Purple ride

soooo... today its purple, which is still my favorite color! this is in the car museum in the hague, where we went the day before tims birthday. i actually wanted to go shopping that day, and that was also the plan when we left the house, but instead we went to the museum and it really took forever to get out of it again. they have nearly 250 cars!!! and even without reading all the descriptions and not staring at each one intently, it took ages to get through the museum. and yes, at some point i was a bit bored! there were just so many, many.... cars..... the highlight for me was the purple car above. its in the central hall, so i had seen it upon entering the museum already..... it was custom made in new jersey in 2008, and the back has room for a harley davidson motor (as you can see here).

the museum was about to close, but there was still time to do some lunging in front of the purple car.... :) afterwards, there was just a tiny bit of time left for shopping...... ah well, it was for tims birthday after all....

Eehhhmm... art?

at the same museum (see my last post) we also saw the above pieces. a tissue box holder, a vase and a lamp. tissue box says "love", but the lamp is a kut-lamp and the vase a lul-vase. the dutch among you immediately saw that that is pretty weird....!! anyone else..? i suggest you use google translate or something...  :) is it art? hmmm... is it weird? most definitely. would i buy it? probably not.... 

the artist is dienand christe and somewhere i just read that the thing he likes to do most is "annoying other people"... 

the museum btw is the kunsthal in rotterdam. they currently have a very extensive exhibit on 50 years james bond. im not that big of a james bond fan, but i really liked the exhibit. there are a lot of gadgets on view, as well as dresses, costumes, storyboards, etc tec. its very nicely done and it even made me want to see a james bond movie! (although we still didnt get to do that). when we were there, it was extremely crowded (while the remainder of the museum was interesting too, but was quite deserted), so much so that we eventually did the exhibit from finish to start; we actually were able to see more that way.... :)

Shadow words

a few weeks back we were in a museum and this is one of the things we saw. tim only saw the wires and said; ah no, this one is boring.... but look!! there is a mirror at the end of the wires, a lamp, and.... shadow words as a result.... who would have thought?! how do you do that? but well... quite a complicated way of writing.... :)

Armour boys

yesterday i was too lazy to post, so tim did... :) that was his picture and text, and this is my picture. we like to photograph in different colors..... the pictures were taken over 2 years ago, in lincoln, massachusetts. it was at the de cordova museum, and the soldier you saw yesterday is part of a 5-piece installation named "armour boys" by laura ford, a british sculptor. in the above picture you can see 3 of them, including the one you saw in close up yesterday. (to the far right you see tim and his father). it is no longer on view at the museum grounds, i just saw on the website. 

but... the sculpture references child soldiers and the practice of sending men and women, in the prime of their youth, to fight and potentially die in battle. the artist herself cites a film depicting the death of a Palestinian child as inspiration for armour boys, and is sensitive to the fact that children are all-too-often the unfortunate casualties of war (you can read it all here).

i do miss going to this museum! their exhibitions changed often and the sculpture park was very nice too....

Another dog

to continue with "dog art"..... heres another dog. we saw it in the museum in groningen, all the way up in the north of the netherlands......

2 artists were involved in this artwork, and it is meant as a parody on icons of american culture (in this case the hot dog). there were other artworks as well, one had something to do with plastic surgery. and another.... eehmmmm, ah, cars, i think. but this sort of sofa was the most bizarre. but so shiny and purple! i had to take a picture.....

Dutch people..

i didnt know what photo to post, so i was just going through tims old photos... then i saw this one again. hahahaha! this was in a museum, where they had a wall with this enormous picture of all typical dutch people... like the lady above. and me of course.... :P

Anatomy lesson

this was one of the sculptures in the gemeentemuseum in the hague that i really liked. its from damien hirst, named "wretched war-the dream is dead". its made of sterling silver. a little bit creepy perhaps, but at the same time quite beautiful. at least, thats what i thought. its more impressive when seeing it than here on this picture. its part of the exhibition "anatomy lesson" that now runs in the museum (on view until may 1 next year). it was a very interesting exhibition exploring science, art and human anatomy. human anatomy not only has been of tremendous interest in science, but also in art. we saw old paintings/drawings in anatomy books, but also the famous painting by rembrandt, the anatomy lesson. and then more modern works like the one above. it was really very interesting to see how people, both scientists and artists have been amazed by human anatomy from the early public dissections of hanged criminals to more abstract modern work. going through it, i learned quite a lot!

on the museum website i just read that the exhibition has been realised with the support of the pharmaceutical company roche in the netherlands. i guess there we see an important difference between science and art; this is fine for art, but would not be that ok in case of a scientific publication (for example about how well a newly released drug of the company works).

