Saturday, September 11, 2010

"Are you for real?" - Molly

Delft looks much like it did when Vermeer painted it in the 1660's. The train station has turrets, and the streets are tiny. They do of course manage to have a bike lane, even in the tiny streets barely wide enough for a car.

I took the train to Delft this morning and hopped off to walk to the Royal Delft factory, where I saw painters painting the ceramics, and the huge warehouse with stacks and stacks of unfinished work. Also, Delft started as a building ceramics company, so the building was full of things like gorgeous ceramic staircases and ceramic trims along the doorways. Or columns like the one you see here. Glorious. Applied art is my favorite - art that also has practical use in everyday life. I just think it's lovely. Also, in the display cases, there were lovely bells, like Christmas ornaments. They reminded me of my grandmother, who had a special cabinet in her house, in which resided bells made of ceramic, silver, and other sorts of breakable material that we were allowed to touch carefully.

I wandered back into the center of town, where there was a market with real strawberries and fishmongers yelling at passerby to buy their wares. Behind the market is the Oude Kerk, where Vermeer is buried. (There's an Old Church in every town over 600 years old. There's also a New Church in every town, and it's usually over 400 years old.), When I wandered in here, I stumbled into an organist practicing for a concert, which meant I got to listen to a really lovely rehearsal concert of this gorgeous ancient organ. Loved it.

Since it was still sunny and I figured I'd have time to make it, I then got on the tram for a ride to Den Haag, and then from Den Haag to Scheveningen, which is sort of like the Dutch version of Coney Island or a smaller Atlantic City...It's the beach at the North Sea, with a promenade and fancy hotels and sunbathing chairs to rent and lots and lots of people. And lots and lots of seashells. I don't know how this works, but there are literally thousands of seashells on the shore. You walk on them, and you don't notice the crunching underneath your feet because there's enough sand to cushion it.

So I sat on the beach and daydreamed for a while half-listening to the other folks around, and then was wishing there was someone I knew beside me, and also wishing for some cool water to drink. So I started walking back up the promenade to find the water, and heard Jonathan's voice behind me telling Molly something about the bike ride they'd been on, and I turned around and hopped over to them and said "HEY!" and Molly looked up at me and said, "Are you for real?"

It was a perfectly serendipitous moment starting the end of a sweet & sunny day.

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