Amsterdam #2

Our last full day had necessary trip maintainance and a dash of culture.
First a sorting through of unnecessary clothing - swim suits, we don't need you - made up a package to mail home.  Then off to find the main post office.  Quite an efficient work area in the basement to prepare parcels to mail. There goes seven pounds we no longer need to carry.  Spotted a Tibetan restaurant on the way that served us well for lunch.  (Our path skirted through the 'red light' district.)
Next the culture.  Off to the Hermitage Museum where a sample of Van Gogh's paintings are on temporary display while his museum is being renovated.  The paintings were grouped by six themes; such as light, colour, Japanese influence and self portraits.  While an interesting approach, this method of arranging the paintings mixed later with earlier works.  And many paintings were not on display.  I have visited once before as a teenager when the complete collection of over two hundred paintings were in simple chronological order.  I found this arrangement made clear his struggle to become a painter.  His growing mastery leap off the wall, so much so, that I was unwilling to talk about the paintings afterwards and chose to walk in a near-by park for half an hour afterwards to digest the experience.  This time I was not so deeply moved.  (One later self-portrait, short red hair, at the easel and looking directly at the viewer while wearing a blue collarless smock; he has such red-rimmed eyes that he maybe showing long-standing sleeplessness or more immediate - being hung-over.)
For supper we tried the restaurant downstairs from our apartment.  "Eat Me" turned out to be very fancy.  A 'living wall' of plants dominated the entrance and crisp, minimalist furnishings and similar decor made for an inviting space.  The place was crowded and we were lucky to get a table.  (For fun we had both dressed up - I think that helped.)

Here are two views from our apartment.  The older Dutch houses are built with a pronounced lean forward, the better to hoist furniture to the upper floors.  (Long ago taxes were on the width of the house, number of windows and the area of your stairwell.  Now you can understand the older city's street views and the steep, break-your-neck stairs).  The lean to the right of the second house is due to unstable foundations.

Beep went the alarm on the phone at 6:00 am.  Pack and walk through the rain to the Central Station - fortunately only 400 or so meters so very close.  Good-bye Amsterdam, we will be back and stay for longer.

Ramblings on the Amsterdam stay;
Watched an ambulance navigate at speed; Woo-Haa woo-haa ..., coming into view while changing lanes on a major street then turning right onto the 'Blue Bridge', accelerate and use half the bike lane over the bridge to get past traffic, brake and hard left in front of us, then another surge of  acceleration and gone.  We had a good view of the woman driver's giant grin.

This town / civic authorities are taking care of business.  In four days we had the municipal garbage and recycling trucks up our narrow street twice on alternate days.  Multiple crews repairing brick pavements, laying the blocks with a combination of hand-labour and machines walked by an individual worker that picked up half a sidewalk course of blocks.  Blunk - set in place.  Add the road work crews changing pipes, both large and small plus the barges that were walling off sections of canal wall and replacing the rotting bricks and you have a sense of a city that is ready to invest in upgrading and repair.  Too bad our town of Thunder Bay would rather wait for catastrophic failure before begrudgingly doing the necessary.

Bicycles and cycling, now there is a topic;  we first looked forward to a day of joining the locals and pedalling around the city core.  Yikes - watch out!! as we narrowly escape again from being run over by a cyclist.  Most inner city streets consist of narrow sidewalk - pedestrians, single lane for cars, smooth / flat wide bike lane for two way cycling, narrow strip for parking bikes, (numerous) and cars, trees then the canal.  Repeat on the other side of the canal.  The car traffic is predictable and often noisy due to the paving stones giving good warning of their approach.  In contrast the bikes are silent with large bells used at the absolute last moment and do not slow down for foot traffic.  Add the novel street signage and we decided to wimp-out and just explore on foot.  Maybe next time with a longer stay we will saddle-up.