The Stedelijk

There’s nothing like a trip to a museum of modern art to get the old creative juices flowing again. We were entertaining friends from the UK this weekend and headed into Amsterdam on Saturday for a spot of sightseeing.  Friends wanted to see the Van Gogh museum – we’ve done Van Gogh so we left them happily browsing amongst the sunflowers and irises while we popped next door to The  Stedelijk Museum, home to Amsterdam’s largest collection of modern and contemporary art.

As the rain outside turned to sleet, I was filled with a warm, rosy, glow. What a joy! I’d forgotten how much of a smile the contemplation of modern ‘art’ can put on your face.  Bemusement, bewilderment.....

Sometimes I think I must be missing something.  I know art is subjective, but a pair of copper plated Y-fronts, a table covered in brown paper and tied with jute, and and the obligatory pile of rocks on the floor. Really??

Take the packing crate for example. When is a plywood packing crate not a plywood packing crate? When it has a light bulb inside. Then, apparently, it becomes a work of art and warrants it's own room in a museum. 

In another room the security guard gave a little dance as we entered – wacky Dutch sense of humour or maybe he was another exhibit? Who knows? Perhaps  he'd just returned from a quick stroll around the less salubrious streets of Amsterdam, where the air seemed to be particularly more pungent than usual this weekend.  I'm pretty sure the artist behind this piece of work must have been visiting a coffee shop or two.

In all seriousness the museum is full of fantastic and interesting exhibits, from examples of early 20th century innovative furniture and homewares, to very thought provoking 'underground' photographs taken during the German occupation in the Second World War. It has fair share of Picassos, Pollocks and Lictensteins, and there is even some work by old friend Jeff Koons, first encountered at the Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art way back in April 2011 in another jaw-dropping 'how do they get away with it?' moment. Although in Jeff's defence I'd have to say the work on show in the Stedelijk was a vast improvement on the giant balloon poodle in LA.

(http://lifeinthelabubble.blogspot.nl/2011/04/art-for-arts-sake.html).

I suppose the fact that it has compelled me to write a post, provoked a reaction and made me question and 'think', proves that there is a point to it all. The Stedelijk is definitely my favourite museum in Amsterdam so far.

A Weekend At the Museum

With weather cold enough to freeze the canals this weekend we knew we’d have to find something to do that involved being warm (which immediately ruled out staying indoors) so we set off in the slush and snow for the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.  There are over 50 museums in Amsterdam and just like Haarlem’s 180 eateries, we feel obliged to try them all. The Rijksmuseum is by far the biggest, and probably the most well-known.

The wonders of buying a 50 euro annual museumkart is that with entry usually 10 or 15 euro’s a time, we don’t feel guilty if we don’t see every exhibit in one go - we can easily go back again for free. We soon realised this was just as well at the Rijksmuseum, as we’d only allocated a morning, rather than a week to wonder through its vast corridors.

The building itself is pretty impressive, let alone what it’s got inside. Most people come to the Rijks to see the Rembrandt’s and these masterpieces are huge, displayed in a magnificent domed hall.  We walked fleetingly through rooms containing metalwork, ceramics, religious artefacts, furniture, and model ships. We admired the library reminiscent of something out of Hogwarts, before  taking refuge in the café. It was all too much. Definitely one to come back to  another day.

January has been nominated museum-month. We’ve got a busy few weeks coming up  in February, then we’re hoping better weather will encourage us to get outside more to explore, so  with our appetite’s whetted, on Sunday we headed off to the Teyler’s museum here in Haarlem. The Teyler’s is apparently the oldest Museum in the Netherlands and it was like stepping into a time warp. It’s an amazing place, and again for me the building  was  the star of the show. The Teyler's contains an eclectic mix of scientific instruments, fossils, bones, precious stones, with a few old paintings thrown in for good measure. It’s a boy’s own dream – early batteries, telescopes, an 18^th century centrifuge….Mr T had to be dragged kicking and screaming back out into the cold.

