Amsterdam

If you are new and have booked marked me I thank you and appreciate you coming back. Brief history and we will move on to what is on my mind this morning. I have been married before and I am still friends with my ex husband. We get along great, we have an awesome son together. Ryan lives with his real dad because when he was 9 ,we were living in Germany at the time, and Chris went to Iraq ,Ryan was under a lot of stress worrying about his dad and his step dad. Going as far as telling me " I don't worry about you mom you have my sisters." I could not argue with that logic and I didn't want him to have a nervous breakdown so I let him go. Well Robert works for an audio/ visual company and this job has the opportunity to take my ex anywhere. So my son and ex are currently living in Amsterdam and will be staying there for a year.
OK all that being said I have taken a weekend trip to Amsterdam so when he calls I imagine all that he is seeing its rather cool to be able to know what he is talking about. So when I went to Amsterdam it was a holiday their memorial day I believe. Anyway one of the stops I made was here at the Van Gogh museum.

I confess I am not really all that into art never really have been but at the time they were having an exhibit of all his paintings with one of those headset tours.So off I went with my friend Vicki. OHH I must also confess I love sunflowers but never really cared for his painting.Too yellow. ANYWAY we were walking around ,listening to this tour and I saw this painting.


You can not see it in this picture but there is a big ole splat of red paint on the bottom and then and there it hit me this was a REAL PERSON. I mean I knew it before but you could almost hear him getting upset because 1 there was no red in that painting at all so it had to be a mistake. 2 you could see he didn't want to wipe it off because the painting was already done because it is just this lump of paint from a tube, you could touch it(if you wanted to be arrested of course). From then on I see the world through an artists eyes if I get the chance and remember to do so.
It really is a beautiful place if you just stop and look at it.
From there Vicki and I went to the Anne Frank house. At this point I should tell you I lived in Germany for about 1/3 of my life. I love it and would live there forever if I could. My dad is retired Air Force and we were stationed there from the time that I was 6 till I was 10. I read the Diary of Anne Frank when I was 8 and my teacher told me it was a 6 hour drive to go see the house. I was obsessed at that point but never got to go. SO back to present here I am all jazzed about seeing the world in a whole new light and we go to visit the house ,or HUIS. This was a sobering experience. We have all heard of this period in time and to walk up the narrow stair case leading to the house, seeing her pictures that I know she cherished and hung on her walls in that ..cubicle (for that's about how big it was maybe 2 cubicles) that had 2 beds a desk that she shared with a full grown man. WOW. They have removed the fixtures from the place the kitchen and furniture and such and it was small with no furniture but if you stop and visualize it all and imagine 8 people living there you get claustrophobic. Then knowing you can't move during the day or talk or anything. You just can't believe they did it for so long.
The point of this whole thing is that I really wanna be with my son right now to share all these experiences with him. I am not envious this is a great chance for him. It is just I am seeing this stuff through him now and how he views it and its an awe inspiring experience that just touches my soul to feel close to him when he's telling me what he is doing. I can't wait for him to go to Paris now so I can feel this way about the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. The world just got a little smaller for me!