Day 4 - Amsterdam/Rotterdam

Day 4 - (Monday, 16th Jan 06')
Today was my last day in The Netherlands and I had to plan it well, to cover as much as I could, of all that was left to do in my agenda. I had decided to spend the earlier part of the day in Amsterdam, visiting the Van Gogh and the Rijks Museums and then cover some selected areas of Rotterdam, in the evening.
Started the day with another good breakfast cooked by Chints and then we left for his school, where dear Melissa was going to give me her 'MuseumCard', which would waive my entry fee for any museum in the two cities. Armed with another one of Chintan's hand-drawn maps, I left for the Rotterdam Centraal station, to head to Amsterdam Centraal. At the station, took an 'Intercity' to reach Amsterdam in 45 mins.
Walked out of the station to get a whiff of the weed in the air, find a canal in the distance and bikes-bikes everywhere. This has to be Amsterdam, I said to myself:)
Melissa had told me that the Tram No. 5 will take me from Amsterdam Centraal to both the museums, so I was off to bug the tram driver; a tourist in the true sense, to warn me before we reached my stop. The Rijks Museum is about a 1/2 mile before the Van Gogh Museum, (both are in Museumplein; i. e Museum Square) so this was going to be simple.
The Van Gogh museum, was a must visit for me. Having loved Van Gogh's work ever since I first learnt about him in undergraduate school, I rarely miss a chance to see it. Just the previous day Melissa and I were talking about the museum and she wondered if I could skip the museum to go see other places instead, to which I was adamant, that having come all the way to his home-country I couldnt possibly skip a trip to the only museum in the world which houses the world's largest collection of his works. Seeing my 2005 Van Gogh planner, she was convinced that maybe it's best if i did go after all:)
The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam houses more than 200 of the artist's paintings, including many masterpieces. (Dutch Trivia: Van means 'of' or 'from' in Dutch, so Vincent Van Gogh meant Vincent who hails from Gogh. My instant analogy to this bit of information from Chints was, "Oh, like how in India, some Maharashtrian's have 'kar' in their last names". He almost mocked me, but agreed all the same)
As much as I was thrilled at seeing so many of Van Gogh's works, in one trip, a part of me was also a slightly dissappointed at not having seen some of his most famous works there. One of my favourite pieces of art, 'The Cafe Terrace on The Place du Forum at Night, Arles, 1888' was not there. But most of his self-portraits were, which made my day! Van Gogh's rough, wild, somewhat insane streaks on canvas kill me; his wheat fields, sunflowers and yellow balls of fire for a sun, are to me an artist's expression at his best. On the other hand, there were the pleasant irises with slightly subtle strokes and perspectively challenged drawings of his room in Paris; a must-visit for anyone even slightly artistically inclined.
A trip to the gift-shop downstairs, lasted almost an hour as I contemplated over a calendar or a reprint. I left with a calendar, a magnetic bookmark and a mini phone book, all with various works of Van Gogh on them. Found several street vendors selling Van Gogh memorablia and souveneirs outside the museum for half the price, so it was good that I had'nt bought my magnets in the shop.
The next stop was the Rijks Museum, which like the Van Gogh Museum was not very large. (I had allotted about 4-5 hours for both the museums together, going by the time it took me to cover the Tate Modern in London or the MOMA in NYC. But I was done with both the museums in about 3 hours, after having satisfactorily looked at most of the works, which was good, as it gave me some more time to explore the rest of Amsterdam before I left) The Rijks Museum houses works by various Dutch and other European artists and has a section called 'De Meesterwerken', i.e 'The Masterpieces', a category that has a changing set of works on display. Works of Rembraandt were on display as were paintings and pieces of art from the rich historic past of the Netherlands. Renaissance paintings shared gallery space with almost photographic still-life works and portraits that varied from Dutch milkmaids to royalty. Royal doll houses stood next to showcases decorated with blue and white Delft ceramics. My favourite section was naturally, the one displaying Rembrandt's work as it brought back memories from Visual Studies' classes in my undergraduate years.
