That's not 'Crazy,' that's Dutch.

Amsterdam. Day two.

Here we are, looking like crap after
a late night at the hostel.

The number of selfies has been
increasing, proportional
directly to my laziness.

After a long lazy night, we woke up just in time for a trip to the Van Gogh Museum. On our way, we stopped for our obligatory Dutch pancakes, at a lovely place called Van Haarte Amsterdam which, speaking for everyone, we highly recommend for its reasonable price and mellow, proper quality, and its relaxed, classy atmosphere. And the coffee was good too.

Then we went to the museum itself. Because of the somewhat lax protections on the paintings I suspect the pieces actually displayed are copies, but still we were entranced as we climbed the museum's five floors. Going through the museum's route, we were able to see Van Gogh's growth as an artist, and metamorphosis into his resultant history: his stint in art school, his institutionalization, his mental illness and depression, his amazing art, and even art that has been influenced by his work.

Photographs of the art is not allowed. But:

The pristine lobby of the Van Gogh Museum.

"11 July V.G.M."
As cynical as a stroke unclean,
like still life done with one brush.
A museum hush and some new
photographs to depict with new frames
the potato eaters, or October, or that
endless self-interest in the
eyes of Parisian flowers. You bouquet
of melodrama, you earless huff who
won't wait in line. I'd rather
enjoy sunset and  thunder 
and sing some nostalgia than
buy into your old home.

De Dam has the National Monument
bullseye in the center of it.

After having our fill of the museum, we made our way back to De Bijenkorf, "The Beehive" shopping mall, at de Dam town square in the middle of the city. There we waited for a bit for Marco and his friend Jesse (pronounced "yessir without the r"). Just a few minutes later, Marco's distinctively tall stature emerged from the crowd, and the brightly-colored gentleman accompanying him was assumed to be his friend. Either that or Marco's rainbow for rent.

Seriously though, Jesse's got a classy sense of style.

Where should we go? What should we do?

Marco pointed at Jesse: "He's the Amsterdam expert."

Jesse: "No I'm not."

He proceeded to take us to a slew of delicious Dutch restaurants, recommending beers and giving us insight into the various locations surrounding us. Marco chimed in from time to time, but let Jesse to the majority of the tour guide-ing. In fact, Marco told me, he was sort of on for the tour guide ride too: "It's been years since I actually toured Amsterdam like a tourist, so I thought it could be fun."

Action shot of Jesse, a proper foodie and fashionisto,
recommending food while Marco looked for other good
Dutch dishes to sample.

That works out well for all of us.

So besides being able to catch up with the interesting and intellectual Marco, and getting to meet the entertaining and passionate Jesse, our two Dutch guides shared with us all of their insights into the city. For instance, the waterfront property dupe I mentioned in the last post. We always replied with "That's crazy!"

To which they would reply "That's not 'crazy.' That's Dutch."

After a lot of this, we found ourselves at the first of a few Dutch restaurants. Sorry to disappoint the Instagramers, but I didn't get any pictures of the food.

We had Flemish fries (which are double fried, and much better than American fries--actually of Belgian origin), bitterballen (a popular party snack, and a recipe I intend to take home with me), then Boerenkool met worst, and Andijvieschotel met spekjes as well as Zuurkool met worst. Of course, we also tried Dutch mussels, which are purer and simpler than Belgian mussels (which are soaked in milk so they swell and become creamy). We drank brown Westmalle, La Chouffe, and some other beers.

One of the many ships in NDSM. This one is an engine
ship which has masts attached afterwards. One of the
ugliest ships I've seen.

Our last stop for the evening was to head to the North side of the channel to have Gelato ice cream, at a place called NDSM. That proved to be an experience that would make the trip for us, as if the wonderful food and company hadn't already. NDSM originally stood for Nederlandsche Dok en Scheepsbouw Maatschappij, the Netherlands Dock and Shipbuilding Company, which was active in Amsterdam between 1894 and 1979. When NDSM was closed, a large part of the area was simply left behind.

Until the artists cracked into the shipyard.

The Silent Disco.

Seaweed.

They needed cheap housing to afford their bohemian lifestyle, so they settled in the warehouses. They found housing in the abandoned ships. They climbed the old loading crane and lived in it. And they filled the shipping containers with art exhibitions.

A music bar we found in NDSM, later in the evening.
With swinging balrog boogie music.

