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Thursday, March 22, 2012

I'm Willing to Tell You, I'm Wanting to Tell You, I'm...

Done waiting to tell you!  And good heavens, it's been nearly a month.  My poor faithful (though probably by now faithless) readers!  I made all those promises to you saying I was going to write something, and I didn't intend to be crying wolf, but evidently I was.

(P.S. - this is a picture-post, if you can only see text right now.  Keep reading, then scroll.)

Midterms were awful.  But I did well on them.  Then, I decided to have a personal crisis about whether or not I was entitled to ever enjoy myself (i.e., to travel anywhere for Spring Break) or had to restrict myself to solid studying and essay anxiety and just Brussels' libraries for the rest of the semester.  I got over that, at least for the time being.  I am in Europe for four months only once, very likely, and I will be spending only one solid semester with most of these lovely people, and sometimes I'd rather pull only one quote from a given book but spend a fabulous afternoon actually having fun (I know, shocking!) than extract a dozen quotes, only four of which I'll use in the paper, anyway, and two of which will probably be struck by the professor as unnecessary verbosity.

So, here I am, ready to share the pleasant parts of my experience and forget the neurosis and malaise of anxiety that has, on too many days, prevented me from feeling capable of any enjoyment of life-in-general.  I'm too young for that!

Would you like to see the Hague and Delft?  I loved them.  One sees why so many great painters of the Netherlands turned to genre scenes and landscapes.  The light over the canals and the Baroque-era curves of the old buildings are really fantastic, and modernity blends so well with them.  In Brussels, modern people and the nineteenth-century buildings are not in harmony.  The buildings are dirty, the store fronts forced into them, the people hurrying along with no time anymore to examine the intricate Art Nouveau details that should make these row houses all so unique.  Things are simpler and brighter and ever so much cleaner in the Netherlands, down to the very air one breathes, which sweeps in over the canals bringing a crispness that smells of wind and nature, not of cigarette smoke and car exhaust and seeping plumbing, as in Brussels.  Whoever first erroneously decided that city life was glamourous?  The British literary tradition has it right - if you want real elegance, retire to your country house and take the (fresh) air at your leisure.  It need not be a "country" house in the American sense of isolated in some barren wasteland with only the cows for company, and only a Walmart nearby to indicate any proximate civilization.  (Seriously, who shops at all those Walmarts, anyway?  You drive along through field...field...field....Walmart! field...field...abandoned house in field....field...field...Walmart! Where do all the people in the Walmarts come from?  Long-term personal query of mine.)

Sadly, posting about the Hague and Delft first will somewhat lessen the impact of my Amsterdam posts, which will appear eventually, but such is life.  They are a far more manageable number of photos and themes, so I'll knock them out now and leave you once again reading while I finish up writing about any number of other things.

Oh, botheration!  My SD card has just decided to re-upload all the photos I've taken since day one, not just the Netherlands photos!  Well, while I am writing (and doubtless breaking some sort of fourth-wall writing convention by inserting immediate reactions into an otherwise polished, past-tense story), I'll tell you about the few things I have started doing in Brussels to enjoy myself.  It has taken me fully two months, and it must be admitted that I still do not actually like this city as a place to live, but nevertheless I am beginning to expand my good times in it beyond the walls of St Andrew's church and blogging in my attic bedroom.  If it weren't for a warm welcome and a (third) church home at St. A's, I don't think I ever would have been able to stomach the idea of four months in this place.  Belgium as a whole has some quite comfortable parts, but Brussels and I just do not get along.  At best, we regard each other with cursory interest but precious little affection.  Belgians, I like.  Belgium, I like (though not as well as Luxemburg or the Netherlands or home, and frankly, nothing I have yet seen compares to Scotland!).  But Brussels, I only put up with. (And yes, Mr. Churchill and compatriots, I am ending that sentence with a "with" in the greater service of preserving the overall linguistic parallelism.)


Two Saturdays ago, I met up with friend "C.," and we had an impromptu lunch at a pasta restaurant that we happened to stumble upon while wandering about, enjoying the beautiful spring weather.  Then we set off to find an ultra-cheap grocery, which she assured me she knew how to get to.  And in the eventuality, she did indeed get us there, with quite a tour of Ixelles commune intervening.  But, in our searching, we found gelatto, so the rest of it became only so much time to enjoy the gelato before we bought our food, naturally.

Then the next Saturday, I went with two friends, "C." and "L.," to Think Twice vintage shop here, where I acquired a 1960's red linen shift dress for the irresistible price of 18 euros.  Then, C. showed us her favourite bakery, Renard or "Fox" Bakery, where I had a fabulous banana-cream-tart thingummy (that's not the French name for it, funny enough) for only 2 euros.

