Museums and Concerts

So I haven’t been working for the last 2 weeks, so what exactly have I been doing? Obviously, I have had plenty of time to do some sight-seeing, lots of walking to familiarise myself with the city and to explore Amsterdam’s Museums and cultural life. There is a surprising number of museums and probably the best deal I’ve ever encountered is the Museum Card. 35Euros gives you free entry into most of the museums in the Netherlands (not just Amsterdam!) for a whole year! Given that entry into some of these places costs 10Euro, it is a complete bargain – and you can visit each museum as many times as you’d like! Definitely my best buy since I have been here!

The Heineken Experience

This is a very odd collection of information on beer brewing and distribution set up in Heineken’s original Amsterdam Brewery. It is a very technological affair with multi-media displays, videos of past Heineken advertisements and even 2 extremely strange “ride experiences”. The first lets you feel what it’s like to be a bottle on the Heineken production line and the second to drive a horse and cart delivering Heineken through Amsterdam. Very strange. Probably the best thing about this experience, though, is the 3 beers included with the entry ticket. The first is at a bar halfway through the “experience” (in case you need it after the exhilaration of that first “ride”) and then 2 at the end of the self-guided tour. What made it even better was the group of Spanish girls in the last bar who didn’t like beer who gave me and a couple of other guys all of their tokens for free beer. I spent a lot longer in that bar than planned and left a lot drunker than Mr Heineken probably intended…


Concertgebouw concert

On Saturday night I found out about some free tickets to a concert in the Concertgebouw given by the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of Mahler’s Symphony 7 and a premiere of a work by Neuwirth. The hall is renowned for its near perfect acoustics and I had a seat in the choir stalls, behind the orchestra so I could watch the conductor. It was a fantastic, exhilarating performance that reminded me that I don’t go to orchestral concerts enough.

Amsterdam Historic Museum and Civic Guard Gallery

Right next to my apartment here is the Amsterdam Historic Museum. It is located in an old orphanage and outlines the history of the city of Amsterdam. It sounds quite dry, but is actually a very interesting collection of paintings and artefacts (not sure if that’s the right word, but it sounds better than “stuff”) showing how the canals were created with landfill and built up to create the city. It also goes through the period of Dutch trading and ships as well as giving interesting insights into how typical Amsterdammers live.

Part of the museum is the Civic Guard Gallery which is free and contains a number of large portraits of the Civic Guards (police and fire squads) that hung in every station. These paintings were done by many of Rembrandt’s contemporaries and one of his most famous paintings (The Night Watch) was a portrait in this style. It is really amazing that all of these enormous, amazing paintings are hanging on view for free right next to my apartment.

Stedelijk Museum

The Stedelijk Museum is the modern art museum in Amsterdam and frequent readers will know that I love modern art museums. However, like many of the museums in Amsterdam at the moment, the main museum is closed for renovations and they have relocated selections of their collection to a very strange office building near central station. I expected that they would be showing a selection of highlights of their collection which includes some very well known pieces by famous artists, but instead they have a serious of short term contemporary exhibitions which I found to be just a little boring (dear I say wanky???). After a long walk and some difficulty finding it, I was a bit disappointed.

Rijksmuseum

Another one of the galleries that is currently undergoing significant renovations, the Rijksmuseum is enormous and has an impressive collection of Dutch Masters (especially Rembrandt) and many other pieces including ceramics, sculpture, furniture etc. One wing of the museum is open to the public, however, with a selection of the highlights of their collection (a much better idea!). The museum is very well laid out and explained in English and I really enjoyed wandering the galleries. Most of this art is in a style that I don’t usually take much time over in other galleries (Dresden had a huge collection that I found really dull) but it makes more sense here and is better presented and explained. Rembrandt’s The Night Watch is probably the highlight, though there were also some other fantastic Rembrandts and portraits by Vermeer that are beautiful.

Van Gogh Museum

I had already visited this museum when I was last in Amsterdam and was a little disappointed to find that they too are doing some renovations and so the regular collection of Van Gogh paintings has been moved around and isn’t quite as nicely presented at the moment. I really only visited the museum this time because I had some time to kill and could get in for free (hooray for the Museum Card!). I only briefly visited the Van Gogh sections of the museum and will go back to spend some more time here later in the month. I mainly visited a special exhibition of work by Max Beckmann, a German artist who was exiled to Amsterdam during World War II as his art was considered degenerate. The exhibition was huge and exhausting as Beckmann’s work is very intense, influenced by Picasso and the German Expressionists.

