Final days in Amsterdam...

    On Monday Carson and I decided to check out Rembrandthuis and Rembrandtplein. The Rembrandthuis was pretty interesting in that it was not so much a Rembrandt museum but a recreation of his living space. It was a true to form Amsterdam house in that it was multiple narrow floors with plenty of steps to be enjoyed. Each floor had a different feel to it. The first floor was reminiscent of a showroom. Involving a sort of gallery space with paintings for view and for sale by Rembrandt and other artists. Also on the first floor was a room for entertaining and sleeping. As you went up the stairs we got to see more of his personal living and workspaces ranging from his bedroom, a printing room, a painting room and a room for his collection of inspirational and referential objects. There were not many paintings or etchings by Rembrandt in the space but that is not to say what was there wasn't good. The prints by Rembrandt as well as other artists were impressive. Being able to compare his style to the other artists was pretty much the highlight of the visit. This allowed viewers to see and appreciate traditional clean crisp etchings in comparison to his more free style approach. 
    Tuesday was the 'big museum' day for us. We had planned to spend the whole day in the Rijkmuseum at museumplein. Much to our disappointment  the Rijkmuseum is being worked on, therefore more than half of the collection was not available for viewing. What we did get to see was of course beautiful and worth a visit but we knew it wasn't everything. Taking time to look at the museum books in the gift shop we got an idea of what we were missing. I must say though, its just another reason to come back to the lovely city of Amsterdam. Rijkmuseum also does not allow photos so I won't be sharing any with you here. Lovely paintings, great sculptures, great etchings, wonderfully crafted metal pieces as well as woodworking. 
    Since the Rijkmuseum didn't take as long as we had estimated we headed over to the Stedelijk Museum. The Stedelijk is a modern and contemporary art museum also located on Museumplein. Lucky for us... we also missed out on some of its work due to areas being closed off for installation. It had some interesting work and some not so interesting work but I guess that is to be expected since you can't always like everything. I will say one surprise was that they had a section of contemporary jewelry on display. One artist I recognized right away was Andi Gut, the professor I met with in Pforzheim Germany a few weeks ago. Following the jewelry display was a selection of design, mainly chairs. Of course we both spotted the Eams and Bertolli pieces that they had, seeing as they connected to Cranbrook and all. 
    After we left museumplein we decided to get an argentinian steak since Jelka suggested we try them before leaving the city. I must say, it was worth the money! I am a fan of steak and these were good steaks for sure. Seeing as we had an early dinner we also thankfully missed the rush of the dinner crowd. Funny thing about an early dinner though is... we then had a late dinner at Burger Meester. So much food, but it was all so good. 
    This morning Carson left pretty early so I went back to sleep for a while before picking up some groceries for today and tomorrow. Spent the day packing and doing travel prep since I leave Amsterdam in two days. Friday I will head to Nijmegen for the Marzee show this weekend. While I am there I will meet with Monika Brugger and then head off to France on the 9th. To say the least I am very excited to see the graduate's show at Marzee and to head off to France for the final stretch of my trip. Tomorrow will be a pretty chill day. I will keep working on this little project I have started and perhaps head out one more time to take in the city.