Viewing Malevich's Paintings and Eating Indonesian Food in Amsterdam (Netherlands) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
Of
course, the next day was my vacation day as well, so I was out the hotel door
at 8 am to explore Amsterdam (Netherlands).
I
visited the historical part of downtown by the Royal Palace and a little area
called the Beguinage – the site of a former church of reformed Presbyterians
called the Beguines.
From
there, I walked from one end to the other of the main canals – the Singel, the
Herengracht, and the Keizersgracht. I
made a few stops to buy coffee with cream.
Walking along canals to admire architecture is cold yet informative
tourism for learning about architecture that is not usually introduced in
university art history courses.
I
walked along the Leiderstraat and found myself on Museumplein again. I visited the Municipal Museum and enjoyed
Malevich’s paintings such as “White Square on White.” He reminded me of another Dutch painter named
Mondrian, who did “security systems” paintings I thought for office decoration.
I
went back on Leidestraat and found an Indonesian Restaurant. I was going to see the Rembrandt collection
at the Rijksmuseum, but my innocent sounding Rijstafel (Rice Table Lunch) took
three hours to consume.
Indonesian
food is so spicy that you have to wipe away tears away as you eat it. I loved every morsel, but I had to drink a
lot of water to deal with the heat. I
planned to buy an Indonesian cookbook and learn to make this delicious food,
but tone down the spices a bit.
After
the dragon-hot meal, I just enjoyed walking around Amsterdam and buying coffee
with cream and looking at stores and apartments. I knew everyone at work would laugh at my
wild weekend in Amsterdam with its liberal drug and prostitution laws.
The
next day I wrote down some Amsterdam notes before returning to Paris:
-Windows
– Building windows are so clean in Amsterdam that they glisten in the sun. Glistening windows make brown brick buildings
with red geraniums look very upscale no matter what kind of neighborhood they
are in.
-Pulleys
are located on rooftops of buildings to make moving furniture in and out of
apartments easy.
-Amsterdam
has great urban planning. The city has a
lot of trains, canals, and bikes for moving people and goods around quickly.
-I
think the Netherlands is the largest market for bicycles outside the Peoples’
Republic of China.
-Fashion
from the 1960s prevailed in Amsterdam in the 1990s. (Blue jeans, T-shirts, and tennis shoes.)
-Amsterdam
has many good bookstores including English ones. The City of International Trade requires many
multilingual lawyers, bankers, accountants, and salesmen.
If
you plan to visit Amsterdam and visit its art museums, I would recommend
reading Simon Schama’s The Embarassment
of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age and Rembrandt’s
Eyes. People of English descent should read
about our ancestral trading and naval rivals.
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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