Friday, April 17, 2009

 Today I had a photography excursion to Rotterdam.  My professor was very kind and allowed Emily to come with us.  We took the 9:04 train from Leiden to Rotterdam where we met my professor.  We walked for about a half hour to get to our first museum.  On our walk we crossed the Swan Bridge that used to make people nauseous.  We first went to the photography museum.  There were four different exhibits going on.  I really did not like the main exhibit by photographer Otto Snoek.  To me it looked like candid shots of people, often at their worst.  Two exhibits were very similar but done by two different photographers, Robert Frank and Ed van der Elsken.  They were black and white pictures set in Paris.  The fourth, and my favorite, exhibit was called “All is Vanity.”  It contained some wonderful examples of the earliest form of photography known as daguerreotype.  These portraits of people would often take 2-10 minutes to complete.  They are now about 150 years old. 

After the museum we went to the Hotel New York.  This hotel and restaurant has an interesting history.  It is the place where numerous Dutch people left to come to America.  Many people’s relatives who immigrated to America walked where we did.  Our professor thought that it was interesting to show us and so we stopped to have a drink. 

After this we took a boat taxi across the river so we did not need to walk.  We went to the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum.  We had been there on our last excursion to Rotterdam but this time we went for the special exhibit.  The exhibit was called Elixir.  The artist created videos that were projected on the ceiling.  Before entering we were required to remove our shoes.  We were then able to lie down on the floor to watch.  It was interesting but made me a little dizzy.  This concluded our photography excursion.  Emily and I walked around the rest of the museum since I wanted her to see it. 

After the museum, we stopped for lunch and then headed to Delft.  Emily and I went on the tour of the Delft Pottery Factory.  I wasn’t too impressed with our tour guide but I still learned a few things of interest.  After the factory, we walked around the city for awhile.  I pointed out some of the main sites of interest. 

Emily and I then headed back to Leiden.  After dinner, we worked on plans for tomorrow.  I had to work on homework and so Emily took a quick walk and bummed around for the remainder of the evening.