Friday May 8 2015 - Today was our second big museum day on the Museumplein. We had our tickets to the Stedelijik Museum. This is modern art. It sounded like it would be a fast trip through. We had not spent much time in the George Pompidou museum in Paris, which is their modern art museum. Rick Steve’s did not sound that impressed so we thought an hour… and then we would go to the Rembranthuis. I was much more interested than I had expected. They had a big exhibit of Matisse. Again, I was impressed with the intermingling of the artists and their ideas. He tried several artists’ styles. He started with the more dark colors of the area, until he traveled to sunny areas and his colors lightened up! Wayne was not impressed with his cut and paste work at the end. The evolution of his art was interesting!

The Stedelijik also had an exhibit showing how the art was preserved during WWII. A time line of the war described how the pieces were moved to secure places and how these areas were kept secret.

Then there was the weird modern stuff, a large 20ft by 10ft plywood box with a single light bulb hanging inside it, an arrangement of four florescent light bulbs, a work bench with a wrapped pile of ?. We went through this fast, and also in the basement a modern technical exhibit i.e. several odd videos by Ed Atkins. To us his was just weird. Art does change over time.

After finishing at the museum we were ready for lunch. We had been keeping an eye out for one of the “brown cafés” that had been discussed. Café Small was the one we remembered. We thought it would be on the way to Rembranthius. After about a long time on a tram ride and street wandering we found it! We waited a short while for a seat. While waiting, a horse drawn buggy came by, and I notices a rubber contraption hooked to the horses hunches. This was a long funnel like strip that ended on the ground and its purpose was to collect to poop! I thought it very clever. I had never seen such a thing!

We got a table up from the canal. You could set on a dock, small and crowded with no railings, right on the canal. Wayne was not comfortable with that! We had curbside seating. It was a pleasant afternoon. We enjoyed a small sandwich and glass of wine, watching the people pass on Prinsengracht, and the boats pass on the canal.

Since we were in the area we decided to find the Tiramisu place as well. This took a bit more wandering but we stumbled upon Pane E Olio Deli. This was also very small, mainly for take-out but they had a few tables in the back. The tiramisu was very good. Enjoyed the dessert and the rest!

It was after 3:00 by the time we finished the tiramisu. We decided by the time we found Rembranthuis it would be too late to view it. Rick Steves didn’t rate it too high, so we decided to find it but not go in. We took a tram#9 past Rembrandtplein with the huge stature of Rembrandt and on to Waterlooplein. This is the theater area. We walked a few blocks, observed the house and walked back to the tram.

Tram hopping again we took tram #14 to the end of the line to Flevopark. We walked around a small lake. This was close to the Nieuw Diep which is next to the Het IJ big body of water. We returned on tram #7 there and rode it to the other end of the line all across Amsterdam to Sloterpark. I was tired! We just got on #14 again and rode to #3 “our tram” stopped at a grocery store for dinner preparations and came home.