FRANS HALS IN HAARLEM

Tuesday, July 27. Happy Birthday Cuylar. I am writing this Wed. morning before class. Cuylar was to have his operation Tues. but I now know that he was bumped til today, Wed. So another day of waiting and not knowing how things are progressing with his injuries. He is eating well and Sara, the race director's wife, has been dressing and cleaning the wound on his back. All seems to be good so far. No infection or left over bits of glass. They had to clean the wound of shards from the windshield so it needs to be checked. I am very thankful for Sara.

We had a lively debate in class in regards to the three ways to approach Dutch Art: Symbolic meanings in the images, visual culture, or with a blank canvas for your own experience. I was on the third team and participated a lot, so I hope I sounded intelligent. It was the first debate I had participated in with peers. I do get nervous in those situations. In the end it was fun and a better way to understand the approaches than a lecture.

We went to Haarlem for the afternoon to the Frans Hals Museum. Most of the collection was behind locked doors as they are renovating. This seems to be the theme, like in Saskatoon, they all wake up in July and begin construction jobs that interrupt everyone's plans. There is actually a lot of large construction jobs going on in Holland, which is surprising as the economy is tanking and there are no jobs. Back to the museum. Haarlem itself is an interesting town. But as most Dutch towns closes their shops by 5 or 6 o'clock, thus we did not spend longer there to explore because our museum lectures were not done till 5:30. The Frans Hals are definitely worth a trip to Haarlem. I think he was 200 years before his time with those broad brush strokes and fantastic gestures. I will return to this town hopefully one day to see the rest of the collection and visit the shops and sit in the town square for a Koffie. After we returned to Utrecht, Nicole and I bought cheese cake slices as it is her Dad's birthday and Cuylar's as well, it turned out that it is Danielle's birth mom's birthday too, so we sang Happy Birthday to them and ate the cake for dessert.

Today is Wed. our lecture and two museum tours are here in Utrecht. Tonight will be refinement on my presentation and I best practice, as I will get cut off at the seven minute time limit. That will be a challenge for me.