Trailer Camping in Helga, the Winnie Micro Minnie

Our first trip in the new Winnebago Micro Minnie, and our first time as official RV'ers, was to Paris Mountain State Park near Greenville, SC. Figured we'd stick to somewhere close to home, not exactly knowing what we were getting into.  Dubbed "Helga", it is towed by "Thor", our blue Ford Ranger.

Paris Mtn has a nice campground.  Not too big, about 40 sites, a mixture of tent and RV sites, with electric and water hookups.  It was a cool couple days, with highs barely scraping 50 and overnight low in the upper 20's.  A good test of Helga's heater.  

We made use of the microwave, watched a few Outlander episodes on the TV, and made a fire to cook foil pack dinners.  There are some really nice hiking trails in the park, and we spent most of one day hiking around and exploring.  Found a nice little waterfalls, and a big dam/spillway that once serviced a mill.

Our camper has a Murphy bed.  One thing we discovered is that since the bed folds up against an outside wall, it functions as insulation when flipped up.  Even though the camper is nice and toasty, the bed can be pretty darned chilly if you expect to just pull it down and dive in.

We came away with a list of about 30 things to get, improve on, or fix for our next trip, and were pleased that we didn't blow anything up, burn anything down, or break something important.  Not too bad for the first time out.

 

Online Art Course Homework

In the spirit of learning something new during the coronavirus lockdown, I signed up for an online art course put on by MoMA and offered thru Coursera.com.  This was called "In the Studio: Postwar Abstract Painting".  It was self-paced, with videos and readings.  They took seven painters from the New York School, and went into lots of good technical stuff on how these people actually painted, covering materials and techniques.  

They even had homework - you were encouraged to try your hand at doing a painting "in the style of" these famous painters.  I had never made a painting of any kind before. I thought it would be kind of fun. It was.  

Most of original artist painted on a scale of, say, 8 by 8 feet.  I had some 8x8 INCH panels on hand, along with some very ancient acrylic craft paint. Here's some of the stuff I came up with:

Number 1:  Barnett Newman

8” square wood panel primed in clear gesso. Painted with very old acrylic fluid craft paint found in basement.  Process:

• Painted entire panel with the cool blue-grey.  Masked off one zip.
• Painted the entire panel with cobalt blue.  Decided it needed more depth and gloss, so I gave the entire panel another coat of cobalt mixed with gloss medium, then a coat of pure gloss medium.  
• Two thin zips, one black and one white, were masked on both sides.  (The white was actual student grade acrylic art paint.)
• The red one-sided zip was originally half the width.  I decided that was too narrow, and the paint too thin, so I went back and re-masked for a wider zip, and gave it two coats.  

Lessons learned?  

• That initial cool grey zip needs something…
• The cobalt seemed to have a lot of pigment, but the rest of the found paint was pretty thin, and needed several coats to cover. Decent paint counts!
• I liked the glossy cobalt ground.  The photos’s side lighting brings out the texture a bit more than you would notice in real life.  Still, I’d like to find a way to get it extra-smooth.  Sand & recoat?
• This was fun, and I believe the first actual painting I ever created!  And not so bad for a retired engineer whose artistic background is music and photography. 

Number 2: Willem de Kooning

This is one of the few I did in a slightly bigger format.  20x30” poster board. 

It was a fun, but challenging one.  Where to start? When to stop?  I did about four all-over layers.  I think I managed to make some paint blotches that you could call "gestural", which was the goal.  That lighter blue stuff in the bottom half should be reworked, but you gotta quit sometime…

Number 3: Jackson Pollock

Detail

This was also on larger format poster board.  The paint I used was all house paint that the previous homeowners kindly left behind for us. So the color palette is, "whatever comes out of these cans".  On a black background.   It was dripped mainly using a paint stir stick.  One trick learned is to do several colors, then let it dry so they don't pool and blend into one giant, muddy blob.  The real problem with this style of paining is that it's REALLY, REALLY FUN TO DO.  It takes great discipline to stop before you end up with, well, a big muddy blob.

I tried my hand at an 8x8" mini-Pollock. Same color scheme.

 Detail

Number 4:  Mark Rothko

Rothko is one of my art heroes, so this one was going to be tough.  Especially constrained to an 8x8 inch scale and using crappy paint.  At least Jackson Pollock actually did use house paint!  

