Saturday afternoon---
---We get back to Amsterdam around 1, and promptly run off to see more of the city since time is limited. First stop is the Anne Frank Museum. After waiting in a pretty hefty queue, we finally get in and can let the learning begin.
Frank and her family immigrated to Amsterdam in 1933, and thanks to an increasingly anti-Semitic sentiment, Jews of the town were unable to ride on trams, were forced to wear the yellow stars of David, etc. This eventually becomes unbearable, and the family is forced into hiding on July 6, 1942. Their hiding spot is in the back of the building which overlooks the Prince’s Canal, and surprisingly to me is actually two floors tall (The picture you get in history class is that these people were all crammed into one tiny room.)
One of the most interesting things I find here is a letter from Hermann van pels, one of the three van Pels living with the Franks, to the American consulate, rejecting his application for immigration to the US. Out of this obvious form letter comes a particularly striking segment: “It’s not in your interest to correspond unnecessarily with the Consulate... Based on present demand it is probable that (notification) will be” --and this is where the form letter breaks, the last word coming in a clearly different type style and boldness -- “indefinite.” Things like these tempt you to get into the “what if?” arguments, but that is fruitless and unfair.
Some other things that hit you in the gut include the pencil marks on the wall that gauge the growth of Anne and her sister, the pictures Anne pasted to the wall with such stars of the day as Greta Garbo, Rudy Vallees, and Ray Milland, the self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, and the cute picture of a quartet of chimps sitting around a table having tea. These things remind you that a little girl (two, in fact) were forced to spend their lives in a tiny two floor hideaway. A rather unsettling thought.
Even more unsettling is the tiny map of Europe that Otto Frank had taped to the wall, carefully charting with pushpins the advances of the Allied invasion. You can see all the empty hole marks from early on, and you can see when the tide of the war started to change, but the worst is that the final arrangement of pins shows how close the Allies were to saving this family, and so many others. They were a hair’s breadth away...
On the whole, the museum is mostly just the shells of rooms -- the barest of frames; walls, sinks, etc. -- with an occasional artifact here and there. They’ve cleared out a lot of the furniture and other things so more people can file through, so your enjoyment of this museum hinges on your ability to imagine. The better you can ignore the long lines of people and transport yourself back to the war-torn 1930s and 40s, essentially filling the tiny shoes of Anne and her family, the more powerful and affecting this experience will be.
And in the end, it’s the little things that do you in and hammer the point home-- the ornate blue and white porcelain toilet that seems so out of place, the steps that climb upstairs at the severest of angles, the bookcase that blocked the maw to their hideout. These all finalize what you had only heard about before and make you understand just how unpleasant life must have been for these people.
At the end of the museum there is a contemporary reflection on the Franks’ experience and what happened to the Jews as a whole. It goes into the proliferation of hate groups and their dissemination of information via the Internet, it makes comparisons to the atrocities in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and raises some interesting questions. Two, in particular, spring to my mind: 1) Do these hate groups, with all their venom and vitriol, still deserve to have their free speech protected. Where do you draw the line? And, 2) They presented a stat that says 24% of kids today “doubt” the Holocaust happened. How does this happen? Is it due to the weakness of kids’ educations or to the strength of the Revisionists’ and hate groups’ powers of persuasion? I don’t know the answers to either of them, but they make for solid rumination.
Slightly sobered and more than a little depressed, we head off to the Van Gogh museum to look at some art. This is the world’s largest collection of the one-eared Amsterdam-ian, opening in 1973, and containing over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and 700 letters. There are over a dozen self-portraits (27 painted in his two years in Paris), each more interesting than the next, and the illustrious Sunflowers are also here. But wait a minute -- less than a week ago I spied the exact same painting in the National Gallery! What is up? Which one is real and which one is a fake? Well, the answer is they’re both real. Apparently he painted a bunch of these, some with yellow backgrounds, others with blue backgrounds. Only a few survive, one here and one in London.
This is your standard museum (and if you ask me, it’s a waste of space. Not because the paintings don’t pass muster -- I actually quite like a lot of his stuff -- it’s that there is a painting every two or three feet and the rest is open space. Kind of a waste.) and it reads like a history lesson. You follow him through the ten years that he painted (and amazingly, in this time he made over 800 paintings and 1000 drawings! Talk about making the most of your time...) and you can really see the different stages he went through in his life and how they affected his art.
Like, for instance, when he lived in the Netherlands for a short time, but grew very lonely and sad when his relationship with a woman broke off, his paintings of farm workers and various other peasants were very dark, almost black works, apparently reflecting the darkness he felt in his heart.
It was also interesting to see how he slowly developed his trademark brush strokes and color usage. He started out trying to be a more traditional painter with the concealed strokes, and as he became more familiar with the impressionist movement, you can see his style starting to change and become more of what we expect -- the fat brush strokes, the bright colors, etc.
