Jul 2006

As seems to be normal when I´m left alone I didn´t leave the house till 11am this morning! Not that it mattered when everything is so close by.

I walked to the Rijksmuseum, and having pre-purchased my ticket online (Thanks Nat!) I bypassed the enormous queue and went straight in. I´m not a huge fan of art galleries - personally I find them tedious - but this one was fantastic. Partly because it was small (only one wing is currently open) but predominantly because the layout is not by artist, but rather historically/thematically. Thus the paintings had context and were much better for it, IMHO.

After lunch at Museumplein, the big square outside the Rijks- and Van Gogh Museums, I headed into town for the Amsterdam Historische Museum (AHM) to find out more about the town´s past. It´s a fascinating story, revolving mostly around the canals and land reclamation. In that regard Amsterdam shares a lot with Singapore. The most interesting part of that museum for me though was the Anne Frank exhibition. AHM isn´t the Anne Frank House, so the focus was instead on her letters and in particular those ones that didn´t make the book. They gave a great insight into life for Dutch Jews before WW2 broke out.

The final museum I visited was the Church Museum, located in a secret Catholic Church in the middle of Amsterdam´s infamous Red Light District. The District itself is one of those things visitors kinda have to do, but I did it begrudingly. Along with many Dutch I see it as a sad inditement on society that such a place continues to exist. I guess every city has its ugly side, but for it to be a tourist attraction is kinda wrong. And it´s just so ... well ... public. Everything, and I mean everything, is on display.

But onto the Church Museum - built when practicing Catholicism was banned in the Netherlands, it´s an amazing display of ingenuity under pressure, and well worth a visit.

My final touristy act in Amsterdam was to take one of the ubiqituous canal tours, which was surprisingly good. The commentary, in true Dutch style, was quad-lingual with English coming last. Thus when we were told about things, they were usually past us!

And there you have it, Amsterdam in two days without once visiting a ´cafe´ or getting stoned!

PS: For photos of Amsterdam, click here

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!

Given that I didn't get to bed till 3am this morning, I managed quite well to wake at 8am. I even managed to fit in a quick phone call to Mum, Dad & Flis which was fantastic.

Once I'd checked out etc. I headed straight for Windsor Castle - the last thing on my 'to-do' list. It was a beautiful day, and even though it was a Saturday and Windsor was busy, it was great. There's so much at the castle itself - including Queen Mary's Dolls House (a miniature of everything in the State Apartments), the State Apartments themselves, and the Castle. Definitely worth a visit.

My final stop was to say bye to Simon & Bronwyn at their place near Heathrow. We stopped for a beer, and it was a great way to end my week in London. Before I knew it, I was on the plane to Amsterdam talking to Jake, a guy from Melbourne (!) who works in the film industry. Really interesting guy, although I don't think I could ever travel like he does - he aims to hit 10 cities in 15 days! Talk about maximising your Eurail pass!!

Nathalie & Soren (friends from NUS again) picked me up from Amsterdam Schipol Airport - which was totally unexpected - and we went bar-hopping and caught up on everything that's happened to both of us since May 2005.

Already Amsterdam is looking fantastic - so very different to the UK. It's relaxed, groovy, and organised, albeit in a chaotic manner!

Tot ziens!

PS: For photos of Windsor, click here
PPS: For photos of London, click here

Today I got to speak to Ange again - yay!! It's really nice to talk to everyone back home - rather than just send emails and SMS'. But I don't think it's going to be able to continue for the next week or so, because I'm moving around so much

Today's plan was pretty much to do everything that I hadn't done so far - namely the Tate Modern and Covent Garden. So that's where I started, buying some tacky souvenirs in the process. To be honest, Covent Garden doesn't do a lot for me during the day, but I'm sure at night it's awesome, because there are SO many cafes and bars.

As with every day this week I've had lunch outside, and once again it was along the Thames. This time in front of the rebuilt Globe Theatre, as I was seeing a matinee performace of 'The Comedy of Errors' there. The performance itself was fantastic - all the actors were suberb. The only downside was there was little interaction with the 'groundlings' - those of us who stood directly in front of the stage. For such a farcical play as CoE, it made sense to involve at least part of the audience (the play is perfect for those 'ooohs' and 'he's behind you' moments). Alas, they did not, but it was still amazing to be there. Another one of those 'I can't believe I'm actually doing this' moments. I can now definitely recommend the standing tickets (especially for 5 pounds) but only for the shorter plays - I wouldn't want to be standing for 3hrs+.

From the Globe, I walked down to the Tate Modern art gallery and had a look to see what all the fuss is about. It's an impressive building (an ex-power station) and contains some equally impressive 'art'. The only downside is every piece seems to be designed purely to question 'what is art', which gets a bit tedious. There are plenty of blank canvases (what is left out is important), slashed canvases (the black hole within as a reflection of empty modern lives) and toilet bowls (shit). Overall, though, I'd definitely recommend it and I really enjoyed spending the afternoon there - particularly as it had air-con!!

To cap an excellent day off I went with Camilla; her cousin and her friends; Jasmine (from Koln & NUS the semester before me); and Liz (a friend of Camilla's who is planning on going on exchange next semester) to dinner and clubbing. After much umming-and-aahing we ended up having Italian for dinner (really nice) and going to an underground hip-hop club near Piccadilly. Considering that was pretty much the first time I'd been clubbing since Singapore last year I had so much fun.

Tomorrow's my last day in London so I'm off to bed!