Amsterdam: Day 2

The next morning, we take our “closet showers” (close the door, undress and hang your clothes on the hook, draw the curtain over your towel/clothes so they don’t get wet, take shower, draw curtain, dry and get dressed). Still better than the “holocaust showers.” Breakfast was bread, meat, and cheese carved from a large block on the boat. Kyle tried the “coco flakes.”

            We spent the day exploring some of the open spaces of Amsterdam, such as the leidesplein (with the theater on one side and a person performing Simon and Garfunkel in the center), the Begijnhof (with the Het Huyten Huys-the oldest house in Amsterdam. It is from the 1500s and is one of only 2 to still have a wooden front, which was banned after a large fire), and the Rembrantplein, with its huge statue of Rembrandt. We went for a very long walk through Vondelpark, Amsterdam’s largest green space, and I took a nap in the grass.

            We went to the Van Gogh museum and saw over 200 Van Gogh paintings (including some self-portraits, Irises, Sunflowers, and Vincent’s Bedroom in Arles), as well as works from Gauguin, Monet, Manet, Munch, Lacombe, Lacoste, Mondrian, Toulouse Lautrec, and Seurat. Kyle would just go into a gallery, glance around, then sit in the middle with a glum
expression.

            Walking back to the boat, we saw orange everywhere for the big soccer match tonight. Kyle got his dinner from one of those vending machine places, a burger and “fried cheese hot pocket.” Tomorrow…probably a day trip.