Lunchtime Concert

Back at the Concertgebouw, I attended a free lunchtime concert giving by Phillipe Herreweghe and the Concertgebouw Orchestra and a rather amazing choir performing works by Berlioz and Kuhlau. Although it was more like an open rehearsal, it is amazing to think that these world renowned performers are giving free lunchtime concerts! If only the MSO did something similar…

Bible Museum

Probably not even worth writing about. I went because it was free. It really was as dull as the name of the museum implies. Though they had a nice special exhibition of lithographs by Max Beckmann (illustrations of the Book of Revelations) that tied in nicely with my visit to the Van Gogh Museum earlier in the week.

Stop Everything!!!!

I actually worked last night at Maxim's!!!

There was electricity and everything!!!!!

And nothing caught fire!!!!!!!!!!

It's even looking like I will work again tonight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you tell I'm excited?

Impressions of Amsterdam

I have now been here over a week and due to the incredibly dull lack of work situation, I have had plenty of time to look around Amsterdam and get to know the place better. Although I am getting very sick of feeling impoverished due to the lack of tips and lonely through not meeting people at the bar, there are some things about this city that I find a little fascinating. I'm still not sure if I always feel comfortable here - the smell of pot drifting out from the "coffeeshops" lining all the major streets and the sex and porn shops at regular intervals are a little different from Melbourne and most other cities I've been in, but I definitely know my way around now and feel a little more confident crossing the street.

For anyone that hasn't been to Amsterdam, you may wonder why I lost my usual self-assured confidence in street-crossing. Two words: Bikes and Trams. I am convinced I am going to get killed by one of these things at some point in the next month (Far more dangerous than swimming with Stingrays, mum!) And if the bikes and trams don't get me, the taxis (which are allowed to drive on the road or on the tram tracks or seemingly wherever they like) almost certainly will.

There are thousands and thousands of bikes in Amsterdam and the citizens ride them everywhere. Normal traffic rules don't seem to apply, so crossing the road at traffic lights with a little green man telling you it's safe to cross is still fraught with danger. Cyclists just come whizzing past through the stream of pedestrians. Terrifying. I am wandering the streets with my camera at the moment trying to find the best photo of vast numbers of bikes all parked together. This one will do for now:

Although you'd think I'd be used to trams after living in Melbourne for 8 years, these ones seem much more terrifying. They seem to travel much faster, following tracks that are impossibly close to pedestrian areas. The likelihood of getting sideswiped by a passing tram while innocently walking down a shopping mall seems very high and there are tracks in very random places that you only notice when there is a tram rocketing down them towards you. They are also very quiet. You don't hear them coming until the (very regular) bell dings for you to get out of the way before being squished...

Oh, besides bikes, trams and taxis there is one more way that I may die in the next month. The stairs to my apartment. The Dutch are remarkable space-savers in their buildings and so it is quite common to have very narrow staircases leading up to the apartments. Mine feel like the secret stairs to Anne Franks apartment (tasteless comparison, but take a look at the photo!!!)

I showed this photo to a Dutch guy today who commented "wow, they are particularly narrow!". Every time I stumble up them after a beer or two, I mutter under my breath "I am going to die on these stairs...". Did I mention that the light at the bottom of the stairwell doesn't work? How does this girl live in this apartment?!? Getting my suitcase up them was particularly exciting. It makes you appreciate Ikea furniture - carry the box up your impossibly narrow staircase and assemble the furniture inside the apartment.

I will try to take a photo in the next weeks of someone moving house here - they actually have to hoist the furniture out the windows and dangle it precariously on a rope from a hook at the top of the building to lower it onto the ground. I watched some people move a flatscreen TV this way last weekend and was sure it was going to drop to the ground and smash into a million pieces. Better than carrying it down the stairs, though.

So aside from the constant fear of death, there are some things about the city that I really quite like and that make me giggle.

For example, on a Friday and Saturday night, these plastic public urinals appear in a number of places around the city and then mysteriously disappear on Sunday mornings. Literally in the middle of a traffic island, they have positions for 4 men to publically pee in a bucket with a small privacy shield amid the passing foot traffic. Weird! I will take a photo next weekend - I missed my opportunity this weekend (and the timing has to be right - I don't want to seem like a weirdo photographing some guy while he urinates...)

