A Wandering WeyrCat...

  May 5 Art Zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands In Amsterdam, there's a small taxidermy gallery with artfully preserved specimens meant to evoke a “Wunderkamer” (Room of Wonder, or cabinet of curiousities). This Art Zoo is created by a pair of artists called Darwin, Sinke & Van Tongeren (Yes, Two artists, that incorporate Darwin into their name to honor the role of a naturalist in preserving and sharing the wonders of nature). I went for the birds, and to show the boys the dinosaurs.  ‘Stan’ the replica t-rex was curled so he fit in one room, just barely. He shared it with blackened skeletons of birds, an anteater, an ape, and curiously, a purse made of lab-grown dinosaur leather.  The temporary exhibition ‘RELICS is a collection of gigantic fossils that was transformed into contemporary artworks’. A triceratops skull hung suspended over delicate coral. A mosasaurus skull stood like the globe in the middle of a giant's bone crown. There was also a seemingly un-altered Eleph...

Amsterdam is FULL of tiny, odd, museums and I finally got to take the Boys to see the Muis Mansion and Katten Kabinet .  Muis Mansion is really a dollhouse material shop, featuring huge displays of a town inhabited by mice. The repurposed cardboard, beads, buttons and bottle caps are shaped into a sprawling complex of rooms. The stars of the village are Sam (in the blue shirt) and Julia (in the pink dress). They have a sizable family and many neighbors. Of course, you can find both Sinterklaas and Santa Klaus. My favorite might be Grandpa Sailor and his big bird 'tattoo' on his sweater.  The shop offers a small Bingo Card scavenger hunt. Kids who complete it get a small coloring page (my favorite was the Museum page). AND the backside of the bingo card is printed with small items to decorate your dollhouse! Postcards, letters, book jackets, and more. You can download it from their webpage too.  The boys loved the scavender hunt, going up and down the spiral staircase a f...

The National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam focuses on the history of the persecution of Jews in the Netherlands. It opened in March 2024, to misplaced protests by anti-Israel-Pro-Palestine protestors (I later learned they were there to protest against the Israeli president , who came to the opening). I visited the week after it opened, with a bit of nervousness. First thing you notice is having your ticket checked before you can get in the lobby. Second thing is the airlock-style atrium . You have to enter the outer-door, which has to completely shut before the inner door can be opened by a second security guard. It's a MUSEUM, not a military installation. And yet, apparently there was fear it would be the target of attacks. This is the world we live in.  [The Museum makes up both the brown & white building, and the white cement building on the right. Photo from PowerTraveler ] The building itself is historic (like so much of Amsterdam). It was the The Reformed Teacher Trainin...

Straat is the Amsterdam street art museum. It features everything from graffiti to amazing ethereal pieces two stories high. It's houses in an industrial building near the port, and share a large outdoor area that's covered in graffiti and street art too! I took the boys to kick off winter vacation.  The building is known for this huge and beautiful mural of Anne Frank, reading "Let me be myself". The 240 m² mural by Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra (1).  The inside is an open space lined with double rows of enormous canvases. The looped path is divided by standing exhibits and marked by painted animal foot prints.  We took the proffered children's scavenger hunt and let it guide us. Hobbit was really taken by the scale of some of the pieces.  Their favorite part might have been this upcycled (artcycled?) wooden shed done over with string and geometric wood panels. They spent nearly ten minutes pouring over every inch of the insid...