Our Amsterdam Adventure: Day Three

I sat in the hotel lobby for a bit while Bob used the hotel's complimentary shoe-shining machine to return his leather uppers to fashion-runway standards (okay, well, sort of),

and then we were off for another day of wandering through the city. We browsed through the Friday book market on the Spui,

where this pair of tablets by Lawrence Weiner has something to say about the act of translation.

Nearby was the entrance we had come to find,

which leads to Amsterdam's Begijnhof. Built in the 14th century as a home for Beguines (women similar to nuns, but who retained the right to return to the secular world), the serene enclosed courtyard seemed a world away from the busy streets around it, exuding an idyllic ambiance similar to the one we had seen in Belgium. This black house is the oldest wooden house in the city (only one of two that remain), and dates to 1477, before wooden houses were outlawed due to fire concerns.

Many stones that once adorned the houses in the Begijnhof are now grouped together in this display:

(Some remain on the houses themselves, although since non-residents are requested to refrain from walking through more than a limited part of the area, I couldn't get close enough to those to discern much detail.) The English Reformed Church used to belong to the Beguines, but became an Anglican church in 1607.

Although the last Beguine died in 1971, the houses in the Begijnhof still serve as housing for low-income single women.

Our next stop was just one of several today that made us glad that we opted for the I-Amsterdam cards, because we likely wouldn't have shelled out for all of the various attractions' individual admission fees, but with passes, we went in where we liked, knowing that if any given place ended up not being as interesting as we had hoped, we could just duck right back out again without feeling like we had wasted our Euros. In any case, none of the places we saw today fit that bill--quite the opposite, actually! Although we had just planned to have a quick look around at this next stop, we ended up spending about an hour here, taking in the interesting exhibits that narrate Amsterdam's history.

A 17th-century painting by Melchior de Hondecoeter mocks the pomposity with which the city-council members (symbolised by the vain birds) built the town hall, seen in the background.

These keys to the city date to 1806,

and these charming 18th-century badges would have belonged to members of Amsterdam's various guilds, who received them as proof of membership.

The coats of arms on this 1639 chest belonged to prominent Amsterdam residents, although the museum isn't sure what was stored within or how the chest was meant to be displayed.

Although these civic guard paintings are of the same genre as Rembrandt's The Night Watch, which we would see later today, the rather unrealistic, perfect poses (with each important man's face perfectly lit, framed, and facing exactly forward) reflect the fact that these men of society paid for their inclusion in the paintings and wanted to be sure that they would be duly represented.

Tulips have been big business in the Netherlands for a very long time, and 17th-centry tulip traders made staggering amounts of money (sometimes more than £30,000 a month in today's currency) until the market crashed in 1637. This 1722 plate is thus fittingly inscribed with a tulip-related sentiment: "Damn! All my shares are lost!"

The building society for "a home of one's own" was founded in 1868 and was the most important society of its kind during the 19th century. Although it has since been taken over by two different companies, it continues the work it began in Amsterdam 140 years ago.

One portion of the museum recreates some of the housing that was built, complete with typical kitchen implements like this fantastic wall-mounted coffee grinder whose cast-iron beauty I instantly coveted:

Panels of apartment buzzers were salvaged from the demolition of the Bijlmer apartment complex in Amsterdam's southeast suburbs, an area known for highrise, high-density, low-income housing for various immigrant populations. Before the demolition, residents of the buildings participated in the creation of video tours of their apartments, and when museum-goers push a given buzzer, a resident answers the door and begins to talk about his or her life in Amsterdam. Unfortunately for us, without any subtitles, we couldn't understand what was being said, but I still thought it was a creative installation.

The work of Dutch painter George Hendrik Breitner, on loan from the Rijksmuseum, is apparently typical of his focus on people in the street. The painting on the easel was left there unfinished upon his death in 1923.

A full-size replica of a famous Amsterdam café sits within the museum:

Closed for the last 25 years, the actual café just reopened last month for the Queen's Day festivities. "Cosy" is just about the only way to describe the interior, with every surface covered with memorabilia.

Bob even took a turn behind the bar!

