Amsterdam - 29th October - 1st November Part Two

Hello, and welcome to the second episode of An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook. I’m sorry to say that after the misadventures getting to the hotel, this has been a largely foolishness free trip, and I’m afraid that this episode continues in very much the same vein. So if you want to leave this episode and go and do something else, then feel free.

Right, now they’ve gone, let me tell you what really happened. No, only joking, nothing that exciting, honestly. Yesterday I was only able to book one of the earliest times for the Van Gogh Museum today, so I decided to have breakfast at the hotel. Mistake? Not necessarily. However, notices like “You may only take what you are going to eat NOW! Do not take when you will not eat!” frankly set the wrong mood. Yes, alright, I would have taken a free lunch from the cold buffet as well as breakfast if not for those notices, but I’d like to have been given the benefit of the doubt. Frankly, too, what was on offer was rather, well, spartan. I didn’t expect a full English, but it might have been nice to have something approaching a full Dutch. I felt like complaining after having my third helping of everything that was on offer, but discretion proved to be the better part of valour.
So to the Van Gogh Museum. Now, I’d like to say something very witty and clever and original here. But I can’t. Literally, amazing. Van G. is an artist whom I’ve come to appreciate more and more over the years, and this collection was just out of this world. I was a bit sceptical about shelling out another 5 Euros for the audio guide, but I’m so glad I did. I entered, worked my way through the audio tour, and looked at my watch. Two hours had gone! Honestly, and I hadn’t even noticed. An absolute highlight of the trip.

Mindful of the fact that I didn’t do a great amount of sketching, I decided to head back towards Dam. Dam is the heart of the tourist area of the sity. So called because that’s where the locals first built a dam in the River Amstel – Amster – dam, see? They’re a wonderfully literal people, in my experience. The nearest Metro station to Dam is called Rokin. Now, I’m very sorry, but I cannot read that name without mentally adding the words – Don’t come knockin’. Here I made the first sketch of the day, of an agglomeration of buildings that I liked. This also revealed the great problem with sketching today. It was a bright and very crisp October day in Amsterdam today. If you were moving around, then it was great. But. . . if you were sitting down for between 30 and 45 minutes working on a sketch, the cold began to creep into your bones. All of which, I suppose, is by way of being an excuse for the fact that I only made another four sketches today.

A short walk from Rokin, then, back to Dam, and I sat and made the second sketch, this time of the Nieuw Kirk – or New Church. It’s still pretty old, actually, and now more of an exhibition space than a church. It’s currently holding an exhibition about the Life of Buddha. Arguing against themselves there, I would have thought. The Oude Kirk, or Old Church, which is in the Red Light district, is actually the oldest surviving building in Amsterdam. Before they built the New Church, it was simply called the Church. They built the New Church, so this became the Old Church. Told you that the Dutch are pleasingly literal people.

A Dutch gent came up and had a look at the sketch, and I was a bit worried, because Amsterdammers are reputed to be very forthright and blunt in their views. But he liked it, so I refrained from drawing an ink moustache on his face, which might have been my reaction had he not.

I sat for about 45 minutes, but by then I literally couldn’t hold the pen straight, I was so cold, and so I moved off in search of coffee (and a chance to use a toilet for free). Once I’d had a coffee from a Dunkin Donuts I headed to a bridge over one of the smaller canals which I’d noticed on the walking tour yesterday. It had a handy bench by it, and this is where I produced the third and last sketch of the day. While I was in the process of making it, two American ladies came up, gushed a little, and asked if they could take a photo of the sketch. Seriously. So, if you’re thinking that this made my day, then you know me too well. Once again, about an hour into the sketch the sun had gone in, and I just froze, and had to stop where I was.

As for the rest of the day, well, after eating I spent an interesting couple of hours in the Amsterdam Museum. Another audio tour, although this one was included in the price, which is all well and good. I did enjoy it, although I did find something a bit strange. You’re led through the story, from he founding of Amsterdam to the ‘golden age’ of the mid 17th century. Then suddenly the story jumps forward, and you’re hearing about Napoleon Bonaparte making his brother Louis – and I have to say that he really looks a shifty sort – the first King of the Netherlands. What happened to the intervening century? Maybe not a great deal, but it would have been nice to have been told something.
Time was getting on by the time I’d finished in the Amsterdam Museum, and I was, as the Dutch might say, knakkkerrred. So I headed back for the hotel. I might head out this evening and see what’s what, but my legs and calves are giving me gyp, so it’s unlikely. 9:30 flight tomorrow morning, so I’d say this pretty much wraps up An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook for 2018.

Amsterdam - 29th Oct - 1st November. Part One

Hello, good evening, and welcome to the first episode of the Autumn 2018 series of An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook. I’m sorry I didn’t post yesterday, the first day of the trip, but for reasons I will explain I was just too tired and it was too late by the time that I got to the hotel.
Now, departure lounges are not my favourite places at the best of times. They’re currently giving Cardiff’s departure lounge a bit of a makeover. Judging by what they’ve finished, if they’re going for ‘early 21st century tacky’, I’d say they’re succeeding.

Still, I did find a corner of the quaintly named ‘Beer House’ where I could actually see out onto the apron for a bit, and that’s when I produced the sketch of the Flybe plane. Not mine – I was with KLM.

