The Gumption Blog

On Halloween (our 10th anniversary), Jen and I went to the Stedelijk Museum CS (at their temporary location in the old Amsterdam central post office building) to see an Andy Warhol retrospective.

After the museum we went into downtown Amsterdam for drinks and dinner. We saw only one person in costume, worn by the Irish bartender at a little hole in the wall bar we stopped in, but I get the feeling that Amsterdam feels a little like Halloween every night. The dinner wasn’t very good, but the milkshakes we had for dessert were excellent. The city seemed to be glowing.

For we are at the heart of things here. Have you noticed that Amsterdam’s concentric canals resemble the circles of hell? The middle-class hell, of course, peopled with bad dreams. When one comes from the outside, as one gradually goes through those circles, life–and hence it’s crimes–becomes denser, darker. [...] But you understand then why I can say that the center of things is here, although we stand at the tip of the continent. A sensitive man grasps such oddities. In any case, the newspaper readers and the fornicators can go no further. They come from the four corners of Europe and stop facing the inner sea, on the drab strand. They listen to the foghorns, vainly try to make out the silhouettes of boats in the fog, then turn back over the canals and go home through the rain. Chilled to the bone, they come and ask in all languages for gin at Mexico City. There I wait for them.

–Albert Camus, The Fall translated by Justin O’Brien

Yesterday we all took a day trip to Rotterdam and walked a self-guided tour through the city. We traversed the Willemsbrug (nicknamed The Golden Gate of Rotterdam) and the Erasmusbrug (a monstrous drawbridge) and ended it at the Kunsthal Museum where we saw exhibits by Jean Tinguely, Robert Knoth, and Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen.

Rotterdam is by far the most architecturally interesting city I’ve ever seen. They seem to take it as a point of pride to take risks by creating buildings that are unique and add character to the skyline. With the constant construction going on, I can’t wait to come back and see what it looks like later.

Today we ventured into the heart of Amsterdam, walking and taking the trams. This picture barely shows how bright it seemed after the cloudiness that greeted us yesterday.

My holiday reading is The Fall by Albert Camus. It’s actually my 5th reading, but I feel like I’m reading it for the first time. The city plays an important part in the novel and I hadn’t previously been able to fully grasp why.

I think I’m beginning to understand why a novel about the absurdity of life works so well with this bustling, compact, circles-of-hell shaped city as a backdrop. If only I could find my own Mexico City and judge-penitent barfly, my holiday would be complete.