Leiden is a very pretty town close to Amsterdam- everything is close by here. Antony and I visited the Rijksmuseum van Ouhedon *edit: Oudheden* (aka National Museum of Antiquities) which had a lot of historical stuff ranging from the stone age in the Netherlands to the Romans to the Greeks to the Egyptians. They also had a pretty neat exhibit on Nineveh and the Assyrians and they drew it in with the historical writings found in the Bible.
We left around 3 and we were both very hungry. So we found a Turkish restaurant nearby which was something new to me. It tasted amazing at at first but it was so spicy! Antony finished it for me because my eyes were watering, nose was running, and was coughing. He claims it wasn't even spicy. Supper was spare ribs which was very tasty, much better than Turkish food.

 These swans were funny. They came swimming over from the other side of the canal when Antony and I came. We didn't have any food but they were adamant to get some so I grabbed some grass from the sidewalk. The one was all for it, the other wasn't buying it.

 Depiction of Jonah and the big fish

 Ancient guitar?

 2000 years and a lot of our tools still look pretty much the same.

I don't understand art. I mean, some art is really cool and I enjoy drawing and music and everything but other art I just don't understand. I went to the Stedelijk Museum today in Amsterdam which is an art museum highlighting art from the 60s to now. They had everything from videos of books being  ripped page BBY page to dumpsters full of broken paint canvases to giant foam feet. I really struck by how pessimistic so many of the pieces were and some really don't like America. And I had chosen the contemporary art over the ancient art museum in hopes to avoid all the naked Greek statues and stuff, but I think this museum was worse in that aspect. They even had a video of a naked woman playing nonstop in the restaurant. So some of it was rather disheartening but I did get a good laugh out of it.
The rest of the day I basically just curled up with a good book. Aunt Jean has been doing her best to get me into shopping as well though. Yikes! I think I have a serious case of shopping-phobia.

 You had to climb this uplifting staircase to get to the next exhibit.

 One guy sat looking at this painting for a good 5 minutes. I was more interested in the Daniel Boone raccoon hat he was wearing- never thought I'd see one of those in the heart of Amsterdam much less in an art museum!

Made from dried milk and honey, this is supposed to look like a map of the USA, depicting a culture of mass consumption. 

The view on your way down the aforementioned staircase. Also very uplifting.

 Trash cans and lava lamps, man I should be an artist!

Truer words were never spoken

This display got a room all to itself. I really thought it a "lost and found" corner but it's a full-blown art display! A dirty sweatshirt and the words "laws are straight" I do have to wonder if some of these artists are serious or if they just had junk they wanted to get rid of so they labeled it as art and somehow convinced people to buy it.

Antony played tour guide again today. We went to Marken first. It was a quaint fishing town right along a giant freshwater lake that was once a salt-water sea.  They also had a lighthouse that we had to walk like a mile to reach, should've been counting my steps today. Then we traveled further up the lake to Volendam which is a VERY touristy town also right on the water. We had fish for dinner, and Antony and I got our picture taken in traditional garb. We continued on to Purmerend which had a cool bridge. And finally we went to Zaanse Schans which was also very touristy but with good reason! They had a cool museum on the area and the history of the windmills. Outside they had a whole row of working windmills.

 Isn't Antony so cute!

 Above: assembly line for chocolates
Below: assembly line for biscuits

 Which side is sky and which is water?