Amsterdam

It is my last night in Amsterdam. I leave tomorrow at 9:00 pm, so I am heading to the airport around 6:30 pm. It has been a difficult stay. I realized once I got here how special a study abroad experience is and how it has ended. The finality of it all hit me here hard. I was pretty lonely and I felt small on a big earth. Luckily, I'm over that now. Somehow, within the last few hours, I started feeling better. I sat down to plan out my day tomorrow and my two days in Prague. I think being busy helped. Destinations are comforting.

The hostel cat is also napping in my lap. It's very cuddly.

So,
Amsterdam is a crazy city. I knew there would be lots of museums, but I way over-estimated their size. Two hours in the Rijksmuseum was plenty, even though I was converted to being a fan of Vermeer and Rembrandt. Tomorrow, I am going to his house, which has been converted into a museum. The van Gogh museum merited two trips (my wallet hurts! 10 euros for most museums!) even though it was also small. They definitely concentrated on quality than quantity. The first floor are his contemporaries and influences. I saw an amazing picture by someone...I think it was Gericault. It was a man on a horse. The thing was that he gradually smeared the background more and more as it receded into depth, making the horseman stand out of the picture plane. You could see this effect in a couple of van Gogh's paintings on the second floor, which is entirely dedicated to him. They had the Potato Eaters, a sunflower still-life, an iris still-life, some amazing self-portraits, and Crows in a Wheatfield.

The city is all brick, so it all looks the same. Only now can I mostly get around without using a map. I've been walking around a lot, either wandering aimlessly on purpose or on accident. The canals are very pretty, but really dirty. It's a strange city, very relaxed and slow. I think the change of pace was a shock to me. Same with the gray light, the trees/green, and the brick. It's all very new now. Plus, Lauren's friend Tyler brought fresh eyes to the group the first three days and, with them, a wave of Americana-nostalgia. I really liked the Flying Pig, especially it's atmosphere. It was right next to the Vondelpark, which is absolutely amazing. I walked through the entire thing.

Dutch sounds like a mixture of English, French, and German. It's a crazy language that gives birth to crazy cities, people, architecture, and atmosphere. Amsterdam is in some ways more of a true melting pot than the US. There are soo many types of people here, it's incredible. It's part of the sightseeing, really. These thoughts are very scattered, but there's not a whole lot of theme to tie it all together. When I leave, I'll see if I can condense it all and make in unified. This post is severely lacking and certainly failing to reflect my experience here.


It was very nice to get on the hostel's wireless