Training Wheels

Christmas Presents (Greece)

This year for Christmas, I was gifted socks; a most practical present as, by dire chance and fateful cock up would have it, I managed to pack only one pair of socks for my entire 14 months away.

I was given a lovely book entitled ‘The Olympic Spirit;’ beautiful thick book with a hard cover. Unfortunately, my excitement about the book was somewhat diminished when I tried to lift it up. My thoughts transformed from:

'What a nice book!'

to:

'Oh my goodness, could it get any heavier?' 

My third and final present was a triangle. Like, the instrument.

A different Christmas scene

A familiar Christmas scene

Fog white, not snow white.

My white Christmas

Beautiful eerie Greek mountains

Van Gogh Museum: More challenging than it sounds (The Netherlands)

I have a limited appreciation for art, as I have mentioned previously. However, I can understand that Van Gogh is famous (I have heard of him), and probably for a reason. So, we decided that the Van Gogh Museum was probably worth a visit (the line was too long for Anne Frank’s house and the Rijksmuseum was too large).

 We found the Van Gogh Museum fine. We waited in line (for a solid 45 mins). We got our tickets. We entered the museum. We had a look around. We were a little perplexed when we arrived at the Van Gogh section and found only two Van Gogh paintings. We came to leave. Sitting on the stairs, we retrieved our tickets from our bags and pockets. My friend, looking at her ticket, said:

'I don’t think that this is the Van Gogh Museum.'

Looking at the ticket, I noted for the first time the nice bold writing at the very top of the ticket ‘Stedelijk Museum’. A modern art museum.

As we left the museum, we looked at the building that we had patiently waited outside for such a long time and saw, in big, clear writing ‘Stedelijk Musuem.’ We then looked to the building we had noted earlier as the Van Gogh Museum. It was still there. With the same label. About 30 meters away.

Amsterdam

I don't understand art #1

I don't understand art #2

I don't understand art #3

It was an easy mistake to make...

Perhaps not our finest moment. But now she has left. Gone home. She was my training wheels . My training wheels went flying off quite literally. I find this concerning - goodness only knows that dumb stuff I'll be doing now...

Enjoy your New Year!