I started with a black background with some blue mixed in.  There are many layers of thinned acrylic paint in the rectangles. Last layers on upper rectangle were a dirty orange with a very thin red glazed on to break it up.  White stripe is a creamy white over a pure white.  The small bright fire orange bits peeking through the edges of the bottom rectangle is a Rothko thing that I think I managed to at least create a hint of. 

Number 5: Agnes Martin

Detail

This was kind of a process painting, where you come up with an idea and some rules, then just execute it.  Started out with two layers of light yellow over a base layer of black.  The grid incised with a sharpened metal awl.  The light blue lines are two shades colored pencil.  I think Agnes would approve of the subtle difference in the blues, and of the imperfections of the awl lines.  Clear coated to keep the pencil from smudging.

Number 5: Yakoi Kusama

 Detail

Another process painting, of sorts, in her "infinity net” style.  White over a non-uniform dark red/brick background.  Some paint was straight from the bottle, some with a little gel media mixed in, some with gloss media.  Here's where the cheap paint really shows.  All these marks looked very opaque white-white when painted, but dried kind of thin and transparent. And I really tried to glob it on.  

Number 6: Ad Reinhardt

Reinhardt did lots of unusual things with paint to get that extremely uniform matte black. I went into this one knowing it was going to be a big experiment, that I was venturing far from Ad Reinhardt's already unusual materials, and the chances of failure were great.  And fail it did. Long story short: after a couple weeks of trials, I had gone past the point of no return.  The panel was sanded back down to bare wood. The world shall never see my "sludge painting". It couldda been a thing...

Holiday Newsletter 2019

Seasons greetings from Bob and Betsy!       

Well, 2019 was quite the year.  We started with Betsy retiring at the end of 2018. But our plans for a quiet, relaxing, uneventful transition to retirement didn’t even last a month.  

Betsy’s mother passed away unexpectedly in late January.  She lived by herself up in Michigan, and it was just a matter of luck that we found out quickly.  Mary Bond was active and socially involved right up to the end.  She was also a big collector of things, and even with professional help it took us about 10 trips to Livonia to get her house cleared out and ready to sell.  The whole family met up in Abingdon, IL so she could be buried with her husband Paul.

A few weeks later Bob’s mother Lorraine passed.  She had been slowing down recently, and we thought her time was likely coming.  Although the Blichmann brothers rarely have the opportunity to all get together, we were all able to pitch in and put together a nice memorial service for Mom.

Nathaniel’s final Occupation Therapy internship was located close to Brevard, so in April he and Lindsey moved in with us.  He finished his OT degree - yay! They are now both working in the Asheville area.  We really do enjoy having them around - Nathaniel is a great cook, and Lindsey has been our personal tour guide as we work our way through Game of Thrones.  We’ve had some interesting conversations with their Senegal parrot, Mako. Now officially degreed and gainfully employed, their next big project will be house hunting and moving out of our basement. 

In that same timeframe we sold our Charlotte house and moved to Brevard full time (new address on back).  Bob made many trips to the mountains with the old ’88 Ford pickup loaded up like the Beverly Hillbillies. It was a big challenge to condense 25 years worth of junk into a pile small enough to fit into a downsized abode.  Craigslist Free became our new best friend, “stuff” our new arch enemy.

Although a lot of our time and energy went to driving between Brevard and Charlotte and Livonia, we did manage to squeeze in some recreational travel.  We had a great time at the Big Ears Music Festival in Knoxville, TN.  Pat and Betty Schroeder were down in June for a big bike ride, and I was able to meet up with Pat again in August for the Ride Across Wisconsin.  A week in Washington, DC, taking in the art museums, monuments, and famous places in general rounded things out.

Paul is still enjoying Madison, WI.  We got to see more of him this year with all our Michigan trips.

Betsy completed her Master Gardener program, which seemed to require a lot of volunteer weeding.  She has been exploring hand dyeing yarn, and is currently working on a sweater based on the coloring of Mako the parrot. 

Zeela is looking forward to her first winter as an outside rabbit in the mountains. She has mellowed out somewhat, being a somewhat elderly, single rabbit.  She still likes bossing us around, though. And chasing those dang wild rabbits out of her yard.

We are looking forward to 2020. Here’s to a new decade! I think we all deserve it.

Contact and social media info:

• New address:  17 Broadview Circle, Brevard, NC 28712
•  Bob  704-989-9230    bob.blichmann@gmail.com
• Betsy  704-292-5378    betsy.j.bond@gmail.com
• Knitting:  Betsy’s knitting creations are found under “Knitbert” on Ravelry.com
• Photography:     www.flickr.com/photos/bobblich/albums  
• We are both be easily findable on Facebook.  
•  Cycling and hiking activities are tracked on Strava.com (think Facebook for fitness geeks).
  

