DAY 3- Wednesday, April 13th

I woke up really late today. I might have even missed breakfast; I can’t remember. It was dark outside and the forecast was less than promising for outdoor activity. Sounded like a good day for taking in some of the museums, so I hoofed it on down to the museum district before it started downpouring.

Unfortunately, a lot of the big museums were closed or partially closed for renovations. Why they all decided to renovate and to close at the same time, I’ll never figure out. And it wasn’t until I got down to modern art museum, the Stejdelik, that I realized it had closed and moved to another part of the city. The Van Gogh Musuem was renovating as well, but at least they still had their full collection on display, albeit in a tighter, more constricted space.

I had a wonderful time at the Van Gogh. Seeing so many of his works at once, in chronological order, I had the chance to track his work, to see how it developed and changed over the years. And I was surprised to see how much work he did in such a short amount of time- his efficiency was astounding. And, of course, there’s nothing like seeing original works of art. So many of those painting I had seen in big, glossy page art books, and here they were now, hanging on a wall directly in front of me- the texture and the brush strokes more visible than ever. Look at the painting from afar’ then walk in real close, as close as you can go, and it’s as if they are two entirely different paintings. You can’t do that with a book or a slide.

It really poured while I was in the Van Gogh museum, and it continued to do so when I left, so I hopped on one of the seemingly millions of trams that run throughout the city and got a ride back to the hostel. No time for manifest tourism in that fickle, inclement weather.

I took it easy the rest of the night downstairs in the so-called "chill-out room" which had a big screen TV. I watched all sorts of stuff with the other people camped out down there- Gilmore Girls, Will and Grace, and get this- an episode of Dinosuars! Talk about a blast from all our collective TGIF pasts. Quickly, though, we realized the show was a lot funnier when we were in elementary school.

I had brought a bunch of DVDs with me, but the DVD player was Region 2 only, so all my discs were unreadable, unwatchable. We went upstairs to the lobby to borrow one from the front desk, but their selection left much to be desired. From the lesser of the evils we selected The Beach. I had seen most of it on TV about 4 years ago, but upon watching it a second time, I didn’t think it was all that bad, or as bad as I thought it was the first time (and of course I enjoyed Darius Khondji’s cinematography as usual).

Near the end of the night, a young American guy with a heavy NY accent came downstairs and sat on one of the couched with all of us. As half of the people seated around me are lighting up pipes and smoking pot, he makes a loud declaration across the room: he’s a New York City police officer! This freaks everyone out, of course, and nobody feels comfortable even thinking about smoking until he leaves the room. He told us how he couldn’t smoke any marijuana while on vacation here because the force has random drug testing every now and again, and he couldn’t take the risk. But he did inform us that a lot of the drugs that are impounded in drug raids are taken by the NYC cops and enjoyed in their private time. Big surprise!