Here We (Van) Go(gh)!

I Amsterdam in the morning with very few people around

Lucky enough to get a picture of me without tons of other people

So yesterday was Van Gogh day. I'll not lie--I was super excited. I've always quite liked Van Gogh's work, and then when I saw the Doctor Who episode "Vincent and the Doctor" I was hooked. I'm even planning a trip to Arles this year so that I can go explore the village where he painted some of my favorite works of art. Anyway, Amsterdam's Van Gogh museum houses the largest collection of Van Gogh works in the world, so I was beyond excited to explore it.

I got there right when it opened and spent about 2.5 hours wandering around. They actually chronicled his career--showing where he started as an artist, his mentors, when/why his style changed throughout his career. It was absolutely incredible. I've always thought that Van Gogh just had a natural talent and affinity for painting. While I still think that even his earliest sketches were amazing, it turns out he studied A LOT and studied hard to get become the artist he was. And even then, he was still convinced that he was terrible at it (but kept going anyway).

My favorite

Van Gogh's signature

Reproduction on the wall

One of my favorite paintings -- skull with a lit cigarette

They even have the new painting of Van Gogh's that was just discovered....like this summer, I think? Super recent. They also had a lot of information on the research that has been done regarding Van Gogh's work. Van Gogh, since he was pretty poor during his lifetime, reused canvases--sometimes he painted over works he had painted, sometimes he painted on the back of canvases. Basically, art research is really awesome and incredible and reveals a lot about the artist.

The new painting

After the Van Gogh museum, I headed over to the Old Church in the red light district. No, this isn't awkward irony--the red light district popped up around the church to house the clergymen's mistresses. Yay religion. In any case, the architecture of the church was different than anything I've seen in France, and so it was really interesting and beautiful to look at. Also, they had proverbs written in some of the choral stalls and one of the proverbs (that today would be translated to "Money doesn't grow on trees") is "I can't pull money out of my arse". In a church. Sometimes, I love Holland. Above the door where people would enter to get their marriage licenses, they wrote "Marry in haste, repent at leisure" which I also thought was kind of funny.

The Old Church

The underside of the pipe organ

Inside the old church

After the Old Church, I headed over to the hidden Catholic church "Our Lord in the Attic". Basically, at one point the protestants got sick of the Catholics and banned Catholics from practicing their faith in public (bye bye churches). So the Catholics formed secret churches in basements and attics so that they could gather to worship. Basically, this really rich merchant turned his attic into a really elaborate (if rather small) church. Complete with pipe organ. How's that for inconspicuous? All-in-all it was rather pretty, but I can never help but think that however much money was put into decorating the church (build a church, fine, but do you really need marble and gold everywhere??) could have been put to better use doing, you know, what Christian people are supposed to do (like...I don't know...help people...)

The altar--all gold and marble

The attic church

I had lunch at a small café where I had this amazing tea (Amsterdam Blend--black tea with vanilla, cinnamon, and clove). I had to ask where they had gotten the tea and sure enough it was a local place, so I scrapped my plans for the afternoon and headed out to where the lady said the tea shop was. (Yes, I bought more tea--but it was extremely well priced and SO GOOD.) After that, I wanted to head over to the Hotel de Filosoof where they had filmed a bit of "The Fault in Our Stars" (movie based on an amazing book--they just finished filming; movie will be out next June). So I walked for about 8 years (sometimes my brain does not understand exactly how long the distances on the map actually are...) to check out the hotel. It was alright in the end, though, because I got to walk through more residential Amsterdam which was excellent, and something I wouldn't have seen if I hadn't gone that way. It certainly made for a welcome change from the hustle and bustle of the downtown.

Flower centerpiece at the cafe

Bike traffic jam

Loved this house

Hotel de Filosoof

There were some pretty strong winds during the night, and thus lots of fallen trees

This morning I got a bit of a lazy start before heading over to the Holocaust Memorial which was pretty small (and mostly all in Dutch--so difficult to understand) but was also very moving. It's housed in what used to be a theatre, which was then repurposed by the Nazis during WWII to house Jewish people from Amsterdam before they were taken to concentration and extermination camps.

Then I headed over to the botanical garden which, though it wasn't in bloom, was still very lovely. (It was definitely nice to be in some green space after all this city.) So I spent a while just roaming around in there before heading back over to the West Church near Anne Frank's house since I had forgotten to get pictures from the outside when I was there the other day.

Flower in the desert greenhouse

Sad tree in the garden

Pond in the botanical garden

Anne Frank statue

The West Church

  

The door to Anne Frank's House

  

  

Pale GPOY

Near the Anne Frank House, I also saw this guy on the canals playing a little concert.

 

After lunch, I headed over to the cat museum (nope, not joking) which houses some paintings by Picasso and Rembrandt and everything is cat themed. There are cat statues, cat paintings, cat pinball, big cats, little cats, black cats, ginger cats, and ACTUAL CATS. I almost died when I saw this adorable little fluffball asleep on the couch. Half my time spent in that museum was spent sitting next to the kitten and petting it. (Hey, I miss my cats a lot, okay?)

This lovely fluffy little furball kept me company for a while

Puss-in-Boots statue

Kitten climbing the mirror

When I finally saw what was making those people panic, I laughed really loud

Poffertjes (tiny little pancakes) with bananas, chocolate, and whipped cream

I just really like these shutters

While walking around, I ran into another canal concert.

Tomorrow I head over to Brussels for the day before making my way to Antwerp. I'm so excited to see what Belgium has to offer!! As per previously, I'll update this post with pictures when I get home this weekend.

Until next time, DFTBA!