Best Amsterdam Blog of the Year Award

...is never going to be mine, at this rate!

Well, let me dust off my winter and, in honor of daylight savings time, which started here yesterday, and resurrect Amsterzanne blog with a few looks of early spring. And, I do mean early spring. I am still wearing a scarf, gloves and long winter coat. But, the days are longer and the forsythia is frothing out, and daffodils are getting more plentiful by the day.

This is a decent capture, considering it was on the fly, of the Rijksmuseum yesterday evening. I cycle through Museumplein daily on the way to and from work, one of the nicest perks of my day. The sun was a great angle on the museum last night, and I like the current placement of the moveable I Amsterdam sign. Too bad about that daggone gray construction hut in the center. Imagine how many tourist photos that silly thing is ruining. Oh well, the price of renovation.

We are having the spring tease. Last weekend the sun shone and the temperatures were mild, but don't put that winter coat away just yet, folks. The carnival at Westergasfabriek last weekend was a great place for photos, here's a few:

Museum construction site

This is not a great year to visit Amsterdam for the museums, not if you are expecting to see the major ones. The Van Gogh is going strong, but the exhibits at both the famous Rijksmuseum and the Stedelijk are mere fractions of their normal collections as grand expansion plans are underway. One corner (SW) of Museumplein is surrounded by construction equipment and barricades, and the usual "how much longer?!" type graffiti scrawled around the temporary walls. This particular wall on Van Baerlestraat, though, is really a work of art in itself. Somebody painted what I assume are the likenesses of some of the workers on the project, and I wanted to be sure to capture it before they took the wall down.