Dancing Through Life

First on the agenda today was the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam. It was very nice. We saw some excellent Vermeers including the Milk Maid and the Letter Reader. We also saw one of Rembrandt's most famous works - the Night Watch. It is incredible! I really enjoyed this museum. During lunch, we went to the Diamond Museum. I wish we had more time there because all the signs were in English and it was very interesting, but we did not have very much time. C'est la vie. In a room shaped like the inside of a diamond. Pretty awesome. On the ceiling. In the center of the room. Yeah, it was pretty cool. We finished early so we took some pictures by the I amsterdam sign. Then we went to go find the Van Gogh museum. Only we got lost. Bad news. We ended up circling a huge block only to discover that the museum was very close to where the diamond museum is. Great haha. We ended up only being a little bit late after we booked it there so it was not too bad. We took a bunch of notes on Van Gogh th...

Church was in the Hague today so we headed back there on the train. After the train, we had to take a tram to get us to the area where the church building is located. Then we went to church. Relief Society was first and it was a combined lesson. They had headphones for us so that we could have English translation. Then off to Sunday School, which was in English. We talked about respecting God above all else. Then Sacrament meeting had four speakers, three of which were from England so they spoke in English. It was nice. What was really cool is that we got to sing in Dutch! It was quite a lot of fun :) After church, guess what happened? They had a potluck! We are very lucky people to have had so many wards feed us. There was tons of food and it was all quite tasty. It was nice to not have to worry about finding food for lunch. After we cleared our plates, we got back on the train and stopped in Leiden. While there, we went to the windmill museum. It was so awesome, but a little bit scar...

We went to the Hague today. Interesting... :) Medieval part of town. Series of "Wonders of Europe" pictures. Very lovely :) First museum we went to was the Bredius Museum. It was a nice one. I wrote on this work for my freewrite after Martha's lecture. After we finished our freewrites, Elisabeth, Tabitha, and I went and ate lunch. We sat on benches that were next to the Wonders of Europe pictures. Then off to the next museum, which was the Mauritshuis. This museum did not allow pictures, unfortunately. We saw many Rembrandts and Vermeers, including the Girl with a Pearl Earring. It is really exquisite. The tonal modeling of her face is really beautiful. It was great. After the museum, Elisabeth, Claire, Tabitha, and I headed to the forest. We wandered through it for a while, trying to find the palace of the queen, but we never saw it. But it was quite a pleasant walk. It started to rain while we were in the woods, so we ran back to the train station to get back to Schipol...