Groceries, market style, and the Jordaan

We spent the morning in the Van Gogh museum, and aside from the long and slow line to get in, and the long and slow line to get our bags back from the coat check, it was an interesting museum. In addition to some of the famous Van Gogh work such as one of the 5 sunflowers and a few self portraits like the original of this one, there's some spectacular original Toulouse-Lautrec works (including the original of the famous poster, which is like 4' x 8' in size), plus a few Monets, Manets and Seurats. There's also a lot of folks with headsets on walking aimlessly, stepping on your feet and getting in each others way.


We picked the Van Gogh museum as it was near Amsterdam's largest permanent street market, the Albert Cuypmarkt. Part of the concept of "a month in" a place is to shop like locals, and that to us means markets. Turns out that Saturday is the big market day. We tried to go to a market yesterday (Marqt, down on Overtoom); turned out not to be a market but was in fact a really expensive grocery store, and Sunday basically all the street markets are closed. So we did most of our shopping today in the Cuypmarkt, including fish...

Tuna, €3/100 g, swordfish €1.85/100 g

...cheese, fruits and vegetables, flowers and even hand soap.


After groceries, we went on a walking tour of the Jordaan. We saw drawbridges and urinals together...

Foreground: public pissoir. Background: drawbridge

...old houses...

From 1648, when it was used to support street people

...and houses that lean. A lot.

The upper half of this house must lean 5° to the right

One of these two isn't straight at all. I think it's the old one

...and the house where Rembrandt died.

Now a Japanese furniture store. Fitting.

Not in Japanese

One of the things I have wanted to see since arriving here is the hoists on a house in action. We saw one today. Some nice lady was getting a sofa delivered, and it went in the 2nd floor.

Prepping the ropes

Up she goes

Half way

Orient it to get it in the window

And in it slides

It wasn't a pleasant day, weather wise. It rained this morning and drizzled this afternoon on and off, and it never broke 16°. The choice of the museum was a good one.