A Blustery Day

In order to escape the air of despair that transcended over the house on Sunday afternoon following the student’s departure back to Bristol, Mr T and I headed for the beach. We knew it would be grim; Zandvoort is always grim and I find it very hard to picture this resort awash with warmth, sun umbrellas, bikinis and Bermuda shorts. The grimness would suit our mood, I thought, it will be quiet, just me and Mr T on the beach, drowning in the solitude of self-pity.

Of course it was not quiet. Had I forgotten what country we are in? There may well have been leaden skies and a force ten gale blowing, but that doesn’t deter the Dutch. What better way to defy the weather than to zip up your anorak, pull on your hat and head out into the elements.  The North Sea waves crashed onto the beach creating more foam spray than a night club in Ibiza, the gusting wind howled, making conversation more or less impossible and walking against it very difficult, yet still people were out there, strolling along the sand.

It was yet another occasion when I marvelled at the hardiness of the Dutch. Why wouldn’t you take your kids to the beach on a day they have every chance of getting  swept away? There’s no molly-coddling here. The day before we  had spent the evening at a friend’s birthday party, chatting to a friendly Dutch family. We had discussed our respective houses. How do you teach your youngsters to go safely up and down those steep stairs, I asked, their early years must be fraught with accidents. Yes, Dutch mum agreed, they are. A couple of falls is usually all it takes, however, for toddlers to become proficient and you always put something soft like an old mattress at the foot of the stairs to cushion those early falls. I must remember that when my elderly mother comes to stay.

So the student has gone after a happy week dodging trams in Amsterdam and soaking up a bit of culture. I took her to the Hague where we marvelled at the Panorama Mesdag, a full 360 degree painting, 14 metres high of the beach of Scheveningen created in the1860's. It was amazing, if slightly disorientating and something of a hidden gem. The good thing about having visitors is that it makes you seek things out. That bad thing is of course that visitors always leave….

 Scheveningen looking a lot calmer in 1860 than Zandvoort in 2015.

Accidents Will Happen

 Firstly, apologies to any regular readers for lack of recent posts. To be a successful blogger you need a succession of events to blog about.  The daily grind in California always seemed to provoke some sort of WTF jaw-dropping moment, while our life in Haarlem seems to tick over relatively smoothly. Moving from the UK to the Netherlands has been a comparatively easy transition. The Dutch, apart from all that cycling, are remarkably like us - the Brothers Gruff and Grim on wheels - and so too is the weather.

Following a two week stay in the UK catching up with friends and family, we have returned to Haarlem with the student daughter in tow while she waits for uni to begin back in Bristol.

The first item on her agenda was a trip into Amsterdam. Amsterdam reminds me of London. It’s more a separate entity than typical of the country it’s in. It’s a law unto itself, and therefore a day out in Amsterdam, is very different from our ‘normal’ routine here in sleepy old Haarlem.

Deciding to set off early to see if we could beat the queues for the Anne Frank museum, our plans were immediately delayed at the station when the O-V travel card top-up machine declined my payment, and then totally scuppered by three coachloads of Japanese tourists with the same idea. By the time we reached the Anne Frank House the queue was already snaking around the block.We re-grouped and decided to go to the Royal Palace in Dam Square instead.  Anne Frank may have been an early riser, but the Royals like a lie-in. The palace didn’t open for another hour.  Early morning, first week in the New Year was not a good time for killing an hour wandering around Amsterdam’s narrow cobbled one-way streets.  The regular hazard of kamikaze cyclists was compounded by hoards of early morning delivery vans, street cleaning vehicles and Xmas decoration removal trucks. Roads were completely blocked and the whole place was one big accident waiting to happen.

