I amsterdam

 Amsterdam, thou art rainy. Well, actually, not today. I think this is the first time I've seen the city bathed in sunlight (and I've been here twice before). I just have a little break here before my tour of the city begins, so here's just a quick rundown of what I saw/did on day one in the city!

Queenie and I decided to do the big tourist stuff right off the bat. Two museums and a canal ride! It was a busy day! We went to the Rijksmuseum first, which is home to my current favorite little painting, the stone bridge by Rembrandt. Mom bought me a copy after I fell in love with it last year. Unfortunately, it's sitting in a frame in Peru, so it was wonderful to see the real thing again. The museum is under renovation now, and has been for a while, but they still have lots of good stuff to see. Obviously, I'm a little partial to Rembrandt, so here are a couple of his most popular pieces, as well. The Night Watch is probably his most famous, and it is HUGE. I keep forgetting how big it is. And, I just found out this time around that it used to be bigger, but three sides were trimmed away at one point (I'm never very good at retaining all the details :P)

Rembrandt's the stone bridge

The Jewish Bride

Rembrandt's The Night Watch

After the Rijks, we headed just down the street to the Van Gogh museum, which was very, very interesting. He has so many beautiful and different paintings, and the museum also houses works by those who influenced Van Gogh. As someone who knows basically nil about art, it was still really fascinating to see the paintings side by side. Here are some of Van Gogh's paintings:

And guess who forgot to make use of her camera? This was the only photo I managed to snap during the whole day. It was while I was on the canal tour of the city, and I thought it was humorous :p

And I leave you with a photo from Oslo, because I have nowhere better to put it.

Enjoy!

Blinky in Oslo by Rasmu