Amsterdam: Day 1

After a fantastic breakfast of Old Amsterdam Cheese and jasmine tea, Nathalie and I headed into the centre of town to go exploring. Soren was meant to join us, but he unfortunately has loads of work to do at University in Delft.

It took me all day to get my bearings, but I think they are slowly improving - there are loads of winding roads all throughout the city and it is mighty confusing navigating them all! Thank goodness I have Nathalie as a host, or I think I'd just resort to using cabs everywhere! Add to that the nonsense that is driving on the right hand side of the road, and you've got a recipe for disaster! But luckily nothing happened and all is well

The first stop was Foam - the Photographic Museum in Amsterdam. It first appears to be quite small, but opens up into a huge space with a great courtyard cafe. Really interesting exhibitions, including one about a Belgian neo-Nazi and another involving what we hope are dummies of stillborn babies in test tubes. Creepy stuff. The most important exhibition though was of colour and b&w photos from the 1930s Depression in America. The juxtaposition of colour and b&w is amazing - even though the photos are of the same people, you immediately feel as if the family in the b&w photo are poorer. Interesting, huh?

The 2nd museum was one that was recommended by my cousin Andrea and was the Versetsmuseum (Dutch Resistance Museum). The ongoing theme in the Netherlands with regards to the war is one of positivity - 'look how we undermined the enemy'. Quite an interesting stance, really. The most interesting section was on the various methods of 'resistance' - ending with an essentially unanswerable question: what constitutes 'resistance'?

The rest of the day was spent walked around the Artis area (and watching a crisps commercial being filmed), the Munt, Dam, Liedseplein and Vondelpark - essentially the rest of the city centre.

Slowly but surely it's all making sense!