Flowers, Photography and Books

Relaxed start, but trained in to Amsterdam for midday. Lots of tourists (and there's presumably more in the main season). Bit overwhelming at first but nice streets and strolls. Overall did feel relatively touristy and there were more tourist traps than normal places (at least where we walked).

Had some frites (fries) with sauce in a cone - yum. Then continued strolling and ended up at the flower market. Pretty. Stopped at the Christmas shop (so much easier than Paris). Nice shop and some nice ornaments. Undecided yet on what we'll get. They have some ones by Jim Shore (famous-ish?) - but most are on pricey side (although better than Harrods which were pricey but average). Saw lots of the Royal Blue Dutch things - quite pretty.

Wandered over to FOAM - a photography art gallery. Bit expensive for the size but still nice - and nice having a break from the masses. Had exhibits from a bunch of young talented photographers from all over the globe, and an exhibit on André Kertész, a Hungarian photographer born in 1894 (some beautiful black and white photos).

Some of the young ones were cool - particularly an Iranian taking photos of petrol smugglers (a dangerous profession caused by low petrol prices in Iran and low employment, with demand for petrol in Pakistan high).

Also one by a Polish artist who used typical American Suburbia 1950's photos of happy people and then distorted them in humorous ways to change the meaning entirely.

Also one by a Mexican woman who felt that in the early days of photography, women were the subject of the lens versus the photographer. She also explored how the image of women were male-defined. She took the photos of these women through the ages and tweaked them to strengthen  and unobjectify them. Very interesting!

Finished up, ate sandwiches and continued walking. Found a used bookstore with heaps of levels and lots of English books. Not dirt cheap, but still fine, and great to discover the unexpected 4 levels (and with alphabetical sorting). They even had a Juliet Marillier book (Dunedin/Australian writer who went to OGHS)! Got ourselves a couple of books and went on our way back to Haarlem - train easy to use so far.

Home cooked meal for us tonight! Bolognese which was good and some real Italian wine (even managed to de cork it more or less properly).Read more