Van Gogh and Anne Frank

In the morning, we took a bus tour of Amsterdam with several stops on the way including a dairy farm where the guy who makes cheese also happens to be one of three people left in the Netherlands who makes wooden clogs by hand. Now, he also has a machine, but that is only because the materials are so expensive and the demand fairly low so he has to in order to stay in business. Everyone really liked the demonstrations of how to make the cheese and how to make the shoes. Most people bought cheese and one girl did actually buy a pair of clogs with her name engraved. Then we stopped at a windmill, which apparently is one of like eight left in Amsterdam. They are so odd and old but they still work. Most of the rest of the tour was on the bus all over Amsterdam, but I fell asleep for about a third of it.

After the bus tour, we were dropped off in an area for lunch, took our picture by the “I Amsterdam” sign and then headed to the Van Gogh Museum. I really like Van Gogh since I did a report on him in third grade art class and I had to do a painting in his style. I really tried to take my time and appreciate the paintings and read all the little paragraphs next to them and went in the correct order. It was very interesting to see his different experiments and the way his extreme moods were clearly seen through his extreme use of darkness or of bright colors. It’s true that he had darker paintings except for the time he spent in Paris and a couple of other places. I think it resembled bipolar episodes, and considering he was in a mental institution for much of the time he was painting, that makes sense. There is a painting of almond blossoms that he painted for his nephew after he was born and I got a small puzzle of it for my nephew. But after two and a half hours, I was done with the museum, so I hung outside in the park for about an hour and then we went back to the same area as the night before. 

We went to the Anne Frank house, which was just as how I imagined it would be. It also seemed so odd to have a museum about the efforts to keep a family from being taken captive in a city that is such a good place now to take captives who are to be used for sex. It was quite a realistic ending to our stay in Amsterdam though. 

Since there were more of us this time, the few that were there the night before were kind of showing the others around. We ate at some bar where the waitress was actually very nice and seemed to have at least a little sense of pride in her work. In fact, Amsterdam has had the best service on this trip, but it still does not really make up for the fact that the red light district is just a few miles away at any given time. I understand that it is an attempt to control things that will probably happen anyway, but it is a very bad attempt. Prostitution will not be stamped out, but it can be minimized, and to me, the red light district is just a signal that they have quit fighting crime and started becoming part of it.

Anyway, as for a last night, this was not so bad. I’ve experienced some odd things on this trip and I have learned a lot, and hopefully one day I will be able to see more of it and even come back to these same places.

The Hague

We loaded up the bus and made our way to the Netherlands. None of us really knew what the Hague was or what was in it. Since it has “the” in front of it, at first we thought it was separate from the rest of the Netherlands, but it is just another city. It is the governmental capital of the city while Amsterdam is another type of capital, which I am not sure why. But while we were here we went to go see the Peace Palace and went inside the school of international law for a lecture. It was very informative about the different organizations inside the Peace Palace, including the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. It is usually said that these courts are not effective since they only see about four cases in a year, but they are usually very important cases that will be used as a basis for many other court decisions around the world. I thought it was very interesting that the decisions meant anything at all. The UN does not really have any power besides kind of threatening members with economic sanctions or fines (which they will not do if you are already in bad shape), but still people adhere to the rulings because they want to be a team player.

Anyway, some people were disappointed we did not get to go into the court itself, but I thought the lecturer knew enough about it and we were already in a building next to it, so it’s not like they didn’t hear the same things they would have heard, they just wanted to physically be in that space. We also did not get to go inside the Peace Palace itself, but I was not expecting to. After the lecture and stuff, we sat outside eating ice cream and decided the key to world peace was in fact ice cream.