Also, there is an ice-cream and chocolate chain of shops here called Australian. Nothing about them is actually Australian, and there are not even references to Australia on their menu. Apparently it was just an exotic place to use for marketing. Because we are so well known for out chocolate and ice cream...

The last really great thing about Amsterdam is that it is definitely a city full of night-time people. None of this early-morning person stuff. The streets are packed and noisy at 3am and at 10am totally deserted and quiet - apart from the street cleaning machines. Nothing seems to get underway till around midday - definitely a city made for night owls like myself!

On the down side, I'm not finding Dutch people to be particularly friendly. I haven't had much to do of an evening besides stand in bars on my own (well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!) and it is a bit sad that no-one talks to you at all. Not even the bar waiters. Makes it very difficult to meet the locals. Unless I am frequenting some particularly unfriendly bars. And it does make me wonder how often I talk to that slightly odd-looking person standing on his own in bars at home.

I am still waiting to find out when I will start work. At this stage, it looks like it will be this Thursday night - almost 2 weeks since I arrived. I will be paid for the gigs missed, but of course they can't make up for the lost tips. Grrr... I am still living in the fridgeless, chairless, narrow staired apartment. Things will get better...

On the upside, I bought a Museum Card yesterday that gives me free entry into most of the museums and art galleries in town. Something I should have done last week! So the next blog posts will no doubt be about the amazing museums I will visit in the next few weeks!

Oh, What A Night

So tonight was my first gig at Maxims.

After much anticipation (I was, after all supposed to start playing there 6 days ago when I first arrived in Amsterdam) I headed down to the bar, set up my equipment and did a sound check of sorts. Of course, the fact that the electricity still wasn’t back on was only a small concern. To enable them to open tonight, they had set up a generator meaning the lights occasionally flickered, there was the dull roar of a generator in the background and the pervading smell of petrol in the air. All part of the ambience…

I was due to start at 10pm. “or thereabouts” the barman explained. “Thereabouts” seems to mean that I don’t start playing until some people come into the bar. I will eventually post photos of the bar I’m playing in, but let’s just say the exterior is not the most inviting in the world and it is difficult to tell the difference between open and closed.

By 11.30pm, one man came into the bar and it was suggested that I should play some songs.

Relieved to be playing again finally, I start my set and to my surprise, people start filtering into the bar. Requests start streaming in. Drinks start flowing. Hope rises that this will be a good night.

Sure, the lights flicker occasionally and at one point we lose power completely and I play a brief acoustic section of my set. But that is remedied quickly and the night continues.

Until the generator catches on fire.

The lights had flickered significantly, so one of the barman headed in to put in more petrol. But the tank was still full and petrol spilled onto the generator and its electrical socket and caught alight.

Everyone is quickly ushered out of the bar and remains surprisingly calm. The fire is quickly extinguished with no major damage done (except to the generator, of course which is no longer functional). A couple of people are a little traumatized by the event and the crowd-that-was dissipates off to other venues in the vicinity.

By 12.45pm my first night of work is over and after a few drinks in the dark at the bar I head back to my fridgeless apartment (did I mention that my apartment here has no fridge? How does the girl that lives here normally get by without a fridge???)

Apparently tomorrow night there is a group of people coming to the bar at 9.30pm to celebrate a 30th birthday.

I think I will avoid playing “Light My Fire”.

Of course if there’s no electricity still, I could have another free weekend in Amsterdam.

It is getting a bit old though.

At least my first gig at Maxim’s is one I’ll never forget. One could say that my music set the crowd alight. Or at least the bar. Literally.

Arriving in Amsterdam

After visiting Amsterdam on the Contiki tour, I decided it was a place that I was happy I had seen, but not one that I would rush back to particularly. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, it just wasn’t among my favourite European cities. So it is interesting that I am now working here for a month and get a chance to really get to know the city by living here.

On the train journey I was looking forward to experiencing the city as well as starting work again after 2 months without playing (even Piano Man seemed kind of appealing…)

I had organized with the owner of the bar to collect the key to the apartment from a restaurant across the road from Maxims (the piano bar). Of course, I arrived and the guys in the restaurant know nothing about the key. They do have a key to the bar, though, so I leave my luggage in there and call the owner who says he will be there in an hour.