 

Holiday Newsletter, 2018

Seasons greetings from Bob and Betsy!       

2018 has been a fun and interesting year for us.  The big news is that Betsy retired at the end of the year, joining Bob in the ranks of the idle.  But he says, “Ha! Just you wait - you’re going to be doing more work now than when you were actually employed!”  Our game plan is to sell the family compound in Wesley Chapel (near Charlotte) and move up to Brevard (NC mountains) full time.  New address on back.

The Brevard house was radically renovated, making it better destination for both us and guests.  Mary Bond was down visiting for a week in late winter.  Lindsey and Nathaniel were up to spend a vacation week here.  Bob’s cycling friends from Wisconsin, Pat and Bruce, were down for an early season epic bicycling event / multi-birthday celebration in April.  Marc and Barbara Woodmansee (honorary Brevard residents) were in for a couple weekends.  For celebrity guests we had the Bagleys in during the Summer Music Festival. If you’re in the area, let us know.  We have available guest rooms. While the weather here is 99% glorious, visitors seemed to bring their share of rain, fog, sleet, and snow with them, once to the tune of a 16” dumping of snow.  That’s the storm of the decade in these parts!   

2018 seems to be the year that covered many miles. Bob did three (3!) “around Lake Michigan” road trips, with Betsy coming along on two of them. It’s always great visiting friends and family.  Both of our mothers are still toughing it out in Michigan.  If you ever get a chance to tour the Kohler factory in, well, Kohler WI, be sure to do it. The bathtub enameling line alone is worth your time.

Bob was able to jump back into bicycling in a bigger way this year.  Many miles of new country roads, dirt forest service lanes, and mountain bike trails were explored. The high point of the cycling year was spending a week riding around the high desert and volcanic landscapes of central Oregon with his friends Pat and John.  

Betsy is retiring as President of the Charlotte Knitting Guild, but is not bowing out of the world of fiber arts!  In addition, she has been accepted into the Transylvania County Master Gardener program for 2019. 

In rabbit news, the famous Mr. Skippy, our most favorite rabbit of all time, recently passed away.  We figure he was around 10 years old (hard to tell with rescues).  Skippy was a fired-up, outgoing critter that just loved everybody. His is survived by his long time soulmate, the suspicious, elusive, and somewhat wild Zeela.  As they say, opposites attract.  We, along with Zeela, miss him.

Our kids, however, are doing just fine.  Paul continues to enjoy living in Madison, WI.  Nathaniel is in his last year of Occupational Therapy school, with only a couple internships left before graduation.  After that, we think he and Lindsey are looking forward to escaping the crippling heat and the red tides of southern Florida.

Here’s to a happy and healthy 2019 for all!

Contact and social media info:

• Our new address will be:  17 Broadview Circle, Brevard, NC 28712
•         Bob  704-989-9230    bob.blichmann@gmail.com
• Betsy  704-292-5378    betsy.j.bond@gmail.com
• Family blog:  The BlichBlog is at blichblog.blogspot.com, and is occasionally         updated.
• Knitting:  Betsy’s knitting creations are found under “Knitbert” on Ravelry.com
• Photography:  Bob will post to Flickr when the mood strikes.    www.flickr.com/photos/bobblich/albums  
• We are both be easily findable on Facebook.  And Strava (think Facebook for fitness geeks).
  

 

Holiday Newsletter 2017

Christmas greetings from Bob and Betsy!

We hope this holiday season finds you all healthy, happy, and keeping warm - if you are up north.   Or cool - if you happen to reside even farther south than us.  With family spread from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to southern Florida, we have to cover all the bases theses days.

Looking back at 2017, this appears to be the year that we decided to actually drag ourselves off the couch, get out of North Carolina, and do some real traveling for a change.  Somewhat in the spirit of “throw a dart at the map”, we spent a week in March exploring Amsterdam.   No schedule, no big agenda.  We took in many museums, attended concerts, ate good food, and enjoyed the Dutch history and architecture.  And hydraulic engineering. I guess we kind of skipped the sex and drugs.  There’s always next time. 

Betsy and I, Nathaniel and Lindsey, and Marc and Barbara Woodmansee (Lindsey’s parents) spent a nice, long Easter weekend in Apalachicola, Florida, exploring the barrier islands.  Lots of early season sun, sand, hiking, and migrating birds.  Plus a sink hole or two.

