Sunday, April 20, 2008

Crazy European Adventure Part 3: Museums and Touristy Bits...

It was our last day in Amsterdam, and I was absolutely determined to go to the Van Gogh Museum, because, if I didn't, HBoO would have murdered me for missing an opportunity to see Starry Night, her mostest favoritest painting in the world...

So we did go to the Van Gogh Museum, but it cost 10 Euros to get in, a cost which neither Flower nor Simon could afford. So I went in by myself and searched every square inch of the four story building for Starry Night. Ironically, it's in New York City right now and will continue to be until July 2009. Good. It's okay, though, I really like Van Gogh. Impressionism is my favorite art movement, mostly because of my easy access to Monet's Bridge Over a Pool of Water Lillies at the Philadelphia Museum of Art...

Even though I didn't get to see Starry Night, I still saw a ton of really cool stuff. For instance...
These three were taken just moments before I was tackled by a large security guard and then escorted off the premises. Well, not really, but I was surrounded by them and told to put my camera away or else bad things would happen. I could have argued and said that my camera does not emit a flash and therefore does no damage to the paintings when I take a photo, but that would probably have given me a broken leg or two, so I opted for the "putting my camera back in my pocket and begrudgingly stamping my feet and walking off" path of action. Minutes later, I left the museum and rejoined Flower and Simon. It was time to leave Amsterdam and go to Dordrecht...

It being the first time we took a train in mainland Europe, we bought tickets before boarding thinking that the train costs money. I know, it seems silly, but we actually thought that we had to pay for trains at the time. That night, we would learn otherwise, and traveling in Europe would go from being very expensive to free. How we did this will be revealed in the next entry..:-)

More to come..:-)

-Matt

2 comments:

Melissa said...

Aww, A+ for effort. I hope you paused for a moment to recognize that you were surrounded by works of greatness.

And by greatness, I may or may not mean insanity.

Suldog said...

I was in Amsterdam when I was about 13, which is a very long time ago now - long before the legalization of certain substances. I did enjoy it, though. I found the Dutch people to be wonderful.

Do tell about the free travel. I'm looking forward to it.