A whirlwind of a week
Nov. 18th, 2012 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beelikejHoly holy, I spent over an hour answering all the wonderful comments on my paper art for the Reverse Bang! I am more than slightly overwhelmed by the response to that. The amount topped even the reaction to the clay Sam&Dean puppets! I had not expected that for my favorite pairing of JDM/JA, which is usually sadly underappreciated in this fandom. So this has been very validating. *grins*
I had meant to respond sooner, but I've had quite a busy week and I got very sick on top of that, boooh.
A day by day
On Monday it was posting day of the artwork mentioned above.
Tuesday was a workday, not usually worth mentioning, but with all the forced time off I only had two workdays this week instead of the normal five, ahem.
I realized on Wednesday that my mom had infected me with her throat infection (after I had brought her a get well bouquet in the weekend, tsk) but that didn't stop us from traveling to the East together to visit the grandparents and to have dinner at Ikea \o/ (Swedish meatballs, bb!).
Thursday was another day at work, even though I was already too sick to deal, but whatever.
By Friday I had completely lost my voice due the full on head cold that had developed. I worried I wouldn't be able to enjoy the visit to the family in The Hague. But no way was I going to miss my nephew's first Sinterklaas experience. Of course he had already enjoyed the family festivities last year, but this was going to be the first time he would see Sint arrive on the big steamboat. His mum Gayleen (my SIL;) had never seen that either and I absolutely wanted to share this huge Dutch event with the both of them on Saturday.
So I dressed up in the warmest clothes I had, brought loads of liquids and licorice and got on the train to the West on Friday afternoon for a sleep over (so I didn't have to get up freakishly early on Saturday;)
Gayleen and Ruben picked me up at the trainstation and we walked through The Hague for some windowshopping. I also made a couple of photos of the outdoors artwork.
Shopwindows of De Bijenkorf (The Beehive)
I must admit to be a little miffed it's already Xmas in the shop, while we still have Sinterklaas celebrations first.
Macarons! On big sticks! For reasons!
Artwork
The Pedestal Plan (after a concept by Peter Struycken in 1990) is a gallery of sculptures on pedestals, placed every 25 meters in the pedestrian area of the Grote Markstraat, Kalvermarkt and Spui. 40 Dutch sculptors have been or will be invited to produce a sculpture for this area.
Gijs Assmann, The he and the she and the is of it, 2005
Hans van Bentem, Space Duck Racer, 2011
Rob Birza, Tantratrijn, 2007
We got on the tram at the underground stop at Grote Markt, which has such a marvelous design.
They saved all the ancient things they found during the excavations and put them on display IN THE FLOOR!! That floor itself is a wonderful design of three kinds of wood in the shape of the old houses that used to stand in this area. They put the finds in old fashioned wells, covered with thick glass plates, so you can walk right over history!
Bones from 15th century; a horse's head buried in someone's backyard, cattle-skulls - probably from a tannery. Oyster shells were part of rubish, buried in holes around the farm.
Plates, bowls and cutlery from the 17th century. They didn't use forks back then, just spoons and knives! The multi-coloured pottery is Delftware.
Wish I had taken a wideshot of the whole platform, but there's a small photo on Wikipedia.
I'll fast forward through our evening at their home, where I caught up with my brother Jaap and cuddled with Ruben. (No worries, his mom and dad were already infected with the germs of snot themselves, so I couldn't do more harm)
On Saturday the four of us traveled by tram towards the harbour; after we changed trams half way we discovered my other brother Hans in the same carriage! Together we walked the final bit to the already very crowded harbour of Scheveningen. What I love about Sinterklaas is that everybody has the same sweet anticipation; young and old, we're all there to enjoy the party, it's such a wonderful atmosphere. Before the steamboat arrived, Ruben already had his first encounter with a couple of Zwarte Pieten (black Petes) - initially he wasn't too sure about these painted and colourfully dressed creatures, but when they handed him some candy, he warmed up to them *grins*. He clearly loved the pepernoten (candysized ginger cookies).
I posted pictures of Ruben's adventures in my Dutch blog: EVEN MORE PHOTO'S!
For those of you who are interested: more on the history of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Pieten [Wikipedia]
Oh, this turned out long;) Will put my RB-art recommendations in a separate post!
I had meant to respond sooner, but I've had quite a busy week and I got very sick on top of that, boooh.
A day by day
On Monday it was posting day of the artwork mentioned above.
