yesterday i started off my day at the van gogh museum. again, it was raining. my shoes are suede, all of my decent clothes were in the laundry after a week of wearing them in london, and my umbrella has come to the end of its cheap, nasty and slutty life. so i saw van gogh soaked. but that was not much of a problem. i plugged in my ipod (listening to the voice of justin vernon's volcano choir) and went through a motion of catharsis in realising that van gogh was better than i expected. and it probably seems quite boring to have read that sentence, but allow me to elaborate. we study art. we study artists. we study the who's, the why's the this, the that, but living in south africa we hardly experience it. since london and now amsterdam, i've had the priviledge to experience a lot of the art, from monet to pollock, to rodin, to rothko and then vermeer, rembrandt and now van gogh. although my moments with monet were moving and stirring, the moments with hundreds of van goghs was particularly interesting for i saw myself moving towards appreciating his saturated oil colours and brashe strokes. it was a truly wonderful exhibit. i moved on through the streets of amsterdam on my own this time. i found myself walking in circles from museumplein, to leidseplein, to dam and to the 9streets without much aim at all. i also found myself going in circles. eventually i sat myself down with some cappacino and a meal and mapped a course. i found my way to foam (a beautiful photography museum... quite hipster) and i discovered myself a new favourite - misha de ridder. she photographs landscapes quite medatively in scandanavia where she also followed a culture/tribe that lives inferior to nature, in silence. her images were beautiful, rhythmic and natural. from there i moved on back to visit vondelpark where i sat under a huge tree in front of a pond. the pond was surrounded with little pads and after a while a mother and baby duck pottered around me before three horses came to eat grass next to me with their young teenager caretaker. it was quite beautiful, to put it simply. after that i met matthew, armin and jarred at their hostel for dinner where i had some human interaction which was nice and refreshing. we ate and drank and spoke to an american about iphone aps which went right over my head.... thanks.
today i woke up and went back to foam to see an exhibit by anton corbijn who photographs celebrities in black and white. interestingly, he photographed a lot for U2 who subsequently used his images in the joshua tree album, for example. so seeing his work was lovely, i might be brave enough to mention that i might prefer it to annie liebowitz... sylvia then fetched me from there and we made way to a secret garden in the hub of the city. we had apple pie and coffee before handing in her essay in one of the many university buildings. we then walked around a bit and i looked into some nice decor shops. and now i am sitting in the rambling, modern and incredible public library. if you go to the top floor you can look right over the city. so i'm going to find a book and read. tonight we are going to the theatre as it is the holland festival which is quite exciting. pictures will come up soon.....
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