We took refuge in a café.  The stackload of crockery that came crashing to the ground as the waiter overloaded the ‘empties’ trolley with one tray too many right in front of us was just a taster of what was to come.  Back out in the street a middle-aged lady with no spatial awareness (yes – that was me) narrowly avoided  having her arm taken off after misjudging the distance (and time) needed to skip around the parked delivery truck before the oncoming tram.  Next, a teenager waiting at traffic lights (yes - that was her) just avoided being mown down by a reversing window-cleaner’s van by her quick thinking mother who grabbed her out of the way in the nick of time. In between we also witnessed another white van man reverse straight into a motorcyclist. Now I know why there are so many people parading as the Grim Reaper in Dam Square.

After lunch most of the deliveries appeared to be over and I did contemplate perhaps returning to the Anne Frank house to see if the queue had gone down, but by then we were nearly back at the Central Station. To stay one moment longer in the city where we had already cheated death seemed like tempting fate….

Back in Haarlem, just yards from our house the student remarked quite merrily that we had made it home unscathed, before tripping up on a loose paving stone. 

Culture Shock

Mr T had a long weekend so we’ve been soaking up on some Dutch culture. On the first of two trips to Den Haag  we visited The Mauritshuis museum, where we hurried up the stairs to the top floor. Philistines that we are, we really only wanted to see one painting, the picture everyone wants to see, mainly I suspect because of Colin Firth (or Scarlett Johansen for the boys). Once The Girl with the Pearl Earring had been admired, we hurried back down the stairs and along to M&S to stock up on some mince pies. There is a big M&S in the Hague, and after nearly ten weeks abroad I felt we were entitled to a few home comforts.

I like Den Haag – it’s quieter, and dare I say it, more ‘refined’ than Amsterdam, which on a Monday morning is distinctly lacking in culture as hoards of washed out teenagers and twenty-somethings, hiding their mega-hangovers behind dark glasses head back to the airport after an over-indulgent weekend.   We battled our way through the piles of rubbish and trailing suitcases to the Van Gogh museum. I like Van Gogh. In stark contrast to many Dutch painters, his work is full of light and colour, although now that I’ve been here for a bit I can quite understand why these Dutch Old Masters are so gloomy - open the curtains at 8.30 am in the morning and it’s still pitch black outside. Van Gogh spent a lot of time in the South of France, and who can blame him.

However, the highlight of our cultural weekend has to be dinner on the Hoftramm. This was Mr T’s company Christmas do, an all expenses paid four course gourmet meal, with wine, on a two hour tram ride around the Hague. Despite a major wardrobe dilemma beforehand – what to wear on a cold, draughty tram (it was actually like sitting in a toaster), heels or no heels (we had a fifteen minute walk to station, plus five the other end, and cobbles and heels just don’t go) we made it to the tram-stop on time.  As avid fans of Masterchef we had a great time, although I’m not entirely convinced gravy and chocolate should ever appear on the same plate, and as for the experimental pre-dessert pine-cone cocktail – that definitely needed to go back to the drawing board. The evening was rounded off with a cold coffee and a liquer - cold coffee because health and safety legislation apparently prevents the serving of hot drinks on a moving tram – somewhat bizarre in a country where it is considered perfectly OK to pop your baby in your bike’s shopping basket and take it for a spin….

On the thirty minute train trip back to Haarlem I browsed a copy of the Dutch Metro.  It’s a good way to learn a bit of the local language.  A double page feature on Southampton Football Club was an unexpected bonus. A quick search on Google the following morning revealed that the opening line of ‘Southampton is niet echt een hoopgeveende plaats’ literally translates into Southampton is not a hopeful place, although now of course it is, thanks to the ‘f*@!ing legend’ of Ronald Koeman – no translation needed for that. Geoff in the Chapel Arm’s quote  was spelt out in full, and that's another aspect of Dutch culture that takes a bit of getting used to. The F word is used quite liberally over here, even when you think you’re safely listening to the equivalent of Terry Wogan on a Sunday morning, there it is, splattered in between a bit of Abba and Cher. 

And, in case anyone is wondering what this headline actually means, Graziano Pelle is apparently too handsome for the Saints (a quote from Kathy in the Pizzeria). A city without hope, and without any good-looking guys, I'm obviously better off staying put in effing Haarlem.