Extremely overwhelming day. As I'm fighting jet lag & some general aches & pains that come from sleeping 2 nights on the floor, I'm not moving too quickly right now. We hit 3 museums today in the port of Amsterdam (as I hear the Anti-Stephen singing in my head): Rijks Museum, Van Gogh & Anne Frank Huis. The RM seemed rather stripped down & unimpressive - but my impressions may have suffered from the fact that I was very tired & hungry from a morning that felt like lunacy. I mean, how many days do you get up at 3 a.m. to start walking? My muscles were screaming at me when we got to Centraal Street, and my favourite exhibit remains a bench.

entrance to the RM

Very nice day, though, despite the lag. As I said, the RM seemed a bit stripped, its V. Goghs & Rembrants few & far between. Quite a few of them seemed to be on loan to our next stop, the VG Museum. The VGM had a fantastic collection on display: calling it VG's imaginary museum, they put out VG's paintings & sketches alongside art he loved, bought, copied & tried to measure up to. I've never been able to see the link between VG & Rembrant before - but there's a shared luminosity that you can't miss (once it's pointed out to you). As I wrote to Stacy before beginning this entry:

I don't get Van Gogh. How can the same painting look luminous, sick, ecstatic, fevered, tranquil & anguished all at the same time? I guess that's how they can get me to pay € 9 just for the privilege of being puzzled.

Next day we spend in Amsterdam, I'm putting in a plug for the modern art museum down the street (Stedelijk, I think.) Much as I love VG & Rembrant, I'm itching to see some hometown Mondrian.

In between the VGM & the RM, we tried to have lunch at a trendoid art bar called CoBRa. I say tried, because my mother's patience ran out before the waitstaff could be bothered to saunter over for our order. We ended up stomping back into the RM; my mother irritated by my lack of initiative and myself irritated by her impatience. A cafeteria lunch smoothed over our tempers, and although we glared at each other over the main course, by the time we split the nut tart, we were pals again.

I think that one of the reasons we've been arguing so much is that Mom's plastic doesn't work over here. She ran out of money yesterday, and every since it's been me & my trusty bank card to the rescue. The fact that I have all the Euros - and all the power to get more - must vex her. It would vex me if I were in her place. Today I gave her € 50, and she perked up immediately. I'm not really sure that I can keep going through money like it's chocolate, but I suppose that the rent is almost 3 weeks away. And this trip was my idea.

Our third & final stop of the day was the Anne Frank Huis. What with the principal drama I left behind last week and the certain knowledge that I'll be teaching the play version of the Diary, I was a little anxious when we walked into the huis. Confession time, here: I've never read The Diary of Anne Frank, though of course I know the story. The exhibits in that house are absolutely stunning. I mean, it's 6 nearly empty rooms, but the idea that 8 people could stay there for almost 2 years without seeing the sunlight - it filled me with a sick sense of dread and made me confront the ghost of cruelty inherent in the human soul. All I'm trying to say is that 6 nearly empty rooms nearly moved me to tears.

annex entrance	anne's room	the common sink.
	train shots

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