Interesting hairdo

after 2 days of absence finally a picture again. sometimes i think of just stopping the blog entirely, im a bit frustrated, and not taking as many pictures. and then i post again, and again, and then i dont what to post, and then im too lazy, and then i want to quit again.... grrrr. this weekend i didnt take any pictures, the weather has been awful. especially today it was crazy with heavy wind, rain and hail.

but the above chicken really made me laugh. their hair, i guess feathers are soo very odd!! i have never seen that before i think. not on a chicken at least, their hairdo very much reminded me of our former queens hair. you can see for yourself here if you agree with me... :D (apparently she more or less has had this hairdo since she was 18. some call it the hairdo made out of concrete)

Dutch landscape

yesterday i posted a freaky photo of the museum we visited this sunday, so now one thats a bit nicer. this was the day before the crazy storm and at one moment it was cloudy, then it was raining, and here it was sunny... this cycle was on repeat that day.

we were again in an open air museum, this time a little further from home, in Arnhem. but actually, to see something like the above, you dont need to visit a museum, you can see it in the "real" netherlands as well! arent those houses cute? as well as the bridge, and even further away, the windmill? this museum is different from the one i showed you earlier. its more spacious, and has several farms, and houses from different time periods. i dont really know which one i like better, i guess they are both very nice. this one is also nice for just wandering around in the woods (in winter thats what you can do; you cannot go into the buildings, but you can still walk around in the park).

oh, did i mention already someone finally came to fix the roof? he thought it was most likely the pipe from the gas heater. it was a bit loose, and he fixed it a bit... im still a bit hesitant to put our stuff back in that spot.....

Real doll!!

this past sunday we went to another open air museum in the netherlands. even though the weather forecast was not the best, we decided to go, as it was the last day before closing for winter (although we found out its still sort of open during the colder months, but anyways). although windy and rainy at times, there were very sunny moments too. as well as scary, when in one of the very dutch houses we discovered this very real doll! we saw it from a distance, and since she didnt move at all while we were staring at her, she probably was a doll. upon closer inspection she indeed turned out to be a doll, but i continued to wonder whether she would move, or even start to scream or something. so very scary!! i seriously wonder how many children have left the museum traumatized by this doll. this was in a sixties/seventies house, and it had the same bread and cake box as we do!! all the other items from that orange series were present as well (i didnt know there were so many, but i think we keep it at the 2 items we already have). some music was playing as well, and it was so very eerie. until we left the house i expected a sudden move....

perhaps tomorrow a more pretty picture of this museum! :)

Smoked herring

in the open air museum they smoked herring and eel. i remembered that smell and all those fishies from when i was visiting the museum years ago, and nothing has changed..... this is in the house on the left in yesterdays picture. when going home we bought one of each to bring with us for dinner with friends. i liked it less than anticipated (the fish that is), so many little fish bones and too much of a hassle to clean it all.... but it was so pretty, seeing all that fish lined up!

Dutch landscape

this is so dutch! the windmill, the water, the grey sky.... although this is a typical dutch scene that you can see around the netherlands (with a more modern boat perhaps), this is actually in an open air museum, the Zuiderzeemuseum in the city of Enkhuizen. here they recreated a typical dutch village as it existed over 100 years ago. many of the houses are authentic and were "just" moved stone by stone from their original location to the museum. the museum opened in 1983.

we went there this weekend, and it was really nice to walk around. i had been there as a kid quite a few times (at least thats how i remember it) with my mom and sister, but this was the first time i think i was there as an adult; the boat ride to the museum was less impressive than it was in my memory (and of course we had to pay for parking, grrrr). next weekend is the last weekend its open; after that it closes for the winter. everything looked so perfect and old, but not fake old as often seems to happen in such recreations of the past.

other than that, still nobody has come to check our leaking roof. luckily it hasnt been raining as crazy as the past weekend when the leak occurred, but we certainly wont be putting stuff there until it has been fixed. and thus the living room is even more a mess than it already was and im getting quite frustrated....

