february 26th-29th
antwerp was nice. it was snowing when we got there (you can see in the pictures). we went to the plantin museum, which had all kinds of printmaking things in it and had two gutenburg bibles from 1461. we did more walking aroudn and went to another Notre Dame cathedral. this had some big rubens paintings - the raising of the cross and the descent from the cross. lunch was at a little restaurant where we all crowded in and had some good vegetable soup and then beef stew. after lunch we went to st. charles borromeo church and chapel. from there we walked down a main street which was just modern stores - then to ruben's house, which was a little uneventful since the big parts were closed.
on to amsterdam - we got there at night and had it to ourselves. the hotel wasn't bad at all. friday we had a boat tour on the canals which was really neat. we went to a hidden catholic church inside a house. it's from when the protestants took over and cleared out the cathedrals, so they would hide the churches in the houses. it was cool - you walk up the third floor and all of a sudden there's this elaborate little church. during the lunch break we walked around the big flea market... and then i got a bagel, which i haven't seen since i got here. it was glorious. after lunch we went to the portuguese synagogue, which somehow survived the nazi occupation. all the guys had to put on yarmukles to go inside. after that we went to the van gogh museum, which i really enjoyed. they have most of his 'big' paintings there. i like him a lot more than rubens or rembrandt as far as dutch guys go (they're all dutch, right?). dinner was indonesian food at a place reserved by mme delsemme. good stuff, but i forget what it was called. just rice and different spicy meats, vegetables, and tofu. spent the night walking around the city with a couple people. saw lots of different things (to say the least).
saturday we went to the maritime museum - another winner. we toured a replica of an 18th century merchant ship and then walked around the museum, which i could have spent a lot more time in. i liked all the paintings of the dutch naval battles. the different old world maps were cool to see, too. then over to see where the first dam of amsterdam was. on that square is the town hall and the nieuwe kerk. that's where i took the picture of the kids with all the pigeons hanging out on them. from there we went to the amsterdam historical museum. either i was just really tired by then or it just wasn't interesting to start with there, because there wasn't much holding my attention. running along to catch trains and trams with madame delsemme was an adventure in itself. 35 of us hopping on these things had to really hassle people. oh well. the rijksmueum was next, which had lots of rembrandt paintings. i liked the different landscape paintings they had there (but they weren't by rembrandt). we walked around the museum park after that and then got some massive hamburgers at this tavern. walked around downtown some more at night.
sunday we got up early and went to the anne frank house. it was incredible. i'm glad we got a chance to see it. there's still the pictures she pasted on the wall there, and they have the original diary and everything there. after that we had lunch and made our way towards delft.
i really liked delft. maybe it's because it was so small and not really touristy (except for part of the main square). we had a local lady give us a tour of the city. i picked up some more little gifts for people there. there's lots of canals there and everyone's just hanging out and riding their bikes and being low-key.
monday gilbert was telling me about his father and grandfather and what they did in the war. he told me how his grandfather had actually walked from the netherlands to antwerp after he got out of prision, and then was blind for 6 months from the phosphorus bombs. his dad got caught for some other thing, and when they divided the belgian people up he went with the flemish people instead of the french-speaking ones and was able to escape. it was a really interesting story.
the rest of this week has been alright. things are picking up for the next couple weeks until break. i had an econ midterm, which was ok. i'm starting to book stuff for spring break - looks like it's going to be rome, florence, pisa, venice, and milan... maybe some other places on the way back, i don't know. we'll have to figure it all out.