After the Peace Palace, we took a short ride to Amsterdam and went to our hotel and then to dinner. Dinner was pretty good, and the town at this point seemed very nice compared to what everyone was expecting it to be like. I think by now that Amsterdam has realized that most of the world thinks poorly of them and they try to make up for it when people visit. I hung around the town center and walked up and down the endless canals. There were still a lot of the same shops as in the other cities, but there were also those infamous coffee shops and lots of little tourist shops selling clogs and windmills like they had no idea about any drugs or prostitution anywhere near the city. I almost got run over by a few trams, but overall the city felt much safer than I thought it would. There were so many people around that it was hard to feel unsafe anyway, but I looked inside a coffee shop and they wouldn’t even let me see through the window long without showing them my ID. The short glimpse I got actually seemed pretty normal of a café except there were tubs of weed on the counter with all sorts of weird names. It seemed like a hoppin town but I with all the options, I don’t think I would choose to go back here before many other European cities.

NATO and Bruges

So, we finally got to go somewhere that is an international organization with security. And it was a good thing they did also. There were generals and high ranking military men everywhere inside NATO for some big meeting. This was also a lecture style learning experience but the first girl who talked was American and she was serious and she knew what she was talking about. It was by far the most informative hour on the trip so far. She mostly talked about how NATO works, how it is set up, and what the consequences are for actions taken against one of the members. The next guy was supposed to talk about the different partnerships that NATO has, but he was boring and I pinched myself to stay awake and it still didn’t work. Overall, NATO was much more serious and it was probably the only place where they really knew what they were doing. As far as international organizations go, this is the only one with real power since it is on the military side and since it is a treaty and not something with ever changing policies.

In the afternoon, we drove to Bruges, which is a small, picture perfect town that has all the old buildings and streets and canals just as they were before World War II. Apparently the town was too poor and medieval to bother restoring it after the war, so it stayed the same until like the 60s when it was revamped and all the abandoned buildings were filled with billionaires and designer shops. So now it is the best tourist attraction for people who want to pretend like they are in an old time, simple, European village while still spending tons of money on posh clothing and antiques. I thought it was beautiful and it did seem as if the town was friendly, but I really did not like the fact that it had all the same shops we saw in London, Paris, and Brussels. However, I did have an awesome waffle with chocolate and strawberries on it. And in one of the town squares, there was a carnival set up. I went on this huge ride and does very large flips with a car that also flips on the end. It was awesome, and when we were at the top, if it flipped upside down, we actually got a great view of Bruges.

After exploring for the afternoon and night, we headed back to our hotel in Brussels. Everyone was packing up, kind of, and we ended up watching Commando on some Belgian TV channel. With all their weird game shows and stuff, Europe still sees all the Hollywood movies and listens to mostly American and English music. I understand in the cases of less developed countries where there is not opportunity for many people to  devote themselves to the arts, but I thought it was funny that Americans study Europeans in historic art, but the Europeans look to the US for what we would consider the widely used modern artforms of film and music.

Brussels

Brussels a;kd

Today, we went to the European Commission to learn more about the how the EU is structured and how it works. It was mostly a lecture inside of the building. Once again, just like the French Senate, there really was not any security, just sliding glass doors. The lecture was ok, but we did get to ask questions for quite a while at the end and it was much more useful of our time. This guy was clearly more for giving the European Union more power than the French girl was.

Later, we started a tour at the same place we went to dinner and walked around all these tiny, stone streets until we came to the peeing boy. It is the biggest tourist attraction in Brussels and no one knows why. Personally, I think it is hilarious, but I am not sure why so many people go to see it. The weirdest part is that the people of Brussels also do not understand it. They don’t even know what it is from or for. Apparently it’s super old but they still mess around with it and give it different outfits during the year. Now, he is in a Barcelona soccer uniform. I got the feeling that Brussels finds it amusing that people come from all over the world to see what their home town and of the things that Belgians take pride in, none of them are sought after as much as this fountain of a boy peeing in a puddle. But hey, if it brings in money to the city, who can complain?