This stone image dates to 1581; the boys and dove are symbols of the orphanage that once stood here.
More salvaged house plaques decorate the museum's courtyard:

Near the museum, another shop advertised in the same vein as yesterday's button-seller, with a large hint outside as to the numerous traditional sealing stamps and wax that are sold inside.

Since our museum stop ended up being much longer than anticipated, we found we were quite hungry for lunch and quickly found a good spot to share an enormous pannenkoeken that was like an order of pancakes, bacon, and eggs all in one!

After lunch we got on a tram, but soon got off when we spotted this from the road:

This group of life-size statues recreates Rembrandt's The Night Watch while another statue of the painter himself looms in the background. And the name of the square? Why Rembrandtplein, of course. From here, we walked over to Waterlooplein, where the city's main flea market is held. I do love a good flea market, and Amsterdam's had plenty of quirky knick knacks:

This last sight was almost too much for my flea-market-loving constitution, for it wasn't one, but two of the cast-iron coffee grinders that I had just fallen in love with earlier today!

I stood there for a while, pining away, literally weighing the heft of the right one in my hands, but decided that it would be a terribly impractical purchase for our minimal ways in London, and walked away. Do I regret my level head now? I'll let you guess . . . . Waterlooplein was in the Old Jewish Quarter of Amsterdam, and we visited several places that are tied to the city's Jewish history. The square of Waterlooplein was itself used as a gathering place prior to deportation, and the surrounding canals became prison walls for the Jewish population, as swing bridges were raised to restrict unauthorised movement.

The Joods Historisch Museum impressed us with its thoughtful displays, and once again we ended up spending more time here than we thought we would.

With the museum spread over four adjoining 17th-century synagogues, there was a lot to see, in different media. Sometimes even the simplest item became remarkable, like these intricate playing cards made of painted silver (dating to 1720):

Ronald Terpstra's 1974 painting shows the destruction of the Old Jewish Quarter, which was by then long empty of the Jewish population that was decimated during WWII, and with new roads, public buildings, and a metro meaning that the old area was even further removed from its previous self.

To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands, Marlene Dumas painted this appropriately dark image of the Nuremburg Trials.

The current temporary exhibit at the museum was perhaps the most fascinating part of our visit--we spent a very long time looking through the vast array of comics art on display, including ones we were familiar with and others that were new to us, learning a lot along the way.

And just in case anyone reading this hasn't read Maus (volumes one and two), it's one of the most incredible books ever--you'll never forget it. But be ready to cry. After we left the museum, we stopped at the nearby Portuguese Synagogue, built in 1675, when it was one of the largest in the world, with a large, wealthy congregation.

Although the interior was striking during the day, it must be simply astonishing at night, when thousands of candles provide the only light.

Amsterdam's zoo is nearby, and some of the surrounding walls are adorned with tasteful murals.

Images of what appeared to be the zoo mascot were plastered near the main entrance. I guess they're not exactly going for biological accuracy when it comes to promoting the zoo!

Our next stop in the area was at the Dutch Resistance Museum, which was positively filled with displays that were fascinating, shocking, uplifting, and starkly depressing--often simultaneously. An illuminated quote greeted us at the museum's entrance, summing up one of the main sentiments of the museum.

In January 1941, at the request of the German occupiers, Amsterdam officials created this map showing the distribution of Jewish inhabitants (each black circle represents 10,000 people).

The museum did an excellent job of balancing general information with personal stories, and some of the most striking displays countered the faceless anonymity to which maps like the one above sought to reduce people. One such person whose story was told in the museum was Jacoba Maria Blom-Schuh. In 1941, she refused to contribute to the charitable Winter Help scheme that benefited the occupiers. She was subsequently jailed for three months and continued her acts of resistance while in prison: when the guards gave her their socks to mend, she sewed them shut, claiming that she didn't know any better! After her release, she embroidered some of her prison experiences.

Although the Germans used the letter V as a symbol of their strength, standing for victory in their cause,

the Dutch subsequently subverted this initial meaning and embraced the letter V as shorthand for Verliest ("loses") or Verzuipt ("drowns"), and sometimes changed the V to a W for their exiled queen, Wilhelmina.

