Tourist Sites

On Tuesday, Eowyn and I went into Delft. For those of you who can't place the name, if you're familiar with the blue-and-white painted Dutch porcelain, Delft is where it comes from. It's a small town, but it's extremely beautiful, so many canals, many more than the Hague has. And most of them are linked by brides, not underground culverts (as in the Hague). First, we visited the original Delft blue workshop and museum, although we didn't go into the museum, because Eowyn thought it was free, but it was, in face 6.50 Euros. The gift shop is extensive, though, with a lot of great representations of Delftware, most of it extremely expensive (I mean in the hundreds of Euros). There are three levels of Delftware: fully handpainted, half-stamped/half-painted, and fully stamped. The fully handpainted stuff is the most expensive, the half and half is middle range and the fully stamped stuff is cheap and made in China (the other two are made in Delft). I was able to purchase one fully handpainted piece, because it was a factory second, meaning there was a mistake on it. It's a tile with a cottage on it, and there's a small blue smudge along the bottom edge which is almost completely covered by the frame I got for it. The other pieces I bought - a vase and a mug, are half-stamped, half-painted. It was nice to be able to buy something for myself, something I can bring back and use!

After the workshop, we went into the town center and had lunch. As fate would have it, we ended up sitting at a table next to a woman from Calgary who was traveling with her husband for a conference! Since he was working, she was touring around for the day. We had a great talk with her - it's great to run into other Canadians abroad, so when you say "I'm from Alberta" they know where it is, and even know the city in which you lived.

We followed up lunch with a canal boat tour, which would have been better but for the extremely loud teenagers on board with us. Nonetheless, it was great - Delft is the home to the painter who painted Girl with a pearl earring; I wish I remembered his name, but I don't and I'm too lazy to google it. The oldest house there is from the 1500s, to give you an idea of how old the town is, and how amazing and varied the architecture can be.

After the boat cruise, we wandered around, had tea and I took many pictures of the canals and the old buildings. Delft is just so unlike anything we have in North America, even in the east, where most of the buildings seem new because of urban sprawl, or in the west, where most of the buildings are new period. I am thinking more and more that western Europe is where I'd like to end up when I'm finished the PhD (shh, don't say "finished"!). I think I'd prefer the UK or Germany to the Netherlands, but it's all so close together and easily accessible that it almost wouldn't matter!

I will try and post pictures from Delft without using up all my monthly space, although those of you who are friends on facebook can look at all of my photos there. Tuesday I am going to Belgium, to Brussels, by myself for the day, just to look around. I have no particular plans for what I want to see there (other than everything), so we'll see what comes of it!