Wim & Mary

We set an alarm so that we wouldn't meet out 9:00am meeting with the international guy at SintLukas. His name is Wim Aertz. Hes a shorter guy with a decent accent but good English. He reminds me of Steven Slappe. While waiting for him I saw a guy who looked like the Dutch version of Mike (Kimpler is his last name, I think). Wim told us about the structure of the program, how it is graded, how they deal with international students, and so on. It was a lot of information. Didn't see a lot of the art from the students and couldn't walk around so I don't know what sort of work they are producing. Lenny from PNCA lent me a couple comic anthologies that they had made and those were fantastic.

The weather was miserable. It was raining really hard as we walked there and as we walked back. On the return we took the trolley/street car. It got us to Congres really fast and simple. Before we went to the hotel to pack and check out we stopped by Mary's Chocolatier. It was noted in my guidebook (and it was right down the street). It was near empty compared to the bustling chocolate shops of the Grand Place. We picked up something to munch now and something to munch later.

I had mostly packed in the morning so getting out of there was quick. My bag had become distinctly heavier during my vacation. Comics and intaglio plates are not light.

We checked out and hoofed it along the cobble roads and through the rain. We took a shortcut through one of the metro stations and after dragging our bags down a considerable amount of stairs, we arrived at Centraal and at our platform with half an hour to spare. Trains came and went every minute from all the platforms.

Our seats were rear facing. I took a little nap. Dad read his book. Our train had to stop at Schipol due to some errors but they had a train waiting on another track to take us to Centraal.

Dad dropped part of his luggage on my head during the bustle of disembarking. It really hurt but I wasn't bleeding or unconscious so we continued on.

It wasn't raining in Amsterdam, in fact it looked exactly how I left it: full of tourists.

We were given rooms on the topmost floor of Abba Hotel. Three flights of ridiculous stairs. Still don't know why we dragged our luggage all the way up them for only one night.

Our last day and night in Amsterdam was spent walking about. We went to Wok to Walk, a trendy wok and noodle shop, and had dinner. Both our plates were scraped clean. We set to walking in a general direction towards Centraal Station. Neither of us had a map. We walked through shopping districts and a sort of China Town. Saw a lovely ginger kitty that really liked me and wanted to come home with us. There was a flower market, crowds, bikes, the Dam, canals. Lots of Amsterdam things. It was a great walk. Our feet have been well and truly worn through from travels so we went to the hotel early.

I watched a program on the Royal Academy of the Arts and its yearly open exhibition. We also watched Waterworld but it kept being interrupted by women's football(or soccer as we call it).

We set the alarm again, just in case.