So this morning I woke up, and the internet wouldn't work again, so I left.

And I saw this poster.

I don't know why, but I love this poster.

I think it's fantastic.

There are days that I wish I was Ru Paul.

He's the bomb, as they say.

ANYWAY.

Enough transvestite fantasies.

I found the same breakfast place. Had the same breakfast. It was similarly delicious.

Looked at my guide book. I'd already hit most of the major museums.

Decided to try out the Bible Museum.

Because I'm thinkin': ILLUMINATIONS! BITCHIN'! *fist pump*

I get there and it was a whole lot of...no.

It was...a handful of engravings, a handful of reconstructed rooms (which were interesting), some Egyptian artifacts (including a very creepy mummified cat), and the history of the first bible printed in Dutch (and also kind of the rise of Dutch Reform Christianity).

BOR-ING.

The only illuminated prayer book they had on display was badly degraded and most of the paint had faded, leaving nothing but a little ink and the gold leaf.

So I left.

(Also, there was a big meeting going on in one of the rooms, and the museum people kept chasing me from room to room to get me out of the way of the crowd. Kindly, but still.)

(Also, this was not an objective museum. This was definitely a religious museum. As an agnostic, I found it a little unsettling.)

I will say two things about the Bible Museum: They had some excellent biblical engravings on the first floor. Not just good in the biblical sense, but who ever did them was a seriously good engraver. A really excellent hand with light and shadow and composition. I was impressed. I wish I had the guts to sneak pictures of them, but the room was close to the main desk and I didn't want to incur the wrath of the museum manager.

Also, there was this super wicked staircase.

I wasn't really supposed to take pictures, but seeing as I was the only patron in the museum (LITERALLY; I SAW NOBODY ELSE), I completely ignored the signs. At least, above the first floor I did.

Anyway. Cool staircase.

Amsterdam seems to have a lot of cool staircases.

Except in the Anne Frank house. That staircase was just depressing.

Then I left. Decided to head over to FOAM, the photography museum, under my cousin Miriam's recommendation. It didn't hurt that it was very close.

On the way I stopped by a canal for a little lunch.

Oh, what a hard life I have!

That's cumin cheese, I think. It was hard to tell.

Fresh strawberries.

Radishes.

Sparkling water.

ALL SOAKED IN BEAUTIFUL SUNSHINE.

It just made it more delicious.

Unfortunately, when I had only a handful of radishes left, the stupid wind took it upon itself to blow over the cup and all the rest of my radishes went bobbing down the canal.

*sigh*

Well, some duck is going to have a spicey dinner on my coin.

The strawberries were a little under ripe, but still about a billion times better than the giant, wooden, hollow things we get in Canada (mostly).

At one point a duck came by to see what I was up to (he was a slut; he was going around to all the people sitting on the canal edge), and was all: "Is that food? You should give me food. I want food."

But of course all I had were fruits an vegetables. But I threw him down a little piece of strawberry, at which he merrily dove.

He beaked it for a few seconds, then spat it out and tilted his head at me reproachfully.

Then, I swear to you, he dipped his beak in the water and washed out his mouth.

Cheeky bugger!

No more strawberries for you, ungrateful wretch!

I lounged around for a while, reading my stupid book (it's one of the Temperance Brennan ones, and it's almost as bad as the TV series, though considerably different), then headed over to FOAM.

Hilariously, they did not permit photographs in the photography museum.

There was stupid show a woman did on. I can't tell you much about the show, except it was a lot of the reject pictures left over from previous shows.

The only one I really liked was a picture of a prepubescent girl wearing a lime yellow bikini, staggering out of the ocean, half grinning and half grimacing with the cold. It was an interesting juxtaposition of her fashionable bikini, which was obviously bought for style, and her entirely tense muscles from the cold, the tendons in her neck and arms and thighs all standing out, and the roiling ocean behind her.

If they'd had a poster of it, I would have bought it.

There was also a show on about the New York Times Magazine, and some of their more famous issues. There was a series on the Afghanistan war, and 911, and the Kuwait oil fires. It was pretty intense. The running theme, I think, was recognizing good stories before they happen, putting photographers in dangerous places.

Or something.

The 911 photographs were pretty intense. There weren't many of them. There was also a series of portraits of New York muslims, and interviews with them about peoples reactions to them after the attack, and their feelings.

I thought it was very important. Every single one of them said: "I am Muslim and I am American. This is a terrible thing. It should not have happened." Though not necessarily in those words.

I looked at all the photographs but I couldn't read everything. It was intense.

There was another section about models and celebrities, I think. It was hard to tell. There were a lot of art students there, being, well, y'know, art students.

But the series on celebrity was interesting for two reasons:

It was photographs of actors, largely after they'd done very long days. They were exhausted, empty, drained, in ways that people don't generally see them.

Also:

There were no photographs of technicians.

Perhaps I am sensitive about the point, being a technician myself. I don't know if any of my coworkers would agree, but I often feel we get shoved to the side-line, the first to be downsized, the last to be recognized.

I would very much like to do a similar series about technicians.

Perhaps I shall.

Anyhoo...

There was another show with some other woman that I didn't understand at all, probably because I don't speak Dutch (sorry!) and everything was in Dutch.

In any case, I left the museum after that, and who did I find!

Why, it's Rembrant!

Being 'awesome'!

Hi Rembrant!

Man. Being an artist kind of sucks.

Nobody cares about you until you're dead.

Did you know that nobody is really sure where Rembrant is buried?

They're PRETTY sure he's under a church here in Amsterdam, but not a hundred percent. They put a plaque up, anyway.

Because he died a pauper, after going bankrupt.

(Admittedly, he kind of over spent on his massive and awesome house. But it was a pretty awesome house.)

I lay on the grass for a while and listened to a busking guitarist play.

There's a guy who plays in Dam Square. He has a napkin on his head, and a hand puppet of a rabbit, and he plays a single note on the recorder.

One. Single. Note.

For hours.

I stopped at a market on my way back to the hostel. It was not as good as the one on Monday, but still okay.

I walked through the Red Light district as the sun was going down and listened to a tour guy tell his patrons that the best way to solicit a prostitute was to go to the narrow alleys, as people on the big roads tended to just look.

It had never ocurred to me.

I walked down an alley full of red lights, where most of the women had little signs on their windows proclaiming what they specialized in.

Apparently, I walked down the electrosex alley.

There was a woman dressed in a latex nurse outfit.

Except for the fact that I'm pretty sure I'd get beat up, I would like to rent a window, put up green lights, and dress in, perhaps, a clown suit or a nun's habit.

See what people do.

Anyway, I think I'm going to sleep now.

I have tried several of this country's fine malt and hops beverages and they have left me sleepy.

You can't see it well in this picture, but far off, past the man in the boat, the swans were going CRAZY.

CRAY-CRAY, even.

I don't know what was going on. I was tired and foot-sore and I wanted to lay down and drink beer, like any good Canadian.

So that's what I did.

And now I sleep.

Tomorrow begins the big trek back to Canada.

*le sigh*

See you all soon, my friends.