The Talking Traveller

While on university in I stayed in a hostel called Olienhout. We had intranet in this hostel and between other hostels.  With this we could freely share files,movies,songs etc. and sometimes even study material. Running on this intranet we had a chat program called ICQ. This program allowed you to chat directly(via keybord) to anyone on the intranet. My nickname on this ICQ was Heineken, and as it goes, some people started calling me on that nickname outside the ICQ dialogue. In Holland I have drunk ,er, extensively tasted two(so far) different kinds of Heineken beer, namely the Heineken "Tarwebok" and Heineken "Oud Bruin". These are much more sweeter and tastefull that the normal Heineken found in other countries. I am quite fond of drawing analogies between the disoveries in my trip and in myself..........Anyway. As proposed on sunday, I did indeed have my first ride on a single-gear-backpedal-brake holland bicycle. This was today in a National park close to Arnhem called the Hoge Verluwe National Park where there are 1400 white bicylces free to use. In the park there are also animals(although I did not see any, except a squirrel) and a very worth while museum, the Kroller-Muller Museum, Located inside a very modern and mind expanding sculpture garden. This museum has a collection of 28 Van Gogh paintings. I am not an art expert or even an art amateur, but I am definately an art lover. All those Van Gogh paintings we usally only see in books or on postcards such as "Landweg in de Provence bij nacht" or "Zelfportret-with both ears" and "Bloemen in de bauwe vaas" seem to put a magical spel on me when seen in real life. Putting my distinguised nose 1cm from the painting, examining every brush stroke and small colour difference, then finding my eyes slowly drifting to the far bottom right corner and seeing the name plainly written "Vincent", I could not help but feel some sort of emotion. I guess it was both admiration and awe, being so close to a personal memory of a man that have caused ripples in history. I almost tried to draw his power of individualty, perserverance and perspective ability and make it my own. When I awoke from this almost magical trance state, I bought myself some postcards of my above mentioned favourites. Yesterday I spent exploring the city of Arhem, and visited the Sonsbeek park. It is autum now and the warm yellow-orange-red colouring of the trees are absolutely magnificent. I did a  carefull count of my contacts and agreed to the total number since the last two days of 4375. Speaking in dutch is an exciting new challenge for me and gets me to focus on the "formulation" part of the McGuire speaking checklist. Tommorow I plan to travel to Dordrecht stopping along Den Bosch and Breda along the way. Tot wederom!