A couple of weeks ago I got back from a two-week trip to Amsterdam and Copenhagen, which was wonderful. I could spend all day writing about it and showing you my pictures (mostly of snails) but since the name of my blog has knits in it, this post will be yarn-heavy.
First there was Amsterdam.
Ok, ok, you caught me. This isn't in Amsterdam. This wonderful shop of breien is in Leiden, a beautiful university town not far from Amsterdam, where the boy and I went to have some time away from my family and to go to one of the nerdiest and best museums ever. I got to go there first, since the boy (for some reason) figured that he would get no peace until I got to go in, since I already knew it was there. I procured two skeins of Colinette Parisienne mohair in the "jay" colourway, and one skein of kidsilk haze in "trance" to go with it for a pattern that the wonderful ladies in the store gave to me with the yarn. The only catch is that I do not, in fact, know any dutch, the language that the pattern is written in. However, it is a lace stole, so hopefully as long as I can get the chart straight everything will be fine. Right? Ahem, moving on...
The museum I spoke of before was the Boerhaave museum, which is chock full of items of wonderment for those more scientifically inclined. First up on our agenda:
These may look humble, but they were alll built by the hands of Antony van Leeuwenhoek, the first man to ever build one. Blew my mind, to be sure. Next up:
Some of you may not recognize what this is. I sure didn't. But the boy nearly fainted (well, not really, but I wouldn't have been suprised, with his reaction to it). This is the electromagnet which was used by Peter Zeeman to discover the Zeeman effect while he was a grad student under Lorentz. See those letters on the display case? Those are his letters from the nobel committee. While he was a grad student. Sigh.
Back to Amsterdam:
This is a giant porcupine at the Amsterdam zoo. While it is extremely cute, that was not the most notable aspect of the exhibit at first. Instead, when we got there, it was the 14-year old boy jumping into the cage in order to get a look at the animal. I don't know why he couldn't understand that it = pointy. It isn't even covertly pointy. All the pointy bits are right out there. Whatever. tourists are stupid.
This is a coati. They like apples. They are also extremely cute and when they get mad, they emit a high-piched "mimimimimimimimi!" noise. I like them.
Now off to Denmark:
Now, Copenhagen is a wonderful city. It is full of very nice people and tourist traps up the wazoo. However, I was not looking for them. I was looking for this:
Those are two skeins of Drops Alpaca, resting on my lap out in the sunshine. I have eight skeins of the grey and two of the red to make the Union Square Market Pullover a la the fabulous Ms. Jang. I couldn't leave it there, it was on sale. On Sale, people. In Copenhagen. I am excited about it.
So I am tired, and so I will gloss over the rest of the trip, but there was knitting. I started a vog on! in STR, and it started as this on the train:
And has turned into this:
The lighting is un-good, but the sock is wonderful. Peace out to all.
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