Sunday was our only full day in Amsterdam, and Ed woke up with a goal: “Maximize Amsterdam”.

As an aside, this got me thinking about the differences between traveling alone or with someone else. Alone there are no compromises, but also fewer surprises. I like both modes.

Anyhow. Amsterdam has several world class museums, the most famous being the Rijksmuseum. I visited it in 1984, and my journal tells me that I was a bit bored by this enormous collection. I still dislike the be-all-to-everyone style big city museums, and so does Ed, so it was easy to convince him to visit the nearby Van Gogh Museum instead. We both enjoy single artist museums; they are far more informative and relaxing.

The museum was quite good. We saw many familiar paintings, and especially appreciated our close-up look at this self portrait:

I always like exhibits showing the sleuthing done to uncover the painting process – previous works that were painted over, etc., and there was plenty of that here. The museum also had prints from its collection on display, and I loved the woodcuts of Félix Vallotton, particularly his Exposition Universelle series.

After the museum, we took a tram to Amsterdam Centraal so Ed could see a big European train station. This brought back memories for me, and I really wanted to hop on a train and zoom off to another country. It also, somewhat disturbingly, reminded me of Harry Potter.

Next we walked over to the Red Light District. Ed had stated that he wasn’t interested in seeing it, but I made him go. Even though it was daytime, there were scantily dressed women beckoning from windows. His comment: “They’re actually pretty!” We also saw some of the famous cafes where pot smoking is allowed.

By this time we were freezing, so maximizing Amsterdam meant finding a nice warm pub. We headed back over to  the Jordaan section of town and settled on the Wester Cafe, across the canal from Anne Frank’s house and Westerkirk. I had a couple of De Konincks, and Ed had several La Chouffes. We also had a snack platter of bitterballen, kaastengles, and vlammetjes. It’s not important what these are other than fried bar snacks, but we did get into a debate about what the gooey center of a bitterballen is. I thought it was sausage and lard, and Ed thought it was pea soup. I was closer to the truth. They were good though. At some point a bartender lowered a giant screen and the Manchester United v. Chelsea game came on and Ed declared that he wanted to stay in Amsterdam forever and ever.

It turns out it is difficult to maximize Amsterdam when it is so cold, and we probably stayed in the pub longer than we normally would have, but eventually we had to head out toward the tram station. As we crossed the canal though, we noticed that a lot of people were out skating. After watching for awhile, Ed and I crawled through a small boat and onto the ice ourselves. Our low-traction shoes were as good as skates, and we skidded and spun around as the bells of Westerkirk began ringing. It was wonderful to be a part of the joyful twilight laughter.

Amersterdam, maximized.