Den Haag

Upon my return from Edinburgh, I was faced with an unusual week. Had I been at any other European university, it would have been the week of my fall break. Had I been at any other Dutch school besides a university, it would have been the week of my fall break. Unfortunately, I’m at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, and they don’t have an official, scheduled fall vacation. What happens instead is that professors may or may not cancel class that week, depending on whether or not they have younger children to be home with. Other professors take advantage of the fact that their colleagues need to be with their families and cancel their classes as well.

And then there are my teachers, who decided that we would not only still have class that week, but we would use our class time to do more time-consuming things than usual – like go on field trips or have guest lecturers. All of my teachers decided to do this, except for my kindly old Dutch Language professor, Freek.* I think the idea was that if you decided to cut class that week (to have your own de facto fall break), you wouldn’t be missing anything that you couldn’t go do on your own, but still… it was a little frustrating.

*Yes, that is his real name. You actually say it more like “Frey-k,” but in my head, he will always be Professor Freak.

On the other hand, I got the opportunity to visit some cities in the Netherlands outside of Amsterdam. I spent one day in Utrecht, and one day in Haarlem, visiting the Aboriginal Art Museum/Utrecht Centraal Museum, and the Teylers Museum/Great Church of St. Bavo’s, respectively. Unfortunately, since these were fast-paced field trips, I didn’t bother to bring a camera. I thus have no pictures to show you – you’ll just have to trust that I was there.

Because Professor Freek had canceled my Monday-Thursday Dutch class, I had an extra free day at the end of the week. I decided to continue my string of city-hopping by taking a trip to Den Haag. Den Haag is better known to English-speakers as The Hague, the seat of the Dutch government and the city where the royal family currently resides. It’s about a 45-minute train ride west of Amsterdam, but it’s well worth the journey (and the €12 return ticket).

Like in most European cities of note, there are lots of pretty buildings and impressive statues. More importantly, however, there are two excellent art museums – The Mauritshuis Museum and the Escher Museum.

I went to see the Mauritshuis because it was supposed to have a painting by Rachel Ruysch, a 17th century painter of flower still-lifes on whom I’m supposed to do a paper for my Colour & Culture class. Despite the fact that Ruysch was incredibly prolific and lived in or around Amsterdam for most of her life, her paintings are surprisingly hard to come by. The people at the Rijksmuseum didn’t even know who I was talking about when I inquired there, but the Mauritshuis website claimed to have at least one of her paintings on view.

Unfortunately, when I got there, I learned that the floor with the Ruysch painting was temporarily closed. Just my luck. Fortunately, there are more exciting things to see at the Mauritshuis than a painting of flowers. Like what, you ask?

Oh, I don't know... this?

After reveling in the Vermeer for awhile (and buying a postcard of the closed Ruysch in the gift shop), I had lunch at a cool little café with my traveling companions, Kathleen and Marie. We were served heaping sandwiches accompanied by necessary forks and knives, ate them, then set off through the misty Den Haag weather to destination number two: The Escher Museum.

M.C. Escher. Also possibly an evil wizard, or Rasputin.

I love M.C. Escher, and I loved the museum. In addition to having tons of Escher prints and drawings on display, there was an installation of whimsical chandeliers in each of the rooms of the building, which used to be a palace. So really, the museum was like 3 museums in one: part Escher, part historical landmark, and part display space for the artist who had created the chandeliers. Visitors were allowed to photograph everything – sans flash, of course – and although I usually don’t take pictures of art on principle (I’d much rather take the time to look at art instead of snapping a picture that will never be as good as a professional replication anyway), I was so delighted that I couldn’t help but try to document some of my favorites.

After two museums, we were pretty wiped out, so we headed back home to Amsterdam. I hardly saw half of what The Hague has to offer, but it was enough to make for an absolutely excellent day.