Things I learned in Delft

• Delft.

• The Delft Blue (its ceramic), I have to admit I didn’t know it before.

• You can see The Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam from the city’s main tower. Well, you cannot see Amsterdam.

• The number of steps in the tower are two hundred and… three hundred and… damn it.

• I think I’m more scared at the tip of a tower than floating at the International Space Station.

• Willem van Oranje (aka William the Silent) had to be buried in Delft because the traditional family place (Breda) had just been conquered by us the Spaniards. Take that.

• Next time I have this English conversation in a tourist office someone is gonna die:

Me: Hello, good morning.
They: Hello, are you Spanish or Italian?

• I have pending experiences with Japanese and Swahili but, as far as I can tell, Dutch is a perfectly unintelligible language.

• Cheese is classified in The Netherlands according to a particular scale like “48+ Volvette” (meaning: delicious). It’s perfectly explained here: Kaassoorten per vetpercentage. Any Dutch speaker in the room to clarify?

• Best memory you can bring from a neighbor country is: food.

• The “Girl with a Pearl Earring” was painted in Delft, by Vermeer, who lived his whole life in Delft. However, the painting is not in Delft but in The Hague.

• Vermeer painted dozens of paintings with different characters and situations, but using always the same background (see photos above): a corner, a table, and the light coming from a window located on the left.

• After the BE and the NE, I can’t wait to visit the LUX.