Next, we went on a bus tour and went all over Brussels. We saw everything and anything that may have some historical or political meaning. Then, we went right back to the same place we had started. I did not think at first that this could be the actual town center since it seemed so small, but by now I think I am starting to realize just how small Europe really is, even down to the cities. They just don’t have room in the cities because they are so old. Anyway, we said goodbye to our funny tour guide (Kylie Frisbee even gave him a kiss on the cheek) and we were free for the night. I kinda just wandered around a lot and tried to take in the town. Brussels is more what you would imagine Europe as when you aren’t thinking of Britain, France, or Spain. I always think of these tiny countries as basically just big cities that might as well be one country called Europe. However, I do not think that would actually be a good idea, unless it somehow excluded Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and most of southern Europe (which in my mind is just Mediterranean). But if Belgium and the Netherlands were suddenly one country, it really wouldn’t change much. Again, off track. We visited Delirium, which has the world’s largest selection of beers (over 3000), or so they did. I tried to order an Egyptian beer to be fun and the bartender said it was out. So I ordered the other Egyptian beer and they were also out of it. Then he suggested that I order a Belgian beer and acted offended that that was not my first choice. I ordered a sour beer which I actually thought was good since I hate the bitter taste and this was so sour that it was almost like a candy. Everyone else who tried a sip from my cup hated it though. So I guess I will probably never like beer, just how I don’t like coffee or tea, since this was the largest selection in the world and I only found one that was alright.

When we headed back to the hotel, the plan was to go to a karaoke bar that we had clearly heard from the parking lot of the hotel. It was on the second floor of a tiny casino next door. I was going to try to get to the casino, but I could not even find an unlocked door though it looked like the machines were on. Then, making it more sketchy, the bartender told us that we could do karaoke, but as soon as the Chinese regulars came in, we had to leave and let them use the machine and we were not allowed to watch them use it. Pretty sure it was the Triad. We decided we didn’t care if it was the Triad because after all, they are an international organization and that was what we were studying. But really, they kicked us out right before 10:00 so there would be no sign of us even being there. So sketch.

Parisian Senate and Brussels

We were supposed to go to UNESCO since we are “studying” international organizations and all, but they were not in session and we could not get someone to show us around, but apparently getting into the French Senate is a breeze. Really, the only security was one metal detector. I guess there were not actually any senators there, but we got to see everything and they even let us sit in their seats. The whole place used to be a palace, so it is very ornate and very beautiful. Especially the gardens outside, which seemed to be open to the public. The girl who gave us the tour had been to some school in the states and knew what most of our questions would be before we asked. We talked a lot about the French attitude about the EU and problems that most of the countries in the EU were facing. I did not know it was so hard for young people to get a job in Europe. In France, 25% of their young people (graduates) are not employed, so they go back to school on the government’s tab and just make things worse. Education is necessary, but not everyone should go to grad school and obviously it is impossible for everyone to have a job where that is required, let alone any job at all there.

After the Senate, we got on the bus and made our way to Brussels. It was not very far, especially for travelling to another country. We dropped by our hotel, which was very far from the center of town and near what I would describe as the fairgrounds even though the only fair to be held there was the World’s Fair in the 50s. That’s when they made the Atomium, a model of an iron crystal unit cell. I just took a final for the materials class that covers this sort of thing and I made sure to tell everyone all the boring details I knew about such crystals and their uses. Anyway, we headed to dinner in a town square and had some chicken and fries and beer. I generally do not like beer and this was not really an exception. I have tried enough different kinds to know what I dislike less, but when I ordered, the old man waiting our table told me I should not have the dark beer unless I was not planning on walking later. I made pretty clear that I was offended but then gave up and went with the one everyone else ordered. Then I saw him grab four glasses from behind the bar and figured out that he just didn’t want to bother pouring a new glass since these were ready. That made me feel a little better about him calling me a lightweight, but it also made it clear that the service in Belgium would be no better than France.

After dinner, most people headed back, but a few others and I decided to explore. Pretty much, Brussels really is just about beer, chocolate, and waffles. Everywhere we walked, that’s what we saw, not that I’m complaining about chocolate and waffles. As we were walking, we came up on this square with four huge buildings, which we later found out was the city hall. We went to random chocolatiers and waffle stands until we found ones that seemed very authentic. Both were very good and I am glad that we stayed. The way back was quite far. The subway was actually very nice, but the station was more than a mile away from our hotel on a street called Einsteinsweggerstratt. It was an adventure, but I would have probably paid the extra to have a hotel closer to a station or at least one with food. The kitchen would refuse us any food, but luckily for a large portion of the group, they did not refuse them alcohol.