I am now zooming through Belgium on my way back to Paris. Fingers crossed we don’t have starts and stops like the trip to Amsterdam. As luck would have it, I turned on the news in the hotel room last night as I was getting ready for bed. Well, that was a surprise. As I have said, I will vote enthusiastically for a blue head in a bottle over the other one. You know, the one who got Abbie Normal’s brain.

The rest of my time in Amsterdam was great. Went on a tour at the Van Gogh Museum, which was lovely. Added surprise to see a special exhibit of Chinese-Canadian artist, Matthew Wong. His work is definitely inspired by Van Gogh, and sadly, so were his life and death. Beautiful work. The last room was a silent room. Dark with black drapes all around with one painting. You were supposed to sit in silence, but, of course, some moron decided they needed to experience it with their baby, who, began to cry. Did they leave? Of course not. The rest of us did.

It won’t be surprising to anyone who knows me, that probably the highlight of my summer in Europe will be seeing Hello, Dolly! in London. Like Dolly, I have been looking for signs from the universe that it is OK to move on. Many of you know that when David had his stroke he took up needlepoint. The piece he was working on when he passed away was the Almond Blossoms by Vincent. As we were going through the museum tour, and almost at the end, I was a little disappointed that we hadn’t seen that particular painting. The guide explained that she had a very special surprise and story in the next gallery. She was very excited to share it, and as we turned the corner, there it was. I, of course, began to weep. It gets embarrassing.

The story she told was Vincent gave the painting to Theo after his brother’s son was born to encourage him to have another child. He asked them to hang it in their bedroom, as a reminder. She wasn’t sure if the painting was hung in the bedroom or not, but it didn’t really matter. Both Vincent and Theo were dead soon, and life went on, and that painting still gives us joy.

In that spirit, I went out on a date last night. I was online, on one of the apps, and uncharacteristically bold, I wrote to someone who looked interesting. It was pretty cheesy – “I’m a stranger in town, and you look interesting . . . Want to show me your city?” He responded, which concerned me a little. After some back and forth, we settled on last night. He was going to ride his bike and meet me at the hotel. As the time approached, I became more nervous. Why? Not why was I nervous, why had I reached out in the first place? What if he was a serial killer or even worse, boring. I kept going back to his profile and began worrying he was too conservative.

Boy was I wrong. We shared stories of our lives and loves. He told me about sleeping in Central Park in the 60’s, squatting in Amsterdam, three marriages, five children, doing social work in Indonesia and Russia, and he claimed to never have paid taxes to the Dutch government. We wandered from the hotel bar around the neighborhood and went back to the hotel to sit on the balcony and continued sharing stories.

Just to close the loop, the train from Amsterdam did stop, and we were about thirty minutes late arriving. I made it to French class in time, and am now heading to bed. Here are some pictures from Amsterdam, if you are interested. Bonne Nuit.