I feel old...I'm half way through this adventure and I am already spent...
Damn...I just got done typing a mini novel and I pressed a button that made it all disappear....grrrrrr. So let's see...I'm exhausted and I am contemplating what to do for the evening. I have been playing tag with Fred...not Frank...from previous post...to try to get together. We missed each other by minutes at the Spikjer Bar and then he left me a note at the hotel. I haven't heard from him today...it would be nice to hang out with him one more time...maybe some tickets to Molly Hatchet, chocolates and...welll...the rest I'll leave open considering what I surprise he turned out to be the first evening.
So last night I went out to the neighborhood just north of here and hung out at the guppie bars...natives, trnsplants...which there are a lot of...and even tourists were friendly...several people from the UK. I ran into a guy from Costa Rica who is working on his MBA here...he was a little too friendly...but very helpful with info on where to go in the neighborhood. I haven't found one cover charge yet and the drinks are not as expensive as I had been warned about. I've taken a liking to the Belgian beer that I have sampled so far. It's fairly potent...it was early in the evening and I was at Soho. I had the sensation that the room was spinning..I think I had 2 at that point...and Terry from Costa Rica was all hands and encouraging more drinks...then I noticed...halfway through my water...that it was the bar that was actually spinning...hmmmm...time to get off the merry-go-round. I ended my evening at Thermos Nights...definitely had a good time there...smaller than Steamworks, but it had a lot of the features that I like about that establishment on a smaller scale...with a new twist...no rooms for pay...just lockers...the rooms are these cubicle like structures throughout a maze...they are padded with pillows and open to anyone...you can close and lock the door if you wish, but your neighbors can watch...and they frequently do...um...blush...er...sometimes it feels good to have the spotlight.
I didn't get out of the hotel until around 1:30 this afternoon. I went into uber tourist mode...watch me walk really fast through 3 museums...the Rijksmuseum was not all that much to talk about...the main part is underconstruction...if it would have been open I'm sure that would have been my afternoon. So naturally I went to the Van Gough next door...that was amazing...it brought me to tears to see his paintings in person along with the informational blurbs referring to his mental illness with a large percentage of the work shown created during hospitalizations or soon before his death...sigh...tingles throughout my body. Then I was off to the Stedelijk Museum to see an Austiran artist...I can''t remember his full name...it was Egon Schteigersomethingoranother...he blew my mind..extremely disturbing self-porttraits and images of prostitutes, street children, queer men...dark...focussed on death a lot..connected to his father dieing of syphilis at an early age. They had some of his work interpreted by another artist through film...this was bizarre...in one roon the was this giant three panelled screen that divided half of the room...there were a series of images of people only wearing flesh colored thongs...why wera anything...extremely beautiful...crawling, rolling,stretching,encircling one another on this giant bed...they kept coming in and out of the image...like a screen saver...molly hatchet would have been good about then. There was a live sculpture in the same room with a guy standing in jeans with his head, arms and chest covered in painting instruments attached by wires...his head looked like Pin Cushion from "Hell Raiser", except paintbrushes and paint tubes...he was kinda sexy...I had to walk by several times to get a better understanding of the work...he smiled 0:)
Ok...I'm almost outta time again...can't type any faster...and this is getting expensive...I can't believe that this isn't free for hotel guests...grrrr...oh well...if it wasn't here...I wouldn't be posting this much or at all for that matter. Now...time to make a decision about this evening's options.
So last night I went out to the neighborhood just north of here and hung out at the guppie bars...natives, trnsplants...which there are a lot of...and even tourists were friendly...several people from the UK. I ran into a guy from Costa Rica who is working on his MBA here...he was a little too friendly...but very helpful with info on where to go in the neighborhood. I haven't found one cover charge yet and the drinks are not as expensive as I had been warned about. I've taken a liking to the Belgian beer that I have sampled so far. It's fairly potent...it was early in the evening and I was at Soho. I had the sensation that the room was spinning..I think I had 2 at that point...and Terry from Costa Rica was all hands and encouraging more drinks...then I noticed...halfway through my water...that it was the bar that was actually spinning...hmmmm...time to get off the merry-go-round. I ended my evening at Thermos Nights...definitely had a good time there...smaller than Steamworks, but it had a lot of the features that I like about that establishment on a smaller scale...with a new twist...no rooms for pay...just lockers...the rooms are these cubicle like structures throughout a maze...they are padded with pillows and open to anyone...you can close and lock the door if you wish, but your neighbors can watch...and they frequently do...um...blush...er...sometimes it feels good to have the spotlight.
I didn't get out of the hotel until around 1:30 this afternoon. I went into uber tourist mode...watch me walk really fast through 3 museums...the Rijksmuseum was not all that much to talk about...the main part is underconstruction...if it would have been open I'm sure that would have been my afternoon. So naturally I went to the Van Gough next door...that was amazing...it brought me to tears to see his paintings in person along with the informational blurbs referring to his mental illness with a large percentage of the work shown created during hospitalizations or soon before his death...sigh...tingles throughout my body. Then I was off to the Stedelijk Museum to see an Austiran artist...I can''t remember his full name...it was Egon Schteigersomethingoranother...he blew my mind..extremely disturbing self-porttraits and images of prostitutes, street children, queer men...dark...focussed on death a lot..connected to his father dieing of syphilis at an early age. They had some of his work interpreted by another artist through film...this was bizarre...in one roon the was this giant three panelled screen that divided half of the room...there were a series of images of people only wearing flesh colored thongs...why wera anything...extremely beautiful...crawling, rolling,stretching,encircling one another on this giant bed...they kept coming in and out of the image...like a screen saver...molly hatchet would have been good about then. There was a live sculpture in the same room with a guy standing in jeans with his head, arms and chest covered in painting instruments attached by wires...his head looked like Pin Cushion from "Hell Raiser", except paintbrushes and paint tubes...he was kinda sexy...I had to walk by several times to get a better understanding of the work...he smiled 0:)
Ok...I'm almost outta time again...can't type any faster...and this is getting expensive...I can't believe that this isn't free for hotel guests...grrrr...oh well...if it wasn't here...I wouldn't be posting this much or at all for that matter. Now...time to make a decision about this evening's options.