Today, art students and bohemian artists alike populate the area, filling it with experimental art exhibitions and a number of alien conceptual pieces, with no context between one and the next. The sheer disconnection between everything lent the greeting scene a surreal quality. People milled about. We went straight to the ice cream stand and had our ice cream. The best chocolate I've ever had. While we ate our Gelato ice cream, we put on headphones and listened to the "silent disco," where we could listen to live music being played in a small, translucent, soundproof box not sixty meters away.

And we looked at the shipping crates. Each had a unique show or piece, and each cost just a couple Euros to visit. Aryan went inside of one. In two words, Aryan called it "Surreal and Avant Garde." He said it was his "first positive experience with conceptual art."

An artist's home @ NDSM.

After that, and some wandering, we found yet another magical experience. A series of swing sets, rigged with sensors and speakers. Each swing would detect its amplitude and emit a unique sound track based on that. Together, all of the swings going made a kind of music, discordant and elegant at the same time. People could compete for their track to be heard above others, by swinging harder, or work together to balance the tracks.

Marco on the music swings.

Me trying too hard to win at music.

Jesse getting crazy.

We paused and reflected on the experience. We wandered around NDSM in silence, lazily finding a route near the Crane Hotel (which is what it sounds like), and playing with a distance-hearing device. Then we looked at the warehouse entrance, looming before us.

This is where things moved, inside of us, from magical to the more surreal.

Silence emanated from it, broken occasionally by a faint tinkling sound. Something we couldn't quite make out. It sounded like a quiet invitation in. So we looked to Jesse. He told us that there would be more art inside, and we could go in.

We did. And we were greeted by this.

Echoes in some dusty old box. A saxophone gently talks to a sleeping giantess whose sandy mottled skin
grinds beneath my feet. How disquieting to crunch through this old barge of a coffin to find what new
life finds its home here. Plastic faces glare from the walls and some shoe-toting armchair is spoiled. A whistle. A
glance. A brightly-lit hall with a romantic looking dress poised at the end, glaring back at me. They say
the Dutch used to tax for windows, and now bricks clot those arteries. And a quilt of hempen endeavor
soothes my stillness while shafts of light stab through to cut into the heart of this bizarre  warehouse of art.

The sand giantess faced this scene.

 I stared, transfixed by the unreal colors and detail, juxtaposed with the obvious and intentional flaws in the skin. The other side degenerated into mottled fish-like scales. Behind it, a huge empty space until the end of the warehouse. And off in the other direction, indoor houses were built up, two and three floors high, out of shipping crates and other materials, for housing and art shops. The others wandered off while I sat down to write what captions that photo.

My ears perked up when I heard what caused that tinkling sound. From inside it was a shriek, and it echoed through the wide space of the warehouse interior. Was that an instrument? I wasn't sure. So I got up to investigate.

Nearby I found it. Hiding in the shadows of a wide open space, dressed completely in black, an exotic woman with dark hair stood tall, perfectly still, and played the saxophone, one poignant note at a time. She let each yelp echo through the warehouse and fade to silence, as a small crowd watched her. Tubes of light hung at eye level, resonating the sound from her saxophone and emitting an eerie glow.

Taking a photo would not have done the scene justice.

So I caught up with the guys.

We explored further the galleries and various halls, but eventually found ourselves at the rear exit of the warehouse. So we made our way back, and waited for the ferry.

I found them in this hall, waiting for me, surrounded by a swath of colors and random objects. You are now aware
of the way I leaned over a pipe wall to get this photo, which got Aryan and Wyatt's attention--and now I am part of
the photo.

Some time passed before the ferry came, so a few of us had drinks and we talked sporadically. Mostly we sat in silence, letting the whole experience sink in. Everything that had happened was something of an anomaly.

The ferry took us to one stop before we got to ours, and we stood near the edge and watched the water roll by, along with the night sky and gentle channel breeze.

Amsterdam. Netherlands. The Dutch.

None of this was crazy. And with no artificial assistance I had what was easily one of the most surreal experiences in my life.

When we disembarked, Jesse said his goodbyes, and we thanked him for the wonderful tour he gave us. Marco walked with us to the station, and got us to the right platform. How great it was to spend the evening with these two great guys. It's good to know people from around the world, for little things like this.

And this made our stay in Amsterdam. Nothing the city has to offer could have even compared.

Marco Groenewegen

Jesse van Dongen

Until next time.