Funnily enough, I have actually flown with KLM once before. . . sort of. I say sort of. I was on an Air Kenya flight to Nairobi via Rome – where I was getting off, and Air Kenya were borrowing a plane from KLM. A DC10 as it happens, and if you’re a similar vintage to myself, then you’ll know that DC10’s did not have the best reputation for safety. Still, this was 1983 and I lived to tell the tale. As for yesterday, I could say that the flight itself was pretty uneventful. I could say it, but it would be a pit of a porky. This was a small plane – only two seats on either side of the aisle. So when we hit turbulence, it really started throwing the plane around. We were all ordered back to our seats and told to buckle up, which was a bit awkward because I’d just got up to go to the toilet. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever sat through a 30 minute bout of severe air turbulence with a full bladder, but if you haven’t you can take my word for it that it’s overrated.
Before I left home, I’d done a bit of research on the route from the airport to the hotel. The average taxi fare would work out at about 50 euros. Google told me that I could do it for about 6 Euros if I took a bus to the Olympic Stadium, got off, walked around the corner, and took another bus to Surinameplein. Fair enough.
Not as easy as it sounded, frankly. For a start, I was on the wrong bus stop. I got on the right bus, but it was going the wrong way. So I got off again. Then I got on the right bus going the right way and got off at the right place – Olympic Stadium. All I had to do was walk around the corner. Well and good – but which corner? Thankfully, one of the useful things about Amsterdam is that every local person I’ve met speaks English. Very good English at that. So I broke the habit of a lifetime and asked a stranger for help, and eventually found the right turning. It was getting on for about half nine, and I should have been at the hotel within a few minutes. Half an hour later I jerked awake when the bus I was on came to the end of the line. I’d fallen asleep as it sailed way past my stop, and to add insult to injury, I had to get out of the bus, and wait 20 minutes in the freezing cold before getting back on the same one to go back the way I’d come.
Well, soldier on. Things began looking up today. For one thing, the best and quickest way into town was by tram. I love trams. I spent an hour and a half riding from Birmingham to Wolverhampton and back on a tram last Sunday, and considered that paying 4 quid for the privilege was cheap at the price. So I made my first Amsterdam sketch at the stop while waiting for my tram – a 17 – to come along.

Unfortunately a lot of today the weather has been what I believe the locals call pisshingdown, so opportunities for sketching have been fairly few and far between. As the rain eased off a little, though, as I was passing the old town hall which is also called a Royal Palace, I chanced upon a Sandeman walking tour about to start. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Sandeman tours. Basically they present themselves as ‘Free tours’ – which they can be. But at the end you’re offered the chance to pay your guide whatever the tour was worth to you. Which means you have the opportunity to pay nothing if you have the brazen cheek. I paid. Our guide was called Kendra, an American whose lived for 14 years in Amsterdam and has just passed her Dutch citizenship exam.
Now, in the last couple of weeks, when I’ve told people that I’m going to Amsterdam, a certain number – men mostly although not exclusively – have smiled and asked if I’m going to be eating ‘funny’ cakes or smoking ‘funny’ cigarettes, and if I’m going to be ‘visiting’ the Red Light district. To which my answer was of course, no, no and no, this is a cultural trip where I will be broadening my mind and employing my meagre artistic talents in immortalising the uniqueness and beauty of the city yuttah yuttah. So of course, Kendra first of all took us through the Red Light District and past a lot of cafes offering various ways of intaking cannabis. Which is still actually illegal in Amsterdam, but let that one go for now.
To be fair, I did enjoy the walking tour, which only passed through the red light district briefly, and learned quite a bit about the history of the city .

From a walking tour, then, to a canal tour. If you’ve followed my misadventures in the past you’ll know that there’s a number of things I want to do when I visit a city I’ve never been to before. One is ride the trams if they have any. Done that. Another is use the Metro if they have any. Did that a bit later. Another thing I do like, though, is a river cruise. Well, if you substitute river for canals, I guess a canal cruise in Amsterdam must have a pretty good claim to being the daddy of them all. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
The biggest disappointment of the day was finding out that since last year, if you want to visit Anne Frank’s house, you have to book online. I tried booking at 6am this morning, only to find that all of the times for the whole of this week are sold out. Thankfully, I did manage to book a ticket for the Van Gogh Museum for 9 am tomorrow. Speaking of museums, after backtracking to a place I’d seen during the walking tour to make the street corner sketch you can hopefully see as part of this post, I did take a gamble that I’d be able to get into the Rijksmuseum just by turning up. This was at about 3 pm, and it worked. In fact the queue for the cloakroom to put my backpack away safely was far, far longer than the queue for tickets.
They have a Van Gogh self portrait which simply blew me away. I’ll maybe say more about this tomorrow after I’ve visited the Van Gogh Museum. Rembrandt’s The Night Watch was breath taking too – I think it’s bigger than my house. On the whole though, I have to say that for my money the Prado was slightly more impressive. And that, my friends is pretty much all of the exciting stuff for today. I did walk to a Metro station and rode to the next station down the line, but I have to say that I wasn’t blown away by what is obviously a very modern system. I felt the platforms were bleak, and the whole thing was just a tiny bit soulless.