Quick update: I have now seen one of the poles atop the houses being used. Not as exciting as I had hoped.
For my last day in Amsterdam, I wanted to visit the Rijksmuseum (the main art museum in town holding many of the dutch master works) and had plans to meet up with some friends of a friend. Before that, I wanted to get in another bike ride before my 24hr loan period was up.
I didn’t wake up too early though, so I only had about 45 min to go on a ride after breakfast and before I went to the Rijksmuseum. I planned a quick route down to the Olympic Stadium (which itself was not that exciting since it was built for the 1928 games, and does not compare to large, modern stadiums) and headed back through Vondelpark to the bike shop. Check out the map of my ride on the Strava link at the bottom of my site. Let me know if you have trouble viewing it without a Strava account, then I can start including screenshots here. Definitely think it’s more fun on your end to view the interactive map though.
I had about 2 hours to explore the Rijksmuseum before meeting up with the friends of a friend for lunch. I booked my reservation entry time the day before (you can’t buy tickets at the museum, but I also didn’t have to reserve my spot weeks in advance like I did for the Anne Frank house). I also downloaded the Rijksmuseum app and brought my own headphones to listen to the museum audioguide (which I again learned from the tour guide’s recommendations two days prior), avoiding the $7 fee to rent an audioguide in the museum.
The Rijksmuseum app audioguide is quite impressive in of itself. After connecting the guide to bluetooth, it has the ability to show your current location inside the museum on a map. This is super helpful as there are lots of small rooms and confusing entrances. Once you looked at one painting, the app would show you on the map how to get to the next one, and it could even show you pictures of where you needed to turn if needed. The recommended audio tour on the app (there were multiple to choose from, and you could even have the app generate a route for you based on which type of art you are most interested in viewing) took about 1.5 hours, which was great for me. I visited the most famous paintings in the museum (the Night Watch, Van Gogh’s self portrait, the Milkmaid, etc) and some lesser known ones that were still impressive. I’ll include a photo dump below:
The Night Watch was very unique because it is so large, and because it was surrounded by equipment as the museum does research to learn how it can best preserve it.
Now to explain the friends of a friend I mentioned twice – my friend Max G from back home studied abroad in Amsterdam this past fall, and made some Dutch friends. I knew this, asked him to introduce me to them, and Max delivered.
Owen and his friend (whose name I unfortunately can’t remember) were awesome and showed me around their favorite parts of Amsterdam. After grabbing lunch at a cafe in the Jordaan neighborhood, we walked around for about 4 hours. We visited a few different outdoor markets, went to a grocery to buy stroopwafels, and then went to another cafe to get fresh stroopwafel. What is stroopwafel you ask? Ever been on a United flight, and didn’t get the biscotti or pretzels as your snack? Well you probably got a crappier version of a stroopwafel then. (stroopwafel pictures not taken by me)
Talking with Owen and his friend was really great – we covered quite a wide array of topics. Owen is studying an interdisciplinary mix of environmental science and sustainability in university, so we talked for a bit about environmental politics, sustainable development, and weirdly about dirt (he knows quite a lot more than I do, but I’m hoping to catch up soon with my farming experience). We also talked a lot about differences between the Dutch and American educational systems. It turns out the Dutch system can be quite inequitable, as from a young age you are placed into groups that ultimately determine the levels of university education you are eligible for.
We really walked quite a bit, I walked over 25,000 steps in each of my three days in Amsterdam.
Now, to let you guys know where I’ll be traveling next. This feels like the end of an episode of the Amazing Race or the Great Food Truck race, when you stick around after the final set of commercials to see where the contestants will travel next. I usually take that time to guess where they’re going, so you’re welcome to do that now if you want. I really don’t think you’ll guess it, but of course be my guest to try.
Tomorrow (but really today, since I’m already writing this from the farm lol), I’ll be heading down to the southern edge of the Netherlands to work at the Red Lock Farm in Overslag. The region is right on the border with Belgium, so the closest big city is actually Ghent, which I plan on visiting at some point. Tomorrow I’ll share my journey to get to the farm (I visit Rotterdam along the way) and my first impressions. Wifi is not great from here, so I’ll probably start to post closer to every 2 days than every 1 day.
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