After the Rijks Museum, it was time to head back to Amsterdam Centraal, on the tram no. 5. I got off a few stops before the station, to walk around, in and out of shops, say my last good-bye's to places I had barely said "Hello" to, yet. I also wanted to buy my Amsterdam magnet and take pictures of stores abounding in 'clogs', perhaps pick a pair or two while I was at it. Struck a good deal (half-off everything) with an Egyptian shop-owner who wanted to get his last sales-of-the-day over with and walked out with plenty of souveneirs for myself and the folks back in India. (He kept asking me why I stayed in NYC and did not move back to India; "Was'nt NYC too big a city? Look at Amsterdam, it's such a busy city and everyday I keep wanting to move back to Egypt")Another 5 minutes with him and he was almost asking me out, so after a quick selection of souveneirs, I was hurrying out of the shop. It was almost 5 by now and I had almost all of Rotterdam to cover in the remaining part of the day. One last purchase to make - pre-packed Dutch tulips for Mom, nowhere to be found near the Centraal station or even in it, so I left hoping to buy them at Schipol tomorrow.
The train ride was spent jotting down notes and pointers that would later go into the making of this travelogue.
Back in Rotterdam and it was drizzling outside, as I called Chints' to co-ordinate our dinner plans. Turns out that he was still busy with his paper and I set off to do my Rotterdam touring, all by myself, armed with a very helpful map that Sahil and Melissa had handed over to me the day before.
Rotterdam is a rather small city, almost completely traversible by foot, if you dont mind walking that is. I did'nt; coming as I was from another walkable city. My 4 hour long walk through this city, would begin through the Centrum area, which is the City centre; downtown Rotterdam as they would say in the US. "MiddellandStraat is the cosmopolitan street that you must walk through Shweyts; it's a mini Chinatown and has some Indian stores on it as well"; that was Chint's voice in my head. So Middellandstraat was next, where most shops were closing ("Rotterdam, unlike Amsterdam closes really early every day. How I wish Berlage had still stayed in Amsterdam, instead of moving to Rotterdam" another one of Chint's comments in the past couple of days) I had been instructed by him that it was safe to walk around in this city at any time of the day and so my solitary night-walk did'nt seem scary, except of course in parts where I was the only one on the entire street. As I had been told, MiddellandStraat was a multi-cultural street, which started off on an Asian note with Chinese and Japanese restaurants and shops, interspersed with Indian saree stores that had particularly excited my host.
My next stop was to be MuseumPark, to see the NAI (Netherlands' Architecture Institute) and the Kunsthal Rotterdam, both from the outside, as it was beyond their working hours. (Yah, unfortunately the trip to Brussels had cramped me for time in Holland, making me spend the least of my time in seeing Rotterdam, something I will have to leave for my next trip).
At night, the lighting at MuseumPark was worth a dekko; the NAI was lit up in a repetitive pattern of colours, one per bay and their reflection in the large pool of water inside, rendered a simultaneous sense of calm and modernity to the building.
Going upstairs from the sunken level of MuseumPark, I reached a main road, almost towards the end of Rotterdam. I walked towards the river 'Nieuwe Maas' to see the new symbol of Modern architecture, used for the promotion of the city, the ErasmusBrug (Erasmus Bridge). Not to mention, the view would have been even more spectacular by day, but it was'nt so bad by night as well. It was strane in a way, that distances in this city were really small, a walk across the river on the bridge barely took me a while.
There were water-taxi's, that operated on various routes through the river, a boat ride that I could'nt take because of time constraints. My walk back was on an alternate route, as I was to meet up with Chints at Witte de Withstraat, a street lined with clubs and bars all along; kind of like a mini Greenwich village in the heart of Rotterdam. En route I passed three residential towers, each lit up in a different colour and later was informed by Chints, that Rem Koolhauss lived in one of them. ("Now you can say that you not only saw his office, but also his house, when you were in Rotterdam" he later told me. Sure, that would be something to brag about to my architectural friends back home!)