Nathaniel and I followed that up with a Dad ‘n’ Lad trip to the Miami area, which was a new place for me.  We had a great time playing tourist - visiting the Everglades, Little Havana, South Beach, Key Biscayne, the big Viscaya house, art museums, various botanical gardens, and lots of other fun places.  I’ll bet we took 2000 photos between the 2 of us. 

Bob bookended the summer with two solo “around Lake Michigan” road trips. He got to visit Lorraine in Iron Mountain, Mary in Livonia, lots of old friends, and, as a special treat, all the Dubuque Blichmanns!  The bicycling highlight of the year was the Ride Across Wisconsin, a big two-day ride from Dubuque, Iowa to Racine, WI, with his friends Pat, John, and Bruce.  

Betsy also travels frequently for work, but mainly to suburban Pittsburgh, so that may not count for much in the adventure/fun department. In November we trekked back to Livonia for Betsy’s 40th high school reunion, the first she had attended.  It was a big school, so the experience was a bit surreal. She did manage to connect with some old neighborhood and band friends.  Betsy finished up another year as president of the Charlotte Knitting Guild, keeping the flame for the fiber arts in central North Carolina.    

Nathaniel and Lindsey moved down to Ft. Meyers, FL, where Nathaniel is in the Occupational Therapy program at Florida Gulf Coast University.  Paul flew down from Madison, WI, to help them move.

Our weekend/retirement house up in Brevard, NC is currently undergoing a major renovation.  That’s exciting, but with our mountain base camp out of commission, we missed out on lot of our standard leaf peeping and waterfall hunting this fall.  

And yes, the rabbits are doing just fine.  Skippy, like Bob, is sporting a little more ever-so-stylish grey hair these days.

Here’s to a great 2018!

Amsterdam Trip 2017. Day -1

FRI MAR 10 - Fly to Amsterdam, take one.

Tried to leave on a 6:30 pm flight, after work for Betsy.  Airline status was “On time” leaving the house.  In reality, one inch of snow in New York City earlier in the morning (!) had air traffic delayed across the east coast.  Really? We had given New York more credit than that.  Wimps.  Our 1 hour and 30 minute layover had shrunken to 15 minutes, not enough time to switch terminals at JFK.  After spending an hour at the Delta ticket counter, we were sent home in disgrace.  They ultimately put us on a flight out the next afternoon.

After paying for a whole day of parking, all the air was let out of our psychological balloons.  We were sent home in disgrace.  But since it would be silly to sit in I-485 traffic for an hour plus, we drove to Charlotte for a beer at Triple C Brewing Company, and then had BBQ over at Mac’s Speed Shop.  (The fridge at home was pretty empty.)  The rabbits were surprised to see us back from our trip so soon.

Lessons learned:

• Leave more time between flights
• Avoid New York City airports (we kind of knew this already)
• Delta Airlines has no clue.  We stood in front of the ticket agent for a whole hour while the guy tried to figure out flight status and how to rebook us.  And even that was screwed up, as we were to find out when trying to return at the end of the trip

Amsterdam Trip 2017. Day 0

SAT MAR 11 - Fly to Amsterdam, take two.

Now we had to get re-psyched up for traveling.  The plan:  3:45 pm flight to Atlanta, 2-3 hour layover, then on to Amsterdam.  Airbus 330, 2-4-2 seating, middle/aisle seats on a packed flight.  Had a BIG meal in Atlanta waiting for the flight, thinking airlines never feed you anymore.  MISTAKE.  The fed us nearly continuously, all the way to Europe, mostly carb-rich fare. Lots of music to listen to and movies and TV to watch on the seat back screens.  Betsy watched “Jackie”, but couldn’t hear much of the subtle, allegedly good soundtrack.  I caught up on old “Big Bang Theory” episodes, of which a little goes a long way.  We both managed to doze a bit, but didn’t sleep a lot.

The one day delay meant we missed out on 2 concerts we wanted to attend.  Saturday afternoon was the Lumako Ensemble (string trio + harp + flute) at the Het Schip Museum satellite facility, close to where we were staying.  I had emailed them, and they were holding our tix/spaces.  The other was a 11:00 am Sunday symphony concert at the famous Concertgebouw, already paid for, just to add injury to insult.

So, Bob’s carefully engineered trip agenda already had a big money wrench thrown into it.

