Amsterdam - Day five

Our fifth day in Amsterdam and Tim has just woken up and it’s 11:59 am. He is finding it difficult to keep up with his dear old dad. That’s OK because we decided to have a quite day in Amsterdam today because tomorrow 30th April is ‘Queensday’ celebrations. Described to me as the most chaotic day in Holland.
We did experience some of this today around the Leidse Plein area. The finals of the Dutch soccer competition was held during Sunday afternoon. Leidse Plein was “chock-a-block” with people. Lots of singing, drinking, dancing, busking, fire crackers, flares, as well as two thousands bikes and trams on two trams tracks moving through the crowd when needed. It's all a matter of course. To cater for the crowds there are port-a-loos and port-a-urinals, open for the perverts to watch if they wish.

After some of the soccer crown moved on, expressing victory or loss of their team the party crown moved in at about 9:00 pm when the music started. There are large stages set up through Amsterdam and buildings are decorated with orange balloons, banners and streamers, as well as the red, white and blue Dutch flag colours. Orange is their national colour. We made it a night at about 11:00 pm attempting to conserve energy for the big day on the 30th, my birthday and the Queenday. However our room is on the forth floor of the hotel about a hundred meters from the Leidse Plein area and the sounds of music never stop.

Amsterdam - day four - Dave’s 21st Birthday

A late night resulted in a late start with a late breakfast of the usual hard-boiled egg, whole grain bread, ham, cheese, jam, juice and very strong black coffee.

After several telephone calls from people, including his mum and his aunty Rhonda, congratulating Dave on his 21st Birthday, we headed of to Amsterdam Central station to catch a train to Utrecht.

Utrecht has a hugh station connected to a hugh shopping complex. It amazes me how David found his way out of the station and to his university contact when he first arrived in Utrecht. The city has a small “old city” section and the rest is quite modern.

David lives in an eleven story building with mainly international students, and his studio is a fifteen minute bike ride. I got the feeling there are more bikes in Utrecht than in Amsterdam.

One of our favorite places in the neighborhood of our hotel is Leidse Plein. This is an outdoor eating and drinking place that comes to life at about 9:00pm each night. Tim and I ended the day with a few drinks and dinner in this area.

Amsterdam Day Three

A visit to the Van Gogh Museum was the highlight of the day.
We woke to give Dave best wishes for his 21st, only to realise in the day that it was NOT the 28th April. Tim and I will have to make a new day for Dave tomorrow.

The Van Gogh Museum was our first stop for the day. 'Self portrait (in a straw hat)' was the work I wanted to see. This was the work I used on the cover of Michael Moy's book 'Men in Straw Hats'. I did see it and many other wonderful works he made over a period of about ten years. He may have been crazy but he had incredible precision with his brush strokes. 'The Potato Eaters', 'Sunflowers', ‘The Bedroom’ and ‘The Yellow House’ were just a few of the works. http://www3.vangoghmuseum.nl/vgm/index.jsp?lang=en

The special exhibition at the museum was a selection of works by the expressionist Max Beckmann. This exhibition is the first extensive retrospective of work by Beckmann during his years in Amsterdam.

‘The Night Watch', Rembrandt's hugh masterpiece (4m X 6m) was the next experience, together with other works by him as well as the incredibly detailed works by Vermeer, such as the 'Milk Maid'. These works were at the Rijksmuseum. http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/index.jsp?lang=en

I also had a chance to go to the Stedelijk Museum. http://www.stedelijk.nl/
This is the main public contemporary art gallery in Amsterdam. There was a very interesting exhibition by Paul Chan - Lights & Drawings. Light and shadow are the literal and figurative focus of the exhibition. He is an American artist and activist. His projections, together with charcoal drawings, collages and digital studies are presented in six rooms. The works all revolve around the digital animation series The 7 Lights which Chan has been working on since 2005 and which will ultimately consist of seven pieces. The exhibition in Stedelijk Museum CS, Chan’s first major museum presentation in Europe, presents all the Lights Chan has completed so far.

Boom Chicago in the Leidsplein Theatre finished the day with laughter. A contemporary theatre cabaret based on responses from the audience.

Amsterdam Day one & two

Amsterdam Day one & two

Our first day in Amsterdam started when we arrived at the Amsterdam airport Shiphol with a very red sunrise at 6:30am. Once we got to Central Station and after a coffee and a croissant, we decided to explore the streets that eventually, after a few lost and confused moments looking into the canals, brought us to our hotel, the De Lantaerne. Four hours had to be filled in before we could book in to the room. Without our bags it was a good time to explore the neighborhood. Just around the corner was the Stadsschouwburg and the Leidse Plein, a large outdoor place for eating and drinking until the early hours of the next morning. The narrow streets around this occupied over a hundred Italian, French, Greek and other international restaurants, cafes and bars. After a meal and a few drinks we went back to the hotel and checked in, freshened up and had a rest. Later we went back to the Leidse Plein a waited for Dave who arrived at about 6pm from Utrecht.

