Day 5
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Today was a weird, difficult day. It started out a little off: Jennifer forgot her chapstick, my hair was so wild in the wind that Jennifer had to braid it just to keep it under control, and we kept missing our trams by seconds and getting stuck waiting around for the next one. Not disastrous by any stretch—we got to wander through the famous Albert Cuypmarkt near our B&B, where I found a snappy new hat for fairly cheap, and though the weather was a bit brisker than usual, the sun was out unusually early to cheer our morning—but a bit vexing.
But it picked up in a hurry as we headed for the NEMO, a large interactive science museum. I’m a sucker for a science museum. Maybe it’s because I love any activity that combines fun and learning, or maybe it’s because such places invite even we adults to join in the fun and act like kids ourselves. Or maybe it’s because my competency in science never progressed beyond elementary school. But I freaking love these things, and when we found a hole enough in our schedule to fit in the NEMO science museum, I jumped at the chance.
This is Museum Weekend, two days each year in Amsterdam when many of the city’s most famous or most popular locations are free or discounted. NEMO was free, so it was absolutely packed with kids, making the experience a bit crushing sometimes. But the museum itself is packed with loads of interactive exhibits and learning centers, so there was rarely a moment for us to simply stand around waiting in line.
For me, the biggest thrill was the astronomy exhibit on the Galaxy Zoo project. I was always a bit of a space geek as a kid, and if I’d had any aptitude for maths or sciences, I’d have loved to have been an astronomer or an astronaut. The Galaxy Zoo is a chance to do just that at the most basic lay level: Similar to the SETI project from a few years back, Galaxy Zoo uses hundreds of thousands of volunteers to cull through an online database of telescope images of galaxies and classify them. Though a computer program can easily stockpile a database of galaxy images, so far none can reliably classify the galaxies; such an interpretive, subjective task needs a human eye and some good old fashioned critical thinking. So the Galaxy Zoo gives everyone access to the database of images and asks us to help classify the galaxies through a series of simple questions. Children can do it, adults can do it, I intend to do it, and so should everyone.
We also enjoyed a LONG conversation with the Dutchman monitoring the exhibit. We started talking about astronomy and the Galaxy Zoo, of course, but as we lingered, the friendly and enthusiastic guide broached topics on Dutch culture, multiculturalism, language and linguistics, and the disparity between Dutch and American politics. (Turns out I’m very Dutch in all those areas, though my capacity for new languages is rapidly waning, I’m sad to admit.)
We also got a kick out of the teen section, which looked like a teen magazine brought to life, with exhibits on dating, personality, hormones, and pop culture. But we’d seen a lot of the museum by then and were ready for some lunch, so after a quick tour on body image and concepts of beauty around the world, we headed to the top deck of the boat-shaped museum to enjoy some quick café fare on the vast rooftop terrace overlooking the harbor. It was an idyllic spring day, and I remarked to Jennifer that I could stay up there all day, just sitting on the upper deck of the NEMO, in a café in the sun watching the water glisten in sequins of silver, flags waving in the breeze. Children frolicked on the terrace and in the play area while families lunched at tables and young couples lounged together on giant pillow-cushions. Pigeons fluttered about, hunting for crumbs.
But Jennifer reminded me of the ship docked next door, in the water just outside the NEMO, and I was quick to abandon the ideal for the historical, the laze of a spring afternoon for adventure at sea. So we packed up and headed downstairs to the Amsterdam, a faithful replica of the 18th-century East Indiaman and the living standard-bearer for the vast, historical Dutch empire at sea.
The current Amsterdam was built between 1985 and 1990, using traditional shipbuilding tools and techniques. It’s currently moored outside the NEMO, but its true dock is beside the Nederlands Scheepvaart Museum, once the home of the Dutch naval arsenal but now the national maritime museum. That building is currently under restoration (what else is new?), so the Amsterdam had to move. I had really wanted to visit the Scheepvaart Museum, actually, since my family’s history is as tied to the sea as it is to The Netherlands and my great-great-grandfather was a captain in the Dutch Navy, but I was relieved that the Amsterdam—what would have been for me the highlight of a visit to the Scheepvaart Museum anyway—had moved locations in order to stay open.
And as much as I’m a sucker for a science museum, I get absolutely silly about ships, especially old replicas like this. When a working replica of the Niña came up the Mississippi and docked in Dubuque a few years ago, Jennifer and I drove down from Platteville to climb aboard. The Niña was a tiny ship—it’s all but miraculous any of Columbus’s ships managed to cross the ocean!—but standing aboard, rocking in the gentle current, talking to the people who crewed the ship…. There was an advertisement posted nearby asking for high school and college students to go to sea on the Niña for a weeks-long workshop learning traditional sailing techniques, and if I had thought I could get away with it, I’d have signed up then and there. (Fortunately, Jennifer was there to bring me to my senses!)
Today, aboard the Amsterdam—a much larger and more livable ship—I felt that same tug in my bones, the call of the sea that is apparently encoded in my DNA. I know I would have a rough time of it at sea and probably would never make a great seaman, and the call of the sea is getting easier to resist as the years stretch on, but I still have this foolish, romanticized vision of myself aboard such a ship, the ocean air in my hair, the horizon flat and hazy blue in all directions, the toss of the spray under the prow of the ship and the whine of the rigging as the sails tug in the wind. Or as in my grandfather’s day, the chug of a massive engine somewhere deep in the belly of the ship, me hanging in ropes over the side of the ship with a brush and a bucket to clean the hull, the salt crusting on my skin as the seawater dries in the hot sun.
