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We spent a night in Amsterdam last night, at a pretty dingy over priced hotel. It was weird Al managed to talk them into upgrading our room to “deluxe” because they didn’t fulfill her ridiculous request for a room without carpet… It’s a hotel for shits sake! Don’t they all have carpet? For what it’s worth it was the NH charleton, avoid it if you can but from what I understand the hotels there all have a certain grime quotient that needs to be overlooked, so maybe it wasn’t that bad… Certainly a far cry from the live jazz piano filled lobby of the Mariott in Ghent.

We rushed from the train to check in to the hotel so we could get over to the Van Gogh museum. A bit of a line outside but we didn’t need to wait long to get in. We hadn’t eaten so we stopped at the café inside and was surprised by the selection in the cafeteria style eatery, pasta bolognese! A cold beer and Al even found a little bottle of wine! Wasn’t overpriced at all either.

More importantly the museum itself was pretty rad, there was a lot of pieces, and a little bit of knowledge that in no way felt overwhelming. I feel like I remember everything I read while I was in there. It was neat to see the originals of things I’ve seen in books and copies of. I think my favorite was “blossoms”, especially the way it was exhibited. They showed earlier similar pieces, as well as pieces of Japanese art that inspiration was taken from (they did similar things for many of the pieces). This one stood out to me because the early stuff had very little contrast between the subject and the background, where in blossoms there is a vibrant background and it really made the flowers pop from the canvas. Make no mistake I don’t pretend to know a damn thing about art, but the way this was presented even gives the layman some perspective as to why Van Gogh is so hilly regarded.

With all that culture out of the way, we strolled the streets though the downtown area and through the red light district. In the end I’m still not entirely sure what all the fuss is about Amsterdam, seems like just another city in which many of the inhabitants wear cannabis cologne. I’ve said it before but I’m not a huge fan of cities in general especially when I don’t have some focused activities and preferably a friend who lives there.

I’m on a train to Bacharach Germany right now… We’ve got 4 connections to make before we get there… A bit of a hassle for sure but Alison tells me this will be more my speed, and from what I’ve seen so far it would appear to be true!