Graduation!!

Last tuesday finally the day had come- exactly a year after I came back from Mexico- that I graduated!! There was an offical ceremony on one of the old buildings in Leiden. My parents, all grandparents, an uncle and aunt and a great-uncle and aunt and some friends came to share this happy moment. But... there was soooo much traffic that all the Zeeland people didn't make it in time. Luckily the person who would graduate after me could go first and then we had to wait couple more minutes till everyone was there. My mom just arrived and is looking if my grandparents are coming yet- I was sort of stressed:)

Relieved that everyone is there!

The moment... after 5,5 years of study, work and fun... my diploma!!

I still can't believe it's really over- I am not studying anthropology and development sociology anymore- I am an anthropologist and development sociologist now!!

graduation 2

It really has my name on it! And it says in Latin, Dutch and English that from now on I may call myself 'Master of Arts'

After the ceremony we went for lunch at a nice place in down-town Leiden. It was really nice to share this important moment in my life with friends and family!

Listening to Emma's interesting stories;-)

It doesn't look like me- I know- but it really is me, all dressed up for the occasion:)

The last day...

Time flew by- it went awfully fast. The last day we had to visit the pier and see some pelicans. Florida without seeing pelicans isn't really Florida:)

The pelicans know this place very well. In this little house you can buy fish to feed the pelicans, so they always hang around there.

or they hang out close by...

The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art

One of the last days I was with Kevin, we visited the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art. The reason we wanted to go there is that this museum has one of the biggest and unique collections of the works of Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Louis Comfort Tiffany was one of the most creative and prolific designers of the late 19th century, declared that his life-long goal was "the pursuit of beauty." He created beautiful artworks made out of glass.

Tiffany's aesthetic was based on his conviction that nature should be the primary source of design inspiration. Intoxicated by color, he translated into glass the lush palette found in flowers and plants. This fascination with nature and with extending the capabilities of the medium led to the exploration of another technique-in 1893 Tiffany introduced his first blown-glass vases and bowls, called "Favrile," whose name, he declared, was taken from an old English word for hand made.

Louis Comfort Tiffany's most impressive achievements were interiors - notably those of his own houses in New York City and a little chapel he made for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. That chapel, not seen by the general public for more than a century, has been under conservation for two years and is now reassembled at the Morse Museum of American Art. The picture doesn't really show its beauty- but it was marvelous! No words to describe it, just a bad picture to give u the idea:)

gardens of the Ringling museum

Ringling museum of art

Baseball game!

We went to my very first baseball game at Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

It was fun to actually see the field of a baseball game. I've played baseball in highschool, but we didn't have offical baseball fields- we just did something:)

I just still wonder if you really have to move like this if you only throw a ball...

Is he gonna hit the ball??