and bought tickets online. 

Here’s the house from the outside.  I was disappointed to see that the building looks so modern now.  Maybe it always looked like this but I doubt it.

We found some old men playing chess in one of the squares.  It looked like an intense game.

After a long day of walking we were done and headed back to the car with our many bags of stuff we bought in Amsterdam.  One thing I will not miss when we leave is the astronomical price you have to pay to park places.  We spent 38 Euro just to park for half a day.  Lame!

We headed back to the hotel to start packing a few things then headed back out for dinner.  Our original choice was Japanese but the restaurant had a weird reservation thing where you had to sign up for the first or second shift just to eat there.  Of course, they were booked.  So we found a little hole in the wall place around the corner.  So much for a nice sit down meal.

Those of you who have seen The Avengers movie can appreciate this place.  We finally found out what Shoarma is.  It was actually pretty good, too.  It was a type of meat with yummy seasonings and they serve it with fries (which the Dutch serve with any meal, I’ve found out) and a side salad.

We were able to talk to the girls after dinner and their cousins were over babysitting them so we had a ton of fun on Google chat. 

We have loved being here in Europe and feel very fortunate to be able to come for this long while knowing our kids have been well taken care of by our parents.  It has been a great vacation and I love that Mark and I can spend this long together, every minute of every day, and not get sick of each other.  Tomorrow we head home to our girls, who we miss.  The next time we log in to our blog we will be back on home soil.  Good bye, Europe.  It has been amazing.