Travels

In the course of her business dealings BJ often has to travel…..which is both how I came to be here in Amsterdam and why we were visiting the nearby town of Den Haag.

BJ was required to make a trip to Cameroon for business and this required her to procure a visa from the Cameroonian government. Such a document could be obtained by mail/Fed Ex/etc but would require several weeks to complete or we could just drive to their embassy in Den Haag and, assuming that the Ambassador chose to work that day, obtain travel documents in the course of a single day. Obviously, we drove the 40 minutes or so and spent the day admiring Den Haag.

Den Haag is yet another charming, cobblestoned village and is home to the ‘Peace Palace’ which we know as ‘The Hague’….you know, the world court…the place that war-criminals are tried.

We arrived at opening time at the embassy, submitted the appropriate paperwork and were told to return after 3 pm to see if the visa had been approved. So we spent the day just shopping, walking and discovering new old things.

One of the more interesting places we visited was the Panorama Mesdag. Painted in 1886, it is truly an amazing thing.
Some definition blatantly stolen from the internet source: http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/2003/panorama/new_001.htm

During the panorama craze of the early 1800s, audiences flocked by the thousands to witness the latest spectacular representations of nature, battle scenes, and exotic locations in 360 degree painted panoramas displayed in purpose-built circular rotundas. Popular interest in the panorama and its multiple spin-offs–the most notable being the horizontal moving panorama–waxed and waned throughout the century. As a result of exhibit competetion spin-off names were coined including cosmorama, noctorama, diomonorama, paleorama, pleorama, georama, caricaturama, and mareorama.

This barely covers it. As a hard, cold definition it is correct, but viewing the ‘real deal’ is an experience.
From a central viewing platform the 360 degree painting seems to come to 3-dimensional life. This particular panorama depicts the area in which it is situated as it existed in the late 19th century. One can observe coastal trading barges on the beach, soldiers performing training drills, the local town, bath house, market, etc all as they were at the time the painting was created and all under natural light. This last item, the natural lighting, enhances the realistic effect of constantly changing light as clouds and time change the intensity of light falling upon the painting.
To be honest, I thought this would be a drag……I was very, very wrong.

If you’re interested in learning more about this panorama, here’s a link; http://www.panorama-mesdag.com/#pagina=920
There are only 29 (I think) panoramas left in the world, and only 5 in the US (two depicting the battle at Gettysburg and 3 in museums) to learn more about them here’s another link to a Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panoramic_painting .

Having departed the Panorama, we walked west a bit more and discovered the “Peace Palace”, a beautiful, castle-like building surrounded by meticulously tended grounds. It really wasn’t until I approached the gates to take a picture that we realized that this was what we Americans know as ‘The Hague’. As I raised my camera to frame a shot a hitherto un-noticed armed guard in a bulletproof sentry-box advised me via loud-hailer that photography wasn’t allowed and oh, PS, get away from that gate!

Peace Palace

Oh….right….war criminals, politicians, VIPs….the possibility that some nutcase will seek retribution….I get it! This is me moving away from the gate looking meek and contrite.

What we call ‘The Hague’ is really the ‘Peace Palace’, (The Hague, (Den Haag), is actually the name of the city), was built in over 6 years beginning in 1907 and opened its doors in 1913. It is occupied by a number of important legal institutions: the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the Hague Academy of International Law and the Peace Palace Library. These are funded largely by the Carnegie Foundation. There’s a lot of information available on-line about the site. In case you’re interested here’s a link: http://www.vredespaleis.nl/default.asp?pid=&page=

Outside the gates of the ‘Peace Palace’ there burns an eternal flame in a small monument which is encircled by stones, one from every country in the world. There is an inscription that requests visitors walk the circle touching each stone and saying a short prayer for peace as they pass.

Eternal Flame of Peace

We witnessed several doing exactly that…..it was poignant.

Poignancy always stimulates my appetite, so we found lunch at a small café called ‘The Room’. Good tomaten soep for me and a Brie/Asparagus and Apricot Jam sandwich on dark bread for BJ. She said it tasted incredible and that I had to mention it in the blog.

After lunch it was off to the Escher Museum. A twenty minute walk or so took us across town, past many gorgeous buildings and lots of public art….including a lamp, a dinosaur and a giant metal naked guy on his hands and knees in all of his anatomically grand (this guy is hung!) glory…..yup!

Dinosaur Sculpture

Head SculptureCrawling Guy

Crawling Guy

We saw a photo shoot in the park for a wedding…beautiful bride, proud groom and VW beetle convertible decked out to transport them.

Bride

Limosine

M.C. Escher was a Dutch Graphical Artist who lived between 1898 and 1972. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts and lithographs. His work made original use of infinities, tessalations and ‘white space’-as-subject’. The museum is housed in a former palace (Lange Voorhout Palace) dating from the eighteenth century, where Queen Emma lived until 1891.

M.C. Escher Museum

We found the exhibits engaging, but equally so was the fact that the curators thoughtfully included many descriptions of life in the palace ‘back in the day’ as well. Very interesting.

Finally it was late enough in the day to check in with the Embassy about BJ’s visa….it was ready…Yay! We bought a couple of ice-cream cones to celebrate, retrieved her visa and made our way back to Amsterdam.

THE FUZZY VISITOR

Later that night as we prepared for bed I heard BJ ‘yelp’ from the bedroom. I gallently ran to her aide to find that she’d seen a mouse! “Well”, I said, “that’s it….I’ll pick up traps tomorrow”.

“Oh, we don’t have to kill it do we?” she said.

“Yeah…absolutely”, I answered, “There’s never just one…..he’s the scout for an invasion!”

“No”, she asserted, “He was only just a tiny little guy.”

“Tiny little guys grow and they have families and big rat-like friends”, I maintained.

Well….she had her way, we temporarily left the ‘furry little guy’ alone.

Several days later, though, she awoke early….like 0430 and decided to get up and do some on-line work. As she walked out to the living room she was met by not one but 5 mice and none of them seemed inclined to run away from her.
Another ‘Yelp’…. Again I came running.

“OK….you were right….they’ve got to go…..this is WAR”!

Having heard horror stories about undead mice in traps it was decided that poison bait was the preferred method of mouse population reduction. We subsequently learned that such poison is obtained from the DDDG….the health department. We drove there and since there wasn’t an obvious place to park, she went in and I stayed with the van.

She came back with 2 bottles of poison bait and explained that the clerk there spoke no English so when he came to help her there was a bit of a problem. There were posters on the walls of all the kinds of vermin in Amsterdam though so BJ pointed to a picture of a mouse and said “him”, she then drew her forefinger across her throat and said “Dead!” The clerk smiled and said “Ah”, reached under the counter and produced a mouse trap. BJ said “No!” The clerk said “Ah”, reached back under the counter and held up a bottle of bait which he shook in front of her. She said “Yes”. He smiled and said “Ten Euro”, she said “two please” and handed him a twenty.

When it comes to mice…..there is no language barrier.