Day 12: Rotterdam

Rotterdam construction

Yayoi Kasuma interactive piece

So unfortunately after saying I was feeling better, I got worse.  My immune system is an asshole.  Come friday I was able to make it back to the scheduled activities. Side-note: there is no such thing as gatorade, which is my go-to sick drink, but there is something called Aquarius and it is just as good! The day's plan was to go to the town of Rotterdam which is about an hour and a half train ride from Amsterdam.  The city was much more modern than Amsterdam because high buildings can be built there--the city is not built on dykes like Amsterdam.  Because of the modern feeling the city was not nearly as quaint as Amsterdam even though it is smaller in size.  The art museum there is the Boijmans. It was surprisingly huge, and amazing. There was a large mix of
contemporary art with art of the past.  They had Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Titian, Mondrian, Bruegel, Bosch, Picasso, Vermeer, Cezanne, Degas, Jeff Koons, and much much more! But with this great collection comes of course hours and hours of professors talking.  By the time we were in the museum cafe for lunch I was famished and ready to faint.  But people in Europe don't eat enough, or maybe they eat the right amount...but I'm from America where we have foot-longs, and giant slurpee cups! Needless to say, we had mini sandwiches that only made me more hungry.  While we ate, Marek whispered to me to be discreet and look behind me. I turned around immediately and gave whoever it was a good stare down (it's impossible not to.) Marek was giddy with excitement because the man was the art director of the museum.  He drooled all over himself.  But both my professors are precious and very passionate about art history.

I had formatting issues with the pictures for this post, so I just decided to make them XL as in true American fashion:

Jeff Koons

contemporary sculpture- Jess this if for you!

Dali Lobster Phone

beautiful and very small panel from a personal-prayer-diptych

vibrant Picasso print

Dali

Van Gogh-this painting is so amazing in person                   

Bosch, explainingthe saying of
 "the weight of the world on your shoulders"

My favorite painting in the museum; Breitner's The Earring

Steve & Breugel Tower of Babel

detail shot of above; so absolutely incredible

Marek and one of Mondrian's color theories-Marek is an expert

apparently at the restaurant you
could get a whole tray of meat...?

After the museum we were allowed to go our separate ways and make our way back to Amsterdam when we wanted.  With a group of girls, I went to dinner at a shawarma place and got some pretty cheap and good food--as a rule any sort of ethnic food is much cheaper than anything else in Europe. We sat outside and enjoyed some sunshine.  After dinner we walked around a bit and then went to the train station.  Bleh the train station was a struggle! How many girls does it take to make it back Amsterdam? We will never know because I had to ask a guy for help... However, made it back in one piece and had a good night sleep after a long day.