Obama visited Amsterdam!

[RuG]

i think the purpose of the original poster to create this posting is to convey his feelings toward Obama visiting amsterdam. he was happy that more and more foreign visitors took the interest on Amsterdam regardless of the social and political status.

I had the same feelings like the original poster when presidents or head of states from various countries visited my countries especially when they visited many tourist attractions and places of historical importance

 

[bigsal]

i think the purpose of the original poster to create this posting is to convey his feelings toward Obama visiting amsterdam. he was happy that more and more foreign visitors took the interest on Amsterdam regardless of the social and political status.

I had the same feelings like the original poster when presidents or head of states from various countries visited my countries especially when they visited many tourist attractions and places of historical importance

If one really has interest about the culture, art and traditions of a country you want to visit, should do so in private and with more time available, with doenting and dwell in detail.

I do not see how in a few hours a person can do that.

Another example. After Amsterdam, Obama was in Rome. Same pomp with helicopters armored cars etc.. and armored city.
Was to see the Colosseum, in a visit lasting less than half an hour, should have known the story that the coliseum has produced hundreds of years.

I'd be curious to know how many things he has learned in such a short time.

In fact, Obama has been in Rome for "to sell" its F35 and the American gas.

As usual a lot of smoke in the eyes for the people flock.

 

[RuG]

If one really has interest about the culture, art and traditions of a country you want to visit, should do so in private and with more time available, with doenting and dwell in detail.

I do not see how in a few hours a person can do that.

Another example. After Amsterdam, Obama was in Rome. Same pomp with helicopters armored cars etc.. and armored city.
Was to see the Colosseum, in a visit lasting less than half an hour, should have known the story that the coliseum has produced hundreds of years.

I'd be curious to know how many things he has learned in such a short time.

In fact, Obama has been in Rome for "to sell" its F35 and the American gas.

As usual a lot of smoke in the eyes for the people flock.

buddy, i am just saying that the original poster was just conveying his honest feelings about Obama visiting Amsterdam. is it a crime that he felt proud Amsterdam was visited by US president? :big hug:

you are entitled to your own opinion. i get it. you dislike the chaos, extra security, etc. you find it useless. i get it. we get it. not everything has to be about politics. at least i take the liberty that the original poster never intended it to be like that.

so keep calm and moving on:cheers:

:thumbs up:

 

[Oege]

Well after his visit he could say the Dutch word "gezellig" which is nice since there is no proper english translation for the word

 

[bigsal]

buddy, i am just saying that the original poster was just conveying his honest feelings about Obama visiting Amsterdam. is it a crime that he felt proud Amsterdam was visited by US president? :big hug:

you are entitled to your own opinion. i get it. you dislike the chaos, extra security, etc. you find it useless. i get it. we get it. not everything has to be about politics. at least i take the liberty that the original poster never intended it to be like that.

so keep calm and moving on:cheers:

:thumbs up:

I'm afraid that what you have lost your temper, you are.

Thread is there when you are confronted on issues that contrast our ways of seeing things.

Anyway sorry if I troubled you, in the future I will avoid making comments on your posts.

No hard feelings.

 

[carsonjl]

Can only imagine how much fun young Obama would have had in Amsterdam : p

Choom Gang 4eva.

 

[james1981]

This thread appears to have gone off on a tangential route on the subject of leader security. While I think there will naturally be a division between superpower security and other power security, I also think there are limits that should be placed on the disparity between the two.

Classic example of superpower security is the detail that is deployed to the US President. We have seen examples here.

However, this is not the norm! I love the pics of the Dutch PM riding a bike. Here's a hilarious video of the former Canadian PM providing his own security detail - Canada Prime Minister Jean Chrétien grabs Clennett's throat. He wades into a crowd and and gives one guy a throat lock, then shoves a bullhorn away from a protestor. A real man of the people lol. :rofl:

What I like about these is the accessibility of the leaders.

 

[Oege]

It is not that the King of the Netherlands rids a bike every day, this is his new car an (extended) Audi 8 !

 

[Tjerk12]

I heard he needed the extended version to put the bikes in the back of the car!

 

[Oege]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Tjerk

 

[Oege]

And this is the car of Mark Rutte, the prime minister of the Netherlands, as you can see he drives an old Saab, which was sort of hilarious because he told the Dutch people to buy new cars (and other new "things" like houses...) and not let their savings in the bank...

Unlike in Germany we do not put a code for the city on the car lisence plate but the AB-CD (without the number) shows when the car was registered, for his car that is 1999...

Good idea he told the people to buy a new car to "help" the economy yet his own is 15 years old...

 

[Dendood]

I rather like this turn of a page where the thread is full of 'local' pics. What is every day to you is another world to the rest of the planet. Airfare is up and incomes are flat. I don't know if the website can bear all this bandwidth, but it would be nice to see more of this sort of travelogue. Not to mention how attractive the Netherlands are.

