One week to go...

My last weekend in Amsterdam... today, I crossed off a few more things I wanted to see before I leave.

Nieuwe Kerk (The New Church)

This is a church in Dam Square that has a temporary exhibition right now with a bunch of artifacts from Afghanistan. It was interesting to read about the history of the country and how the artifacts were hidden from the Taliban and just recently restored and put on display. Apparently, the artifacts had been stored in a vault in the Central Bank in Kabul with 7 locks on the door... where the key to each lock was given to a different person who would hand down the key to his eldest son at his death. The Taliban even tried to use explosives to open the vault, but failed.

The exhibit was cool and all, but the whole thing totally hid the church, which was disappointing because from what I could see of the church, it was really beautiful. I overheard a man complaining to the ticket taker about just that, too.

Some random pics from Dam Square

These crazy girls dressed all in colorful Punky-Brewster style clothes went up to the street performers and started dancing around them in a circle... pretty funny. The other pic is of some dogs I thought were pretty.


Albert Cuyp Market

Since my failed attempt at going to the Albert Cuyp market last Sunday (only day it is closed!), I decided to walk through today. So many interesting things on sale there... if you need something, you could probably find it there.



I bought a fresh fruit smoothie with banana, strawberry and orange juice. I also picked up some smoked almonds... very tasty.



Some Britney-style wigs and a bunch of fish



Fresh fruit/veggies and Herring & pickle sandwiches


Stedelijk Museum (Contemporary Art)

No pics here... this museum was not exactly what I had expected. Maybe because this is a temporary location they've scaled down the amount of stuff, I don't know. But it was only two floors and much smaller than I thought it would be. There was a really interesting exhibit of photos taken over the past 60 years by the Magnum agency... kind of chronicled the major events over that period of time.

Verzetsmuseum (Dutch Resistance Museum)

This museum was named the best historical museum of The Netherlands. It tells the story of the Dutch people in World War II, with the German occupation and the Dutch resistance movement between 1940-1945. This was definitely a favorite museum of mine. The museum was set up really well with everything laid out chronologically including pictures, clothes, documents, propaganda, radio broadcasts, films, personal stories/quotes... gave a very good overview of what happened.