Amsterdam -- Part 5

What a week!  By Friday we were a bit road weary and were looking forward to heading south again.  For our last morning in Amsterdam we visited the Rijksmuseum, the museum of art in Amsterdam.  (Amsterdam has probably a dozen art museums and I wish I could have seen them all, but a choice had to be made.)  There were, of course, many breathtaking pieces of art and history.  I saw Vermeer's The Kitchen Maid, which is probably my favorite of all the masterpieces he painted.  We were also able to experience the grandeur of Rembrandt's The Night Watch. It was a very nice final scene on our great Amsterdam Adventure.

Not that Sam will remember this experience, but he seemed to enjoy it at the time. 

The other great achievement of the day: Sam finally broke his first tooth through!  Boy were we all relieved to finally see that little pearl!

Amsterdam -- Part 4

Day four of our trip was spent not technically in Amsterdam, but at the Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse, near the western coast of the Netherlands.  It was a day of delightful and extraordinary flowers.  Words cannot even begin to do justice, so I think I'll just show you a bunch of pictures.  I think we took over a hundred because we just couldn't help ourselves.

Bored yet?  Here are some more!

Just as this picture was taken, Sam achieved his biggest goal of the day: he managed to grab a flower and rip it apart!

I loved how some of the flower beds were mixes of all kinds of flowers and others were composed of only one type.  It was an amazing experience to walk for miles among some of the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen!

Amsterdam -- Part 3

Sam is still awake this evening, so we'll see how much I get written before it's time to be 'mom' again.

Our third day in Amsterdam was another full day.  We started with the National Maritime Museum where we got to wander around a replica of the type of ships the Dutch East India Company actually sailed the seas in.  It was early enough in the morning that all the field trips of school children had yet to arrive so we had the ship mostly to ourselves.

Jerry and Sam at the helm

 It was fascinating to stand on the deck and actually see all the rigging.  Somehow, all the pictures I've ever seen in movies and books were unable to convey exactly how much rope it took to guide and control a ship.

Sam in a bunk bed in the ship

Me

Sam on deck.

The rest of the museum was amazing.  Their collection of antique globe sets were so interesting to compare to each other.  As more information about the world was gathered, the maps and such evolved to incorporate it.  Also, did you know that globes were originally produced in pairs?  Terrestrial (land and water) and Celestial (stars and planets).

After the Maritime Museum we decided ride the train to the lovely city of Haarlem, just 15 minutes outside of Amsterdam.  It was important to me to go there in order to visit the home and now museum of Corrie ten Boom.  I must say, the ten Boom house felt much more real than the Anne Frank house.  I have read Corrie's book about her family's experience during WWII, The Hiding Place, many times.  Each time I am again amazed and inspired by the faith of this family.  They truly did not fear what man could do because they knew they were on the Lord's side.  The museum is furnished as it would have been when the ten Booms lived there, which gives the whole place a feeling of being stopped in time.

Outside the dining room window with the Alpina Watch sign (it was the 'safe' sign to other underground workers).

Sam in the actual hiding place.

While we were waiting for the tour of the Ten Boom Museum, we wandered toward the city square a few blocks away with the idea that it would be neat to see the church where the ten Boom family often worshiped.  This is what we were greeted with:

St. Bavo's is one of the most incredible cathedrals I have ever seen.  It cost a few Euro to go inside, but it was so worth it because there we got to see all of this:

Mozart played this organ when he was 10 years old

It was huge!

 See how the paving stones on the floor are roughly the dimensions of a person's height and width?  And they have holes near one end?  That's so that they could easily pull them up and bury people in the church itself.

The main pulpit

The main structure of St. Bavo's is about 500 years old and took 200 years to complete.  Just for a moment, imagine what that actually means.  Imagine you are a stone mason working on this cathedral.  It was in the process of being built before you were born and it will continue for many more decades after you are dead.  Perhaps you will see the outer walls grow by a few feet in your lifetime.  Or imagine you are the architect who designed it, knowing that you have no hope of seeing it completed.  I just have to admire that dedication and faith.

We had dinner that night in Haarlem at a fantastic little restaurant, de Wandelaar.  I had a delicious meal, of which I forgot to take any pictures because I was too hungry.  If anyone's ever in Haarlem, I highly recommend de Wandelaar!  We liked them so much that we went back the next night for dinner, too.

Coming up next: flowers!

Amsterdam -- Part 2

Tuesday morning it was lightly raining, but we decided to go to the Royal Artis Zoo zoo anyway.  We were nearly ready to walk out the front door when Sam puked his breakfast all over me.  Being a parent is such a joy!  It was back to the tub for both of us.  Even after that little interlude, we still made it to the zoo shortly after they opened and were able to spend several hours there.  In fact, we spent far more time there than we expected to!  For a park that only covers a couple city blocks, it is an amazingly complex place with lots of incredible habitats to wander around.  The environments were very clean and appropriate to the species they housed and I only saw one animal that was showing the standard caged animal distress signs of pacing and agitation.  (A pheasant.  His enclosure was near where some construction was going on.)  What impressed us the most was how many babies there were.  Obviously, the animals are not breed if they don't feel completely comfortable.  There were three baby gorillas, at least that many in a different primate habitat, a baby elephant, lots of pelicans and swans minding nests, and even more besides!

I was probably most awestruck in the butterfly house.  I know butterflies don't generally live all that long once they become butterflies, so how do they conspire to have a constant supply of breathtaking beauty fluttering around?! 

