Day 16 – July 12: Museums of Haarlem and Amsterdam

GRANDMA AND THE GIRLS (as told by Julia):

We started off the day with the intention of getting to the Rijksmuseum just as it opened to try to avoid the crowds.  We were ready to go around 10, when we thought it was supposed to open, but after checking with Rick Steve’s (our favorite travel companion) we realized that it has already opened at 9.   We raced over quickly and were still able to avoid a lot of the lines and crowds since we had our Amsterdam passes with us.  We spent a solid four-and-a-half hours roaming around the museum, exploring exhibits on Dutch landscapres, Indoneisan art (did you know the piggy bank originated in Indonesia??), model ships (by far Rachel's favorite), and some of the museum's more
famous pieces such as Rembrandt's The Milkmaid and the Night Watch as well as one of Van Gogh's self-portraits.  While we planning on getting lunch somewhere close by, we were all enjoying the museum too much that it was clear that we would not be able to leave after just a couple of hours.  So,we opted instead for a light lunch of tomato soup and a cheese platter in between exhibitions.  

After leaving the museum, we couldn't resist stopping for an Amsterdam specialty: the stroopwaffle.  Rachel and I have grown up loving stroopwaffles since they are one of our Uncle Mike's favorite desserts and we would always have some of his whenever we visited.  However, this was definitely the first time for either of us to have one fresh, and from a street vendor in the city where they are from!!  And it was delicious!

We continued on next to the Diamond Museum, right across the way from the Rijksmuseum.  It was one that Rachel, mom, and I would probably have never considered if it had just been the three of us, but it was very informative and engaging, with a guided tour of the building, demonstations of diamond cutting, polishing, and placing, interactive displays on the history of diamond production and trends throughout the ages, and, my favorite, a room dedicated to both successful and failed diamond heists and how they were done (complete with famous movie clips of diamond heists!).  Plus, we got to try on some beautiful (and incredibly expensive) diamond jewelry!  After this, we had a total of close to six hour of museum time beneath our belts, so we decided that it would be best before dinner to take a little time to rest at our hotel.

After an hour we were all ready to go again, and do took the train to the old section of town from which we walked to a Rick Steve's recommended vegetarian restaurant.  It was delicious, and right on a beautiful stretch of canal!  We ended with a piece of banana cream pie, and walked back tot he tram to get home.  Once we got back, we decided that instead of going back to our room we would go to the bar and see if there was any room there to play cards.  There was so, while enjoyed some tea and different types of shortbread and chocolates, we played three rounds of cards, and we each won one!


LIZ:

Though I was the last to go to sleep in my room of 20-somethings, I was also the first awake this morning...I envy their sleep.  I spent the early morning hours working on the blog (it doesn’t just happen by magic!) while enjoying a lovely breakfast at of scrambled eggs and traditional Dutch bread at the hostel (this is a really nice place).  The hostel staff is incredibly friendly and helped me solidify my plans for exploring their town.  Haarlem (namesake of New York’s Harlem from back when in was New Amsterdam) may be cute and cozy compared to the bustle of Amsterdam, but it also has a ton of history and a few great museums. 

I decided to start my day at the Frans Hals Museum which even from the outside was worth the walk.  Frans Hals lived during the Dutch Golden Age and his 17^th century paintings are housed in a 17^th century building.  Most of his paintings are portraits but what he is famous for, and what I really appreciate about his art, is moving portrait art from being formal and stuffy to really capturing the people in the moment. Many of his large group portraits look like candid photos – moments naturally caught in time – that make you feel like you are walking in on a scene in motion.  I did notice that the men of the time look a whole lot more jovial than the women do!

not a small spill

My next stop was the house-turned-museum of Corrie ten Boom, a woman who hid Jews in her home during the War. It was described to me as just like the Anne Frank house without the four-hour wait.  You have to enter at specific times with a group and only 20 people are allowed in a time—first come, first served.  I was advised to be outside the door at 1:15 for the 1:30 English tour.  When I checked around 1:00 there were about 8 people waiting, so I popped in a place down the street to get a chai latte (my first of the trip).  By the time I got back to the line a few minutes later there were very close to 20 people in line.  So, I joined the back and started my wait.  The woman behind me struck up a conversation with the family in front of me – they were both from Utah and it was funny to me that they both just assumed the other was Mormon, a religion that fascinates me.  I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, sipping my tea and listening to their conversation without giving away that I was American or even that I understood English.  Turns out the family in front was here to pick up their missionary in a few days at the end of his two-year stint.  And then in perhaps the most conspicuous turn of events, the lid to my tea fell off as I was taking a sip and the entire cup spilled down my shirt, pants, and onto the ground. I was covered in hot liquid…not quite the invisibility I was going for!  My identity revealed, I took advantage of that to ask all of my questions.  I had no idea that kids out on missions can only talk to their families twice a year – once on Mothers’ Day (sorry dads!) and once on Christmas. That’s it.  That certainly puts my saying goodbye to my 18-year-old in perspective…at least I can talk to her as much as she’ll allow.