Het Rijksmuseum

2 days ago i showed you the pond overlooking the museum square. turning around, you see the rijksmuseum. to the left there is still some construction going on so you cannot really see how huge the building is! it opened in 1885, and was built to mainly display the paintings of the 16th and 17th century dutch masters. 

as i mentioned before, the building has been closed for 10 years for renovation (financial troubles and what not), and re-opened just a few months ago. there is a passageway underneath the museum that you can see here, which was originally built for a tram line, but that never happened. motorized vehicles were allowed until 1931. after that, only bikes were allowed. but... while the museum was closed, bikes werent allowed either. in this picture you can see how huge the museum is, and the red lines indicate the more dangerous routes bicyclists had to take while the passageway was closed. there are 2 main museum entrances under the passageway on either side of the street, and the new director of the museum wanted to keep the street closed for bikes; it would be too dangerous for especially tourists. eventually in court (!) it was decided that the underpass should re-open to bicyclists.

to me, biking in amsterdam is still a challenge! tim says im behaving like an old lady, but i never biked in amsterdam before. that, combined with not biking at all in the usa for the past 3 years makes me indeed a little hesitant at times. but.... there is just sooo much traffic! you have to watch out for cars, trams, buses, pedestrians, other bikes... then you also have to be careful not to get stuck in a tram track (im still extra carefull when crossing the tracks, and there are a LOT of them), the crazy fast scooters that are allowed on the bike path (luckily they are banned from the passageway above), and all the construction going on everywhere so that sometimes the street literally stops in front of you and you have to either bike through the sand, over shaky boards or have to take another route altogether. on top of all that, the city center is full with tourists on bikes (who clearly do not know how to bike), and people (accidentally) stepping on the bike lanes.... causing peak stress levels for someone who is used to biking in utrecht, a much smaller city, with less crazy traffic...

Museum square

we went out today and got to take some pictures! it was a really nice day, not cold at all and rather sunny. perfect weather for biking... 

here you see a part of the museum square in amsterdam, which was reconstructed in 1999. this should be a little pond, but i dont know why there is so little water in it right now! in winter it apparently is a skating rink? (i really dont remember ever seeing that. wikipedia just told me... ). there are 3 museums located at the museum square. right behind is the rijksmuseum (which is huge and was just reopened after having been closed for 10 years; its renovation cost just 375 million euros..), and then there are the van gogh museum, and the stedelijk museum. right in front you could see the famous "concertgebouw" (concert building, with its highly regarded acoustics), but that truck is blocking the view. buuhh...

in the usa we visited many museums for free, either because at a dedicated time and day each week there was no entrance fee, or because we could enter for free with our bank card. in the netherlands there is no free entrance, i think... but my parents gave us a "museumjaarkaart", with which you can visit most dutch museums for free (or a small fee) for an entire year (you do pay for the card, but if you go frequent enough, its more than worth it). so.... we went to the rijksmuseum! we saw a lot of interesting things, but not everything, as we can now easily go another time with the card....

Big blue

although several of the artworks of the "fuck off 2" exhibit were not worth watching (they merely seemed made to provoke, but not in a sophisticated way, not making you think about china at all!!), a few things i did like. i liked the above "the big blue". it was one wall, covered with plastic bags filled with a blue liquid (5 tons of it!!), and it just looked like the ocean! i had a quite irresistible urge to stick a needle in those bags, but i didnt... (some were already a bit leaky though).

the liquid actually is some sort of toilet detergent used in china, named "toilet treasure". the artist wanted to make you think about industrialization, and how something resembling the sea and/or the ocean is actually just made of... something you flush down the toilet.

this afternoon we went to a food & vintage market not too far from our place. but there was too much food, and no vintage! the stuff they did try to sell was just old crap displayed in a fancy way so that they could ask ridiculous amounts of money, just by labeling it "vintage". all the hipsters running around probably just loved it, but it made me and tim miss "our" thrift store close to our apartment in the usa...! luckily we still have several of our usa-shipped boxes to unpack with some real vintage finds for just a small price... (but first we need to make some space here! and get some cupboards etc...)

Groninger museum

last week we were tourists in our own country; we went to the north of the netherlands, to the city of groningen. its almost 2.5 hours by train from amsterdam. i found some kind of cheap(er) deal with train tickets and 1 night at a hotel. as the dutch say, groningen is in "het hoge noorden" (high up in the north of the country), so a little girl in the train asked her mom why the train was still on flat terrain, and not going upwards to get to groningen.... "noo, thats just a way of saying! the netherlands is entirely flat...!" "but you said we were going to the extreme north!" 

