This was a fairly uneventful week!  A highlight though was my visit to the van Gogh special exhibit at the Royal Academy of Art yesterday.  It was by far the most comprehensive and consuming exhibit I have ever been to.  It was, as many van Gogh exhibits are, looking at the connection between his letters and his paintings.  However this exhibit not only paired letters with paintings, but with ink drawings, early works and sketches.  Each painting was preceded by sketches and drawings, which made it easy to see how his thought process worked and how he came about painting the masterpieces that he did.  It also contained a great number of early works that I had never seen before, and worked up to his later style.  It was fabulous to literally watch his artistic talents develop and to read how he felt about it.  The pair of paintings of van Gogh and Gauguin's chairs were in this exhibit; two paintings I love.  The last room was the most emotional, as it included the last paintings van Gogh produced and contained the very last letter he wrote to Theo and the copy of that letter he had on his person on the day he died.  Through the quotes and works they included in the previous rooms, this already emotional story became even more moving. It was a fantastic exhibit!

Today I went on a field trip to the Freud Musuem in London, the house where he spent the last year of his life in exile from the Nazis.  It was really interesting and contained a lot of the objects that had been in the house when he lived there.  The most interesting room was his study, which had the famous couch and chair.  But curiously, the study was filled with ancient artifacts from other civilizations.  It was interesting to see what Freud surrounded himself with and to learn that he had other interests besides the ones that are always stereotyped and talked about today.

After the field trip I had my interview for the internship phase of the semester. I really liked the location and the organization and the women I met were very nice.  I should be all set with this placement, and am due to start at the end of February! I think it will be a great experience.  Just from talking with the staff in an hour this afternoon, I can see that there are different populations of people who need help in the UK, populations that I have never learned about or been in contact with, and who are dealing with different types of violence. I am excited to learn more and am looking forward to that part of the semester.

My roommate and I are heading out to Amsterdam early tomorrow morning, so there will be many more stories when we return!