Day Four in Amsterdam

Sunday morning, we rolled out of bed earlier, because today was our museum day. In the schedule, I had decided to put all the downtown museums in one day as we've already been to them all. Knowing we'd already spent long days in all of these spots, I felt we could fly through each and hit the stuff we definitely wanted to see again.

Before leaving, I checked my email and spotted that one of the museums, Stedelijk Museum, that a negative covid test was required for anyone without the EU's QR code (given to everyone when they got vaccinated). So we began scrambling to find a testing spot, which turned out to be two blocks down the street. When made appointments and headed to the spot, which was in the lobby of a hotel. It was quick and easy and we had results within 2 hours. Turns out, we didn't need them. Every museum we visited allowed us in with our vaccine cards. No worries (we were both negative, by the way).

Our first museum is a favorite of ours, the Moco Museum (modern and contemporary art). The downstairs is dominated by a massive display of Banksy's work. It had been in place last year when we arrived, so we started our visit upstairs (it's a three-story museum in a large house). The upstair displays featured plenty of modern works mixed in several 20th century masters, like Haring and Basquiat (a personal favorite). Last year there was a big focus on KAWS and some of his work was still featured, including some massive chairs made out of plush. Pretty cool stuff. We wrapped up in the bottom floor and Banksy. His work resonates with people and the displays were clogged with people wanting to get selfies with his famous works, like the girl with the red balloon. I get it. We finished our tour with a trip to the museum shop, where we dropped quite a few euros. We really love the merch they carry, and buying from a museum is a great way to support the arts.

Having finished up our Moco tour, we hopped next door to the Stedelijk Museum (which specializes in contemporary art, though with a more focused lens, generally with more political themes). During this year's visit I was less impressed with the current displays, though they had a large one on colonialism in art that was certainly an eye opener. We passed through the rooms pretty quickly and decided to have a bite at the cafe in the museum. Lola had an avocado sandwich and I had a sausage roll that I admitted to Lola "I wished it was more like a kolache." I mean, kolaches are delicious. When we finished our meal we decided to head over to the Vincent Van Gogh Museum.

The Van Gogh is the crown jewel of art museums (outside of the Louvre). The museum features "200 paintings, 400 drawings, and 700 letters by the artist." It's an absolute must for any fan of the Dutch artist. It's often the most visited museum in the Netherlands and top 20 world-wide. The museum is state of the art and really allows visitors to connect with the work in fresh ways. It's amazing.

This year, the museum had a large display on Van Gogh's painting, The Potato Eaters. The display showed contemporary works that influenced Van Gogh's work, his studies for the work, his letters about the painting, and a massive interactive room that gave visitors the chance to enter the painting. I enjoyed it immensely. We had two other must see portions of the museum - Lola wanted to see the famous sunflower painting and I had to see crows in the wheat field. I also made a quick stop to see the famous skull smoking the cigarette. The whole trip through the museum took an hour, while in the past it would have been a 2-3 hour experience.

After exiting the museum, we made the decision to skip the Rijksmuseum, though I am still kicking myself for not taking a moment to walk through. It was the fourth museum on the list and our feet were giving out! We hit the gift shop in the center of the Museumkwartier and picked up some more gifts for the road before heading home for a quick nap.

After our nap, we decided to revisit Foodhallen (yeah, we like the place a lot). The front doors were closed that evening, so we had to go around to the back. We were nervous about not having QR codes, but our vaccine cards were again good enough for us to get in (foreshadowing). I decided to revisit the wing place I had hit up two days before and was not disappointed. Delicious. Lola chose a burger from The Butcher. I wish I had written down the name of the wing place, but I didn't. I was too busy licking my fingers!

On the home, we did a quick visit to the Red Light District and were shocked to discover it was near a ghost town. No crowds, most bars closed or closing, no sex workers. It was after 7 and we had expected it to be packed, instead it was dead. Covid protocols were tightening up in the party center of the city. We headed home, smoked a little, and went to bed.