Van Gogh and Haarlem

 One of the things I am loving about the Netherlands is their candy.  There is a whole company that makes prince chocolate.  I will have to bring some home for my family.  And this one actually tastes good.  Much better than the salty licorice our professor made us try.

 On Thursday, June 21st we went to the Van Gogh Museum.  This museum houses the most of Van Gogh's work in the world. 

 Yep.  That's me hanging out with a crazy master.

Pictures are totally not allowed at the Van Gogh Museum, so don't tell anyone that I took this.  This has to be my favorite work of his of all time.  Van Gogh at the time was studying the proper way to learn how to paint.  But he was really bored and just wanted to do it his way.  So he made this painting to make fun of the tradition method of painting skeletons.  I think that is one of the reasons I love him, he had a wicked sense of humor.

 Next we walked to a park that my professor called the "Central Park" of Amsterdam.  They have free concerts there.  In July a woman is playing who Prince brought on tour and tried to hit on her.  But he is like 4 feet and she is like 7 feet.  Didn't work out.  But it was totally worth the story to hear my professor say "Sexy Motherfucker".

 After the park we wandered around for bit, checking out the I amsterdam sign.  We then discovered that it is impossible to say "I amsterdam" without trying to include another "am". 

When we got home we were all exhausted.  Jet leg and all the walking we are doing is wearing us out. So of course I think almost everyone took a nap.

When I woke up I realized that I had fallen asleep on my Kinder Surprise Egg.






But don't worry.  The toy was still okay.

 The next day, on Friday, we went to Haarlem, which is a 15 minute train ride from Amsterdam.  Haarlem is a pretty medieval city.







With some beautiful buildings.

 We went to the Frans Hals Museum where the curator led us through some of their most famous works.  Frans Hals was an artist that lived in Haarlem during the 17th century.  He was known for his innovation in group portraiture.

The museum is housed in a 17th century Old Men's house (crazy Dutch socialists taking care of their old).  This is the old dining hall.  It smells amazing, like really old wood.

The museum also houses a large collection of work by other prominent Dutch artists from the time period.  This is a painting of Hercules.  Bet you didn't know he was a short fat man.

 This is my favorite piece in the museum.  It is a painting that was commissioned for the city hall.  And yes you are seeing correctly.  That is a monk squeezing a nun's boob.  There are two different ideas about this painting.  One is that the painter was making fun of the church, who was known for not always being so good.  The other is that it refers to the miracle of Haarlam.  In this story a nun is accused of becoming pregnant.  So a monk (who was trained in medicine) examined her by squeezing her breast to see if milk came out.  Instead wine did, proving her innocence (or that she was just a huge lush).  If you think that miracle is strange, you should hear the miracle of Amsterdam which involves a guy throwing up in church.

The only reason I wanted to show this painting of Adam and Eve is for this close up.













It's a monkey hugging a cat!

Next we went to the Great Church of St. Bavo's of Haarlem.  It dates from the 14th century. 

 Here's an interior shot.  I have only been to two Gothic churches and already they are kind of starting to look the same.  Luckily this time we got a tour guide who told us some awesome stories.

 This is their organ.  It was designed by Christian Muller and has 5068 pipes in it.  At the time it was the biggest in the world and was considered by Muller to be his greatest work.  Apparently Mozart also played it at the age of 12.

This is the bread bank where the poor were given bread.

You can still see the scarring from the knifes from 100s of years ago.

There is even some graffiti that is dated 1626. 

 The church used to be used as a corridor between the markets.  The doors would be left open and people would just walk through.  But so did the dogs.  So the church hired people to be dog sweepers to get the dogs out of the church.  However, they had to know the dogs because they couldn't shoo out any of them who belonged to the rich people who donated to the church.

 The choir of the church is surrounded by half walls with spikes on top of them.  They were put there to stop people from climbing in.  And yes, they are still really sharp, not that we tried.

The floor of this church was also covered with graves.  The guide lowered a lamp into one so we could see how huge they were.  No, I did not see any bodies.

The Catholic in me prevailed, so I decided to light some candles for my Dad.  

We finished up with a little food.  I now officially love mayo on my french fries.  It was then back on the train and home where I again crashed.  I have Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off to explore the city.  If this wind slows down I think I might try to hit to zoo or take a canal tour.