De Haag

Have you ever heard of De Haag, the Netherlands? No? Really? Then it doesn't mean much to you if I were to tell you that I didn't post yesterday because our Dutch Art History class went on "excursion" to De Haag yesterday. It's really a shame that no one has heard of it because its the capital of the Netherlands! Really, it isn't Amsterdam, I promise. For this reason I'm glad that Dr. De Groot took us there instead of another city because there was no way I was going to De Haag on my own, and even if I had (seriously there was no chance of this)I wouldn't in a million years guess what this building was:



What about you? Any ideas? Perhaps seeing it from another angle.



It's the governmental seat of the Netherlands. Dr. De Groot likened it to the White House and that little round tower right there, that's the Prime Minister's office. Here's where a huge cultural gap widened between us and Dr. De Groot and it was interesting to watch. None us could believe that we could simply walk up to the Prime Minister's office and take random picture of it. There wasn't a single guard in sight, and it only got better.



The building is a giant castle that has been built larger and larger over the centuries. It has a little thoroughfare that people use to cut through town and a courtyard. Apparently the lawmakers work all day but every so often they need a break for fresh air, so they simply walk downstairs into the courtyard perhaps get ice cream from the vendor (which by the way is an Italian ice cream vendor) and they walk around the building. It's as simple as that. Oh, and there was one more sight on our little tour.



The in town palace! Long live the Queen!

So begins the Finals push

My Dutch Art History final was today. Technically means one down, one today and then its "watch out Italy here I come!" Oh yea, there's a couple of papers due in there somewhere. I can't believe we're almost to the long trip. Before I know it I'll be gearing up to come home. But here's a testament to what a wonderful time I've been having:

That's one post card from every city I've been to.

Today has just been a rainy afternoon in Maastricht. We're sitting at out desks with the windows open listening to the water dribble down the vinyl awning. For the time being there isn't any stress, just a lot of focused energy, so I'll leave it at that.
Hope all is well! Now it's back to the paper writing!

"I Am"*

I Am


*Music and Lyrics by Mark Schultz






I am the maker of the Heavens
I am the bright and morning star
I am the breath of all Creation
Who always was
And is to come



I am the One who walked on water
I am the One who calmed the seas
I am the miracles and wonders
So come and see
And follow me
You will know




I am the fount of living water
The risen Son of man
The healer of the broken
And when you cry



I am your savior and redeemer
Who bore the sins of man
The author and perfecter
Beginning and the end
I am







I am the spirit deep inside you
I am the word upon your heart
I am the One who even knew you
Before your birth
Before you were




I am the fount of living water
The risen Son of man
The healer of the broken
And when you cry
I am your savior and redeemer
Who bore the sins of man
The author and perfecter
Beginning and the end
I am




Before the Earth (I am)
The universe (I am)
In every heart (I am)
Oh, where you are (I am)
The Lord of lords (I am)
The King of Kings (I am)
The Holy lamb (I am)
Above all things



I am the fount of living water
The risen Son of man
The healer of the broken
And when you cry
I am your savior and redeemer
Who bore the sins of man
The author and perfecter
Beginning and the end
I am


Yes, I am almighty God your father
The risen son of man
The healer of the broken
And when you cry,
I am your savior and redeemer
Who bore the sins of man
The author and perfecter
Beginning and the end
I am

"Water, water everywhere/ and all the boards did shrink..."~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

What do you think of when you think of visiting Europe? Do you think of visiting Paris? or Spain? What about London? That one seems to be very popular. Have you ever thought about Sweden or Norway? No, me neither. That's what makes this past weekend so Amazing!

While the Baylor in Maastricht program gives up three Month Eurail passes, sometimes there isn't enough time in a weekend to go someplace further away and sightseeing. In that case let me introduce you to this little gem, it's called Ryan Airlines. Ryan Air is a discount airline that services Europe, and when I say discount, I mean discount. My flight to Sweden cost me a whopping 7.00 Euro, that's a little less than $14.00 for you American currency fans, and the flight home from Oslo cost a little less than that.

