Celebration time, come on
An important reason for our extended visit to Europe was my mom turning 80, and throwing a party to match the occasion.
The party was a success, and included an old friend of mine whom I had literally not seen in decades. A cousin of mine also managed to come over from Germany, together with her husband and newly minted baby. And, the food was great. My mom loved every part of it.
A success on all fronts.
I also managed to buy that new iPhone I had hoped to pick up in Canada. And, with two old phones as trade in, as well as getting the tax back on my purchase, the cost was only very high, not insanely high. Although I moved to iPhones many years ago, this was only the second time that I actually bought a new iPhone and the first time in, I believe, over a decade.
Natalia had had her birthday while in Paris, but we were not yet done celebrating. We visited the Zaanse Schans, amongst others the home of the very first Albert Heijn supermarket, and Amsterdam.
There, we had wanted to visited the Van Gogh museum. I had checked ticket availability on the morning of our trip, and was fooled into complacency. There were no tickets when we arrived.
Instead, we visited a bunch of nice nearby galleries, and a peppernut store. Peppernuts being a Dutch treat, popular in November and December. However, they were not actually selling peppernuts, but herbnuts. Then again, even in The Netherlands, not everyone agrees on the correct terminology for these end-of-the-year snacks.
We also visited the Mauritshuis, the sugar palace built by Johan Maurits van Oranje-Siegen, the governor-general of Dutch Brazil. It’s said that the museum has become a bit more aware, and vocal, about the role Maurits played in the Dutch colonial past, he himself being partially responsible for the Dutch slave trade, and that this history now plays a more prominent role in the museum.
The museum is really nice, and hosts The Girl With the Pearl Earring, and, perhaps even more impressively, Vermeer’s View on Delft, as well as a few other seminal works. But, I found the reflection on the Dutch colonial past, and Maurits’ role, underwhelming. Two or three of the descriptions of the paintings mention the colonial role of the Dutch, and a quote referencing the history of Maurits, from a book by Anton de Kom, a Surinamese writer and resistance fighter during World War 2, hangs in the stairwell of the building. But, that’s it.
That’s said, most of the work that’s on display in the museum has, at best, a very indirect connection to the Dutch colonial past, so I appreciate the challenge. On the other hand, the legacy of the house is, completely and only, built on colonial exploitation by its original owner.
So, it can not be a coincidence that a big mural, just outside the main entrance of the museum, was painted by a Brazilian indigenous artist, Daiaria Tukano.