Texas needs more bakeries!
And, most recently, friend "M." came into town and we explored the parts of Brussels tourist culture I've been wanting to see: The Musical Instrument museum, which is cool but needs more description to make the exhibits truly interesting, and two of the most underrated Brussels museums ever, Autoworld and the Military Museum (which has a Dutch title that I cannot spell).  The former houses a glossy, gorgeous, chrome-covered collection of early-20th-century cars - enormous whales of machinery, with those glorious long, narrow hoods and swoopy fenders and hood ornaments that are classy and ostentatious simultaneously, a rare feat in cars these days.  Boxy SUV's and dull sedans and laughably silly little "Smart" cars pale in comparison to the elegance, grace, and self-assured class of these machines.  Like a good Jazz Age dandy, they know that they are sexy and extravagant, and like so much of Art Deco design, the exude a perpetual sense of modernity, even nearing seventy-five to a hundred years after the fact.  The Military Museum was very different, also poorly labelled, but there I knew enough battle and fashion history to piece things together from the under-informative French labels. The decided piece-de-resistance was a French officer's burgundy velvet saddle, which he had ridden into the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, and which the museum has left streaked at the front with blood stains from this same battle.  Creepy, yes, but...it brought the battle of Waterloo incredibly close to see the blood, to know it happened just south of Brussels, and to wonder whose blood it was?  It tossed my mind into the midst of a million possible stories, but it also grounded my thoughts.  In 1815, in the Battle of Waterloo, real blood was shed.  This is some of it.  It gives one pause, doesn't it?  Certainly this was the single most thought-provoking museum piece I have ever seen, and that's saying something since I am the child who used to purposefully get "lost" on museum fieldtrips so that I could stare at things I liked for as long as I pleased, uninterrupted by the rest of the class's shoving and the tour guide's hurrying.

Now, however, to fulfill what I have promised you for once - The Hague, and Delft.

The Hague is full of interesting things.  We were taken to see the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which brought up all sorts of fascinating conflicts about international law and state sovereignty and"human" rights versus individual rights.  If you think about it, the phrase "crimes against humanity" is actually quite vague, isn't it?  The trial itself - we saw a bit, with simultaneous translations, though the judges already spoke in English - was not nearly so fascinating as the idea of the thing.  Still, it wasn't much to look at.  The city itself, however, is!  It is a mix of 1600's, like Amsterdam, and clear Art Nouveau and Art Deco touches, along with goodness knows what all else mixed in.  It is the most simultaneously old-and-new place I have been.  The tall, polished glass buildings are shiny and vital, and convey that the Hague is important, but they abut pristine older edifices that speak to the fact that the Hague has been important for some time.

Arrival...

In town...

Behind Mauritshuis museum...
and Downtown.


(Goodness knows where, the Hague - I think.)

Best of all things indoors in the Hague was the Mauritshuis museum, which has all the great Dutch masters I hadn't already seen in Amsterdam.  Girl with a Pearl Earring, by Vermeer, is here, and it really is incredibly fascinating in person.  People say she is far more prepossessing than the Mona Lisa.  I'll let you know after I've been to Paris and seen Madame La Gioconda, but I have a sneaking suspicion they will be right, those people.  There is something so vivid, so vital, in all of these Dutch paintings...just wait until I post Amsterdam!  Sadly, we were not allowed to take pictures inside the museum, so you shall just have to go yourself (or, well, look online, since that's essentially what you'd be doing here, anyway).  But I highly recommend the view in person!  As I was able to photograph and post, the view behind the museum is not bad, either.

My favorite building, that I saw in our short day there, at least, was actually the Department of Justice.  Clearly nineteenth-century, I think it looks like a grand house in a children's story book, with its charming spires and little iron railing atop the roof.
Dept. of Justice

D of J








































D of J
 Aside from this elegant building, we had a very enjoyable lunch of the best burger I have had in Europe yet, and some quite affordable gelatto.  Most of the hamburgers here have a very funny texture and taste, but clearly the Dutch have acquired the secret.

Moving on to Delft, now...Oh, Delft!  Such a pretty, perfect little town.  I felt like I could have lived there for four years and not minded a bit, and it surprisingly boasted two of the coolest churches I have yet seen.

I love a proper church that you know is a church.  It is a lasting sorrow of my life that Americans seem to have become content with building large, slab-sided boxes or tiny, indistinct little shacks and calling them houses of the Lord of Hosts.  When the Temple was built "for glory and for beauty," surely no one ever had to drive (or ride their donkey) past it more than once to notice it was a House of God!  Probably they noticed it for a twenty-mile radius, if not more.  Our European forbears had this down.  Even a small churches look churchly, but big ones!  Big ones are splendid monuments to the greatness of God and the greatest gifts of creativity, craftsmanship, and community that he has ever given humble man.  And, though I couldn't tell for sure, the two here seemed to still be in use, unlike the sad, beautiful ones in Amsterdam that serve now only as mausoleums to a faith that was but is no longer in that city.

