This afternoon some of us went into Amsterdam to go to the Rembrandthuis Museum, which is --you guessed it!-- the house Rembrandt lived in and also a museum. We walked through Waterlooplein on the way there, a giant outdoor market that deserves going back to when the weather's warmer. But, anyway, back to the main event.
I think Rembrandt would fit in well in the U.S. today. He bought this house at the most successful point in his career, couldn't afford the mortgage, and had to move out a few years later. But *thankfully* the repo men wrote down everything Rembrandt owned when they took it away from him, and THE INVENTORY was used to refurnish the house when it became a museum. I only mention this because our audioguide had quite the reverence for THE INVENTORY and mentioned it A LOT.
Here's the group in front of the house. It's hard to get a shot of the entire thing! Can you see them?
Oh, and I went too:
Some of the rooms were more house-like than museum-like, as in they were decorated like Rembrandt had them when he lived there. Here's the few random pics I managed to snap in there, first of the press in the engraving room:
And some paints in Rembrandt's studio. I like how Deborah brings the composition of this photo to a second level :)
The view of the street from inside the house:
The museum part of the house was dedicated to Rembrandt's engravings. WARNING: I'm about to get artsy, to try show that I learned a little of something. They had each of the engraving prints shown twice, first the way it printed and then the reverse image, which was the way Rembrandt engraved it. Looking at the image the way Rembrandt created it is supposed to make more sense, since, like books, we "read" art left to right. On the original engraving plates, things tend to be emphasized from left to right, but on the prints everything is flipped and can look a little backwards sometimes.
This isn't making any sense, is it? Ok, here's a picture of two to show you what I mean:
The one on the right is what Rembrandt saw when he made it, and everything in the picture sort of travels from left to right, doesn't it? You look at the window first, then follow the light with your eyes...right. Now, the picture on the left is the reverse print you get when you do the engraving. And doesn't everything seem kind of...backwards? I don't know, it looks weirder to me, but I can't explain exactly why. Maybe, like gezellig, it's more something you feel!
Consider that your art lesson for the day. On to the fun stuff! Right across from the museum-house we found this awesome monument with a turtle on it:
We were not sure what it is a monument for. 100 points to whoever can tell me what this means!
Then we began what I've decided is one of my favorite things to do in Amsterdam, or anywhere: walk in a random direction, just to see where we end up. We found a delicious food market at one point, and also this creepy mannequin outside a thrift store:
We went down this street, and Peter shared some knowledge with us that a tour guide told him. I will share it with you! The street was one of the few in Amsterdam to get heavily bombed in WWII, so after the war they rebuilt it in a *modern* style, which is why it looks so different from all other Amsterdam streets.
Oh, and we also happened to find ourselves in Chinatown:
Seriously, can I spend my entire life walking down random streets and discovering awesome things?
Ok, but back to goal #2 of this trip: find the stroopwafel McFlurries. As you may remember, I had some trouble finding one on my birthday since all the McD's were out of ice cream. I also knew that the stroopwafel McFlurry was part of a special winter promotion, and would be gone at the end of February! As the Les Mis cast says, "The time is now, the day is here"! We ended up by Centraal Station, found a McDonald's, and...
tada!
Stroopwafel McFlurries all around!
I don't think I will ever eat a McFlurry again, it just wouldn't compare.
Time to work off some of that stroop. We walked to the library:
As any of you who have been to the Seattle Public Library would know, libraries are pretty sweet places to spend some time. This library didn't have anything over the awesomeness of Seattle's, but I will admit that it was very excellent in its own right. Here's a look from the main level at the children's level below. Note that the thing in the center is a tower for kids to climb up and read books in!
There were also foam chairs that rolled around like eggs:
Here, Ed demonstrates how you can surf the web while sitting on a relaxing bench, while Peter shows that you can simply relax there as well.
We made it up to the cafe on the top floor. Not a bad view!
I had a delicious cappuccino:
Oh, and I almost forgot. The lobby of the library had some kind of political party fair going on, with people giving away free things. A socialist (communist?) party gave me this free sponge:
Hey, I'll use it to do my dishes! It was free! Deborah and Peter translated the tag on the sponge to mean something like "clean up the government." Ha. Ha ha. Get it? Yeah, ok.
On the way back, we sat in such a school bus-like arrangement on the tram that I couldn't resist taking this picture:
That's all, folks! If you stuck it out this far, I'm proud of you. This post was way longer than I intended. But I had to include everything from what I consider a successful Saturday afternoon. As always, thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment