All Ears

Sunday, June 23rd

For our last day in Amsterdam we decided to check out the Van Gogh museum. But first, because you need to know, I had a yummy apple pancake for breakfast.

 

The Van Gogh museum had Sony phones for their audio guide. For some of the paintings it would let you "paint" the colors back to what they were before time allowed them to fade. You could swipe your finger over the painting on the screen and watch the colors change. It was pretty cool.

The museum walked you through the different stages of Van Gogh's work, how he developed and what his life was like during different periods. It seemed like Van Gogh spent a lot of time practicing and refining his painting. Maybe I just don't realize or it doesn't get talked about how other painters practice and learn. For instance, the sunflower painting which is so famous, Van Gogh did many different versions of it practicing his technique and using different colors. I like that he did this, not only because it makes him seem more human needing to practice and learn, but because it means that many different museums can have a copy of the painting. It seems more fair that way.

 

 

After the museum (and a little more shopping by Jocelyn) we took a taxi to the airport. I picked up a lonely planet guidebook for Barcelona in the airport. The lonely planet guides are the best. One of Jocelyn's coworkers loaned her one for Amsterdam and we would have been lost without it. The one I got for Barcelona turned out to be great as well. Anyway, I flew to Barcelona where I walked directly out of the airport with no one checking my passport. This is so weird to me. Essentially, I could disappear in Europe pretty easily. I hopped on a bus to Plaza Catalunya. I found the apartment I was staying at very easily. I've done airbnb for several of the places I've stayed now and this was one of the best. The couple who own the apartment, Maja and Miguel, were very friendly. They had two other people staying there that night, a woman named, Monica, and a man named, Peter. It was going to be Monica's birthday later that week so they were celebrating with some cakes.

 

In addition to that fun welcome, there was a party going on in the streets. Apparently that Sunday was the festival of San Juan, the evangelist not the baptist, which marks the beginning of summer. They were setting off fireworks through most of the night. The main plaza where the fireworks were going off was couple stops before mine on the bus. Two Asian girls got off there and they nearly started crying because of the fireworks. I couldn't help laughing, because it seemed completely normal to me since most of the summer in the US there are fireworks going off for one reason or another.