Amsterdam Trip 2017. Day 1

SUN MAR 12 - Arrival

Landed ~ 10:45 am

A slow, but not long line at customs.  “You're just visiting Amsterdam? Really? There’s more here than just Amsterdam.” Took the train to Centraal Station, then the subway (Metro) to our digs.  The train ticket machines did not like any of our credit cards, seems a signature was required at the window.  The Metro ticket office was located outside the big train station.  Eventually figured THAT out.  Fast, easy, Metro ride to the apartment, where our host AirBNB Paul had coffee ready for us.

Our place, up on the third floor.

Stairs to the metro station.  Note the Dutch Modern design.

Cargo bike. Things like this were everywhere.

So… finally here, we ditched our carry-ons and daypacks, and hit the streets.  Walking here is an adventure in itself, with canals and bike lanes and trams and busses.  But once you realize there are seperate stoplights for people, bikes, and cars/trams/busses, it all makes sense. 

To get oriented, we took a canal cruise on one of the Blue Boats.  We zigged and zagged through the canals, starting at the Heineken place, up around the harbor, and back down the Amstel River.  Took pictures:

Fancy gables, this one with a sheep

More gables

Old church, bikes everywhere

The EYE Film Museum, plus some of the few tallish buildings in Amsterdam

Museumkaarts in hand, we took the sidewalk/bike path that goes through the big Rijksmuseum, past the AMSTERDAM letters, and went to the Stedelijk, the modern art museum.  Lots of Mondriaan, of course, being the 100th anniversary of De Stijl.  Nice Ab-Ex room with a Rothko, a big blue Newman, and several nice de Koonings.  Lots of Malevich.  The current big exhibit was on Ed van der Elksen - Dutch street photography and early home films.  I think we actually walked the museum backwards.

Bike path going THROUGH the national art museum.

Stedelijk, the modern art museum.

Ate dinner at a Thai place called Yum Yum (!) on Ceintuurbaan, which is kind of the main drag between the apartment and the Museumplein zone.

NEMO Science Museum

Amsterdam Trip 2017. Day 2

MON MAR 13 (day 2)

It was Rijksmuseum Day, the one day of the entire trip that we we stuck to our original agenda.

Rijksmuseum, the Dutch nation art museum, in the distance, across Museumplein.

Had a good night's sleep, and made it to the museum by 10:00.  Took a guided tour, which is always fun.  HUGE place, with lots of specialized exhibits.  The museum centerpiece is Rembrandt’s “Night Watch”.  Lots of bored, cell-phone entranced teens hanging out there!  Fun collection of Durer prints - they had “Melancholia”,  but no “Young Hare”.  Lots of portraits and group portraits by the Dutch masters.  Never did find the Frans Post capybara in Brazil paining.

The naked statue people seem to be enjoying the big trees and the art museums

Had lunch right in the museum cafe’, which was good and surprisingly reasonable.  Our waitress disappeared, but it turned out that all the waitstaff had everyone’s order on an electronic device, so you can get your bill from anyone walking by. I thanked a nice elderly dutch couple for that information (“Excuse me, but how did you DO that - get your bill?”)

The famous IAmsterdam letters!  Selfie central.

Dinns at the Wildshuut, an eetcafe’ (perhaps our favorite Dutch word) on the way back.  They had most of their space reserved for some political party event. National elections, it turns out, were just two days ahead.  Frites and shrimp croquettes.  Salmon and salad for Betsy.

Visited the big - by Amsterdam city standards - grocery store to stock up on Greek yogurt, cheese, and crackers.

Texted Paul a Happy Birthday.

Along the Amstel River

Amsterdam Trip 2017. Day 3

TUE MAR 14 (day 3)

Courtyard behind the Museum van Loon

Went to the Museum van Loon in the morning. The van Loons were a bigwig family dating back to at least the VOC (Dutch East India Company) days, and this canal house is now a museum, at least most of it, most of the time.  BIG entryway/staircase with a very cool, script brass baluster going up the stairs.  They had a special tulip-themed art show nearly ready to open.  A formal garden courtyard let to a carriage house which held a fancy carriage that a van Loon had build for no apparent reason other than to hopefully get invited to ride in parades. 

We attended a free lunchtime concert  at the Opera House.  People just sat on the stairs in the big entry foyer. It was fun.

