Just got back from my first adventure beyond the borders of Amsterdam. Here are some highlights and photos:- Watching a series of five modern windmills come forward on the horizon. At first, they seemed to be in a straight line, then, as the train got closer, they looked like they were clumped together, and then, as the train moved, they moved apart again. And the coolest thing was that each set of blades moved separately, but each one was perfectly timed to the different tempos of "Blue Rondo A La Turk."
- The number of statues in Brussels freaked me out. Seriously. From every major art movement and of every major event for hundreds of years. I was amazed at the amount of Art Nouveau next to modernist next to baroque next to neo-classical and mixed in with overblown ornate architecture next door to Bauhaus and post-war architecture. It wasn't beautiful, but at the same time it was. It functional despite the form, which is a whole conversation for another time.
- I took myself out to dinner last night and used my peu du conversational French for the first time in a long time. Unfortunately, I stopped reading after "risotto avec champignons" and didn't bother to translate "y foie de boeuf." It wasn't bad -- I would for sure go back just to try more of the food.
- The art museum is fantastic. They had three Chagall’s in one of the galleries, including "Clair de Lune." I sat on a bench opposite from it, played Debussy on my iPod and stared and stared. And then I wandered around the surrealist gallery listening to Tom Waits.
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