I almost walked past this simple display, with its utterly shocking sign perched in the window:

Some acts of resistance may not have been initiated by the individuals in question, but when pressed, people chose their sides. When Germans arrived at a factory to take roll on the second day of a strike meant to cripple the occupation, an engineer named Loep was found missing. When he was located, he told the simple truth: he had the day off, as usual. When pressed, Loep said, "I stand with my countrymen, and I don't want to be a strike-breaker." Along with other strikers, he was executed, his family was given the contents of his pockets, and his body was never found.

Banking on the image of the innocent mother to protect them, women used baby carriages as hiding spots for resistance weapons and documents.

Food coupons were necessities for the resistance, and transport of the valuable, bulky items was often done in the corsets of women pretending to be pregnant.

In spite of the myriad of ways in which normal life was suspended, marriages continued to occur and children continued to be born. For people in hiding, official ceremonies or announcements of these events weren't possible, and so underground ceremonies and announcements replaced the usual sharing of such life events. This wedding announcement card for Ans and Henk (which were themselves pseudonyms since their real names couldn't be used) was illustrated by prominent Dutch cartoonist Marten Toonder, who stopped producing his comic strip when the newspaper came under German SS ownership. For the rest of the occupation, Toonder put his skills to use falsifying documents for the Dutch resistance and illustrating underground periodicals.

The resistance was quite successful at producing a variety of false documents that helped their cause, including this armband that permitted the wearer to be on the street at night.

Even in prison, members of the resistance communicated with each other with codes like this one, meant to be tapped out on heating pipes.

This chess game was used to pass the time in a German prison. With one move played per day, the board was secretly given to the next prisoner by the person who delivered the daily bread.

Jannetje Johanna Schaft is better known in the Netherlands as Hannie (her resistance alias) or "the girl with the red hair" (which is how she was known before her resistance alias was revealed to the German SS). The current temporary exhibit at the museum focusses on the relationship between Hannie and two sisters, Truus and Freddie Oversteegen, and the dangerous types of resistance these rare women (amongst the men who usually performed such violent acts) engaged in. When Hannie was arrested on an unrelated charge, her captors recognised her as the woman they had been desperately searching for, and she was imprisoned. When Truus found out about Hannie's capture, she disguised herself as a German nurse and made her way into the prison where her friend was being held, but Hannie had already been taken away for execution. The story goes that the first bullet merely wounded Hannie, who retorted, "I'm a much better shot" before the second shot killed her. After the war, Truus became a sculptor whose work dealt with her experiences during the resistance, and Freddie retreated into a quiet life. Hannie became a resistance hero, posthumously receiving the Wilhelmina Resistance Cross and a US Commendation for her work:

We felt quite mentally exhausted after leaving the museum, and were glad to spend some time walking around in the sunshine, without any particular direction in mind. We ended up on Entrepotdok, one of a series of artificial islands created in the 17th century for warehouse-space to store goods before they were shipped out of Amsterdam. Now converted into housing and office space, the district has a lively yet secluded feel, with neighbourhood cafés brimming with people relaxing by the water. And, despite the name of this bridge, we didn't see any hippos floating in the canal!

It started to become something of a joke between us on this trip, because practically every time I stopped to take a photo of a residence, the person who lived there would show up. Sometimes they would spot me taking a picture, smile, and pause so that they wouldn't end up in the photo, while other times they didn't seem to notice that I found their home particularly appealing. I started feeling like I had the ability to summon owners home just by taking out the camera!

Judging from the birds' nest high up on this crane, it's now out of use.

A trio of corn stalks peered down at us from this building,

and further along, an enormous abandoned building had been decorated with these "windows" showing people going about their daily lives. With about a dozen windows running the length of the building, what would have otherwise been an eyesore is instead an interesting part of the neighbourhood.

This pair of 20th-century tablets seems to celebrate vegetarianism:

We had a lovely coffee break at a canalside table here

before putting our caffeine energy to good use with some more strolling around the city.

According to this sign, Amsterdammers are an incredibly smart lot!