Lunch - walked up toward the old town center, Nieumarkt square, and ate lunch in de Waag, which used to be the weighting house and an entrance into the very old city. It is the site of Rembrandt’s “Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp”.  Guess that happened upstairs somewhere.  The place looks like a castle from outside, and now stands by itself in the middle of Neiumarkt square.  Very cool atmosphere, with high ceilings and lots of real candles, and again, good food at a reasonable price for something smack dab in the middle of a busy, touristy place!

Next up was the the famous Stephen and Penelope knitting and yarn shop.

Stephen and Penelope

                                                                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Rembrandt, looking down on a recreation of his "Night Watch" painting.

Drawbridges, both wooden and metal

Walked around more after lunch, and ended up at the Rembrandt House Museum. They had it it done up, as much as possible, as it was when he was living, working, and painting there.  There were printmaking and paint prep demos.  Many steep, winding, spiral staircases.  Rembrandt had a bic collection of collectables and curiosities that he used as working models for the art (his & his students).

Dinner at Ali, a Turkish/kabob place, just south of Rembrandtplein.  Great hummus-like appetizer, made with walnuts, roasted peppers, and tahini.  Muhammara.   Lots of walking today! 

Dinner spot

Many of the buildings actually do slant toward the street.  Stairways are very narrow, so big things are loaded in through windows, using the cantilevered beams mounted in the gables. The overhang helps.

Amsterdam Trip 2017. Day 4

WED MAR 15 (day 4)

Slept in a bit and got to the Van Gogh Museum around 11:00.  The museum was quite impressive, and had by far the largest crowd seen to date.  Very bright, modern building(s) set up well for big crowds. Three - count ‘em three - gift shops  You could buy a Potato Eaters watch.  We could not interpret the symbols used for the numbers.   One gift shop was for books only.  This must keep the intellectually curious away from the mere curio seekers.  

The Van Goth Museum

On display apart from the Van Goths were works by artists that influenced him, and by those he directly influenced.  One whole floor focused mainly on his life history.  Many self-portraits, which he seemed to use to develop his style and try new things.  Several canvases had been painted on both sides, and were displayed in special frames.

In the egg-shaped new wing was a big display of early 20th century prints and posters.  Toulouse-Lautrec, et.al.  Many also by Pierre Bonnard, which I totally didn’t know about. Totally different than his paintings.

Had a late lunch at the Cobra Cafe on the Museumplein.  If the M of the “IAMSTERDAM” letters fell over, it would crunch the corner of this resaurant.  Once again, in a tourist-packed location that would provide a valid excuse for mediocre, over-priced food served with indifference, the Netherlands proved us wrong.  Good food, good service, at a good price.  Something is wrong here - we’re not use to traveling and NOT griping about food.

Betsy on a bridge

Everyone loves a crocheted wiener dog.

Took a walk after lunch, and saw a bunch of things:

• De Afstap knit shop
• A great bookstore that specialized in books on just two topics: Architecture and Nature.
• The Homomonument, which comemorates all persecuted LGBT men and women.  There are three ground-level triangles that form the corners of a larger triangle.  You might miss it, or even walk right through it, if you didn’t know it is there - it is right in the middle of a busy square.  
• The Anne Frank Huis had a line that wrapped around the block (we’d see an even longer line, in the rain, later in the week).
• The Cheese Museum.  Actually a plain old cheese shoppe with a little display in the basement.
• A two-story, floating bicycle parking lot on a barge by the ferry dock next to Centraal Station.
• Had a beer on the dockside deck outside the main public library.

If you leave your Bakfiets parked in one spot long enough, it will get tagged.

We finally got to attend a concert. It featured a string quartet AND a saxophone quartet.  Music from Bach to Bartok.  The venue was the Muziekgebouw on the IJ, a big, ultra-modern performance space right on the water.  Four story glass walls, cantilevered roofline, big atrium, the whole modern architecture thing.    There was a cool laser show with mirrors and mist, which was both fun and tastefully done.  It was the first time the musicians had seen it, too.  

Muziekgebouw on the IJ

We got there early to pick up our tickets, so we attended an “Intro” 30 minutes before the concert, but the fired-up, animated speaker presented it in Dutch.  All we understood was, “Talking Heads, Bartok, U2, CBGB’s, Rolling Stones, David Byrne”, and “Does the composer write with the venue in mind?”  We had nabbed front row seats, so we couldn’t really just sneak out. 

Wine for everyone (included with ticket) in the big glass  lobby afterward.  Hobnobbed with the musicians and other concert-goers.

They do have bowling

They also have unimaginabley long, skinny river cruise ships.