Week III - Lots of Form, some Function. And more cheese.

Full set of pics is here: "Week III pics"

Last week we left off in Texel, sand dune and heather capital of the Netherlands.

Returning on the ferry to the mainland, I headed southeast to the National Park and the Kroeller-Mueller museum, temporarily rejoining the route my mom, sister and I followed during our summer tour of Europe in 1986. The museum houses a large Van Gogh collection (in a less hectic environment than the eponymous museum in Amsterdam), and hosts a world-class sculpture garden, which has continued to expand over the years.

As a sixteen-year old, I remember staring at Snelson's "Needle Tower II" in awe. How could such a structure stay standing, using only cables and tension, with no rigid connections between any one bar and another? 20 years later, I'm still baffled. There are times when a liberal arts education falls flat on its face.

Another, new, highlight was "Kijk Uit Attention", by Krijn Giezen. Sadly, a high-schooler fell last year while descending the stairs and was injured (not fatally)...climbing the piece is still on hold.



Understandably, since there are no rails. One stumble and you're not stopping till something stops you. But even from the ground, the visual impact is mesmerizing and induces knee-trembling.

The next day led me first to Utrecht, to visit the only consummated work of De Stijl architecture, a commissioned house designed by Rietveldt. The interior wasn't open that day, but the exterior was fun. Standing now at the end of a row of mundane dull-brick apartment buildings, the house looks like a weather-beaten transplant from Manhattan Beach's waterfront, but imagine how revolutionary it was at the time.

Then to the Central Museum in Utrecht, for a little more Rietveldt, and a LOT more "Dutch Masters." Finally, before calling it a day in Rotterdam, through Gouda, where I stopped to buy some cheese, as one does. That night I checked the internet and found, with relief, that I had, indeed, been taught to pronounce it correctly: "how-da", with some guttural phlegm thrown in here and there to sound truly native. (Right, good luck. Dutch sounds like Russian would on a poorly tuned AM radio.)

Rotterdam is a slightly gritty port city (busiest in Europe and top 3 in the world), with pockets of true hipness, including the Netherlands Architectural Institute, which is currently hosting a comprehensive exhibit on Le Corbusier. Next door, they maintain (lovingly and accurately) a house built in the 20's -- "hypermodern" at the time, it still works its spell, and I am tucking away the floor plan in my mind (and computer) in case I ever have the chance to crib a few ideas from it. I'm not so sure I need a clock in every room, though.

Honestly, I ended up spending more time in the Netherlands than I anticipated, but that's turning out to be the real pleasure of this "hiatus" month -- I am only planning a few days in advance, and trying hard to "hang loose." It's peak travel season, so this makes bagging the perfect hotel a little trickier, but it's working out so far.

Philosophical digression: In Amsterdam, I bumped into a fellow Californian traveling with his sister and mother. He was aching to get a little free time and I hadn't had a conversation longer than two sentences recently, so we started making plans to grab a drink after his dinner with the fam. We hit a brick wall when it surfaced that he didn't have a cell phone that worked in Europe. Luckily, his sister, over here on an internship, did, so planning continued. How did it used to work, again? You just showed up where you said you would??? In the same vein, I can't believe we used to do this kind of traveling with one -- maybe two -- guide books which were already a year out of date when published.

On this trip, I'm relying on the internet to keep me AWAY from the places in the guide books. Any decent city has more than six great restaurants, and the six that "Froder-Rickgat's" picked might have been great two years ago, but it's a safe bet you won't find the locals eating there. The cure, theoretically, is local review sites on the net. However, it's a Catch-22. Any site with enough critical mass to be useful and relevant starts to exert its own law of inverse coolness, while most hobble along with a few scattered, poorly organized reviews. TripAdvisor.com is still holding its own, though the hotel selection seems to be constrained now by some corporate partnerships.

I guess nothing replaces just walking around and asking people whose livelihood isn't tied to providing "safe" recommendations.