Sailing on the Amsterdam, though, wouldn’t have got me very far. The original Amstersdam was built in 1748 but wrecked off the coast of England less than a year later. (Most of the wreck is still there, buried in the sand.) She was crewed by 333 men and boys serving under Master Mariner Willem Klump, though I don’t know how many of them were injured or killed in the wreck.
The replica, like the original, is 48 meters (157 feet) stem-to-stern, meaning its length at the waterline; it is 56 meters (184 feet) tall from the keel to the top of the center mast, and it has a 11.5 meters (38 feet) beam, meaning is greatest width. It displaces 1,100 tons (apparently referring to the weight of the ship when fully loaded, a measure of how much cargo it can hold), yet it can sail in a depth of only 5.5 meters (18 feet)—unloaded, I assume.
We spent a good hour aboard the ship, exploring the living quarters, the galley, climbing to the upper decks and descending into the hold. The wind was stiff and the ship was crowded (it, like the NEMO, was free this weekend), and down in the hold a group of college students was putting on a bizarre little pirate skit for the kiddies, but whenever I found a quiet moment aboard, I paused to revel in the experience. And, of course, when the helm became available, devoid of giddy children, I became a giddy child myself and rushed to pose beside it. But there, too, I paused, my hands on the wheel, the wind in my hair…. Dreaming.
After the ship, we headed over to the central branch of Openbare Bibliotheek (Dutch for “Public Library”), which might just be the coolest freaking library I’ve ever set foot in. The DVD collection is HUGE and is housed in round bookshelves; the stairs aren’t stairs but modernist, gleaming white escalators with the names of the collections printed in the undersides, so as you ride up or down you know where you’re headed; the overhead lighting in the central section consists of these giant globular light-sculptures; there’s not only a café in the library but also a bull-blown restaurant; almost all the public access computers are Macs, and the seating around the computers and at the study tables are not just chairs but also hip, modernist rocking-chair balls, wide bench seating like giant ottomans, and enclosed study carrels that look so cool I thought at first they were video game capsules like those arcade racing simulators you climb inside. There’s also a “public piano” in the main lobby, where experienced pianists—and only experienced pianists, no pranksters or kiddies allowed—can spend a half hour a day practicing or composing right there in the lobby. But the hippest part of the whole library? Up on the second floor, there’s a full-blown professional radio station broadcasting live from the library, and it isn’t news or easy listening—it’s the local arts and culture station, Amsterdam FM, playing popular and alternative music as well as broadcasting cultural events and interviews. While we were browsing, I kept hearing live rap drifting down from upstairs; the djs were doing an on-air interview with a couple of hip-hoppers and they’d done a live performance. In the library! Outside, scores of college students and young professionals sprawled on the library steps reading books and snacking on lunch or enjoying a break.
In Amsterdam, it seems, the coolest place to hang out on a sunny weekend afternoon is the public library.
I love this city.
Afterward, we visited Madame Tussauds, a mad crush of wax celebrities and faux-horror house “frights” and wild animatronic displays. It wasn’t quite what we were expecting (we wanted a leisurely stroll through some simple wax figures), but parts of it were pretty interesting. On the way in, we posed with the wax figure of Barack Obama, then later we took turns posing with people we liked (I posed with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and with Sean Connery in a kilt; Jennifer posed with librarian-turned-author Annie M.G. Schmidt and with Johnny Depp). There was also a pretty cool history display about the evolution of Dutch sea trade, and toward the end we found a lifesize image of DaVinci’s “human proportions” sketch, where I discovered that I am exactly the “ideal” size and shape for a human being. At least, according to DaVinci.
But the museum was absolutely swarming with people, including a gang of obnoxious guys who insisted on posing with every soccer player statue (and every female statue) in the place, and they got in our way and held us up so often that by the end we were anxious to escape and just unwind with a quiet movie.
Unfortunately, all the turmoil in the museum must have been contagious, because once we left, we got ourselves turned around and kept hopping on the wrong tram or ducking down the wrong side street, so by the time we found a movie theater we were both pretty flummoxed and I discovered that somewhere along the way I’d lost the bag with our Obama souvenir photo and a library book I’d bought for Jennifer.
We went ahead and watched Clash of the Titans (which was okay for an action flick and just as corny of my beloved 1980 version, but which felt disappointingly underdone, full of obvious plot holes and bad direction, and which was supposed to be in 3D though the only real difference I noticed was that the Dutch subtitles floated nauseatingly on the bottom of the screen), but the movie didn’t do much to cheer me up. Then we went to a Mexican restaurant we’d seen earlier and had wanted to try, only to discover they were overfull and couldn’t seat us, so by the end of the day we just retreated home for take-out pizza (which, to be fair, is actually very good, made by hand from fresh ingredients—I watched the guy make it) while I called around trying to find our lost bag. No luck so far, and I’m exhausted now from such a mixed-bag of a day, so I’m done for the night.
Tomorrow, Anne Frank House and a relaxing day in the park. But tonight, I’m ready to put this day to rest.
12:01 am (April 11)
Samuel Snoek-Brown 