So Friday morning me and four of my Maastricht buddies boarded a plane bound for Stockholm, Sweden for a bit of Scandinavian bliss. Here's what I saw: lots and lots of boats, ranging in age from new to old, to holy cow that thing still exists?

Stockholm was my favorite for some reason I can't explain in rational terms. I think perhaps we had a very relaxed day. All that was really scheduled was a trip to the Vasa Museum so we got to take out time wandering through souvenir shops and little markets along the way. Oh, and don't forget strolling by the harbor.














I've spent the past three summers working the USS Cairo Museum at Vicksburg National Military Park, and I have heard the Vasa referenced at least once a month by some well travelled retired couple, usually the wife as the husband has already disappeared somewhere into the depths of the museum leaving her to entertain herself i. e. talk to the Park Ranger. "Have you ever heard of the Vasa." "Oh, you should definitely take a trip to see the Vasa" (said as if this trip would take only a couple of hours from Vicksburg). "The Vasa is the best preserved ship I've ever seen!" Really, I've heard just about everything in connection to the Vasa. I knew most of the story, I just hadn't seen it yet. Now I have, and I can say that everything everyone ever mentioned about it.... it's all true.

(These pictures turned out really dark, so I messed with the brightness so you can see them better. This, however makes them look slightly strange I think.)

The Vasa was commissioned by the King of Sweden in 1628, (so think... Spanish Armada, end of Elizabeth's reign, around that time period). It must have been absolutely beautiful for its time with all the decorations and painted sculptures that adorned her facade. Unfortunately this wasn't going to last too long because the ship had not longer been afloat more than 30 minutes before it sank. Why you ask? Well, the Vasa was one of the first ships that was built with not one, but two gun decks, this meant she weighed more and this fact was coupled with the problem that she was disporportionately tall compared to her width. She was top heavy and stared to lag to once side. Since the gun portals were so close to the water line, in goes the water and down goes the ship. She was recovered in 1961 (around the same time as the Cairo, interestingly enough) and now it the central sight to see in Stockholm.


Friday night our Swedish adventures ended, I am sad to say and we all boarded a train for an eleven hour trip to Oslo, but this time we had a sleeper compartment with I thought was really cool. I spent several hours hanging off the edge of my bunk taking pictures at the scenery as it wizzed by at 200+ miles an hour.

Saturday morning brought us to the Norwegian Folk Museum that was primarily about the cultural traditions of Norway. I'm ashamed to admit it, but it took me back to my American Girl doll days and my love for all things Kirsten. She was really supposed to be Swedish but the clothes and furniture all looked the same! There were a couple of permanent museums and then the village which is basically made up of buildings from the 1600s and later that were taken down and moved to the museum. It was a nice little stroll.



Then we high tailed it over to the Viking Museum to see move boats that had sunk and then dug up. Except this time they were older. I know what you're thinking, Lindsay how much older can you get than the Vasa? Uh, alot older actually, and since I haven't seen any Roman stuff yet, I think these ships are the oldest that I've seen since I've been over here. There was one ship in particular, the Gokstad Ship, that was amazingly preserved and it was built in 810 AD!



Can you imagine, the people settled Iceland and Greenland and made it all the way to Canada from Norway in little boats like these...

That was about it for my Scandinavian adventure. Oh, and my interesting food find of the trip was a grilled Moose Hotdog. Yea, instead of ketchup or mustard they put potato salad on top. Yummy.

Bye, bye, Holland and good luck!

I'm off once again! This time were heading out for a nice long weekend in Norway and Sweden. Who knows what'll happen in Scandinavia! My biggest disappoinment is that I won't get to see the World Cup Championship Sunday night at 8:30. It's Holland V. Spain. Keep me up to date, will ya?

The Art of Progress

America is a really young country. I have a tendency to forget this. In all honesty, I think of the progress we've made over the years and sometimes it makes me a little sad. About 150 years ago America was only have settled, there were miles and miles of undiscovered land lying perfect and untouched.There were hundreds of buffalo that grazed through the fields and birds flew high in they sky. In my opinion, American progression into a modern society is bittersweet. Yes, we are the technological masters of the world, we live in what is perhaps the safest country with books and paintings and many, many other beautiful things. But in order to have these things we have crisscrossing asphalt through what used to be beautiful landscapes and massive hordes of people trampling up and down paved sidewalks.

This feeling of loss isn't here in Europe, because there was never a moment before people.In fact, progress here stands as a beacon to human ingenuity and is incorporated into everyday life effortlessly. The past isn't sacrificed for the future.


This is the St. Servaas bridge. It stretched across the Maas river and connects the two sides. If your interested in getting to the train station or the movie theater you're going to have to cross this bridge (or another just like it). The original bridge that sat in this location was built by the Romans who originally settled the city, but after that bridge fell into disuse, this one was built in the 1200s. Today it's still used, though only as a pedestrian bridge. Regardless of cars or not, it sits at the heart of the city. After eating at one of the outdoor cafes you can take a stroll across this bridge and watch the sun set.

Here's a little local favorite among all the Baylor kids. It's the Selexyz bookstore.

Talk about Heaven on Earth! (Pun is absolutely intended here). Not only is this the biggest bookstore I've ever seen, it's the most creative use of ancient architecture that I've seen as well! This bookstore is complete with coffee shop (at the altar!) and carries books in Dutch, French, Spanish, German, and English (the English section is really big, and I've successfully refrained from buying anything! Go me!) It's interesting to go in here and just study for a little while, the frescoes still glow against the ceiling and all the tomb sites are still marked (I assumed the graves are still there, but I don't know that to be fact.)


When I was taking a walk around the old city center ( ok, so perhaps I was a little lost...) this past weekend I found this.

This is the original city wall that circled around Maastricht when she first was nothing more than a fortress city on a river. It was built in 1229. Look at the coolest part, though. In the foreground is a door. That is somebody's house. You can't see it but there are other doors that line directly across from the wall down the alley way. This part of town belonged to all the tanneries, so houses here are situated between the first city wall and a small river! It's actually quite a beautiful part of town.


Combining the past and present is not something unique to Maastricht. It's present in most European cities, Paris, Munich, Rome. I find this aspect interesting. It is as if to say, "we've progressed! No regrets!" Perhaps one day I'll be able to say thing about America. One day I won't be quite so bitter sweet about the industrialization of our country. I wonder what of our buildings will be incorporated into everyday life in 400 years!

"I want to go on living even after my death!"- Anne Frank, April 5, 1944

Yesterday I took my 2nd pilgrimage to Amsterdam. When I returned it was late and I had a bit of sinus stuff going on, so you must forgive me for not writing then.


At 267 Prinsengracht, Amsterdam, there is a house. It's a simple row house, looking no different from the houses left and right of it. In front, just past the busy little street lies the Prince's Canal. You can see the water flowing from between the trees lines. Little houseboats adorned with flowers are tied along the canal gently bobbing up and down with the motion of the current. It's a house in a simple neighborhood, away from the hustle and bustle of the Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum. A couple of streets over there is an American food store where you can buy Lucky Charms, Reeses, and Mountain Dew, just about anything an American in Holland could ask for. Really, there's nothing special about this part of town, it just like any other street in Amsterdam, but that's the point.

We sometimes forget the streets we tread once lay underfoot of people from a different age, a forgotten age, and that places we live had a life before we stepped through the door, and will continue to have one after we've left. Yesterday I pictured a little girl about thirteen years old in a warm woolen jacket and matching cap skipping with her mother down the street in front of me off to see her father at his shop.She's a bit of a chatter box. Her mother stopped listening to her prattle a few streets back and walks straight in her hands pressed into her pockets for warmth. The girls has yet to pass a stranger and waves at everyone she meets, down to the little paper boy peddling his bike across the street. On her lapel there is sewn a yellow star with the name Jood scribbled across the center. Early this morning (68 years ago) she, her parents, and her sister went into her father's shop and never came out.

"For someone like me, it is a very strange habit to write in a diary. Not only that I have never written before, but it strikes me that later neither I, nor anyone else, will care for the outpouring of a thirteen year old schoolgirl."

But people do care. I certainly did back in June when I picked up her Diary in order to thumb through it, and the line of people who wrap around the block of 267 Prinsengracht care as well. Everyone has heard the story of Anne Frank. Seeing the story of Anne Frank is something I would wish for you all.

The rooms were tiny and so very dark, but I know I can sit here and tell you that until I turn blue in the face and it still won't mean anything. It's important to note that when I say tiny, I mean tiny for eight people (seriously, I was standing there having flashback to a horrible summer spent with three crammed into one bedroom). The annex as we refer to it today was actually always intended to be an apartment. It wasn't unusual at the time to have a duplex of sorts with accomodations for a business or home in the front of the building and an apartment in the back. Because of this the Franks and Van Pels had the luxury of a water closet with running water and a working kitchen. After hours they would sneak downstairs into the offices and help their father on clerical work for the business or listen to the radio. The difficulty lay in how they lived, crammed into those little rooms during the day, no sunlight, now fresh air, not even a cracked window. Be quiet or else the neighbors will here you! Still, you enter the rooms and there is a sense of life there. People lived here, they fought and laughed and cried here.



Anne was such a dreamer, a lover of nature and beauty and literature. Her cheerful voice comes shimmering through the pages of her diary unbound by time, uninhibited in her happiness and curiosity.




But here's where my imagination goes.
“I keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would like to be, and what I could be, if … there weren’t any other people living in the world.” This was Anne's last diary entry dates August 1, 1944. Three days later police raided the annex. What was she thinking? How did she cope? Did she cry? What was her father thinking?




Because of the things I've been through and I've seen, I put hefty weight on each and every person having a purpose in life. Sometimes this purpose can be fulfilled long before we ever grow into adulthood, and sometimes this purpose is fulfilled in our passing. Then only true tragedy, I think, is a death that comes before the purpose is fulfilled. This is not the case with Anne. It became increasingly clear to me as I walked through the museum that if Anne had survived there would be no Anne Frank house. Why would there be a need? Today, Anne has not only become the face of 6 million men, women, and children who died during the war, but she is the connecting point of an entire generation that survivors like Eli Wiesel and Corrie Ten Boom miss.

I watched a little girl about ten years old scour this museum. She read every plaque, watched every video, and analyzed every picture and was still there when I left an hour later. I know nothing of that little girl except this. Anne Frank has made a history lover of her, and those who know history and love it do not fall prey to the sins of our forefathers.



"We cannot change what happened anymore. The only thing we can do is to learn from the past and to realize what discrimination and persecution of innocent people means. I believe that it's everyone's responsibility to fight prejudice."- Otto Frank, 1970

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before beginning to improve the world." Anne Frank,c. 1944

Pilgrimage

So, a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I would head to Brussels on my weekend in Maastricht. It only takes two hours to get there and its virtually a straight shot by train, with the exception of one switch at the ever popular Liege station.

I had an absolutely wonderful time. I think perhaps because I was by myself and so the stress of having five or six other personalities with different interest and needs wasn't present. I got to be relatively spontaneous, as spontaneous as I get which just means walking into a random store or plaza on my way from point a to point b. Nonetheless, I was a restful sort of day, and I got to do some really neat stuff, all while heading toward my main goal: the Musee des Beaux Arts.

I started my morning, with a different type of art:


It's the Belgium museum for Comic Strip art! I don't believe I've spent much time thinking about Comic Strips being art work, but they most certainly are, and there is so much more into it that what we see in the funnies every Sunday morning. Here's the highlights: One of the most famous Belgian comic characters is a detective by the name of Tintin. Tintin was created around the 1930s by an artist known as Jijé.Together, the two of them basically revolutionized the comic strip world and made it possible for other artists to come forward into the art form. Among these artists was
a Belgian man named Pierre Gulliford aka "Peyo." Peyo's debut into the comic words was with a series called Johan et Pirout. In 1958, Peyo's most famous characters debuted within this comic strip gaining such popularity that they earned their own strip, tv show, toys, etc. The Smurfs!