It was so good to finally meet up with him. He looked well, relaxed and as excited to see us as we did him. After much talking, sharing stories, laughing and drinking we succumb to a much needed sleep.

Our first true continental breakfast was followed by formulating a plan for the next few days. David and Tim then went off to the Museum of Contemporary Art and I headed out to Koorn to visit Gusta, a friend I met in Brisbane and then again in New York at the INSEA Congress.

My day with Gusta and her partner included, lunch, a 10K bike ride to a pub, drinks of locally made beer and a wonderful meal of local asparagus and shrimp. I arrived back in Amsterdam at 10pm. Tim and Dave were already in bed.

TO KUALA LUMPUR AND FURTHER

TO KUALA LUMPUR AND FURTHER

An anxious wife and mother together with Fiona farewelled us off at Brisbane International Airport at about 11pm. This gave us time to have a drink and discuss the expectations of our trip before we boarded the plane.
Tim was determined to put himself to sleep with a few drinks in the hope of time quickly passing. I was happy to be occupied with in-flight movies and writing (typing - that’s for you Jane) on my MacBook Pro, however the in-flight movies only included two recent options, ‘Rocky B’ and Eragon’. After a “breakfast” meal at 2am of roast chicken and vegies we were able to get some broken sleep.
WE touched down in Kuala Lumpur at about 6:15am. (8:15 Brisbane time) It was still dark. The airport is massive. We had to catch a train to collect luggage and go through Malaysia immigrations.
Kuala Lumpua is hot and raining. We haven’t seen so much wet for quite a while. The trip to our stop-over hotel, the Allson Klana Hotel, which is halfway between the airport and the city, gave us sights of the lush and green country side.
On arrival at the airport we organised to have a three hour tour around Kuala Lumpua. When we were picked up for the tour it was in a taxi with another crazy Italian Australian from Melbourne.

The three hour tour around Kuala Lumpua ended up as a five hour tour and included: the Petronas Twin Towers, Royal Palace, Jamek Mosque, Kuala Lumpur Tower, Batu Caves and the President's office building.

Kuala Lumpur has managed to retain its charm, with a skyline that blends the Old World and the New. A contrast exists between the Indo-Moorish architecture and the ultra contempory edifices.

The Bunda Caves, a Hindu worship place to offer prayes, was a highlight of the tour. Not sure if it was the 30 meter gold statue of - or climbing the 300 steep steps in 36C and 90% humidity.

Finally at the Simpang/airport, we found the Cheers Bar and met father and daughter Poms from Adailade. Yes they are still Poms, they have not taken the allegiance to the Australian flag yet even after 15 years. We had great conversation with lots laughter, especially about the English.

The wine was so bad in Kuala Lumpua I had to resort to beer. Nice in 36C heat.

By the time we got settled on the 747, a meal of "asian" chicken, and only after four hours sleep, we both crashed and slept for about seven hours.

Itinerary

Netherlands and Italy
23 April - Leave Brisbane at 11:59 - Malaysia Airline
FLIGHT MH 140 BRISBANE to KUALA LUMPUR
FLIGHT MH 16 KUALA LUMPUR to AMSTERDAM

25 April (Wednesday) - Tim and I arrive in Amsterdam at 6:35 am.


Hostel: De Lantaerne - City Centre
Address: Leidsegracht 111 ,Amsterdam 1017ND, Netherlands
Telephone: 0031-20-6232221
Email: reservations@hotellantaerne.com
26 April - AMSTERDAM
27 April - AMSTERDAM
28 April - AMSTERDAM
29 April - Meet up with Gusta
30 April (Monday) - Queen's party in Amsterdam
1 May - AMSTERDAM
2 May - The three of us catch a KLM flight at 9:40 am from Amsterdam to Milano.

FLIGHT KL 1623 AMSTERDAM to MILANO


HOTEL SERENA
Via R. Boscovich, 59 - 20124 - Milano - Italy




Tel. 0039-(0)2-29404483
Fax 0039-(0)2-29404958
www.hotelserena.com
hotelserena@tin.it

3 May - Milano 9:30 ‘The Last Supper’ Be there 20 minutes early.
RESERVATION NO: 536973

4 May (Friday) - Travel to Torino by train 


HOTEL BOLOGNA
Corso Vittorio Emanuele II 60, 10121 Turin
Tel: +39 011 562 0191

5 May - Torino
6 May - Torino
7 May (Monday) - David travels back to Milano by TRAIN (1st Class) and then flies back to Amsterdam with KLM at 12:25 pm 
FLIGHT KL 1624 MILAN to AMSTERDAM

8 May - Tim and I go to Roma

Hotel Selene
Via del Viminale 8, 00184
Rome Italy
Ph. +39.06.4824460
Fax +39.06.47821977
VAT NUMBER 05992421007

9 May - Roma
10 May - Roma
11 May (Friday) - Tim & I Fly back to Australia

FLIGHT MH 15 ROME to KUALA LUMPUR
FLIGHT MH 141 KUALA LUMPUR to BRISBANE