Days 38-39: Bookings, Reservations and Doing Random Things

I've been trying to take it a bit easy the last few days to combat a growing weariness. It's mostly not a physical thing. My legs feel good, and I have plenty of energy. Part of the problem is my roommates in Amsterdam. The dorm is just me and them, and they're all travelling together and all speak in a foreign language and one of them goes to bed late (leaving all the lights on) and others get up early. They insist on what feels like hour-long showers, and since my bunk is next to the washroom that leads to hot steam wafting into the room while I'm trying to go to sleep, or when I'm trying to sleep in the morning as I wait for them all to use the shower. Despite those complaints though, that's not really the root of it. I think it just comes down to the constant need to always be planning ahead. Booking hostels, figuring out routes, reserving trains - and I'm not even at the stage where I have to worry about visas yet. A lot of it is from the travelling alone, since I don't really have anybody to help shoulder the load or to make plans with, or even to share the days with, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. Doing tours takes away the issues of planning and being alone, so Turkey and then large parts of Asia should ease that problem. I have everything booked up until the end of Paris now. I went to the central train station and got them to activate my Eurail pass, and help me work out how to get to Paris while avoiding the 50 euro fee. Doing so will require a longer trip and a lot of bouncing around, but its worth it for the savings (assuming I don't miss a connection or something anyway).

Taking things easy doesn't mean just lying around doing nothing though. I've spent quite a bit of time just sitting in parks thinking about random things, as this is something I haven't really had much time for. Otherwise, I've basically finished off the rest of my list of things to do in Amsterdam. I checked out a few more street markets, including their plant/garden one. It has been very busy since a lot of flowers are just starting to get going, and I was amused by the contrast as the two most heavily marketed items in basically every booth are tulip bulbs and seeds for different marijuana varieties.

I also did a walk through the famous red-light district (WARNING: This is probably not going to be terribly politically correct). When I first crossed the canal into the "window shopping" (basically little booths with glass doors that prostitutes rent out and then try to entice buyers through) area I was pretty distraught by the women's appearance. I wasn't sure if it was just too early in the day, or I'd stumbled into the bargain bin part of the district or what. Deeper in, away from the canals I hit some areas with much more attractive women, so I guess different areas are just more prestigious, or for specific tastes. Interestingly, I'm told prices are pretty consistent - regardless of the woman. I suppose different people have different tastes, and I guess transactions are time-based the amount of time spent working is more valuable than the price. Obviously the red-light district is known for more than just prostitution, and the sex stores and "coffeeshops" are everywhere. One of the interesting aspects is that all of this is basically a block or two away from the Central station and probably the busiest commercial street in the city.

I also visited the Sex Museum, since it was recommended to me as being cheaper and far better than the nearby Erotic Museum. I'm not going to say it was classy, but it had a lot of history of sex in art through different cultures, from satyrs and nymphs and chinese statuary up to modern art and photography. It also has displays that are a bit-less artistic, but I'll let you use your imagination - I don't know who all reads this blog :p

Yesterday I went to the Amsterdam Museum (mostly just because I stumbled across it, and not because it was something I really cared about seeing). It wasn't really worth the cost to get in, but it did have a lot of information on the relationship between the Netherlands and Turkey and on the Dutch East Indies Colony and Company, which is an important part of history that I was pretty vague on, so that was nice. This afternoon I finally hit the Van Gogh Museum. To be honest, I've never been a huge Van Gogh fan since I thought people's interest in him was more because of his story, and that his art wasn't really that great. The gallery is literally right across from hostel though, and it's the top visited place in Amsterdam, so it was something I knew I'd visit before I left. After going, my initial impression of Van Gogh hasn't really changed (although I suppose now I recognize his important is more for how he influenced future artists, not for his art itself), but with that in mind, it's still an extremely interesting and set up very well. The gallery is unique in that since Van Gogh wasn't especially succesful in his life, much of his work stayed with his family and was kept together until it was made into the current collection. Because he only painted for 10 years (during which he produced an amazing 2100 works of art which includes almost 900 oil paintings) you can really trace his evolution. Since he constantly wrote letters to his brother, which have also been kept, there's also a lot of information with most of the paintings on what it was of, what he was feeling, and just what he was trying to accomplish with the painting.

The only other place I can really think of worth mentioning right now is Nieuw Spiegelstraat. It's a street of antique shops and small, independent galleries. I gather that many of these galleries are just where local artists can display and sell their work, but just wandering down the street and popping into the interesting looking ones revealed a few gems. My favourite was the Jaski Gallery which was showing a collection by a local artist Chris Berens. The art was a very cool mix of sci-fi with haunting Tim Burton-esque figures and landscapes.

Tomorrow I'll probably go check out the Remberance Day type ceremony at Dam Square. It would be nice to be around for the Liberation Day part, since that's the part Canada had a big part in, but I'll probably leave fairly early in the morning to try to get as much out of the few days I have in Belgium.