Sunday February 6 - A Day of Art and Architecture

Azizi Curtis, the principal photographer for our upcoming documentary, and a budding cinematographer discusses camera angles with Kenya Rodriguez in the Binnenhof (the Dutch parliament buildings).  Our day today involved art of all kinds.

StayOkay

11:30 PM

I should be fighting the urge to stay up too late and setting the students a good example by going to bed, but this is my first chance to write all day, and I am now too awake to let all the lovely things that have happened go unrecorded.  After a twelve hour sleep Saturday night (a reward for my valiant efforts to stay awake after missing a night of sleep on the plane), I awoke happy and refreshed, and came downstairs at about 9:30 to find about half of the girls sitting with Mr. Heegle and Mr. Whiston having breakfast in their fuzzy pajamas and slippers.  It transpired that we were actually the last group to have breakfast, as some of the more wakeful kids had gone downstairs at 7:30 to eat and promptly returned to their rooms to fall asleep.

Kamiyiha poses in the Binnenho

This post-breakfast naptime meant that we got a late start, but the kids' good humor and adventurous spirits survived a windy walk to the Mauritshuis, through the Binnenhof buildings.  "This is what college looks like," remarked Ryan, surveying the windows of the binnenhof as we emerged through one of the side archways.  "It's Hogwarts!" exclaimed Israel, delighted.  We spent a good ten minutes taking photos there before reaching our final destination where (as usual) we were politely given complimentary tickets (even those of us eighteen and over, who would normally pay), and a special place to put our bags and coats.  Most of the kids took the free audio guides, and a few foresighted souls also remembered their journals.  Of those who did not, Alicia borrowed mine, and Devon walked through the museum taking careful notes on his ipod.  His ipod notes give an idea of all of the kids' impressions:

The Earthly Paradise by Breughel the Elder and Rubens

Day 2
Beautiful museum.  The art and style of the artists varied.  One of my favorites was the Adam and Eve picture as she's giving Adam the apple from the tree.  There's a lot of tension and turmoil amongst the animals.  Rembrandt's paintings were amazing as a lot of them showed deep emotions of the characters.

The scene of the garden of Eden jointly painted by Breughel and Rubens was a favorite with a number of our kids.  Gabriela told me that she liked it "because of the monkey eating the apple because it sees the people eating it, and that shows monkeys are stupid."  (For a moment when she said "it shows how the monkey eats the apple" I thought that she was about to put to rest a century old tension between religious fundamentalism and Darwin.)  Alicia's video diary (filmed by Stephen M. this evening, at her own request, since she wanted to show off the postcards she bought at the Mauritshuis) also mentioned this painting.  Another popular painting among the kids was my personal favorite, Vermeer's View of Delft.  We are all wondering how much Delft will look like the picture when we go on Thursday.

All of the teachers, but especially those of us with past experience at the Mauritshuis were impressed with the kids' deep attention to the paintings, and real interest.  (Unfortunately, I'm writing this late, and don't want to disturb the sleeping rooms by asking for journals, but I'll try to put in some more of their
responses in their own words tomorrow.)

After the Mauritshuis the kids were hungry and needed a place to eat their lunches, and the wind blew
cold as ever, so we walked over to the Passages (what the kids referred as "the mall thingy"), and split up to do certain necessary headphone purchases at the Apple Store, visit a few clothing stores, and also eat out of the wind.  I ended up with an ever increasing group at the Selexyz bookstore cafe "Bagels & Books" (English in original).  Possibly a ripoff of the Starbucks/Barnes and Noble concept, but a pleasant one all the same, crammed with people on a Sunday afternoon.  I politely ordered a drink, so that the kids could discreetly eat their sandwiches there, and then ended up buying espressos for a couple of kids who were having sleepiness waves courtesy of the jet lag.  Kenya was also happy to find gluten-free bagels which she ate with hummus, and a good appetite.  We wandered out of the cafe, but the kids promptly got stuck in the children's section, looking at the pictures in the Dutch editions of the Little Golden Books (they were resolutely uninterested in the large selection of English language books, but they liked the pictures), and taking photos of each other sitting in the big throne-like couch in the toddler section.

Meanwhile, an adventurous group had struck out for McDonald's, not (they hastened to explain) because they were provincial, but merely as a cultural experience.  Alison's diary describes their findings:

Me, Stephy and Steven went to McDonalds and OMG!  They had shrimps.  So I just had to buy it.  Like come on, shrimps at McDonalds and it was amazing!  I also tried this waffle with powdered sugar [purchased from a cart on the street] and it was amazing.  I love coke here, it's actually the real coke not the fake stuff we have back home with artificial sugar.  Having a good time so far.

I should note that Steven also came back with a Happy Meal balloon on a stick which he carried for the rest of the afternoon (until it popped accidentally just outside the Albert Heijn supermarket on our way home).  He was ready to go back to the McDonald's not to eat but simply for another balloon.

After lunch, we split into two groups, with Ms. Wharton and I escorting ten kids to the nearby Haags Historisch Museum and Mr. Heegle and Mr. Whiston taking a second group shopping in the city center, among the crowds of afternoon shoppers.  The Haags Historisch Museum was a first visit for me, and I enjoyed it tremendously, not least because I had the pleasure of hanging out with Shakeria, Alicia, Stephanie, Steven M. and Alison, who all wanted to visit because I said there was a special exhibit of Romantic painters, and they wanted to show off their Romanticism expertise after Ms. Granado's classes about Wuthering Heights.  (There was also some thought that if they emailed Ms. Granado a summary of the exhibition they might get out of doing their formal essay.  I leave that for her to determine.)  The rest of the museum group ended up enjoying the exhibition of doll houses on the top floor with Ms. Wharton.

We left the museum as it was closing at 5:00 PM, after promising that we could go back and look at the
video exhibit we hadn't had time to see tomorrow, instead of shopping time.  (How many children are wise enough to want to go to a free museum instead of spending money on souvenirs?  We are so lucky to have them.  And of course, they are lucky to enjoy this kind of thing.  "So everything is free for under-eighteen people here?" Alison exclaimed after learning that the Historische Museum as well as the Mauritshuis follows this custom.  "We should have that in New York too.  That's why people don't go to museums at home."

I thoroughly agree with Alison, and would add that her comment is merely one of many that have
charmed all of us with its insight and intelligence.  On our walk to the Mauritshuis Kamiyiha noted that
"there are more bicycles than cars here...that must be why there are no obese people."  Steven "can't get over how clean everything is.  And it's cloudy even, so things look worse but it's still pretty."  John was also struck by the cleanliness and lack of police presence, and Alicia commented that "we need some architecture like this in New York.  When I go home I'm going to be depressed."

With all these adventures (and our late start) we got back barely in time for dinner, and after dinner had our first set of prepping for the Model UN conferences and for the papers that the hospitality and tourism students are preparing.

Tomorrow the buddies are picking us up at the hostel at 10:00 AM (bless them for the late start), for a
scavenger hunt of Den Haag.  Hopefully today's explorations makes tomorrow's activity even more fun.

For now, happily signing off,
Rebecca Pawel