catching up
Aug. 14th, 2007 11:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aryanhwyAs I aluded to in a previous post, we had a house-guest over the weekend. Giano arrived around noon on Thursday, and stayed through Monday. I met him at the train station and then the plan was to drop his things off at home and then go up to the Maritime Museum for the afternoon. That plan was thwarted when we got to the museum and found it closed: until 2009. So that was a disappointment. I'm glad that Joel and I had a chance to go when ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ctseawa was visiting, since I don't know when in 2009 it will be re-opening, and I wouldn't have wanted to have missed it. But this did explain something: Quite some time ago the East Indiaman that was moored outside the museum disappeared, and then reappeared next to the Nemo (a science museum). I'd wondered about that. It turns out that the ship is still open to viewers, which is why it was moved. So we salvaged some of our afternoon plans and went and saw the ship. We got there just as a crew in period dress were putting on a demonstration of the cannon; they had it sighted on one of the canal cruise boats going by, and pretended to blow them up. That definitely was a hit with the kids.
Since that didn't take all our time, we then moseyed around the city for awhile and ended up walking past the Waag and then through the flea-market, where we perused all the book stalls. I actually picked up a book: Memoirs of a Geisha, since Amy had said it was good. I read it over the weekend, and it was good, though there was always this feeling in the background that it was fiction. Somehow, I couldn't get the willing suspension of disbelief going strongly, in part because the book was trying to be non-fiction.
Friday Giano spent the day in Leiden, since there's a good anthropology/archaeology museum there and that's one of his Things. Saturday the three of us went to Nijmegen. Joel and I have been intending to go there ever since last July when we were there for Logic Colloquium and only saw the bits of the city between the train station and the university. The bits we went to on Saturday were completed intersected with those bits, and I was amazed at what a lovely and historic town it was. I don't often get a feeling of history when wandering through Dutch cities; the ones I've been in mostly feel of the 18th and 19th centuries, with the exception of the churches. We walked from the train station to the center of town and almost immediately came upon a part which had two towers and the wall between them left over from the old city wall (I believe 16th C, with the tower perhaps being in part newer). From there we sighted on the tower of the main church, a huge gothic construction. On the other side of that was another fairly old building with a passage way opening on to the main city square, which was surrounded by pubs and cafes, and had a market going. In many ways, it reminded me of the center part of Lübeck.
We'd been heading this direction because it was towards the river (the Waal), and Joel's main purpose in wanting to go to Nijmegen was to see the road bridge over the river, to see if it really was the WW2 bridge or if it had been replaced, and to see if there was any plaque or sign. The answer to both questions appears to be yes: The bridge certainly looks like it could have been old enough, and there is a plaque on one of the supports commemorating when the Allied troops gained control. So that was cool for him. The rest of the afternoon was spent at the archaelogical/anthropological museum in Nijmegen, where we met up with two of Giano's friends who live there, and are also into ancient history and so were able to tell us lots of things not present in the English version of the museum guide. Afterwards we went over to Jasper's place, met his girlfriend, had a few drinks, browsed his library and ended up staying for dinner, an absolutely fabulous spicy sweet potato soup (which we got the recipe for).
There were two parts about the day that bugged me, both of which happened on the train. We had the bad luck to be stuck in cars which had young children on them. On the way out, three little girls were playing what appeared to be "Red Light/Green Light" in the train aisle, shrieking at the top of their voices. On the way back, despite the fact that we'd ended up in one of the "silent" cars (all the windows say "silence" in Dutch and English, so it's pretty obvious), and there was a young boy with his father who spent most of the trip (an hour and a half) telling stories, counting, and singing songs -- all at the top of his lungs.
Now, I'm definitely not a fan of the adage that children should be seen and not heard. I'm all for having children being able to entertain themselves on long trips, to hold conversations with adults, things like that. But it doesn't have to be done at the top of their voices. The concept of an indoor voice and an outdoor voice will be one my children will definitely be taught. The trip back wouldn't have been bad at all if the boy had not even used a quiet voice but just used a normal conversation tone. But this was loud, jarring, and really got on my nerves, especially since we were in a purported silent car. There is no way that my kids will behave like that in public without some attempt on my part at remonstrance.
But all in all, that was a minor part to an otherwise very fun day.
ctseawa was visiting, since I don't know when in 2009 it will be re-opening, and I wouldn't have wanted to have missed it. But this did explain something: Quite some time ago the East Indiaman that was moored outside the museum disappeared, and then reappeared next to the Nemo (a science museum). I'd wondered about that. It turns out that the ship is still open to viewers, which is why it was moved. So we salvaged some of our afternoon plans and went and saw the ship. We got there just as a crew in period dress were putting on a demonstration of the cannon; they had it sighted on one of the canal cruise boats going by, and pretended to blow them up. That definitely was a hit with the kids.Since that didn't take all our time, we then moseyed around the city for awhile and ended up walking past the Waag and then through the flea-market, where we perused all the book stalls. I actually picked up a book: Memoirs of a Geisha, since Amy had said it was good. I read it over the weekend, and it was good, though there was always this feeling in the background that it was fiction. Somehow, I couldn't get the willing suspension of disbelief going strongly, in part because the book was trying to be non-fiction.
