The Van Gogh museum

Frankly this museum was, as Wayne put it, underwhelming. Perhaps it was the contrast with the breadth and depth of the Rijskmuseum and all its drama, or perhaps it was because our energy was flagging, but it just didn't up lift us. Van Gogh explored so many styles during his short life, it was hard to get the full force of a coherent body of work. Nevertheless there were definite high points like the sunflowers painting.

A particularly irritating aspect of the museum was the descriptions. The Dutch explanations in bold white font on grey background were hard enough to read, but the English descriptions in lighter non-bold font were virtually impossible unless your nose was at the wall. Try that in a big crowd. I fail to understand why people prioritize some weird sense of artistic desirability over sheer functionality.

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Water, Water, Everywhere

Storm Surge Barrier at Maeslantkering near Rotterdam To tour the Netherlands is to marvel at Dutch ingenuity in water management. With one quarter of Holland below sea level and one half at one metre or less above sea level, the Dutch have lived with the threat of flooding for their entire history. The country boasts over 17,000 kilometres of dikes, along their rivers, intended to protect residents from flooding. But one night in 1953, the confluence of an especially high spring tide and a wind storm over the North Sea struck just after midnight and caused water levels to rise more than 5 meters above normal, breaching the protective dikes. Radio was off the air and government agencies were not staffed; there was no warning for the residents of low-lying land and islands. By 3 a.m., more than 1,800 people had lost their lives. The Netherlands decided to get serious about a new era of flood control water management. They wanted to have defences that would handle once-in-a-t...

The Rijskmuseum

The highlight of our day was a visit to the Rijskmuseum. Arriving just as it opened at 9:00 (before the hordes of bus tours), we left at 2:30, exhausted. It's a gorgeous building outside. But it's the inside that's spectacular. The museum was closed for ten years to complete renovations to return it to its original design. It was stunning, with charcoal walls and modern lighting fixtures trained on the paintings as in this gallery. There were fewer Rembrandts than I had expected, but the Rembrandt and contemporaries gallery was spectacular. The long gallery's arches opened onto many great paintings, dominating their own wall. The entire gallery was a frame for the famous painting at the end: The Night Watch. Then there it is, brighter and more captivating than I could have imagined. Thankfully we were there early before these crowds developed so we could contemplate in peace before returning after lunch. (This photo is rather fuzzy but frankly I was amazed anythi...

Conference venue

The conference I'm attending is the Central Bank Payments Conference in Amsterdam. The meetings are taking place in the hotel's conference centre in a 17C church. They call central banks the high priests of finance so this is an appropriate venue.

Netherlands 2017

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