Travels with Kathryn

The morning after the night before, i.e., Thurday, I may have been feeling little delicate, and therefore, we had a slow start to the day. We decided to walk into the museum area, stopping on route for an excellent hot dog, to visit the Van Gogh museum.

I assume everyone is familiar with Vincent Van Gogh, but to remind you Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter born in 1853 and over his short lifetime he created 2100 artworks including around 860 oil paintings, most in the last 2 years of his life. He committed suicide in 1890 following years of poverty and mental illness.

The Van Gogh Museum contains the largest collection of Van Gogh’s paintings and drawings in the world (200 paintings, 400 drawings and 700 letters by the artist) and is (according to Wikipedia) the 23rd most visited art museum in the world. I had therefore been expecting it to be stuffed to the rafters with Van Goghs, and it kind of is not… There are obviously a number of Van Gogh paintings, but also many by contemporary artists or artists inspired by him putting his paintings into context. You do see some of his most famous works (such as Sunflowers) and I particularly enjoyed some of the letters between Van Gogh and his brother Theo (who supported him financially and emotionally throughout his life), and whilst I picked out some favourites below, I probably got more out of the Van Gogh Immersive (which is also managed by the museum) last year as, for example, it shows a number of paintings side-by-side and gives far more details as to his life. Just saying.

We had planned a quiet night in, and whilst we enjoyed expertly chef-d (by Susan) chicken schwarma, Jim remained trapped in Brussels (having taken a day trip for work) and did not arrive home until after 10pm. This did not bode well for my Eurostar the next day…

Friday was my last day in Amsterdam, and in many ways my last “real” day of this trip (as London does not really count) and I convinced Susan to take a trip to Zaanse Schans i.e. embrace the touristing. This is a small village about 30 minutes from the centre of Amsterdam. It is incredibly popular with tourists as Zaanse Schans has been preserved as it was when it was built in the mid-19th century at the start of the Dutch industrial revolution and has a mix of farms, paths, wooden houses, windmills, ditches and fields. We had expected to spend around 30 minutes looking around, being overwhelmed by tourists, and then back on the train with plenty of time for my train that afternoon. However, we were having a delightful time visiting the chocolate shop (with on-site milled cocoa), posing outside various windmills, playing with hceese wheels, and trying on clogs. There were many excellent shopping opportunities, most reasonably priced some of which I may have taken advantage of…

At 2 p.m., I realised the time, and then we had a minor panic as I needed to be back at Amsterdam Centraal with all my stuff at 3.45pm (1 hour before my Eurostar). Anyway, there was some hustling, including back to Susan’s flight and throwing things in my bag, a speedy taxi to the station and me running upstairs (which can not be good for me!) Anyway, I arrived in the departures area at 4pm and was by no means the last person and as there was effectively just a holding pen with 1 toilet, a vending machine and little else, I am glad I did not allow hours to enjoy it.

I have had a lovely time in Amsterdam, and it has been a great last week of my journey to spend it with a friend at a slower place and perhaps seeing some of the less well-known places (as we could). It was also great to pick Susan’s (for those who do not have the context we used to work together and I consider her to be someone I can only aspire to be) and Jim’s (who is a much respected competition legal expert) brains as to what I should do next career wise and how to get there.

Anyway, it turns out that my worries over delays were unfounded and we arrived in London only 15 minutes late. The journey was uneventful, but my only complaint would be the truly dreadful wifi which is why yesterday’s post was so delayed as I had almost finished it, and then the website crashed and I lost most of what I had written. I was rather displeased.

I disembarked the train into London St Pancras and then took the fast train to Stratford International to check into the last hotel of my trip. I had mixed feelings – London definitely feels like “home” to me and I certainly had that sense of happy homecoming, but it is also a bit wierd as technically this is not my home right now (and hasn’t been for a couple of years) and also a little sad as my amazing 5 months of travelling are coming to an end. However, I have a final fun weekend planned, and I intend to make the most of it!