We toured the north wing (Nord) first. At check in (we bought our tickets on line this morning) they tell us they are out of English maps. So, at first, it's very confusing where to go. And we don't see any audio sensors on the wall to activate our audio devices. This wing was mostly unimpressive. There was a room that had four screens and walls like a container. When the screens come on you are in a shipping container being taken off a ship. You go through the port, on a truck, and then to a grocery store shelf.
In the the experience called Voyage at Sea, you move through five different rooms. In room one you simulate rowing a ship. Room two shows projections on the walls and the on physical objects that are in the room with us. An old sailing captain gives orders to his crew loading his ship. We moved to a large oval room with 360 degree projections of various boating scenes - Olympic sailing, 3 masted ships in the harbor. Next room was projections and also a peppers ghost presentation of a girl in a ship’s cabin and then she's being rescued after the ship is sinking. Finally, in the last room, we see all these people on a dock that we are sailing to. Each of the 20 people in our group is pictured rowing a boat toward the dock. Fade to black.
Since the museum was filling up, we decided to have lunch early at their café. Pat had a croque monsieur; Karen toasted cheese and ham.
Next, we did the other two wings of the museum. One room was maritime ships in paintings and the other was ship decorations with lots of carvings from the bow and stern.
Outside in the harbor next to the museum was a full size replica of the 1749 sailing ship Amsterdam. It was a really big ship and we saw all the normal places for eating, cooking, and storing cargo.We were here until 2 pm.
Photobombed!
We walked a ½ mile over to the Dutch Theater Schouwburg. This was a theater in the Jewish area of Amsterdam that did live stage productions before World War II. The Nazi's turned it into a collection point for holding Jews before they were shipped to Eastern Holland and then on to the concentration camps in Eastern Europe. Only the front facade and some back bricks are left of the original building.
On the second floor of the museum they had some pictures, notices, and personal letters in displays. There was a cheat-sheet that you picked up that briefly explained each of the items.
Some Jews were kept here for only a day before being loaded into a train cattle car bound for one of the German death camps. Some Dutch helpers managed to move the detainees around from the theatre to the hospital to delay their departure - up to 5 weeks.
There is a very famous Westerbork scene that all of the museums play when talking about the Jews being sent to Eastern Europe to be killed.
Outside was a memorial to the 105,000 Jews that were murdered out of the 110,000 Jews that were shipped out to Eastern Europe from the Netherlands.
Back on the first floor they had a video (with headsets) of some of the people who went through here, telling their stories.
After this it was raining again. We walked by the Jewish market (Waterlooplein) and stopped at a grocery store which turns out to be a health food organic store. We found some sugared almonds and chocolate covered almonds and some cereal to add to my very plain Special K (all sounds very healthy to us). Next to our normal grocery store I found an alarm clock with the temperature readout (I forgot mine at home). There are no clocks in our room other than the microwave and the thermostat only shows what temperature it is “set” at, not the temperature of the room.
We popped into the grocery store next door for some caffeine free Coke Zero and a couple of croissants and some ice cream. Then on to home at 4:45.
We are going out to dinner tonight with Karen's father's brother's daughter, Robin Mapes’ husband’s son and his fiance. Robin is friends with us on FB and she mentioned Derek was in town, so we texted and arranged for a dinner date with the two of them.
Dinner is at 7 at an Italian place. We arrived at Italiaanse wijnbar diVino at 6:50. Derek and Jeanne walked up a few minutes later and we had a very enjoyable dinner. Nice chat, got some recommendations for other places to visit and food to eat. She has been working from home in Amsterdam for four years now, but she is on the road a lot. Derek lived in Seattle for 8 years, developed a company, sold it a year ago and is starting the process of getting a work visa for Amsterdam. They just got engaged.
One last thing. People are stopping on our bridge today and drawing the canal. One lady did our house. I saw a second group of people find a GEO cache in the orange pillar closest to us on our bridge. They find it up inside, take it out, read it, then with their pen write something and put in back.
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