Tuesday was a workday, not usually worth mentioning, but with all the forced time off I only had two workdays this week instead of the normal five, ahem.
I realized on Wednesday that my mom had infected me with her throat infection (after I had brought her a get well bouquet in the weekend, tsk) but that didn't stop us from traveling to the East together to visit the grandparents and to have dinner at Ikea \o/ (Swedish meatballs, bb!).
Thursday was another day at work, even though I was already too sick to deal, but whatever.
By Friday I had completely lost my voice due the full on head cold that had developed. I worried I wouldn't be able to enjoy the visit to the family in The Hague. But no way was I going to miss my nephew's first Sinterklaas experience. Of course he had already enjoyed the family festivities last year, but this was going to be the first time he would see Sint arrive on the big steamboat. His mum Gayleen (my SIL;) had never seen that either and I absolutely wanted to share this huge Dutch event with the both of them on Saturday.
So I dressed up in the warmest clothes I had, brought loads of liquids and licorice and got on the train to the West on Friday afternoon for a sleep over (so I didn't have to get up freakishly early on Saturday;)
Gayleen and Ruben picked me up at the trainstation and we walked through The Hague for some windowshopping. I also made a couple of photos of the outdoors artwork.
Shopwindows of De Bijenkorf (The Beehive)
I must admit to be a little miffed it's already Xmas in the shop, while we still have Sinterklaas celebrations first.
Macarons! On big sticks! For reasons!
Artwork
The Pedestal Plan (after a concept by Peter Struycken in 1990) is a gallery of sculptures on pedestals, placed every 25 meters in the pedestrian area of the Grote Markstraat, Kalvermarkt and Spui. 40 Dutch sculptors have been or will be invited to produce a sculpture for this area.
Gijs Assmann, The he and the she and the is of it, 2005
Hans van Bentem, Space Duck Racer, 2011
Rob Birza, Tantratrijn, 2007
We got on the tram at the underground stop at Grote Markt, which has such a marvelous design.
They saved all the ancient things they found during the excavations and put them on display IN THE FLOOR!! That floor itself is a wonderful design of three kinds of wood in the shape of the old houses that used to stand in this area. They put the finds in old fashioned wells, covered with thick glass plates, so you can walk right over history!
Bones from 15th century; a horse's head buried in someone's backyard, cattle-skulls - probably from a tannery. Oyster shells were part of rubish, buried in holes around the farm.
Plates, bowls and cutlery from the 17th century. They didn't use forks back then, just spoons and knives! The multi-coloured pottery is Delftware.
Wish I had taken a wideshot of the whole platform, but there's a small photo on Wikipedia.
I'll fast forward through our evening at their home, where I caught up with my brother Jaap and cuddled with Ruben. (No worries, his mom and dad were already infected with the germs of snot themselves, so I couldn't do more harm)
On Saturday the four of us traveled by tram towards the harbour; after we changed trams half way we discovered my other brother Hans in the same carriage! Together we walked the final bit to the already very crowded harbour of Scheveningen. What I love about Sinterklaas is that everybody has the same sweet anticipation; young and old, we're all there to enjoy the party, it's such a wonderful atmosphere. Before the steamboat arrived, Ruben already had his first encounter with a couple of Zwarte Pieten (black Petes) - initially he wasn't too sure about these painted and colourfully dressed creatures, but when they handed him some candy, he warmed up to them *grins*. He clearly loved the pepernoten (candysized ginger cookies).
I posted pictures of Ruben's adventures in my Dutch blog: EVEN MORE PHOTO'S!
For those of you who are interested: more on the history of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Pieten [Wikipedia]
Oh, this turned out long;) Will put my RB-art recommendations in a separate post!
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no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 06:56 am (UTC)I hope you're feeling better. Lousy time of year to be sick!
no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 06:49 pm (UTC)Ugh, this is the busy time of the year and I haven't been able to do any preparations for the festivies yet. *blows nose some more*
no subject
Date: 2012-11-21 10:31 pm (UTC)Sint arrived here too on Saturday, it was the busiest I've ever seen it! So happy to see people are still coming to see him.
Yet another boo hisssssss at your sickyness, hope you start feeling better soon!
no subject
Date: 2012-11-23 09:15 pm (UTC)It was so awesome to share the Sint-experience with someone who'd never been to a steamboat arrival before. The atmosphere is indescribable for people outside our countries <+:-)>
Thankies. Still not fit, trying to take care of myself.