One rather interesting thing about this museum was that it also contained a bunch of paintings by other people (kind of a strange sight when the name leads you to expect only paintings from our friend Vinny) that Van Gogh admired. Some are quite good, others not so much.
The really surprising thing is that the museum housed around a hundred Japanese woodcuts which Van Gogh was particularly keen on and they’re said to have been a big influence on his style (you wouldn’t think of it by looking at some of his stuff, but there are several works where they are direct copies of certain woodcuts, and after you know this fact, you can see it probably was a reason for his love of bold colors.)
Famished by traipsing all over this city (we aren’t brave enough to try the trams yet. That comes later in the night) we head to the Hard Rock Cafe for some authentic American cooking and portions. This meal tastes wonderful -- it’s funny how quickly you forget how good flame-broiled beef and cheddar cheese can taste together -- and this is as close to being full as I’ve come this entire trip (close, but no cigar, unfortunately.) We make the requisite souvenir purchases from downstairs and then head off for the storied Red Light District.
Not wanting to walk there (since it’s still raining) we decide to brave the town tram system and hop on for a wild ride indeed. First, these things are packed tighter than a sardine can. Second, the conductor seems to have a high desire to set the land speed record for a public transportation vehicle because he just floors this thing. We’re swaying all over the place, painting the sides of the tram with the sides of our faces (not a fun prospect if you could see how clean these things are -- there’s hair grease and the remains of nose gremlins from 1922, I think) as we’re slammed back and forth more than a tennis ball at Wimbledon. (The turns are of particular fun -- imagine doing a left hand turn at around 30 mph and you’ve got a notion. Now picture it while riding in a suicidally slender tin can on wheels with you acting like a second layer of skin to half a dozen strangers immediately surrounding you. Oh boy, we’re having fun...)
We finally extricate ourselves from the death trap (trying to find the correct stop was pretty fun, too. Again, all the stop names are 50 letters long, and none of them are anything decipherable like, “proshtitootesarefrachtenhere” or “lossavhookersheer,” so I ask just start shouting like a two-year-old having a tantrum, “Where are the whores? Show me to the whores!” Shout that for long enough and people will tell you anything. As soon as the stop came up, the entire tram shouted, “HERE!” Gravy train...)
It’s after dark, so the girls are a little worried, but we push on unperturbed. It’s really quite a revolting sight. The streets, especially the tight alleyways, are packed with people wandering around. They’re looking in the windows of the endless sex shops -- hawking a million different styles of vibrators, pornos, and outfits -- or the tiny cubicles, just large enough for one person to fit in, that house the seemingly endless sea of hookers wearing nothing more than bikinis. The girls keep trying to persuade men into coming in with them, rubbing themselves and swaying, even calling out and shouting at people from behind the glass. The guys, for their part, walk right up to the glass, ogle the girls, mouth off to them, and / or go in with them for their 7 minutes in the sun (when the latter occurs -- and it does more times than not -- the girls shut the curtains and get to it, only to reappear minutes later, disgustingly readjusting their clothing and trying to entice more men to come inside.)
In between all this are the live sex shows (replete with older gentlemen in suits (unsettlingly grandfatherly in age) standing outside trying to corral people into the shows. “Come on, best sex show in town. Come on. Come on...) and the sex museums (one has a woman bouncing up and down on a horse’s back, which looks normal enough, until you realize that her saddle has a certain, shall we say, customized attachment that she’s getting acquainted with?) Ugh.
Thoroughly repulsed (I’m seriously feeling a little nauseous right now typing this. It is just a disgusting, sickening sight to see people doing this stuff to themselves. Agh.) we head to the multi-purpose Grasshopper hash bar and close the evening in style.
Sunday, January 30---
---We get up early again and hop on the bus, ready to head to Brugge, Belgium on the way back to Calais and the ferry to England. I can’t tell you how glad I am to leave Amsterdam. It’s just one of the dirtiest, most unattractive places I’ve seen. Besides the toppling, grime-encrusted buildings and the toilets known as streets, there are actually toilets on the streets. That’s right, there are these gray contraptions around that are urinals, for men only (sorry ladies, if you want to urinate on a public street, you’re going to have to look elsewhere. Try New York), and people actually just walk up, unzip, and go to town. I just keep walking around this town gawking and shaking my head at the audacity and unbelievably high revulsion factor it emits.
If that’s not bad enough, when you’re not dodging the piss streams of the public potties, you’re shrugging off the aggressive advances of the prostitutes. When you’re not doing this, you’re trying to clear the stench of pot smoke from your nose or you’re trying to find a patch of green or beauty in this city that is covered in dirt and brown and ugliness.
