Layover in Amsterdam!

On the way to Istanbul, my friends and I had a 12-hour layover in Amsterdam. I loved visiting Amsterdam about ten years ago, when I went on a study abroad in Europe. I really looked forward to spending a layover in this city, and I even re-read Anne Frank's diary in preparation for a visit to her museum.

Can you tell that we are jet-lagged? This picture was taken in Dam Square.

Bikes were everywhere! Wikipedia reports that in 2006 there were 465,000 bikes in Amsterdam! My question is this: Why do all of the bikes look like old-school models? It's charming to see thousands on classic bicycle models on the road, so I'm not complaining at all. But could it be that more modern bicycle models are banned from use? Maybe the Dutch are too cool and funky for bikes with gears?

Visiting the Anne Frank Museum was just as neat as I remembered. In fact, I think this trip was more meaningful, since the experiences from Anne Frank's diary were fresh in my mind. And serendipitously, we went to the museum on Anne Frank's birthday! Anne received her diary on her 13th birthday, which meant that we visited the museum on the 70th anniversary of Anne Frank's diary. By coincidence and luck, we arrived at the museum really early. I'm glad we showed up at the beginning of the day, because when we exited there was a large crowd waiting to get in.

The Rijksmuseum! Part of the museum was under construction, so we only saw a portion of the collection - which was still huge in and of itself.

 One of the most surprising and exciting things for me to see in the Rijksmuseum was Frans Post's painting, View of Olinda, Brazil (1662). I've lectured on this painting a few times and even blogged about it. It was really fun to see this painting in-person because there are lots of details that escape notice in digital reproductions. As of yet, I haven't found a great reproduction of this painting online, partially because the painting is quite dark (though not as dark as the reproduction that I've included above). Some reproductions online use fill light, so at least one can see all of the creatures in the foreground. When seeing the painting in-person, I noticed some new creatures that I never saw before, like the gaping, vicious snake that winds itself around a tree on the left.

 Here is a detail of View of Olinda, Brazil. Although I took lots of pictures of this painting, the lighting in the museum was too dark to get great images. This one turned out alright, though. Doesn't that exotic bug look just as big as the bird?

It was also really neat to see Vermeer's Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (ca. 1663), since this painting was just restored and put back on public view this year.

 After visiting these two museums, we headed back to the airport for our next flight. In theory, we still had enough time to visit the Van Gogh Museum, but we were so tired that we started to feel dizzy if we stood still for too long. It was a little hard to look at some of the paintings in the Rijksmuseum without feeling dizzy! I remember needing to sit down several times in the Rijksmuseum, while trying to scrutinize some paintings by Rembrandt. Although I was a wee bit disappointed to not visit the Van Gogh Museum this time around, but I think it was best that we headed back to the airport.