Museumn8 2006

I originally on November 5th 2006.


This is what I did on Saturday night *G*
I participated in the 7th "Museumn8" (Museumnite) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which is a great (not to mention cheap) way to visit several museums.
A coworker of a friend of mine recommended a visit to the Portugese Synagogue; she was told 1,000 candles would be lit. That sounded like something I'd love to see!
The synagogue was a small complex of smaller buildings (a little museum was in one part) semi-surrounding a large building that is the synagogue. Upon entering the complex everybody got subjected to a search, which mainly consisted of walking through a metal detector and showing the contents of one's bag. The security measures surprised me; surely they weren't expecting some nut to burst in to attack?
Anyway, I went to the museum first to learn a little about the Jewish Portugese community in the Netherlands.
A young man was handing out yarmulkes (is that the proper term?) at the door of the synagogue. I got one, too, which I put on... Only to find out inside that yarmulkes are for boys and men. OOPS! I figured it would seem even more inappropriate to put it off, so I didn't. Looks like I had my Yentl moment :p
I visited the Hermitage (Amsterdam's the Dutch department of the original Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia) after the incident - for a shot of vodka. I took the shot glass home as a souvenir (I was being very bad). It also exhibited a small collection; the "Angel of Death" was my favorite...
Then it was off to NEMO, which is my favorite museum in the country: can you spell hands on experience? Besides the many fun and educational experiments, the architecture of the building's also impressive :) I think it was my third visit to Nemo in three years (I think)... The museum's primarily aimed at children from age 6 or so and up, and their parents, but Saturday night showed a lot of adults gleefully participating in experiments. Yes, I admit: I love NEMO (both the animated movie and the museum, because it feeds my innerchild.
Finally, we went to the Scheepvaartmuseum, since my friends have never visited it before (they live nearby!) and wanted to check out the VOC ship, I showed them around. (Yup, I'm the one who's from "outatown".)
Anyway, it was a long night - even though the time literally flew by - and we enjoyed the nocturnal boat rides through the canals of Amsterdam by the light of a full moon :)