Sleepless in Leiden, Part One
Sitting down and writing a weblog entry is surprisingly hard work after so many months off. Thankfully, my body is still not quite sure what timezone it is located in and woke me up shortly after 4am this morning. Since this is obviously way too early to start the work day, here I am pushing through the mental block and posting. Naturally, first I showered, did laundry, started the dishwasher, and made a lovely cup of "Pisces" tea from Adagio Teas. Productive procrastination is my curse.
Got back from The Netherlands Monday afternoon after a truly amazing week long trip. The first day and a half was spent in Amsterdam exploring the city. I promptly got lost while walking towards the museum district thanks to Amsterdam having no knowledge of straight streets and me having no clue what direction north was at 8am in the morning. Thank goodness I brought the iPhone with Google Maps as otherwise I probably would have ended up right back at the train station after wandering for two hours. Venice had that sort of lost-until-found charm too.
Eventually I got my bearings and found the Bema Hotel, which Amy recommended from her stay in Amsterdam. For nearly a third of the price of a regular hotel, I got an excellent room a stone's throw from the museum district with a full breakfast delivered to my door in the morning (at no extra charge). The bed was a tad short, I admit, which seems to be an ongoing problem when I travel abroad. Everyone assumes you must be under six feet tall if you are sleeping in a single bed, and I simply do not curl into a ball very well. A well placed nightstand helped. Thank goodness I slept so irregularly as a teenager or I might have ended up taller. That would have been tedious.
The Van Gogh Museum was quite a treat. Most of his most famous and popular works are elsewhere, but their main exhibition includes dozens of letters to his family and acquaintances that are full of sketches. You can see exactly how he was mapping out a painting's scene prior to putting any paint on canvas, and there are numerous letters where he talks about his technique while attempting to sketch the simplest aspects of a painting. As I tend to prefer pen sketching over painting, it was a nice change from the usual roaming through a couple hundred oil paintings that merely had small captions to the side. Their website has plenty of online material so go peruse if interested.
Oh, and you know, I hesitate to say this, but one of the best features of the Van Gogh Museum for a young man who just got off an 11 hour plane flight, had gotten momentarily lost in Amsterdam, and was a bit peckish? The cafe. Cheap and full of tasty food. Also, it has an excellent view of the Museumplein, allowing one to sit at the window and gaze dreamily out at the chilly October weather.
After the Van Gogh Museum, I went to the hotel and crashed for a couple hours. I know, I know, you're supposed to stay up the entire day to combat jet lag. Being the early-afternoon though, which is typically when I take my naps anyhow, I saw no real harm. And you know what? It was nice!
Next up was the Vodelpark, which was pleasant...I suppose. Perhaps it was a combination of the chilly weather and everyone being bundled up, but it was not overly exciting. I had a vision of a grand European Park and I was disappointed. Occurs to me though that I did not find the Champ de Mars overly impressive either, which I also saw during a chilly mid-October day. Perhaps I need to try and visit these places during a warmer month when there is more life.
Upon wondering down and back up the Vondelpark, I found myself over in the Leidseplein a couple hours before dark. Already it was starting to bustle with plenty of life from all of the bars and steakhouses nearby. Google Maps, in all of its quirky wisdom, suggested I wander over to the "tourist" hotspot that is Café Americain. While there I had dinner, and I freely admit that I chose the most expensive item on the menu, that it was not vegetarian (not farm raised though), and it was melts-in-your-mouth delicious.
Dinner being safely in my belly, I walked up towards Dam Square, a name ripe for bad jokes for which no one was around to groan at, alas. On the way, I discovered the American Book Center and promptly lost myself in there for at least an hour. I have an uncanny ability on my travels to always find the English bookstore in a city. Paris, Rome, Florence, and now Amsterdam. Almost like there is a homing beacon going off that draws me towards them unconsciously. [[insert Columba livia domestica joke here]]
Dam Square currently has a small carnival going on, which I skipped as the Red Light District was nearby and considering all of the "tales" of "wonder" that I had heard, I guess it was inevitable that I would take a "peek". (How many "quotes" can I put in this "paragraph", I ask "you"?) The Red Light district was interesting. Pretty much as I expected and not even remotely shocking. It was just before 9pm on a Tuesday night so the spectacle of people (both inside and outside the windows) was not really at full strength, and since I was by myself I got bored rather quickly.