Andy Warhol's famous line, written in neon on a wall "In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" stared back at me, on Witte de Withstraat. I found an interesting looking restaurant, that was buzzing with activity even on a Monday night and was done up with multiple, exotic lanterns suspended at various heights over a central core within. 'Bazar' was a Turkish restaurant, where I waited for Chints, while sipping at my hot Turkish tea with honey in it.
A sumptuous dinner followed, after Chints arrived and then we waited for Melissa and Sahil, both of whom were to join us later into the night. The night lasted for almost 6 hours, 4 of which were spent at 'Bazar', where to my amazement we saw 'DUDOK Apple Pie' listed on the Desert menu. It was interesting to see how one restaurant's claim-to-fame was served in other restaurants' too, with rightful credits to the original source of the delicacy. Unfortunately however, the 'DUDOK Apple Pie' here was frozen, hence not fresh. Perhaps an appropriate end to my trip would have been at the DUDOK restaurant near Berlage, where I had my first taste of apple-pie heaven. No regrets however, considering there would be no DUDOK pie, fresh or frozen, once I left the Netherlands.
We left 'Bazar' when they almost shut down upon us; dinner conversation had carried us through the evening especially as this was my last dinner with my Dutch hosts. Post dinner we walked through the modernist looking shopping complex, once again where Melissa and Sahil pointed out design flaws in the curvaceous roof to me. We were four architects walking through the post-war European capital of Modern Architecture and still, true to our profession's nature, we had issues with the design. Such is the breed called Architects, blame it on the profession I say:)
The night, or more appropriately next morning (It was 2 am by the time we reached Chints place and I had a 3:59 train to Amsterdam to catch) was spent in Chints house. I packed while Chints and Sahil forced poor Melissa to sit through a classic Bollywood flick, 'Dilwaale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge' in the middle of the night.
Finally at 3:30 Sahil and I left after I said my good bye's to Chints and Melissa, to go for the last time to Rotterdam Centraal. Thankfully Sahil had accompanied me, as I later discovered, that credit cards did'nt work at the ticket-vending machines and I had to borrow 5 Euros from him (a debt, I still owe him) to buy my ticket to Schipol. It's a debt I plan to pay off, when he visits me in NYC.
At Schipol, I managed to buy my pre-packed tulip bulbs, which as I was to see a month down the line, blossomed beautifully into blood red tulips in my mom's potted soil in her mini-kitchen garden. 10 Euros, very well spent!!!

Acknowledgements:
1. Chints', my official host for the trip and source of endless Dutch trivia, instruction and very good care-taking during my stay in Dutch-land. For buying me my first DUDOK Apple pie and insisting I go to Brussels. For the hilarious Bappi Lahiri imitiations of 'Gulaai gulaai go' and insane 'Bappa-Bappi poetry' we made up. Also last but not the least, for the enthusiastic yet typical KRVIA conversations and discussions we had over the course of my stay.
Truly Dutchints, I owe you big time and Thanks for making my trip memorable!
2. Sahil, my junior from KRVIA undergrad, whom I got to know better in this trip and now look forward to staying in touch. Also, for going out of his way to accompany me to Amsterdam and coming for dinner every night of my stay there.
3. Melissa, a complete stranger who over the 4 days of my stay, became a good friend. For accompanying me to Amsterdam and joining us for dinner each night. For lending me her MuseumCard, cooking the delicious chicken for dinner and giving me all the valuable tips from her experiences in the Netherlands.
4. Chintan's friends, who were interesting company to Brussels.
5. And last but not the least, my sensibility that drove me towards making an almost last minute decision to route my vacation through Holland.
Danku Wel, you all and I hope to return soon!