view into the 1x6 meter hiding
space for 6

They counted us off as they let us in to Corrie’s house and I was number 20 – the last one in!  I’m so glad I got to this site.  I have spent a lot of time on this trip wondering who I would have been during the war.  What I would have done.  (Of course, I would have been one of the Jews during the war so I wouldn’t have had the chance to be a heroic non-Jew…but I still have spent a lot of time hoping I would have had the bravery and conviction some people demonstrated). Corrie ten Boom and her family were those people who hid Jews and people on the underground – Dutch boys who didn’t want to go join the Nazis.  Even more impressive is this house is one block from the main square in town where the Gestapo was headquartered and around the corner from the police station. I’m so glad this space is set aside for celebrating the other half of the story – the people who risked their lives to hide Dutch Jews.  We spent the first half of the hour-long tour just sitting in Corrie’s parlor hearing her and her family’s detailed back story and exactly what happened before moving on to see the hiding place that was so expertly designed by an architect that it was never discovered by the Nazi’s.  At the time of the family’s arrest for helping Jews, six people (4 Jews, 2 underground Dutch) were hiding in that space and were able to escape (though only three of them survived the war in the end). 

entrance into hiding space through
bottom of added closet.  every
detail perfect (like ending
floorboards etc)

Corrie survived the concentration camp she was sent to, but her father and sister both died in jail.  Her book was made into a movie The Hiding Place that I’d like to see.

Still covered in tea and starting to get hungry, I raced through the historicTeylers Museum, not giving it its due.  It is billed as the oldest museum in the Netherlands and is an incredible collection of art and science under one original roof. So original that there are no electric lights in most of the rooms…you are to enjoy it the way it was first enjoyed with only natural light.  The fossil collection was incredibly interesting and who knew that the hot air balloon was so important to the Dutch?  I wish I could have spent more time in this museum but I really needed to change and eat before my next adventure.   

Back at the hostel, I changed, ate (a delicious yogurt parfait), and rented a bike.  I had heard that there was a great, pretty straightforward ride from the hostel to the beach through a National Park.  I was told once I got to the beach to head south and back along a path near the railway tracks into Haarlem…an "easy little triangle".  Getting to the beach was a pretty straight shot (once I found the right street to start on) but for a country which claims to be completely flat, I’m pretty sure I was riding up hill the entire way.  I did feel less crazy once I realized that I had started below sea level and ended up on a hill above the beach….but still it felt harder than it should have. I started to head down side two of the triangle and realized my directions from there on were not much more than to make a triangle.  I wish I had taken a picture of every person I had to stop for directions along the way – that would be an interesting collection of photos: a mom of four playing in a park, a man walking his dog, bikers racing by, a woman riding a bike with two kids attached to her, etc.   At one point I went from being a little scared of how isolated I was on the path paralleling the train tracks to hoping anyone, even a lone man, would come by to point me in the right direction.  I wish also I had taken pictures of the beautiful places I passed, but I was way too focused on finding my way home.  I guess I should have listened to Marieke and Diede (the young Dutch women staying with me) when they said as I described my plan “that seems really far.” It was. It definitely wasn’t the little jaunt I had expected and I was so happy to be back safely after 2.5 hours of practically straight peddling.

I asked for a dinner recommendation at the hostel and was given a bunch of choices and chose the one described as "eating in a living room". Sounded perfect.  And it was a great setting right on the canal.  I let the waitress choose from several selections I was considering and she chose the pork super rib.  I didn’t know there was such a thing as a super rib – and I can tell you it was just gross.  I still remember Rachel’s last meat meal – a terribly fatty steak she had in Italy – and this was just as bad if not worse.  Rachel’s decision to stop eating meat was more complicated than that – but mine might be that simple – right now I could give it up forever.  It was just so fatty and difficult to eat and hard to chew and since I had let the waitress pick I felt the only polite thing to do was choke it down. 

I turned the bone over, paid my bill quickly, and went to my final activity of the night – a live concert at of the pipe organ at the Grote Kerk.  The lady in tourist information said it was the largest pipe organ in the world, but when I walked in I could tell that wasn't true.  I just asked Google - it is neither the largest or the oldest in the world - but it was "for many years the largest organ in the world." (Those years must have been in the 1700s.) But it is true that the organ was played by Handel and a 10-year-old Mozart!  Earlier in the day another 20-something Karine arrived from Montreal but her luggage didn’t!  She is in the bunk next to mine.  I let her know about my evening plans so when I walked in she was already sitting there.  We sat together and enjoyed listening to the beautiful music in the wonderful acoustics of the huge open church.  After about 45 minutes we felt we had heard enough and walked back to the hostel where I treated myself to a piece of special Dutch raisin bread with brown sugar in the center to erase the taste and memory of the super rib.