Amsterdam –
our final city!
This is our last place before going home to
Bangkok. We are in Amsterdam which is in Holland and is also one of Dad’s
favourite cities in the world! So far we have gone to these places:
Rijksmuseum, Anne Frank House, the van Gogh Museum and also a real Dutch
restaurant for dinner.
Dad loves Amsterdam!!
First we
drove to Amsterdam and we needed to buy petrol but mum and dad couldn’t find
anywhere to buy it. We drove around for ages but finally they found somewhere
which was lucky! When we got into Amsterdam, there were trams and bikes
everywhere and dad had to drive really slowly. We got near where we were
staying but dad couldn’t get in so we had to call the owner of the boat. The
man came and met us and hopped into the car and he was our GPS for the five
minutes we were away from the boat.
Paddy was so
excited when he found out we would be staying on a boat! Inside it was just
like a normal house with bedrooms, a lounge, a small kitchen and a bathroom.
One difference was that it moved when another boat went past which was quite a
lot! We could look out the windows of the boat and the water was almost at our
eyes! People waved to us and it was great fun!!
Ours was the one with the red stripe
We made the most of the sun to sit on the boat's terrace!
After the
little ones had a rest we went straight to the Rijksmuseum. Mum and dad said
this was a famous museum and that there were heaps of paintings by very famous
artists and lots by painters that I like for example: van Gogh, Monet and now
Rembrandt and Vermeer!! It was so cool that you could take photos of the actual paintings. My
favourite paintings were the self-portrait by van Gogh and the milkmaid by
Vermeer. We have studied van Gogh at school so I was interested to see his
paintings for real and the milkmaid just looked like a photo it was so real.
Dad showed us the most famous painting in the museum called the “Nacht Wacht”
(Night Watch) by Rembrandt and there were heaps of people looking at it so it
was hard to see it properly. Mum found an information card in English and then
we looked at the painting more carefully and found heaps of the things the card
talked about which I really liked.
Rijksmuseum from the Museumplein
Nacht Wacht
The cards were really interesting
The Milkmaid
A wedding painting by Rembrandt - it was weird for them to painted together then
Stained glass in the Rijksmuseum
The new hall-it used to be all white
Paddy loved this plan for the First World War
The next day
we got up early and went to Anne Frank House on the tram. The house was so
small but very interesting. Mum had read some of her book to me because we gave
it to her for her birthday or something so I knew a little bit about the story
but it was really good to be there too. We saw where the family hid for over
two years until they got taken by the Germans. To get to their rooms at the top
of the house we had to go through a secret bookcase and the old one was still
there! Do you know how it is a secret? On one side there were books and then
you hit a switch and the books opened a door that only a few people knew about.
I also saw some pictures and a movie of what the Germans did to the Jews in the
war and that made me feel not very good as it wasn’t very nice. Mum and Dad
said it was good for me to find out about what happened by visiting places like
this but I didn’t agree with them then!
Outside Anne Frank House
Amsterdam streets
We found a café and had a coffee and some poffertjes (have
you had them? They are mini-pancakes with heaps of sugar powder and were really
yummy!!!). Then we went back to the boat for the little ones to
have a rest. After their rest we caught another tram to the Museumplein and the
van Gogh Museum. The van Gogh Museum was my favourtie thing to do in Amsterdam.
We saw all kinds of paintings by van Gogh. You were allowed to take photos
without flash so I took a few. Dad had organised for the children to have an
MP3 audio machine and the stories they told on that about some of the paintings
were really interesting. I was able to share the stories with mum and dad which
I liked to do. I learnt that van Gogh did lots of paintings that were really
beautiful but that when he made them he was actually really sad and the things
he painted showed his feelings. How he painted it also did that too. We found
a room that had microscopes set up so you could look at pieces of paint taken
from some of the paintings. I found that incredible because my art teacher at
school had told me about how he painted and that he used thick brush strokes
and now I saw it for myself. That was cool!!
Irises
Van Gogh self-potrait
Sunflowers
The paint under the microscope
He painted this one for his brother when he had a son
For dinner mum and dad had found some random
restaurant on the internet that served Dutch food. We had to walk a little way and wait as it
was really busy but the food was actually good. I had satay sticks and mum told
me that food was from Indonesia (which isn’t Holland by the way) but the Dutch
used to be there so it was like Dutch food. Dad was as happy as because he got
boiled potatoes, meat with a sweet gravy and a bowl full of brussel sprouts
(which were disgusting). Dad ate them all and mum warned us to stay away from
him for a few days (even though we would be on the plane)!!
We went to bed after a bath. Tomorrow we are
catching our plane home and our awesome trip will be over!!
Love
Clare xxoo
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