First, the New Church.  The Dutch have a sensible habit of naming everything in an exceedingly straightforward manner.  Called only "Nieuwe Kerk," meaning literally "New Church," this is distinguished from "Oude Kerk," meaning "Old Church."  Street names are called after old guildhall locations or landmarks - "Wool Street," "Dam Square."  This, together with the closer visual similarity of Dutch to English than, say, French to English, makes it rather easy to navigate a Dutch map once you have picked up a few key words.  It also allows no confusion.  You don't have to wonder if St. So-and-so's is the old or the new church.  The Old Church is old, the New Church is still very old, but not quite as much.

This Nieuw Kerk was built in the 1400's, for the most part.  In the ripe young year of 1584, William of Orange-Nassau was laid in a mausoleum here.  This is the William who gave his name and color "of Orange" to Protestants everywhere, and he is still a hero in his own country for resisting the Spaniards and the Inquisition and other general forms of misguided oppression and tyranny.

Outside, statue of cheese-making

Exterior of choir



Note the central pulpit for Calvinist preaching.  The small photo above shows side pews.




The architecture here is really unique.


William's Mausoleum, in the onetime Choir/Altar area

Blow the trumpet in the new moon!  And never tell me Protestants didn't, can't, or won't build splendid church decorations.
 
Then there is the Oude Kerk.  The Nieuwe Kerk was on our list of sights, but this older gem was not, so, once we were given free time, I put it second on my list of things I must do in Delft.  

(What was the very first thing, you ask?  I bought a cow creamer, modern Dutch.  If you have not read P. G. Wodehouse's Code of the Woosters, than you will not understand how immensely self-satisfying this purchase was.  I have been dying for a cow creamer for ages, and even a plain one would have made me laugh every time I looked at it in pangs of ironic literary hysteria, but mine is classic Delft blue-and-white china, and she comes from the very place that Delftware gets its name!  Aunt Dahlia and Bertie would be proud.  Jeeves, as usual, would be unimpressed.)

Within about ten seconds of spotting the side of the Oude Kerk, I was so glad that I had made it a priority on my solitary, sun-warmed ramble through a Netherlands afternoon.  Since I was too late for any tours, I couldn't go inside, and I know very little about the building, but methinks the visual treat will be enough for you, as it was indeed for me.  However, that all-authoritative fount of knowledge, Wikipedia, tells me that the Oude Kerk was begun in 1246, and the tower added in the mid-1300s.  Several other additions continued throughout the 1300s and 1400s.  A fire in 1536 and the Delft town Gunpowder Explosion of 1654, along with general currents of Iconoclasm and Reformation, repeatedly added to and changed the shape of this patchwork wonder.  Finally, the current stained glass was added in the mid-20th century.  See for yourself, below, what wonder of architecture and light all of this comes to...
 
Exterior of choir

Clock tower!

Exterior of aisle chapel

Entrance side, across canal bridge


Tower and reflection. Note it slopes outward 2 meters.
Light effects on the back of a transept


From the front, showing at least three eras, L to R

After the canal reflection, this is my favorite shot.  Look closely - you're seeing the stained glass on the back of the church through the front window!  Also, note the blocked-up window to the left, though it isn't so pretty.
 
Finally, I leave you with two pictures that reminded me of my own native country, Texas.  The first one I took strategically, because the resemblance to the familiar made me laugh.  The second one, I only noticed after I took the shot, ostensibly of the pretty canal. 
 
So now, after this mega-post, you had better appreciate your (not so) humble blogger, who just sacrificed a beautiful, warm, sunny afternoon to share with you again her little slice of life.  (Well, don't feel too bad for me.  Tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer.  And, if you're still following me, you deserve a treat.)
 
William's Mausoleum.  Does it not look like this corner sculpture is holding a cowboy hat?
Look closely at the bridge pillar, left.  See the cow skull?  I have no idea...

Thursday, March 8, 2012

The Blogger's Progress...

I hear that you, my loyal readers and followers, are wondering where I've gone of late.  No, I haven't been eaten by fierce wild beasts, or run over by a tram, or run off to Narnia with a talking horse (though you'd better believe I'd do the last, had I the opportunity!).

No, being a pilgrim in the land called University, I've been mired in the Slough of Studying followed by the fierce Battle of Midterms, in which I was obliged to encounter the foe thrice on Wednesday and twice today.

Clearly, however, I am feeling literary, and so I shall be posting at first opportunity this weekend.  I have so many photos, and I am under directions to post a rather excellent rant (er, critical analysis) by the person whom I originally favored with said gem, and so, you have much to anticipate.  Especially if I can fix the internet at my host-house and not have to post from cafes, where they insist on my purchasing something, and everything is untenably overpriced.