My Youngest Sister Comes to Holland

At the very end of May, my youngest sister, Rachel, came to see me in the Netherlands.  She had been on a research project in England, and so we arranged for her to hop across the sea, get a whirlwind view of Holland, and then go to Paris together over the Ascension Day holiday.  It was dark and rainy when she arrived, and a broken tram in Amsterdam didn't speed up the long process of finding her hostel!  I had brought her Dutch specialties for a little dinner: Gouda cheese, lemon kwark yogurt, raisin bread with marzipan, and of course a pack of stroopwafels.

She only really had one full day in Holland, but we managed to pack five cities into it!  We started with a walk along Amsterdam's canals with their stately houses from the seventeenth century.  Then went to the hidden garden courtyard in the Begijnhof, and finally walked by the Dam and the Nieuwekerk where the Dutch monarchs are crowned.  This is a picture of Rachel in front of the Royal Palace.

The facade of the palace was all covered in restoration scaffolding until fairly recently.

We got on the train and rode south to Delft.  Here Rachel is in the huge market square between the town hall and the towering Nieuwekerk.

By an amazing old building covered with brightly covered coats of arms, near the convent where William the Silent was murdered.

While we were in Delft I got to visit the chapel of Maria van Jesse where there is a medieval statue of the Virgin and Child believed to be miraculous.  I had seen the image before but hadn't been able to take a picture because there was a priest hearing confession in the chapel, and I thought it was too disrespectful!  This time, though, I got a photograph.  In medieval art the "Tree of Jesse" is represented with a depiction of Jesse, the father of King David, sleeping at the base of a tree.  The branches of the tree bear his descendants, including King David, King Solomon, and so forth.  At the top of the tree sits the Virgin Mary, and above her is the Christ Child--the final, triumphant fruit of Jesse's lineage.  I think the tall arrangement of flowers under this sculpture of Maria van  Jesse is supposed to represent that "family tree."

After walking around Delft we hopped on the train again and continued to Rotterdam, a huge city that I had only been to once before when I flew into the airport there several years ago.  It was terribly bombed during World War II, destroying the historic city center.  It has a wonderful art museum, though, and Rachel is studying a painting in its collection.  While we were there I saw a series of Dutch paintings from the Renaissance depicting the "Seven Works of Mercy."  These "Works of Mercy" come from the parable of the sheep and the goats in the gospel of Matthew--"I was hungry and ye gave me meat," "thirsty and ye gave me drink," etc.  I was really impressed that in each "Work of Mercy," the artist depicted Christ among the crowd, as one of the afflicted men and women receiving help.  You can see him here in the grayish robe with a faint halo, looking at you as he waits in line to receive bread.  He waits for us to show mercy to one the "least of these," hiding in the "distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor," as Mother Teresa used to say.

I left Rotterdam and went to class in Leiden, while Rachel went to Den Haag to visit the marvelous Mauritshuis museum, the so-called "treasure box" because of its extraordinary but fairly small collection of beautiful paintings.  Then Rachel met me in Leiden.  Here she is at a bridge that I frequently cross on my way to the train station, over the Ouderijn River.

And here by Leiden's windmill.

We ate a delicious dinner with the wonderful Dutch family I live with, complete with delicious Dutch yogurt and fruit for dessert.  And we finished up the evening in Haarlem with an organ concert at the Sint-Bavokerk.  They have a magnificent organ, and it's pretty amazing when they pull out all the stops and let it blare through the church.  The sound hovers in the air for a few seconds afterwards and then gradually evaporates away.  You can also get into the church for free when you go to an organ concert!  We walked around Haarlem and got gelato from an Italian gelateria before heading back to Amsterdam.