Profitable day. This morning we went to visit Nemo, the science and technology museum. It was mostly made for kids and therefore it was funny and playful but almost no explanations. Interesting was that there is a whole floor dedicated to the human teenage years and how to deal with body changes, alcohol, drugs, and there was a specific pavilion on sex with some miniatures of kamasutra positions. Also part of the museum, was a naval ship which was replicated there after being sunk.
9 September 2010
AMSTERDAM - Netherland
Visiting museums with Bruttone is not always bad. Of course, you have to get over the fact that he's like a rock who puffs every 5 minutes like a steam locomotive. A rock with the artistic sensibility of an anvil. If you get over these little things, then the day can be kind of funny. Then, if you bring him to an exhibition designed for children, fun is guaranteed.
But the best part will come at the end of the day when Pollo discovers the existence of fast food restaurants, which she never tried before. It's probably the taste of this particular type of diet that aggravates the tone of today's story...
The second museum of the day was the Hermitage. Once there, we stopped to eat inside, in the warm, and then we went to get the tickets. At that point the cashier asked us 6 euros!! We gave up, also because it didn’t inspire us much. Before leaving, however, I went to the information point and asked why we had to pay if we had the Amsterdam Card. The lady said that there was probably a mistake in my Amsterdam Card booklet; I pointed out that it was already the second mistake, because also the Niewe Kerk was supposed to be free and we had to pay. She then answered saying that in any case it was only 3 euros instead of 15. I don’t know which saint stopped me from responding to that.
Man, Niewe Kerk charged us 3 euros for a temporary exhibition. I mean, you’ve got to have a lot of nerve to ask for money for an exhibition which consists of a Youtube video and six photos of the church. But in that case, at least, a church is used for Masses and an exhibition, even a fake one, it’s still something out of the ordinary. But the Hermitage is a museum! You can’t charge me 3 euros for a mini temporary exhibition; you’re a museum, what else should you do? Cheeses?
We turned around and went to visit the Jewish history museum, the synagogue and the HouseBoat Museum.
At 5pm all the museums were closed so we went looking for a coffeeshop.
After a lot of wandering, we found one that doesn’t look too sketchy, with old lads inside. We ordered two glasses of water and the waitress said to us: “Don’t you want something to smoke? This is a coffeeshop!” and this I would say was the scene of the day.
We planned to go back to the campsite, have a shower and come back to the city to eat, but since it was 6:45 pm and we had super heavy groceries in the backpacks, we just went in search of a restaurant… Burger King!
