making some headway

tues Jan 31: so first things first, i went to the tourist info center. luckily karol and graza lived in the center of leiden so getting around was a piece of cake. i bought a self guided walking tour, but didnt do it just yet. i went to a windmill museum which is inside an old windmill and you go up through it where you start at the millers house at the bottom and then it takes you up the steep steps to each level and tells you the history of the mill. it had some models of all the types of windmills. so it was quite interesting.this mill had a like balcony area about mid level so i went outside and took some pics,but it sure was cold so i went back inside quickly!! after the mill i went to this ethnic museum (which i think is the first in the world) called volkenkunde and they had artefacts from several cultures there. there were a lot more dutch explanations than english ones but there definitely was enough to keep me busy for a few hours! the first room had asia cultural artefacts, with lots of buddhas and other statues and figures of gods, and traditional dress and other religious objects. they were all really old and in pretty good shape, so i was quite impressed! then another room had modern indian jewelry and there were a few videos of indian markets where people try to sell jewelry, in contrast to the big jewelry businesses that do very well for themselves. then the next room was african culture.there were a few videos in there as well, and artefacts from burial sights and farming tools and personal items and religious stuff and all the same as you would expect. so i stayed there till closing time and did a bit of the walking tour. i stuck around the newer part because thats where karol and graza live. i quite liked leiden though, the churches and streets were really beautiful. so i then went back to their place and waited for them to come home and then helped graza with dinner. max was starting to warm up to me but unfortunately didnt know english (karol was translating what he was saying, and he kept calling me aunt!) then karol and graza went upstairs and i just stayed downstairs and did my own thing before going to bed. wed feb 1: the fam had to be up early this morning but i was really just dead to the world,i hardly heard them coming in and out of the kitchen. when i finally did wake up i went to the museum lakenhal which was just down the block from them. this museum had a big collection of medieval wooden sculpted catholic art and renaissance and golden age paintings, and it went all the way up to the present (which wasnt nearly as pretty). but overall the museum was good and most stuff was in english except the temp exhibit. after that i went to the museum boerhaave which had an audio tour in english so i did that. it housed mannnnyyy old scientific instruments! it was amazing! i was really in my geeky element there. it talked about all the dutch pioneers in the science field. i unfortunately didnt get to see the whole museum so the parts i did see was the first anaesthetic mask for denistry, some old rehab machines,  and some life size and very detailed anatomical models (with removable parts) of humans, and several animals, and also some breakthroughs in chemistry and physics.there also was a reconstruction of the anatomy theatre that used to be there. so when the museum closed i went back to karols. graza cooked dinner while max read me some of his favorite books! he kept switching from polish to dutch to english for the names of the animals and colors and stuff. it was pretty entertaining. then karol came home from work and we had dinner. then max and i watched the jungle book (i was more into it than he was though). but yeah not long after, karol and graza and max went upstairs again and left me to my own devices. they had to be up early the next morning but i said i was going to be up early too so i would say goodbye. thurs feb 2: so i woke up later than expected because again they (esp max) woke me up when they came into the kitchen for breakfast but i managed to fall back asleep. so karol had already gone to work by the time i got up but i at least got to say bye and thank you to graza. so i started the day with my walking tour around 9 am. i parked lance at a market square place and just walked around. tried to go in one of the churches but again, a mass was going on. so i just walked the streets. by 10 am i was super cold and i was right outside of a museum called riksmuseum van  oudheden (national museum of antiquities) so i went in for a brief visit and also to warm up! so i had to pay an extra fee again for their special temp exhibition that was going on (seriously, they need to adopt that whole separate ticket system like in england!) so i was annoyed because i wasnt planning on spending long but the woman told me its a joint exhibit with a museum in amsterdam so i wouldnt have to pay to go to that exhibit. so i first checked out the ancient egypt section. they had a cast of the rosetta stone (but i saw the real one =) ) and there were a bunch of human and animal mummies and lots of tools and jewelry and grave gifts and offerings to the gods. then there was a roman section and some other sections about historical netherlands but that wasnt in english (why do these museums think that will only be interesting to locals!?) so then i went to the exhibit that i had to pay extra for. it was about the etruscians who lived a life of grandeur many years ago BC in italy. apparently women and men were viewed as equals (what a concept) so the exhibit was split into woman at this museum, and men at the allard pearson museum in amsterdam. so they showed excavations of jewelry and grave gifts and in particular one famous grave one where there were lots of artefacts from someone that was probably a queen. the main text for each category was in english but the individual artefacts themselves were in dutch only so i was a bit annoyed at that because i wanted to know what i was actually staring at. so after that museum i continued my walking tour, and went to the horticultural botanicus. of course there wasnt much to see there, esp with snow on the ground but they did have a few indoor winter gardens, so i saw some tropical and exotic plants and some carnivorious ones which were cool, and some orchards which werent in bloom though. then i walked around the gardens and went to the observatory which was in english because it was on the grounds of the university. that was quite neat, but i only saw the small exhibit and not the actual telescope or anything. then i left the botanical gardens and continued on my merry and freezing way. ok ill have to end in here and continue another time!