I didn't know it at the time, but the small sign in the corner of this window says, "No bicycle parking, please"--but if you recall yesterday's photo that demonstrates the lack of success such requests can be met with, the sculpture that accompanies the sign might make you smile as much as I did when I looked up what the sign was asking:

(I just took the photo because I thought the sculpture alone was funny.)

A lot of Amsterdam's buildings lean--a lot.

Sometimes this was intentional, so that goods loaded into a building by means of the pulley hooks often found under a building's gable would have a better chance of not hitting the front of the building as they were hauled up, but in other cases, the less-than-solid land on which Amsterdam is built hasn't been the most supportive foundation. We passed quite a few pretty bridges,

encountering Amsterdam's version of a Friday after-work rush hour on this one!

A friendly Amsterdam resident came over to say hello as we passed:

This former life-insurance-company building has a wonderful image of "the good road" and "the bad road" centred between the two doors (I assume this is the road with life insurance and the road without!), along with symbols of Amsterdam (the three Xs) and The Hague (the stork) high above the doors.

This next plaque was placed here one year after the death of the man depicted on the bicycle; apparently he was the commissioner of Stadshertel Amsterdam (the city's restoration company) and was involved in merging that company with the AMF (Amsterdam Monuments Fund)--he metaphorically built bridges between the two, and so he is remembered cycling over what he built!

Every time a boat passed us, no matter how tiny or simple, we wished that we had a boat of our own on which to putter down the canals.

The second "version" of Rembrandt's The Night Watch that we saw today was on this closed fast-food kiosk--notice that the lietenant's pose has, um, been altered somewhat, so that his right hand has been moved from his hip to allow him to enjoy some of the season's fresh raw herring!

In this case, the tribute was at least geographically fitting, since the kiosk is just outside the Rijksmuseum, where the actual painting is located:

Although the museum is enormous, it's in the midst of an extensive renovation that won't see the buildings open again until 2012 or 2013, according to current estimates (an earlier estimate was for this year, but that didn't end up working out). Until then, a limited selection of pieces, which the museum has titled "The Masterpieces," occupies the only open wing of the museum, and we spent about an hour walking from room to room, taking in the impressive array of Dutch art. Photography wasn't allowed in the museum, but here are my favourites by
Hendrick Avercamp,
Philips Koninck,
Johannes Vermeer,
Pieter de Hooch,
Jan Steen,
Gerrit Berckheyde,
Willem van de Velde the Elder,
Melchior d'Hondecoeter,
an unknown artist, and
Rembrandt van Rijn.
We walked around the museum grounds for a bit afterwards,

before heading to the nearby Van Gogh Museum, whose two buildings you can see to the right of this path:

As with the Rijksmuseum, photography wasn't allowed in the Van Gogh Museum, but I won't bore you with my enormous list of favourites from this fantastic collection. Let me just say that the collection itself and the thoughtful ways in which the works are shown, along with the provision of contextual pieces by other artists who inspired or worked alongside Van Gogh (and even artists whom Van Gogh practiced copying from!) made for an extremely insightful look into his body of work. I especially appreciated seeing the only surviving work that retains its original frame (also painted by Van Gogh), the artist at his most abstract, a painting displayed with a mirror so that gallery-goers could see the second painting Van Gogh did on the reverse side of the canvas, and a video that revealed how one painting was found to have two previous paintings underneath. (These latter pieces were painted at a time when a destitute Van Gogh couldn't afford to buy canvases for new work.) By the time we finished touring the museum, it was almost 9:30 P.M., and we were a bit tired and more than a bit hungry. After yet another picnic meal by a canal (the evening weather was just too perfect to pass up another such opportunity), we slowly started making our way toward the hotel, knowing that this would be our last stroll along Amsterdam's atmospheric nighttime streets, since our plane would leave before darkness descended on the canals again tomorrow evening.

What felt like an old friend by now, the Westerkerk, looked wonderful in the night,

and this kitty posed brilliantly in the comfort of home.

It's impossible to resist the allure of the evening canals, so why bother?

Today's last photo is of a typical row of canalside houses, with the uppermost, fully lit floor of one nicely showing how the ornamental gable disguises the rather utilitarian sloped roof. Oh, and I also like the ghostly cyclist silently floating by in the night . . . .