Weekend in Amsterdam

Amsterdam was the dirtiest city that I think I have ever seen. By the evening time the streets were littered with garbage, and the trash is only partially picked up in the morning so trash is all over all the time. But, despite the muck Amsterdam was a blast and we were there on an interesting weekend too. The gay pride festival had been going on all weekend and wrapped up on Saturday. There were two million visitors in Amsterdam for the festival so there were people everywhere. There were plenty of funny costumes out and about and it felt like I was seeing The Village People everywhere. The festival ended with a big parade of boats coming through the canal with people dancing, singing and playing music, it was pretty cool to watch. After going out on Friday night we went to the Anne Frank house bright and early Saturday morning. It was a great museum and really insightful. The museum helped me understand how tough and scary it was to be a Jew during the Nazi regime. Anne Frank hid in her house for two years and only saw the sunlight through the a few windows in the attic. It must have been horrible but it definitely beats being sent to a concentration camp.

We visited another really cool museum called the Rijksmuseum. It held great art from Dutch artists like Van Gogh and Rembrandt, and also lots of historical pieces. I really liked the collection of pistols carved out of ivory. The collection was really big; it had 19 of the 100-piece collection of ivory pistols. Every pistol was incredibly ornate and very pretty. The museum had a few Van Gogh paintings including his famous self-portrait. My favorite art was from Rembrandt, especially his painting The Night Watch. The painting is immense and Rembrandt’s use of lighting to highlight certain people within the painting is pretty fascinating. The best thing about the Rijksmuseum is that it offers big cards that explain all the little things in the picture that you wouldn’t notice otherwise like that the little girl in The Night Watch was Rembrandt’s niece or that Rembrandt put himself into his painting. Those little facts made the art much more interesting.

            One other thing that we did in Amsterdam was hang out in the Vondelpark. The weather in Amsterdam was really nice so it was perfect for an afternoon in the park. John and I had a handstand contest, then a few trees were climbed, but we mainly just sat on the grass and relaxed. Amsterdam was a cool city but it’s my least favorite of the cities I have visited here in Europe and I don’t think I need to make a return trip back. It was just really messy and crowded, but I am looking forward to the last week in Bonn where everything will be clean again.