close to the train station is the museum of groningen, in a very modern looking building. i dont know if i really liked the outside, but i liked the colorful walls on the inside, as you can see here. this was an exhibit curated by ai weiwei and 2 others, named "fuck off".it shows art from different contemporary chinese artists, questioning and contemplating more or less everything in china today. at the entrance was a warning that some of the art could be perceived as "shocking". and some of it was shocking indeed. to give you just one example; one artist decided to get himself cut. i think the "art" was called "one meter of democracy". friends he had invited could vote whether he would have himself cut open or not, and the majority voted yes. so a cut was made over 1 meter of his body, quite deep. and pictures were shown from all steps of the process (the voting, the cutting, the actual cut, sewing it up again). it was not fun to watch and for me there was no message other than that the "artist" must have been crazy (as well as the "doctor" allowing this to happen). and like that there were many more pieces that i dont even want to describe to you!

currently, tim is working night shifts and thus has to sleep during the day. its weird as he leaves in the evening, and comes back when i just get out of bed again. it also made me realize i am much less quiet when going about the house than i thought... :)

Bye MFA...

today it was time to say goodbye to the museum of fine arts in boston. its one of the largest museums in the usa, and has its own subway stop named, ofcourse, "museum of fine arts". once someone put an F in front of arts, but that was quickly removed....

me and tim have visited this museum many, many times. sometimes we went for a special exhibit, sometimes just because we had nothing else to do. we always very much enjoyed it and i was a little sad walking there today for the last time (at least for now...!). dutch as we are, we never paid the steep entrance fee of 25 dollars (when we came, in 2010, it was 20), as we could go with our bank card for free every first weekend of the month, and each wednesday its free from 4 pm onwards for everyone (you can, however, make a donation. i donated some money in the gift shop today ;) ). 

the museum is gigantic and has a very wide variety of art. we would often would get lost, despite having visited it so often. there were 2 pieces i liked to visit every time we went there (also to again try to take pictures of them, never satisfied when at home), and today i said bye to them.. :) (ooh, how dramatic! ;) ). the first you see above. its from the american painter john singer sargent. i had never heard of him before, but visiting museums throughout the usa we started to recognize his paintings. they are always beautiful, and full of detail. this one is named "the daughters of edward darley boit", painted in 1882.

the ladies were sitting there and didnt move... so then i decided to include them in my picture... :)

In line

these people are waiting to eat something in the center hall of the museum of fine arts in boston. we were there a few weeks back. its always amazing to see the restaurant being entirely full, and having people wait like this. its just in this gigantic open space that connects the different parts of the museum. somehow those eaters are part of the collection too, if only for just a while.....

we never ate there and do not have the desire to ever do so... :)

MFA exhibit

currently, the mfa has a nice exhibit featuring photographs by mario testino. its his first us exhibit and shows you, in huge size as you can see here. many celebrities you will have seen before. either in some sort of fashion photoshoot, partying or in just some weird and almost unrecognizable pose. some photos are well known shots, but its cool to see them so huge in a nicely lit museum, instead of in some magazine or CD cover.

we goto the museum of fine arts (MFA) quite often. the place is so terribly big! you can easily spend hours there... but that would be just a bit too much, so its nice to go often and just look at a portion of the museum. cheapos as we are, we are not members of the museum, but we know very well when we can go for free; each first weekend of the month since we store our money at the bank of america, and... each wednesday from 4 o'clock onwards you can visit the museum "by voluntary contribution". they suggest you pay 25 dollars (the current admission price, which is pretty high, i think), but you can pay whatever you want, or nothing at all, and the museum is open till 9.45! so... thats how we came to love this museum; i cant count the times we have been here during the past 2+ years....

Mobile devices

this was in the getty museum in los angeles where we were back in may. actually tim say these girls first, immersed in their phones... hmmm. now i look at it i wonder whether the blond one really is looking at her phone, but the other one defenitely is! :) 

here in boston in the subway most people are on their phones too. i think at least 50% of the passengers spends the entire ride tapping on the thing. then there are some with e-readers (or whatever you call them), and then there are just a few that have a real book or magazine... i just read that newsweek will go digital only from the new year onwards!! im glad i discontinued my subscription, because i dont have an e-reader or a fancy phone... so how would i ever be able to read their articles on the train or while im in the gym..?!

sometimes i wonder whether i dont miss something, without a fancy phone. but then i try a game on tims phone and i am just horrible at it (and dont enjoy it), or the other day i needed to retrieve a specific email while using his phone; it drove me crazy as i mistyped my password i dont know how many times on the little screen. so i guess no 800 dollar new iphone for me... i use a very simple prepaid without camera, without T9, and unfortunately usually without very good sound (i.e. when someone calls me i usually dont hear what they are saying, so i prefer not to pick up and send texts instead). am i getting old...?