Friday Giano spent the day in Leiden, since there's a good anthropology/archaeology museum there and that's one of his Things. Saturday the three of us went to Nijmegen. Joel and I have been intending to go there ever since last July when we were there for Logic Colloquium and only saw the bits of the city between the train station and the university. The bits we went to on Saturday were completed intersected with those bits, and I was amazed at what a lovely and historic town it was. I don't often get a feeling of history when wandering through Dutch cities; the ones I've been in mostly feel of the 18th and 19th centuries, with the exception of the churches. We walked from the train station to the center of town and almost immediately came upon a part which had two towers and the wall between them left over from the old city wall (I believe 16th C, with the tower perhaps being in part newer). From there we sighted on the tower of the main church, a huge gothic construction. On the other side of that was another fairly old building with a passage way opening on to the main city square, which was surrounded by pubs and cafes, and had a market going. In many ways, it reminded me of the center part of Lübeck.
We'd been heading this direction because it was towards the river (the Waal), and Joel's main purpose in wanting to go to Nijmegen was to see the road bridge over the river, to see if it really was the WW2 bridge or if it had been replaced, and to see if there was any plaque or sign. The answer to both questions appears to be yes: The bridge certainly looks like it could have been old enough, and there is a plaque on one of the supports commemorating when the Allied troops gained control. So that was cool for him. The rest of the afternoon was spent at the archaelogical/anthropological museum in Nijmegen, where we met up with two of Giano's friends who live there, and are also into ancient history and so were able to tell us lots of things not present in the English version of the museum guide. Afterwards we went over to Jasper's place, met his girlfriend, had a few drinks, browsed his library and ended up staying for dinner, an absolutely fabulous spicy sweet potato soup (which we got the recipe for).
There were two parts about the day that bugged me, both of which happened on the train. We had the bad luck to be stuck in cars which had young children on them. On the way out, three little girls were playing what appeared to be "Red Light/Green Light" in the train aisle, shrieking at the top of their voices. On the way back, despite the fact that we'd ended up in one of the "silent" cars (all the windows say "silence" in Dutch and English, so it's pretty obvious), and there was a young boy with his father who spent most of the trip (an hour and a half) telling stories, counting, and singing songs -- all at the top of his lungs.
Now, I'm definitely not a fan of the adage that children should be seen and not heard. I'm all for having children being able to entertain themselves on long trips, to hold conversations with adults, things like that. But it doesn't have to be done at the top of their voices. The concept of an indoor voice and an outdoor voice will be one my children will definitely be taught. The trip back wouldn't have been bad at all if the boy had not even used a quiet voice but just used a normal conversation tone. But this was loud, jarring, and really got on my nerves, especially since we were in a purported silent car. There is no way that my kids will behave like that in public without some attempt on my part at remonstrance.
But all in all, that was a minor part to an otherwise very fun day.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 09:28 pm (UTC)In the tent nearest mine on the weekend contained such children and their parents seemed quite happy to let them get on with what ever they wanted driving everyone completely nuts chief in their "sins" was starting to yell and scream at each other from 5:30am in the morning*, getting everyone's way and attacking other people children. Now I don't blame the kids one bit since at no time did the parents try to stop the kids from engaging in these behaviours....
That really annoyed me as it does every other time people seem to let their kids get away with murder.... Am I getting old?
* OK The 5:30 in the morning thing might not have bothered me quite so much if I hadn't had a hang over but some of the other nearby had to be up and working at 8am so waking them at 5:30am seem somewhat harsh
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 07:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 10:15 pm (UTC)That's because it is fiction, pretending to be non-fiction, and apparently the author, while using some details from a real woman's life, did not get the fine details down.
Apparently, the person the author interviewed to write the book wrote her own autobiography. While Wikipedia is not a good source for all things, its not inappropriate to cite here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineko_Iwasaki
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 07:43 am (UTC)I know. But what surprised me was how pervasive this feeling was while I read it. I've read other books which are fiction pretending to be non-fiction where that fact was completely a non issue. (Susanna Clark, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell comes to mind!). It disappointed me because I'd heard such good things about the book.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 02:52 pm (UTC)I think children should be *able* to be seen and not heard, when they are such a big disruption to others. But I grew up going to church 3 times a week and we did NOT have a kids' separate section so I had to be quiet. It wasn't usually a problem, I slept through it ;) But still, if my parents said to be quiet I knew how to be quiet and they knew what sorts of toys or puzzles or books to bring with them so that I could be entertained without making noise. Unfortunately I see too many parents today trying to get their kids to be quiet while giving them nothing to entertain and not paying attention to them when they get bored so they start tearing things up or something just to amuse themselves. :(
I know I feel old and curmudgeonly because I don't generally like being around kids but I know that it's unruly kids I can't stand and that it's the parents' fault. Also boys when in packs are just impossible :/ So it's always awkward at my inlaws because my elder sister inlaw has four boys who are nightmares IMO and I really don't like being around them because they are always noisy even when they are supposed to be being quiet. But my younger sister in law has three girls and they are much younger but she manages them so much better that I find them a joy to be with. (even if they are fairly unorthodox so that other family members call them ill-behaved but that's mostly due to *what* they say and not how they say it, plus said other family members are just sticks in the mud ;) )
On the more pleasant subject of books I can definitely recommend Mineko's autobiography. I can't recall the name offhand and can't even remember if we own in (probably not, but we do own Memoirs) but it has two titles. I have yet to read Jonathan Strange but should really get around to it sometime :) A lovely lady gave me her copy and then passed away before I read it so I never got to discuss it with her :( Oh well, I shall still have a nice time and keep her in mind :)
Sorry I am babbling, it just seems to be that kind of day! :)