Could I interest anyone in taking a few snapshots of gay bars, parks to cruise, etc. in Amsterdam? Brugge? And/or a description or two???

It's the next best thing to being there.

 

[gorgik9]

I rather like this turn of a page where the thread is full of 'local' pics. What is every day to you is another world to the rest of the planet. Airfare is up and incomes are flat. I don't know if the website can bear all this bandwidth, but it would be nice to see more of this sort of travelogue. Not to mention how attractive the Netherlands are.

Could I interest anyone in taking a few snapshots of gay bars, parks to cruise, etc. in Amsterdam? Brugge? And/or a description or two???

It's the next best thing to being there.

Ahhhhrrrmmm...as far as I can remember, the last two times I visited Brügge it was in Belgium, not in the Netherlands/Holland...

 

[Dendood]

Excellent point.

Last time I was there the guys had big watermelon heads or thin, Pez dispenser heads regardless of borders. The coffee was pretty much the same. I understood nothing spoken in either place. The train ride was about the same as train ride from Chicago to Milwaukee. No one asked for a passport at the border...

So in practical terms the only thing that mattered was Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling and Rembrandt. All other distinctions were a blur.

I'll leave the map making to you.

I'll take care of Flemish painting techniques. (I do a very stellar Memling, if I may say so.)

Now that we've covered the map making, where are the pictures???

 

[Dendood]

Belgium. Holland. This reminds me of the aforementioned one trip I made there. We land in Belgium (that much I knew...). We are at the airport border check. Str8 couples can approach the guard together but us not yet married gay guys had to confront the guard individually. My boyfriend goes first and he has no problem getting through. I come up to the guy.....

"Where are you from?"
-'USA.'
"How long do you plan to be here?"
-'Ummmm. I don't know exactly. 5 days? I think.'
"Where are you staying?"
-"I have no idea."
"You don't know where you're staying?"
-'No.'

This goes on at length. I can't answer any of the questions he's asking... and its clear he's starting to get suspicious. Finally I said, "You see that guy you just let through... That's his job. He booked the flight. Picked the hotels. He'll figure out where we eat.
My job is to examine Van Eyck's St. Barbara. I am here to study the Flemish Primitives.

Finally I've said a word cluster than pleases him. And he lets me through.

There are things in life I let slide. And things in life I will examine, study and investigate like a nuclear physicist.

....pictures?

(And no, the St. Barbara is not a drawing.)

 

[Oege]

Dendood: Lols I always thought you were Dutch since you use a Dutch name here

 

[gorgik9]

@ Dendood
I hope you got to visit van Eyck's altarpiece in St. Baaf's Cathedral in Ghent. That's truly one of the most important paintings in all of european art history. And it's quite rare that a piece of art of that magnitude isn't placed in a grand modern art history museum, but in the room it was originally made for!

 

[tonka]

So Dendood.
What do you paint with your old master techniques? I'm ignorant, but in awe of such things.

 

[Dendood]

I paint portraits. I used to paint male nudes, in my own mind visual statements about the human condition. The general public however seems to see nothing but a penis when they see a male nude. I've abandoned that route and work mostly with portraits. My technique is as close to the early Flemish painters as possible. I strive for Van Eyck but my style is very much like like Memling.

I've spent the last 15 years studying Van Eyck. When I was in college all we did was pour paint down an incline, call it Art and scratch our heads listening to professors rattle on with Art Speak. They had great jobs, 80k salaries and tenure. So what did they care about anything other than their own interests. They despised realism of any kind.

Art History was another story. We had a GREAT department, very good at bring the History of Art alive. I'd sit in the dark auditorium staring up at 20 ft. projections of the Ghent Altarpiece wondering -with awe- how it was possible to do such a thing? My big break came years later when a visiting artist from southern France, Patrick Betaudier offered a workshop on the Flemish technique. He was way off base, but it opened a door that I've been obsessed with ever since. And I am proud to say that I have come to my own theory of how Van Eyck worked, micro technique and all. It is a 600 year old mystery and I feel I have cracked the code.

There are times I think I have more in common with Northern Europeans from 1430 to 1630 than I do with the world today. At least Artistically, if not more. (Europeans then would have more likely stoned me, but I'd be fighting off the rocks and fighting to get in their pants.)

Those 'Pez heads' are gorgeous, handsome fuckers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know full well Belgium is not Holland, but my brain does not think in modern borders. When I think of Netherlands, I think in 1430s terms.... Gerard David. Hans Memling. Jan van Eyck. If you tried to convince Phillip the Good of this Belgium/Holland divide he would have looked at you like you were crazy.

 

[Dendood]

A Van Eyck copy. (Bad. Bad lighting.)
A Memling copy.
An oil sketch I did last night of one of my students.