Culture Queen...

This culture Queen has had such an exciting weekend in Amsterdam. So much fun! Suzy and I decided that we should become more familiar with various cultural expressions. So we planned an action-filled day in our country's capital: Amsterdam. Mostly know by foreighers for its drugs and red-light district but my dear friends, there's more to Amsterdam than sex, drugs and rock 'n roll! Here's a wee impression of this fun day!

First stop: Photography Museum. Photos are one the most powerful ways to bring across emotions. I would love to be a professional photographer. The museum just opened their new exhibition: Eye. Many different photos from various artists but all with one thing in common; no eye contact in any of the pictures. The photo on the right is the picture that inspired the owner of all these photos to start his collection. Some of the photos were so beautiful and some were just really funny and a few were just disturbing... I still have a little trouble trying to get rid of the image of Fat girl in a Bubble of a rather large naked woman trapped in an upside down see-through bathtub...need I say more... I didn't care much for the Scene of crime pictures from the Amsterdam police archives. Too brutal and bloody for me. Don't want to look at dead people for my entertainment. No thank you very much!

Then lunch at Capitain Zeppotes or something. Yummy!

Next stop: Chinese Opera! Haha. So funny! It's was the Chinese New Year celebrations and the crazy chinese people did all sorts of wacko things to celebrate the changing of the year. In case you're interested; we are now living in the year of the pig... Lots of fireworks ofcourse and we had the sheer delight of going to a chinese opera. How highly cultural it might be, we couldn't sit the whole thing out. It seemed all instruments were out of tune and I'll not even going into the singing qualities of the two geishas. But maybe I'm just not that cultured as I think ;-) to understand this expression of Chinese customs.

Next stop: Tuschinsky cinema. One of Hollands most beautiful cinemas. It's a real treat to go there and have the whole sofisticated experience of watching a movie. We went to see The Queen. I've always been a fan of Helen Mirren and now even more! She much deserved all those prices she won lately and she would be Oscar worthy. The film is very intriguing and the scenes at Balmoral Castle made my heart long for Scotland again...why did I ever leave?!

Meal stop: Beyrout restaurant where we had Libanese food. Yum, yum and yum again. Those Libanese people sure know how to cook!

Last stop: de Heeren van Amstel cafe. To end this lovely special day we went to this cafe with live music. The band That's cool! played all the golden oldies from the 70s and 80s. Bring it on!

Exhausted as we were, we made the trip home to fall asleep tired but much fulfilled with all this cultural shebang still buzzing in our heads.