Day 2: van Gogh, Anne Frank, and Bacon pancakes!

On our second day in Amsterdam, Cat and I decided to go to the van Gogh museum. The museum is actually setup pretty cool because the curators have accumulated painting by other artists that had an influence on van Gogh's evolution as a painter. These are not what you think of traditionally as van Gogh, but they were my favorite: Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and The Sea at Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. I am really a fan of paintings that use colors that are wildly different from the actual color and trick your eye into thinking that it really is that color. To me, that is the only way to capture the subtleties of a very colorful landscape especially if there is water involved.  

In the afternoon, we decided to visit the Anne Frank House, but on our way we just randomly chose a cafe that was along our route. You never know what type of food you find in these types of cafe's, and the one we found was still serving breakfast. I am a fan of breakfast at any time of day, so I ended up ordering... drumroll... bacon pancakes! They were honestly more of a cross between a crepe and a pancake, but seriously delicious. Wish I had thought of that before! My cousins would have been in heaven! ;)

The Anne Frank House was pretty overwhelming honestly, but definitely worth it. It was my favorite museum we visited in Amsterdam. What moved me the most was where the parents had marked the children's heights on the wall as they grew. Anna Frank also pasted all these random pictures all over her room just like any other teenage girl would do. 

Here I am in front of the house.

May 21, 2010