Van Gogh Was a Weird Dude - Goodbye Holland - Hello Scotland

Van Gogh was a weird dude, but a great painter

     We've become somewhat familiar with the work of Vincent Van Gogh, one of Holland's greatest artists.  He is celebrated here with a couple of different museums, and several key locations and noteworthy milestones.  

     He led a troubled life, but the result of his internal emotional struggle was some brilliant artwork, some of the world's most popular and well known paintings. 

     I try to avoid taking pictures of paintings in art galleries, it just seems so uncouth, but I couldn't resist this shot of his famous cypress tree with two women.  The guy was a true genius, but quite strange.

There are some unusual street scenes in Holland

     This place is an amazingly open minded country with a lot of tolerance for a lot of things.  For example, Oregon just voted to allow legalized marijuana, but the Netherlands has accepted this for about the last thirty years (and is probably no worse for the wear).

     And you see things that might seem surprising, such as the head shot below of a place that makes "homemade" cosmetics and tinctures and elixirs and other such creative remedies.  Not sure why the guy's mouth is open, but he's been around for over 150 years ...

     And they can convert a town square from a market - to a soccer field - to an international volleyball tournament - in no time.  

     First the soccer (which the rest of the world calls "football").  

     Notice the Nike logo in the background.

     Then there was the huge international volleyball tournament in downtown Amsterdam.  The place was rockin' although I'm not sure of the significance of the competition.  Notice the historic churches in the scene, many of which date back to the 1600's.

     And of course, there is the Saturday Market in Haarlem, which was incredibly vibrant and lively, and came out of nowhere, only to vanish by the next day - and be replaced by a football tournament!  

And one last picture - 

Why do they call this place the Netherlands?

     We went to the seashore this afternoon, and spent some time by the North Sea.  Only, well, the shore didn't used to be here, it was further inland, until the Dutch decided to build dikes and pump the water out with windmills and reclaim the sea.  

     Actually they didn't "reclaim" the sea, they just claimed it and added more land to their country.  Netherlands means "lowlands" or "below" as in below the sea, and Holland has done a good job of capturing this and making it productive.  In fact, at one point during our visit here, I used my altimeter to indicate the elevation of Haarlem, and it said minus 2 feet - two feet below sea level!

     In the picture below (pardon the pun), you can see the massive dike on the left, covered in grass and holding back the ocean from the farmland beyond - which is ... the Netherlands ... below sea level. 

 

Tomorrow - Scotland ! 

     It's gonna be a grand time.  We are going to Scotland for a big family wedding, and we will be there in some numbers, representing the American side of the family.

     I hope I can do justice to this big event.  More to follow!