A-dam, round 2

The Dom

I met some chill people in both my car rides from Munich to Amsterdam. The first leg of the journey took me to Cologne, which was a very cute little town, just like all the rest, but with the Dom, or giant fancy church. 

a postcard

I was then going to catch a ride from there to A-dam, but that got canceled and my amazing friend Gregor found me a new one from Dusseldorf!  Which was also a small cute village, I did not really get to check out bc it was dark and I didn’t feel like walking around anymore w/my pack!  So, I chilled in a Starbucks for my next ride at 7pm.  I found her little Toyota Yaris right out front of the train station and it was just the two of us in the tiny thing, which was good!  Alex was really cool, she was studying in Amsterdam at an international school for physical therapy and was just heading back from her winter/x-mas break.  We had a great chat for the 2 hour car ride, it’s funny the topics that come up w/complete strangers and how in depth and intellectual some conversations can become!  At the end of the drive, it felt like we were friends!  She dropped me off at the Amstel station and I took the underground to my hostel-which took longer than expected bc A-dam is confusing!  Found it and went to bed. 

Alex and I

Next day met up w/my friend Alex from NY.  He was traveling a bit w/some friends for a little over a week and just so happened to be in A-dam too!   We hung out and went to the Van Gogh museum, which is totally interesting bc it’s none of the good stuff, all the great paintings are in NY or somewhere else.  There was even a new temporary sign that said four more paintings (the really famous ones, that everyone has seen ie. The bedroom one, and the blue flowers w/the yellow background) had just been relocated to Tokyo.  Perfect.  But some of the other stuff was pretty cool, the way one brushstroke could become a flame in the field, and the intensity of some of his earlier work.  You got to see the progression of him as an artist, and it was strange to think he never sold anything.  Never became famous in any way when he was alive.  It was almost like, who and why did someone all of a sudden decide to make him famous?  Why were some of his works considered more valuable than others?  So many questions.  One part of the biography that I found funny, was he cut off his ear, “during a heated argument w/Gauguin”   Oh!  That’s why he cut off his ear!  Haha, it was funny the way they place the reason on an argument, makes you wonder how much they really know, or how much is fictionalized.  …We will never know!

No pictures in the museum, so this will have to do...

i am-sterdam

pretty city