And that concludes Tuesday night. Egads, that was quite a bit of detail. Past 7am now, so time for more breakfast and work. More later.
Got back from The Netherlands Monday afternoon after a truly amazing week long trip. The first day and a half was spent in Amsterdam exploring the city. I promptly got lost while walking towards the museum district thanks to Amsterdam having no knowledge of straight streets and me having no clue what direction north was at 8am in the morning. Thank goodness I brought the iPhone with Google Maps as otherwise I probably would have ended up right back at the train station after wandering for two hours. Venice had that sort of lost-until-found charm too.
Eventually I got my bearings and found the Bema Hotel, which Amy recommended from her stay in Amsterdam. For nearly a third of the price of a regular hotel, I got an excellent room a stone's throw from the museum district with a full breakfast delivered to my door in the morning (at no extra charge). The bed was a tad short, I admit, which seems to be an ongoing problem when I travel abroad. Everyone assumes you must be under six feet tall if you are sleeping in a single bed, and I simply do not curl into a ball very well. A well placed nightstand helped. Thank goodness I slept so irregularly as a teenager or I might have ended up taller. That would have been tedious.
The Van Gogh Museum was quite a treat. Most of his most famous and popular works are elsewhere, but their main exhibition includes dozens of letters to his family and acquaintances that are full of sketches. You can see exactly how he was mapping out a painting's scene prior to putting any paint on canvas, and there are numerous letters where he talks about his technique while attempting to sketch the simplest aspects of a painting. As I tend to prefer pen sketching over painting, it was a nice change from the usual roaming through a couple hundred oil paintings that merely had small captions to the side. Their website has plenty of online material so go peruse if interested.
Oh, and you know, I hesitate to say this, but one of the best features of the Van Gogh Museum for a young man who just got off an 11 hour plane flight, had gotten momentarily lost in Amsterdam, and was a bit peckish? The cafe. Cheap and full of tasty food. Also, it has an excellent view of the Museumplein, allowing one to sit at the window and gaze dreamily out at the chilly October weather.
After the Van Gogh Museum, I went to the hotel and crashed for a couple hours. I know, I know, you're supposed to stay up the entire day to combat jet lag. Being the early-afternoon though, which is typically when I take my naps anyhow, I saw no real harm. And you know what? It was nice!
Next up was the Vodelpark, which was pleasant...I suppose. Perhaps it was a combination of the chilly weather and everyone being bundled up, but it was not overly exciting. I had a vision of a grand European Park and I was disappointed. Occurs to me though that I did not find the Champ de Mars overly impressive either, which I also saw during a chilly mid-October day. Perhaps I need to try and visit these places during a warmer month when there is more life.
Upon wondering down and back up the Vondelpark, I found myself over in the Leidseplein a couple hours before dark. Already it was starting to bustle with plenty of life from all of the bars and steakhouses nearby. Google Maps, in all of its quirky wisdom, suggested I wander over to the "tourist" hotspot that is Café Americain. While there I had dinner, and I freely admit that I chose the most expensive item on the menu, that it was not vegetarian (not farm raised though), and it was melts-in-your-mouth delicious.
Dinner being safely in my belly, I walked up towards Dam Square, a name ripe for bad jokes for which no one was around to groan at, alas. On the way, I discovered the American Book Center and promptly lost myself in there for at least an hour. I have an uncanny ability on my travels to always find the English bookstore in a city. Paris, Rome, Florence, and now Amsterdam. Almost like there is a homing beacon going off that draws me towards them unconsciously. [[insert Columba livia domestica joke here]]
Dam Square currently has a small carnival going on, which I skipped as the Red Light District was nearby and considering all of the "tales" of "wonder" that I had heard, I guess it was inevitable that I would take a "peek". (How many "quotes" can I put in this "paragraph", I ask "you"?) The Red Light district was interesting. Pretty much as I expected and not even remotely shocking. It was just before 9pm on a Tuesday night so the spectacle of people (both inside and outside the windows) was not really at full strength, and since I was by myself I got bored rather quickly.
And that concludes Tuesday night. Egads, that was quite a bit of detail. Past 7am now, so time for more breakfast and work. More later.
– Thursday, 2009 October 29 @ 5:36 AM | No Comments -