This was the look on my face pretty much the whole time I was in there.  And it wasn't just for the butterflies, even though they were the main attraction.  The rainforest plants just as remarkable as the insects.  There were orchids and a banana tree and things I didn't even know what to call, other than beautiful!  Here are a few more butterfly pictures just because I liked them so much:

The Royal Artis Zoo has some standard animals that every zoo seems to have, like elephants and giraffes, but most of their animals were ones that I had not seen before, mostly from southeast Asia and South America.  Jerry and I thought about it and decided that this is probably because of the Dutch history of travel to and trade with those areas.  The Royal Artis is the oldest Zoo in Europe and has its roots deep in the seafaring nature of The Netherlands.  It was a most remarkable place.

European vulture

Asian elephants

And now for something completely different.

As most people know, Amsterdam is the city in which Anne Frank and her family lived and hid during the war.  I knew that I wanted to walk through the Secret Annex as part of my trip to Amsterdam.  I wanted to feel the reality of her writings in a deeper way by being in the rooms where she had actually written them.  So we stood in a long line, that moved faster than we expected, and paid a few Euros for the privilege of experiencing the Anne Frank Museum.  It is a museum and not a house.  The rooms are bare except for the displays of a few artifacts that are still surviving.  I felt closest to the people who had hid there in Anne's bedroom because there are still some of the movie star pictures that she put up pasted to the walls.  I reread her book in preparation for going to the museum, and I am glad I did because it allowed me to imagine with so much more accuracy what it really was like in that small apartment during WWII.

To be continued....

Amsterdam Adventures -- Part 1

This past week has been a whirlwind of experiences, some I have wanted to do for a very long time.  Because I want to do the trip to the city of Amsterdam justice, I will not even attempt to put it all in one post.  All y'all are just going to have to be patient and get the story a chapter at a time.  Or I suppose you could just come back at the end of the week and read all about it then.  Your choice.

Sam helped me pack

Anyway.  As anyone who has ever orchestrated a family trip knows, it takes far more stuff than it should for 3 people to survive a week in a hotel.  But we did get loaded up and out and on the train without too much difficulty.  We were just starting to relax and enjoy the ride when the announcement came that our direct train was no longer direct.  Two more trains and an extra hour later we finally arrived at Amsterdam Central Station.  (A word about Dutch courtesy: until you are truly stuck, in the way, and about ready to start throwing people in front of the next train, everyone just ignores you.  No matter how much luggage you have or how loudly your child is screaming.)  We stashed our luggage at the station and, as it was raining rather steadily, decided that a tour of the city by bus was probably our best course of action.  I still reckon that it was, but that doesn't mean that we got much from the inside of a crowded, steamy bus.  Afterward, J and I decided that was the only tourist trap we were going to fall in on this trip.  It did however help us get our bearings on the city and find our hotel.

Our room, before the luggage exploded

As the weather was so unpredictable, flexibility was the key to success on this trip.  Nearly every plan we had was rearranged, but luckily nothing was left out.  For a few short days, bad weather, and a teething baby, we saw an awful lot of what Amsterdam has to offer.  In the morning, it was the Artis Royal Zoo, which was conveniently located a short half-block away from our hotel.

 To be continued....

Lace on the Rack

Because this is a blog about my life, and because I spend rather a lot of my life knitting, this will occasionally be a knitting blog.  For those of you who couldn't care less about pretty string and the magical transformation that can come of it (poor lost souls that you are), this is fair warning to clear off.  Though, perhaps if you stick around, you'll realize what you are missing and want to join the fun!

I have never before attempted to knit lace.  I have seen pictures of what other, more talented, knitters have created, and I have shrunk within myself saying, "Wow.  That's amazing.  And beautiful.  And amazingly beautiful.  And way too hard for me to do.  I think I'll stick with sweaters."  Well, no more!  I have knit lace!  And it really wasn't as bad as I had anticipated.  While I did have to focus on what I was doing rather more than usual (watching '80s detective shows on Youtube was not even an option), following the chart was not impossible and the challenge was quite enjoyable.  I am most pleased with it.  It's made of a mohair/wool blend in the Tree of Light pattern which I found on  ravelry.com.  As it is light and floaty and purple, I plan to wear it to my sister's wedding in June in Montana.  Now I just need the perfect dress to go with it!

blocking

finished!

TEFAF

On March 21 we went to The European Fine Art Fair.  We were actually able to get free tickets because of Jerry's class on Law and Art which was really nice because admission is usually around 50 Euros a person.  There was some pretty amazing stuff there, if you're into that kind of idol worship.  On the first day (the show runs for 10 days) a painting sold for 14 million Euros.  I have a hard time with the idea that a relatively small thing, that is never going to actually do anything (like feed someone or put clothes on a back), could actually be worth that kind of ridiculous money.  I have nothing against artists or art and I fully agree that artists deserve fair wages for their work, but nothing that was for sale at TEFAF was by a living artist.  I'm just saying that if the fine art market were deflated a bit, at least one country's economy could be jump-started.  But all that aside, I really enjoyed most everything I saw at the show.  I don't think I'll ever really get modern/abstract art, so I generally skipped those vendors and focused on the incredible portraits, landscapes, antiques that were on display.  I have now seen a real Monet and a real Picasso.  I saw a papyrus fragment, with startlingly clear pictures/writings still on it, from 1500 B.C.  That's right!  That fragile, flimsy thing was over 3000 years old!  Incredible!  An antique armor and weapons dealer had 2 Greek battle helmets from the time when people believed in Zeus.  Basically, if it could belong in a museum, but isn't there yet, it was for sale at TEFAF.

I really appreciated how friendly all the vendors were to us.  I mean, we had Sam with us in a buggy and we were not wearing handmade Italian suits: obviously we were not going to buy anything.  But everyone was very friendly and didn't mind that we were taking up space and time looking at the artifacts.  Of course, it helped that Sam had a big smile for everyone! 

Jerry and Sam with a BMW Art Car