The bar itself looks a bit old and dingy, but often places like that can have a lot of atmosphere and be really fun. It is in a very busy nightlife and tourist area (near Leidseplein) and apparently gets especially busy on weekends.

I take some time to wander around the area and get my bearings, as the apartment I will be staying in is just around the corner. It is very close to the Rijksmuseum and Museumsplein so I spend some time sitting in the park outside listening to music and watching the world go by.

After 3 hours of waiting and still not hearing from the owner, I call him to find he is already at the bar trying to sort out a fairly major problem. There is no electricity. Although he had now sorted out all of the bills, he is told that it will be impossible to get the electricity reconnected for at least 4 days. The apartment I’m meant to be staying in is also without electricity… a slightly uneasy feeling starts to set in… (after all, I am a bit scarred from the Howl at the Moon experience)

After a few more frantic phone calls by the owner, he decides the bar will have to be closed for the weekend and I will have to stay in his daughter’s apartment (she has just gone to Indonesia for a few weeks). The apartment is right in the city centre, which is nice, but it is very strange living in someone’s apartment when you don’t know them. I feel like a bit of an intruder. And wonder how she can live without a fridge…

So it seems that my first weekend in Amsterdam, which is meant to be a working weekend, is now a free weekend in the city to go out and explore. On my own. With an apartment in the middle of the city.

This could be very good, or very, very ugly. It will almost certainly be at least a little bizarre.

Welcome to Amsterdam…

Frankfurt and Cologne

On my way to working in Amsterdam , I decided to take some time to investigate Frankfurt and Cologne as I had not had the chance to see either city yet (2 hours in Cologne on a Contiki tour doesn’t really count).

A few people had told me that Frankfurt was quite dull, so I had low expectations. The plan was to mainly use Frankfurt to recover from my flight and to have a bit of a walk around to see what the city had to offer.

I was pleasantly surprised. It is an easy city to find your way around and is quite pretty. From a sightseeing point of view, it doesn’t have the major highlights and drawcards of other German cities (it is much more modern – most of the “old” buildings are reconstructions after the war) but I really liked the way many of the old buildings had been rebuilt with a modern architectural twist.

There are also some crazy sculptures in Frankfurt that I found quite amusing.

Just in case you weren’t sure which currency to use:

and I’m really not sure why this guy was outside the Opera House… though the door in his beard is really intriguing…

The fight against jetlag meant I didn’t get a chance to explore the city’s nightlife and culture (there was nothing on in the Opera house that night, anyway…) but I certainly wouldn’t have a problem with spending time in Frankfurt again.

The train ride to Cologne the next day was really beautiful. I chose to take the slower train that travels along the banks of the Rhine, which is incredibly beautiful country. You can see why old German legends have the Rhine as the place where life on earth started. The landscape is incredibly green and lush. The train even went through St Goar (one of the stops on the Contiki tour last year) which brought back a whole lot of memories.

Cologne is dominated by its Cathedral, which really is an incredible building. Enormous but beautiful, especially on the inside. Like any of the big European cathedrals, though, swamped with tourists who really are quite noisy and disrespectful. A boys’ choir processed through the church to the choir stalls while I was there, so I thought I might have been lucky enough to hear some singing, too! Unfortunately, they were only there to practice lining up, standing, sitting and bowing, presumably for a performance later in the week.

The Ludwig Museum is quite a famous contemporary art museum and this is where I spent most of the afternoon. It has a sizeable collection of PopArt with a number of works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein as well as lots of Picasso and German Expressionism (I finally wrote down the names of a few of my favourite German artists that have always stood out in these exhibitions – the painter Kirchner and the sculptor Barlach). The museum is surprisingly large and I was either still jetlagged or just not up to my normal level of museum fitness, so I struggled through a lot of this gallery, especially the very contemporary works.

Probably the most amusing part of the collection is an outside sculpture which is a modern reinterpretation of Michelangelo’s David. Germans and their crazy sculptures!

After a bit of a wander around the older parts of Cologne and some ancient churches, the jet lag got hold of me again and it was nap time for me followed by dinner and an early night, despite the best intentions of going out to check out a piano bar I’d found earlier.

