Day 9 ~ Art for Art’s Sake

We’ve been by a lot of buildings and seen lots of neat things, but other than swinging through some churches and cathedrals, we haven’t done major sightseeing events – until today. This morning was our timed ticket for the Van Gogh Museum, which Daniel remembered fondly, and Stef was very excited about. We agree on this: neither of us is a huge visual arts person, but we think Van Gogh is awesome. Today’s visit brought a whole new depth to that sentiment.

We started with a tram ride, and we are loving the trams. We took a picture of the Reiksmuseum – people love it, but we just didn’t have two museums in us today.

As we got in line, Stef heard a voice calling her. Stunned, she ran into Mark, who had been a dear friend from her time at BOLI. He was in line for the Van Gogh Museum with his wife, who Stef also remembered fondly. We traveled 5,000 miles to see a friend Stef hadn’t seen in 10 years. It was a very happy moment.

The museum had a very cool luggage locker system, and we were very happy not to pack our heavy day pack. And then we were off! There were 4 floors of permanent exhibitions. They started with early work, which was so different from the post-impressionist work later, but still very grounded in reality and excellent. The impressionist period was filled with non-Van Gogh masters like Cezanne and Gaugin, which was a welcome surprise. Then Van Gogh really came into his own with a vivid style that showed the influences of his short but intense career, while completely owning his unique vision. We were fascinated that even while all of these different phases showed totally styles, they were still characteristically Van Gogh.

We were particularly blown away by a painting neither of us had seen before. It was during his last frantic 70 days of life, and in person, this thing looks lit up like a child’s Lite Brite. The colors are stunning.

It’s wild to think that he really only had a painting career of about 10 or 15 years. What he could have done with another 20 years is amazing to think about. It’s also really sad to think how close the world was to never knowing Van Gogh at all. We had always thought that his brother Theo brought the world his brother’s genius, but it turns out that Theo actually died 6 months after Vincent. Theo’s widow, Jo, actually made it her life’s mission to preserve all kinds of artifacts from Vincent’s career, and to promote his work, which she did very successfully. Without her efforts, we’d have never known these painting at all. It makes you reflect on all the artists in all the mediums who have an incredible gift that disappears into obscurity, without a 4-story museum dedicated to their work 150 years later. We certainly owe this woman, who has also disappeared into history, a debt of gratitude.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of “museum feet,” but I’m sure you’ve experienced it. It’s that particular kind of aching feet you get from standing rather than walking around, and we sure had it after our hours at the museum. We headed to Vondelpark, an absolutely delightful park in full use by the citizens of Amsterdam on this gray but dry Saturday morning. We watched some new-to-us ducks, met some friendly Dutch dogs, ate sandwiches we’d brought with us, and rested our tired feet.

Much revived, we wandered through the park for a bit, then angled toward the ZuiderMRKT, a farmer’s market in a very ritzy part of town. We admired the beautiful people and their fashions.

The farmer’s market was small but wonderful, with meats, cheeses, breads, produce, and all kinds of lovely things. We were particularly impressed by a jam maker with creative combinations, samples of everything, and a very welcoming attitude.

Then we made our way slowly to the de Pijp neighborhood, which is a working class neighborhood turned hipster – always a favorite of ours. The buildings were uniform and newer, and definitely looked like what you’d build in the 1800s if you just needed to house a lot of people. It was still full of sidewalk cafes and fun shops.

We headed to Albert Cuyp Market, which Stef had misunderstood as one of these modern food halls that have taken American cities by storm. Nope, this was an open air market, sort of like Portland’s Saturday Market, but with more of an emphasis on bargains than artisans.

Stef had her first stroopwafel of the trip, and is looking forward to many more. It was very fun to explore, and we walked along it for several blocks – and there were still several blocks more! It got to be a lot of people, so we turned down some streets (also crowded) and walked toward our second park of the day.

The Sarphatipark also had a wonderfully neighborhood feel. By this time, the sun was out, despite the forecast of clouds all day, and we spent an enjoyable few minutes watching kids play football with their dad and admiring the young lovers basking in the warmth.

We were determined to find dinner, and had our first doner of the trip at a humble little place in de Pijp. The streets of the neighborhood just went on and on with restaurants and bars as far as the eye could see, just street after street. Resigned to never seeing it all, we hopped back on the tram and were back at our apartment in 15 minutes.

It was unusually early by our recent standards, but we took advantage of being home in the daytime to enjoy our apartment, which we are so pleased with. We opened the five-foot-high windows and sat on the little window bench to watch the flabbergasting number of boats on the Amstel.

Drinking boats, dinner boats, weed boats, boats for fancy parties, boats with a couple of people, tour boats – if you can put people on it, there was a boat for it. We watched until the sky filled up with sunset colors, then retired to tell you all a-boat it.