Are you sitting comfortably? This post is likely to be long and picture heavy! Good thing about blogging is that it’s a diary and a way of putting down your thoughts and memories of a trip or event which you can look back on easily. Often times, I’ll look at a photo and cannot for the life of me remember where it had been taken or when!
I’m still buzzing from our trip to Amsterdam with my Stampin’ Up! sisters from all over the world. Just a quickie collage from Centrestage reception on the Thursday evening at the Okura Hotel in Amsterdam – fab dinner laid on and dancing afterwards. Top left is my upline Amanda with Rhoda, next on the right is the lovely Liz and Helen, down below on the left is gorgeous Kerry and bottom right, yours truly with lovely Tamra who I roomed with in Brussels at the Inaugural OnStage Live event after the changeover from the Convention format of old.
In between training sessions hubby and I crammed in as much sight-seeing as possible. On the Friday my downline and cohorts took the tram into Damrak for a meal. Along the way, we saw these oversized clogs so of course we stopped for a photo op!
This is typically Dutch, bicycles everywhere, and yummy cakes, canal boats and the tram system which is very efficient, cheap and frequent!
Our last session at OnStage Live finished at 4 o’clock on Saturday afternoon so I dashed back to the hotel and hubby and I took the tram into town to capitalise on the sunshine and soak up the atmosphere in Rembrandtplein which is halfway into the city centre for dinner. There is a floating flower market, and lots of cheese shops here and we found some normal sized Dutch clogs for sale. Luggage weight constraints meant that we couldn’t get a pair, even if we wanted to and I’m really not sure whether or not they’re designed for comfort!
In Rembrandtplein, there is a life size bronze statue reconstruction of Rembrandt’s famous painting “Night Watch” (pictured below) which we saw at the Rijks Musuem the following day. Uncanny, isn’t it?
It really is so awe inspiring to see these originals hanging on the wall – there are too many to list or include in this post, but this one titled “Woman Reading a Letter” by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) having withstood the passage of time still looks as fresh as the day it was painted – he used lapis lazuli ground down to give his paintings this radiant blue. He recorded the effects of light with extraordinary precision and my efforts to stamp and colour in with an aqua painter becomes quite insignificant!
This is the Rijks museum library which boasts the most extensive art history library in the Netherlands. Items have been collected since 1885 including catalogues (auction, exhibition, commercial and collection related books, periodicals and annual reports). It is also the quiet zone, and we talked little above a whisper whilst we watched an artist down below hard at work putting paint to canvas.
We did the highlight audio tour which takes about 90 minutes, I would’ve loved to have stayed longer, but the sunshine beckoned. I’m going to leave it here and leave our visit to the Keukenhof for another day. Hence that ear worm as I can’t get “Tulips from Amsterdam” out of my head!!!
Happy Easter Monday!!! 