One thing I am finding really interesting is how late it is still light – usually around 10pm and then the sun seems to be up again at around 4am. This will take some getting used to, I think!

Back in Germany

Yesterday I arrived back in Germany.

That flight really is horrifically long. Especially since I was trapped in the middle seat in Economy class. With my legs. And a snorer next to me. At least the Entertainment System worked this time.

Movies: History Boys (awesome!), Perfume (the first 20 minutes before it annoyed me), The Queen (surprisingly gripping from the start), Razzle Dazzle (again! I love that movie), Happy Feet (just a little to see what the fuss was about), Stranger Than Fiction (which I basically slept through).

Even though I was feeling sad and stressed about leaving Australia again, stepping off the plane in Frankfurt made me feel instantly at ease. I feel so comfortable in Europe, particularly Germany and I am now really excited about this year’s travels.

Things I love about being back in Germany:

• Bratwurst – best fast food snacks ever
• Sparkling Apple Juice – and the blackcurrant version (though rare) is even better
• Trains – so efficient and clean and well organized… just easy
• People speaking German – even though I don’t understand everything, it’s not a foreign language to me anymore.
• Music and culture – it’s everywhere – walking through Frankfurt to come across children’s music classes outside the cathedral in amongst some old ruins, for example (I especially love the boy climbing the wall!)
  
  

  

  
  
  
• Cheap hotel rooms with comfy beds and incredible breakfasts
• Drinking beer on the street in the afternoon

It will be interesting to see if I feel the same way about The Netherlands.

Books On Tour!

Those of you that are sick of ploughing through my book reviews will be glad to know that I've decided to move them to a different blog. They can now be found at

www.booksontour.blogspot.com

From now on, the travelling piano will be just about the travelling and the gigs that I'm doing.

2 months back in Australia

Finally, I am updating this thing. It’s amazing how it just seems like the right thing to do on a long train ride in Germany. Yes, I am back in Germany after 2 months in Australia that have just flown by. It was so great to catch up with so many friends while I was back and it never felt enough. To those that I missed seeing, I’m really sorry – next time, I promise!

I managed to do so much while I was there, and no doubt I will leave some things out, but here are some of the things that stand out in my memory:

- spending 3 weeks in Perth with my friend Sarah and her newborn little girl, Bethany. I’m not one to get clucky, but this really is a cute photo of me and Bethany

- my parents’ 50th Wedding Anniversary celebrations – quality family time

- Weddings – Congratulations Anita and Mike, Nat and Tom, Nicola and Scott, Sarah and James – I had a blast at all of them and it was such an honour to be there

- Melbourne Comedy Festival – the city is so alive! Phil Nicolls, One Man Star Wars, Barry award winning Daniel Kitson

- Welcome Home BBQ in Melbourne and Perth – good food, wine, beer and great company – thanks to everyone for dropping in

- just hanging out with my housemates – you guys are the best… though that last night out was a bit surreal… (free flowing Moet will do that, I guess!)

- getting to see friends perform – Scott and Reuben in great cabaret shows, Jocelyn in the opera, Vanessa in Passion, Nick D singing Messiah, Caity doing her acoustic thang…

- hearing Australian accents all the time

- Yarraville – I miss the village already

- Cheap beer night at the Prince and Thursdays at the Commercial

I actually found it really tough to leave this time. Even though I was back for 2 months, it didn’t feel enough. There are so many people that I only saw for a short time and didn’t get to properly reconnect with. I am really looking forward to settling back in Melbourne, even though I’m not sure exactly when that will be. That place really is home for me. I felt ill packing up on Tuesday morning (and it wasn’t a hangover!) and was really nervous about heading off again. But now I am here, it is feeling right and good again and I am looking forward to this year’s adventures.

My schedule (which will be on a website at some point soon, though I have been promising that for over a year now…) is:

June: Amsterdam, Netherlands – Maxim’s Piano Bar
July: Laengenfeld, Austria – Aqua-Dome Therme and Hotel
Aug: Dresden, Germany – Ayers Rock Restaurant
Sept: Travemuende, Germany – A-Rosa Hotel
Oct: Laengenfeld, Austria – Aqua-Dome Therme and Hotel
Nov: Bolzano, Italy: Parkroyal Hotel
Dec: Dresden, Germany – Bussmans Brasil Restaurant


If anyone is in Europe this year, it would be great to see you!