Have you guys ever heard of the Manneken Pis? Well, then you haven't taken French at Baylor University. I've been hearing about this fountain for the last four semesters, and by george if you didn't think I was going to go check this thing out. When I got there I found what is quite possibly the most pointless tourist attraction known to humanity.Ok, so I knew that the fountain was of a little boy peeing into the fountain (why I do not know) but I didn't expect him to be so small. For some reason I was envisioning a fountain with a life size state in the middle of some square, not tucked into the corner of a little alley way. It didn't seem to matter where he was though because people came in waves to this little alley, 20, 30 at a time to stand and take pictures of this little guy. I stood back and watched while I savored my first tasty treat of the day.

That my friends is a piping hot Belgian waffle with crème and kiwi. You could get these thing with anything, syrup, sugar, fruit, chocolate, or plain and believe me plain would have been just as tasty as anything else. I'm still mystified as to have a waffle can taste so amazing!

I had tooled around Brussels enough already, it was time to complete the pilgrimage. You see the purpose for this trip was to see a painting, not just any painting but my favorite painting ever (circa 7th grade). Last week we were talking about it in history class and I happened to Wikipedia it when I got home and found out it was just two hours away! I couldn't not go see it!
The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David

"Ew, it's a picture of some dead guy in a bathtub." How astute you sound, but this just isn't any dead guy in a bathtub, this guy is Jean-Paul Marat. As with most things that I love beyond measure, there is a story. In 1793, France was in turmoil. It was still suffering the throws of Revolution that began in 1789. Now, 4 years later, there was a power struggle going on in the midst of the National Assembly. This struggle was between the Conservatives, the people who wanted to conserve the monarchy and governmental institute, (this is actually the origin of the word Conservative within the context of politics today) and the Jacobins, the leftist group that wanted to overthrow it all and start new with a system where everyone was equal. The leaders of this group were Maximilian Robspierre, Saint-Just, and Jean-Paul Marat. (Eventually the Jacobs won this struggle and it was the period under their power known as The Terror that most think of when the French Revolution is mentioned. That was the time when all of the "traitors" to France and her cause were taken to the guillotine and, in the words of Dr. Rust, made a head shorter). Marat had a very important role within the Jacobin cause, and that was as editor of "The Friend of the People," a leftist newspaper that he used to spur the political cause. Marat also had a skin condition that required him to spend nearly 10 hours in bath every day, and it was from here that he would do the most work for his paper.

On July 13, 1793 a young woman from Normandy by the name of Charlotte Corday appeared at Marat's flat wishing to see him. She was invited in to speak to him while he was in bath, and they had nearly a 15 minute conversation before Corday withdrew from her corset an 8 inch knife and plunged it into Marat's chest. There was no chance of Survival. Later at her trail, Corday simply said that she'd "killed one man to same 100,000."

Marat's death, however had the opposite affect than what Corday intended. Instantly he became a martyr, and this was spurred on by David's dramatic representation of Marat's last breath in his famous painting. David, who was a close friend of Marat's and a Jacobin himself, designed his painting to be the representation of a hero's demise and virtually launched France further into the Great Terror as people became more convinced that traitors, like Corday were trying to undermind the country.( If you want more details about it, please feel free to ask, did I mention I love this painting?!)

Let me just say that for a good ten minutes I got to stand nose to nose with this painting and look at every last detail. It was so cool. Oh, and I hope you like the painting Amanda because I sort of got a print of it to add to the collection!

After my trip to the museum my day was pretty much over, but I couldn't leave without having one last thing!
Belgian frites, in a cone with Andalouse sauce (a mixture of ketchup, mayonnaise, and pepper). The Belgians invented the fries, so I don't suppose I need to tell you how amazing they were!

Alright, that's all for now! Have a safe and happy fourth!