22-06-2011
A bit of a gloomy day but as we were going to visit the Van Gogh museum it did not really matter.
The museum was well set up, Jeevan loves his paintings so we spent quite some time there. The audio guide not only has information about the paintings but also has excerpts of his letters to various people. His self portraits, the potato eaters and the others made good viewing.
Came out of the museum to pouring rain, no form of protection with us. Wondered about watching a movie, instead spent the time eating at one of my favorite joints, Wagamama.
The rain ceased, the sky cleared and we saw quite a bit of Amsterdam. The Dam square with it's palace, war monument and church followed by the Begijnhof (initially religious women who didn't want to become nuns lived here and helped people, now too only women live here though not necessarily religious). The courtyard is small but very serene, everybody talks in hushed tones.
Next was Spui, it had the largest English book shop we have seen so far in Europe, got me excited. A very interesting book was on display - What men think of other than Sex. The back cover had a good little blurb and a few people had endorsed the book. I flipped through to get a brief idea, and guess what - the pages were empty!
We were using a guide that took us to a chapel and then said the entrance was through a tunnel in the adjoining hotel. We went to the hotel and were escorted to the chapel, along the way we heard the history. When we arrived we realized it was now a hall for various functions. The lady had thought we were interested in hiring the place!
Had some super yummy chips, they are supposedly voted number one in Amsterdam. I would strongly agree with that. We made a mistake by ordering a large portion, it was so sad to discard them, heartbreaking actually.
Strolled along some canals, saw the headquarters of what was once the East India Company (ruled India and Sri Lanka) . Right across were some coffee shops and not too far away was the red light district. Well from there on we had an interesting night.
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