Wednesday May 15 - Amsterdam again.

Left a little later and went to the station via the shops, where I bought a couple of pens and some medication I'd forgotten to bring. The supermarkets here have a much wider range of pharmaceuticals available than ours, so I didn't have to try and find a pharmacy.

The train schedule is a little weird -- sometimes there are two in five minutes and sometimes you have to wait for a quarter of an hour. The time of day doesn't seem to make a difference. But today was fairly quick and I was soon off to the NeMo science museum.

This is a striking building out on an articifial headland built over a road tunnel under the big river Ij. According to the canal tour guide, the architect decided to create a structure which mirrored the size and shape of the tunnel, only above ground. But the reason why anyone would have thought this was the best way to design an interactive science museum escapes me. Perhaps I wasn't listening to that bit.

Anyway, I got to ride the other subway line; then I had to find my way up to the waterfront through the eastern side of town. This is quite a pleasant place, and relatively untouristed, but there is quite a lot of traffic along the waterside. I had bought some postcards, so I got stamps at a Spar Supermarket cum post office, but when I asked the girl behind the counter where I could actually post them, she couldn't help me. 'There were post boxes around here, but they took them away', she said, gesturing vaguely. 'I'm sure there are some somewhere!'

And there are, but they're not obvious and you need to go to a special website to find them. Which I did, later on.

Then I joined the groups obediently crossing bike lanes, and car lanes, and tram lanes, at the lights, and walked up to the museum. It was just after opening time and it was filling with noisy school groups from the bottom up, so I started at the top and had a coffee on the open roof -- which has great views and some solar-powered exhibits to play with -- before working my way back down.

All good fun -- some of the exhibits a bit dated and a very few not working, but very impressive on the whole. And all good-humoured. There is even a sex exhibit for twelve-and-overs, and a booth where they can practice French kissing with huge hand-operated puppet tongues. They have gears, and lights, and a hand-operated lift which you can raise and lower by turning a wheel, and lots of hydraulic stuff, as befits the Netherlands.So I had quite a good time, although I was far and away the oldest person there. 

Outside on the waterfront there is a 'museum' of privately-owned boats. I guess the city makes the moorings available to the owners in return for putting a sign up describing the vessel and its history. Imagine British canal barges on a larger scale. All fully restored and working, although given the cost I don't suppose they go out very often.

Opposite these there is the Maritime Museum, in a building with a big central square -- now roofed by glass -- which used to be the armoury. The building itself is impressive but the internal exhibits are a bit sparse, and one gallery is taken up with a modern art 'installation' that didn't really have anything to do with anything.

Outside there is a very impressive replica of a 17th century warship, which you can explore all over with imminent risk of concussion on the beams and low ceilings; a coal-driven steamer, and the current Royal Barge, which dates from the 1870s. It's hard to remember that the Netherlands is a kingdom; just every now and again you get reminded. One of the exhibits shows video of the then-queen launching a passenger ship called 'Oranjie', after her family for the East Indies trade. She pushes a button but nothing happens: 'Stubborn, just like an Oranjie' says the Queen.

I had promised myself a Dutch pancake, so I went looking for one; but there wasn't much in that area, though it was very pretty, so I headed south through the residential district and arrived at the other side of the canal I'd already seen from the Zoo, There were cafes there but no pancakes, as far as I could tell, so I caught the tram across to the more cosmopolitan west side. Here I found a pleasant little place where they sold me a ham. cheese and bacon pancake for #9 with a beer, with serve-it-yourself free syrup and powdered sugar. And it was very nice.

I thought I had just time to catch the Tropen Museum back near the station, so I found the nearest No 5 tram stop and waited... and waited. It was the longest gap I had ever seen between trams, and I would have had to change anyway, so I walked up the road to a No 3 stop, and the tram was there in two minutes. This is a good way to explore the outer parts of Amsterdam -- the No 3 takes a big loop around the west and south.

Found the Tropenmuseum, which is mainly sociological and anthropological, concentrating on Dutch possessions and colonies. They are very keen on waxworks, and they had some excellent heads and hands, though for reasons known only to themselves they sometimes model feet or other joints from translucent plastic. There were two contrasting temporary exhibits at the top, one on Japanese comic culture and one on the pilgrimage to Mecca. And the usual boats and spears and figures and what-have-you. The really impressive part is the building itself -- another huge hall with galleries around the edges.

Walked to the station, home for dinner. Had a couple of beers and crawled into bed by eight. Tomorrow I will take a break from cities.