Rotterdam

Went down to Rotterdam with Leslie's morphology class.....completely different than Amsterdam, due partly to WWII bombing and subsequent urban renewal I would guess.

Rotterdam is about 40 miles from Amsterdam, yet it seems farther away to me. Probably because I don't have a sense of the scale of the country yet. 

I do know that the "sprinter" train makes the return run from Rdam to Amdam faster than the 1hr:10 min trip down here. An as an added bonus and in spite of the fact we shouldn't even have been on the Sprinter, a bunch of Motorhead fans got on at the only stop, Schiphol airport. Heading in to the big city!

The Netherlands is not big, about the size of Maryland. The nation would easily fit into Mississippi, which would be a culture-shock of epic proportions.

Consider:  What if you shrunk America down to the area of the Netherlands? Birmingham to Atlanta would be 3/4 of a mile. Think about it.

They don't make this in Florida!

Stinging Nettle Cheese! When I first saw it my immediate gut reaction was fear, and an odd tingling in my mouth. Floridians (Richard, Ginny, Tom!) on this blog will no doubt have a similar reaction if you grew up with stinging nettles. Sandspurs were really bad but stinging nettles were a close second. There was nothing worse than being lashed on the arm or leg with either one of these deadly weeds.  

But the cheese was good. I guess Dutch stinging nettles are kind of wimpy.....

 

HandCam.....

....similar to ButtDial, only without the embarrassment, plus you may get an 'artistic shot'....

 

art culture on the skids

I haven't had a chance to go to any museums until Sunday. We went to the Stedelijk Museum over on the Museumplein (no surprise there). Leslie had already been as part of a class project. The museum has one of the best collections of modern art in the world, and a recent building addition (known around here as the bathtub) has enhanced its reputation. Looks a lot like a nice Kohler product doesn't it?

Inside we saw some 'normal' modern art like Picasso and Mondrian (yawn), and even some Rietveld [Google It!] furniture (would be a very difficult IKEA assembly).

However, in the basement gallery we saw the 'good' stuff- a curated exhibition of Seth Siegelaub, one of the key players of early conceptual art in NYC- who knew?. Now we are talking about some awesome art people.

Like: where's the pit?

and like:  the wall cast a shadow on the blank gallery wall; a hand cast a shadow of the hand on the blank gallery wall; where is a hand?

Awesome stuff to be sure, but wait, I forgot that there was more contemporary stuff on the 2nd Floor! Queen Nefertiti getting ready to do the lawn!

 
Leslie contemplates ears!