Happy Birthday Jacob

FIVE

TEN

FIFTEEN

Happy Birthday, Jacob.

Road Trip

Michael took us on a road trip today, he has been itching to get out of town. We rented a Peugeot and off we went.

 First stop was a glass museum. It was more the history of glass especially Art Deco then current pieces. Michael was in seventh-heaven.

 This area of the Netherlands has many dikes, water was every where.

 This was the parking lot of the museum. I thought these flowers were pretty. Such greenery in the Netherlands.

 A very blustery day. The weather was in the seventies with cloud cover all day. Such strange weather in Europe, down 20 degrees in one day.

 The Netherlands love their statues, this one of glass blowing.

This is the town we had lunch in. Michael said it was like stepping back in time. It was very quiet. It seemed the quintessential European street to me with flowers and all.

Cars. people and bikes all shared the same road.
The End.

Rotterdam Day 3

Temperature is still climbing, today 94 degrees. We are spending the rest of the day in our AC room.

Port of Rotterdam, Erasmus Bridge.

At the port of Rotterdam, says "they stayed on course". Another war memorial.

 Today was museum day. First up, Kunsthal. Small museum that was difficult to navigate. 

 First exhibit was Viktor and Rolf Fashion Artist 25 years. This reminded me of the I Love Lucy episode with the sack dress.

Princess wedding dress, doll form.

Actual wedding dress.

This room was dedicated to student artists. These faces were made of cardboard and duck tap.

 Another exhibit was from Dutch artist Dick Bruna. His work was popular in the 50s and 60s. Some of the images were familiar to me.

In a park after lunch on to our next museum.

The next museum Het Nieuwe Instituut, was a bust. It was a really strange museum. We were interested in the Steve Bannon Propoganda Retrospective but it was too much reading and a lot of videos. In addition to this museum we bought tickets to see a 'modern' house from the 1930s, Sonneveld House. It was restored beautifully and a lovely self tour(forgot to take pictures).

Rotterdam Day 2

The heatwave in Europe is following us. The high for today was expected to be 89 degrees. We decided to head out early to beat the heat of the afternoon.

The Dutch love their statues. We saw this one of oil barrels.

"The Destroyed City" by artist Ossip Zadkine.

The pencil building and cube houses.

Part of my libraries from around the world picture goal. The library was not open yet.

We ended our day at La Pizza, it was really good food. Michael and I enjoyed a kid free meal as Jacob decided to stay in the room. I think he is on parent overload.

Welcome to Rotterdam

We arrived in Rotterdam at 4AM, it was a long day of travel. Our flight out of Tel Aviv was delayed by one hour, so a long night became longer. We all went straight to bed and slept for four hours. It was easier to deal with lack of sleep when you don't have to change time zones. We are staying in Premier Suites Rotterdam, a kind of upscale apartment living. First order of business was grocery shopping but we discovered Rotterdam does not wake up until 10AM on Sundays, no stores open yet. Second order of business was laundry, we all ran out of clean clothes. There are 3 machines free of charge so we were good to go. Third order of business was to relax, it has been a whirlwind 10 days in Israel.

We are staying in the heart of Rotterdam. The short building is the central station. Jacob is also impressed with this modern city.

We went to a park near our hotel to look around and enjoy the weather. I think this statue is called Big Man.

Being a kid again.

 Colorful Rotterdam

Another statue we found commemorating 1940-1945. The description was in Dutch but probably a war memorial. We enjoyed our slow day and our pasta dinner. We didn't eat any pasta in Israel. Until tomorrow...

Bialik Street and Rubin Museum

We took a walking tour on Bialik Street, named after a famous poet. Bialik wrote one of his most famous poems after the pogroms in eastern Europe in 1903. This poem titled In the City of Slaughter was known to inspire people to immigrate to Palestine. Bialik moved to this street in 1924.

Bialik street is a nice tree lined street. I am amazed at the greenery in Israel.

This building is representation of Bauhaus architecture; clean lines, no ornamentation. 

Bauhaus architecture.

Bauhaus architecture.

This home is Bialik's. He is no longer living.

Reuven Rubin Museum. An artist-house-museum in the historical heart of Tel Aviv, formerly the home of the painter Reuven Rubin, where he resided with his family and worked from 1946 until his death in 1974. Constructed in 1930, the house on 14 Bialik Street opened to the public as a museum in 1983.

One of his paintings titled First Passover; the first Passover after the War of Independence. It is a take on the Last Supper painting.

Family portrait; the painter, his wife and son.

I always like paintings of food.

 We all met up for summation conversation over coffee and dessert. There was much joking over the boardroom like setting.

 Rabbi even took notes.

We had a Havdalah service of sorts. Technically Shabbat was not over since it was only 3 PM but we celebrated as such because we were all leaving. Jacob was in charge of the Havdalah candle trying not to set the fire sprinklers off.

 Our fearless little group. We all got along really well.

As we said goodbye to Israel, signs in three languages. A bittersweet goodbye. It is nice to slow down our vacation but we had such a good time in Israel. The tour exceeded our expectations. It was quite a pace to keep up but wouldn't give up a thing. Would we return to Israel, absolutely!