The Netherlands, day 4

The trip to Amsterdam. The soil is unstable there as demonstrated. The tilt of the red house would be much more evident if I had the shift lens to manage the damn perspective. Sigh.
I spent a week or so there in 2001, I think, when Kristina studied there so I had some clue about what is where. The guys wanted to see the Dam and all the souvenir shops in teh area around the Central Station and at that point I separated. I didn't feel like checking all the shops with wooden clogs and other crap. Nor the red-light district. Nor any other tourist crap.
I found my way to Rijksmuseum which was under reconstruction so if I understood it well, they put all the masterpieces and eye candies to a few rooms and closed the rest of the building - where one could spend ten nice days, for that matter. Well, the Night Watch is okay... but ten euros for all that?
Mom called. That she needs to get some work crap translated to English and if I can go to the internet. No, maybe tomorrow. It wasn't good enough, it was urgent, she said, and I was supposed to go and find some internet place. I told her that I'm in the Rijskmuseum and just paid the entrance fee so what the hell it is. Six lines of something. I told her to tell me by pieces and I'll translate it straight away (I don't want to see the celly bill. Hers even the less). It was something like I hereby declare that I will transport the abovementioned vehicle so-and-so to the buyer so-and-so. I had to dictate to her secretary how to spell abovementioned and hereby.... but the whole thing seemed to work. Why the hell they don't find something like the abovementioned document in some style guide, remains a mystery. I have style guides around, in case I needed to write something about letters of credit or if I wanted to send a postcard to the Queen of England... or just to write a piece of formal something so no problem to find one and copy it.
Anyhow, I wanted to go to Stedelijk which was under reconstruction and the collections were in the railway station's building which was under reconstruction so I was half lazy, half I didn't have that much time, planned to do some shopping... Thinking of it, is there some native? They were digging a huge tunnel across the whole center, metro or what it might be, are there be Olympics, did the city council squeeze a ton of money from the EU or what the hell?
The portico is inscribed Homo sapiens non urinat in ventum or Wise man doesn't pee against the wind. It's a good ecample of post-modern architecture and post-modern sense of humour, as well as the bronze lizards in the lawn across the street from that portico.
I managed to get those coffee mugs with almond tree by Van Gogh printed on it - I brought two of them from my previous stay and just a few weeks ago Dad broke one. I got a new copy of Superdutch, someone stole the first one. Bastards. Then, vaguely aiming somewhere towards the station, I walked along Leidsestraat, sort of windowshopping, plundered a few stores (the massage lotion from The Body Shop is just wonderful and works against cellulite, too. Or maybe it's that the work out after which one needs a massage works against cellulite? It reminds me that I'm fat) .
We went to see some more dunes, then. Still no orchids found.