When you cross the streets, you’re constantly placing your life in the precarious hands of Fate. If you don’t get hit by the cars that whizz by, you’re apt to get smacked by the relentless bevy of bikers or the suicidally paced trams that whip around the corners without offering any warning. You just get the feeling in this city that the people want to bring you down and break you -- to really make you one of them. Either with their potent ‘coffee,’ their disgusting (and probably diseased) ladies of the corner and the Red Light, or their homicidally-bent motorists, they want to pull you to their level of sin-infested existence. (and I’m no Puritan, here, so you know how bad this had to be for ME to be off-put.)
Now I admit, my disdain and near-hatred of this city might be slightly tainted and amplified by the fact that the weather the entire weekend was as inhospitable as it could be -- it was cold, rainy, and extremely windy all weekend long. This atrocious offering from Mother Nature certainly did nothing to help my view of this town. So, in short, I was jubilant to get away from the snatches of this city (and talking to some of my fellow travelers, my sentiments weren’t held solely by me.) In fact, one of the best sights of the weekend was seeing the expensive science research building (apparently built to look like the symbolization of the town’s morals -- a sinking ship) in the rear window of the coach as we rolled out of town.
When we arrive in Brugge, though, all is forgotten. This town is as beautiful as Amsterdam was revolting; was as welcoming as Amsterdam was hostile. In other words, I loved it. This city quickly becomes my favorite city that I have traveled to. It is absolutely amazing. There are hardly any cars driving around, and in their stead comes a steady stream of hansom cabs and their accompanying strains of horseshoes on cobblestone roads. The people all say, “Hello” when you walk by, the buildings are gorgeous, and, to my particular delight, there are tons of giant cathedrals for me to gawk at and photograph (I count at least a dozen in my walk around town.) There are also three huge windmills on the perimeter of town, and the whole town used to be surrounded by stone walls (and is still surrounded by a canal-like moat), and I begin to fall in love with the serenity of this town.
Brugge is apparently known for chocolates and lace, so we sample some chocolate (alright, we sample about a pound between four of us, but who cares? It was soooo good, and I don’t even like chocolate that much.) and I admire the intricate little lace items that proliferate in the souvenir shops. The high point of my time in the town, though, was the discovery of panini for lunch. Oh my God, this is the greatest sandwich I have had in YEARS! (sorry, Fe and Rusty). It is Italian bread, mozzarella, tomatoes, and ham, all pressed down under an interesting grilling machine, and then served piping hot and crunchy on both sides. Holy jamoly, I nearly fainted (those of you who understand my love affair with sandwiches can just imagine my delight.) I made a special trip back to tell the woman how good her sandwich was, but I don’t think she understood English very well, but hey -- I tried.
We leave Brugge, eventually end up in Calais (and stop at the hilariously titled “Boozers,” which, as you might surmise, sold an ass-load of liquor. It was a cash and carry discount house with more wines and beers at cutthroat rates than I have ever seen. If I could have carried (or afforded) the stuff, I would have gone wild. Some of my mates did...) and then hop on the ferry.
The bus drives onto the ferry, we hop off the coach and walk around, and then head up to the deck when the boat starts to pull away from the docks. It’s pretty out there, and more than a little cold, but once we start moving and gaining speed, the wind starts whipping up and becomes quite another story altogether. I’m standing in the front, holding on to the rails, when things really start howling. I can’t hear a thing it’s so loud in my ears, my eyes are watering, and it’s hard to breath because the gusts are so strong they push against my chest and make it hard to get small enough amounts of air in. I take one of my hands off the rail and nearly lose it and the arm attached to it. My pants are glued to my body, as is the fine sheen of snot that is slowly congregating on my face. If I was to let go of the rail with both of my hands, I think I would be blown overboard -- no small feat, to pick up a fatty like me. And then, as quickly as it began, the wind subsides and things become more peaceful. I can distinguish sounds; I can see things; I can breath again. Apparently we had finished turning just enough so the bulk of the boat was blocking most of the gales. Wow. What an experience!
We return inside, grab some overpriced grub, and after a while, head back outside to see us dock again. As I climb the stairs, I’m confronted with yet another amazing sight -- this time, the white cliffs of Dover. They’re natural cliffs of chalk and they’re fully illuminated at night, and look utterly spectacular. Then, we look over the side and see thousands of little white flecks flying around here and there. They’re sea gulls, and they almost paint the sky completely white there’s so many of them. From what I’m told, they hang around here, flying up and then diving down into the water trying to get whatever fish the boat stirs up or kills. It’s really quite a sight to see -- for as many of them that are swooping high and then plummeting to the water, there seem to be twice as many floating on the water like an unending stretch of flotsam. Unbelievable.
We board the coach again, go through customs and immigration, and then head back to London, a weekend of unbelievable extremes finally winding to an end. Exhausted and a little overwhelmed, I turn in, the thoughts of Brugge, the gulls, and the white cliffs sending my mind reeling.