Stanford Student Letters and Memoirs

March 26, 1960

Hi, folks-

Dave and I have finally found some spare time to do a bit of the typing for George that has truly stacked up in the past few weeks.

We thought these two subjects particularly interesting in a general way and only hope we can talk further with him about all of this when he gets home.

Meanwhile, he has spent a lovely long weekend in the Black Forest area of Germany and, at the present time, is bicycling through Germany- up to Bremen- over into The Netherlands (The Hague, Amsterdam etc) and then bak [back] into western Germany and along the Rhineriver (including a stop at Heidelberg) and back to the Burg by April 4th. They are loving every bit of it- even going uphill hasn't been too much for them I gather- and feel that they are getting a wonderful close-up view of the countryside they are covering. Later the group goes to East Berlin on a tour and to Luxembourg.

In a few days- maybe even tomorrow- I will be here at the typewriter again and will have some specific news of this trip for all of you.

I know there are probably more than the usual number of errors in this typing job- blame it on my lack of German, or just industrial fatigue. Just hope that you can guess what I could have written had I not made these typographical errors.

Dave and Lo

-3-

Barges.

March 22nd.

Our full day in Amsterdam Saturday was very productive. We began by going to American Express for mail then we went for the morning to the Rijks Museum- paintings mainly from the 15th to 17th centuries including such greats as Franzhals, Rembrandt, Verneer, Rubens, Goya, El Greco and Van Dyke. The Rembrandt collection is particularly good. Then after eating lunch in a park behind the Museum on a bench beside a whole field of flowers, we went on to the municipal museum, mainly modern art. They have one of the best collections of Van Gogh anywhere which shows both the Dutch and Parisian influence in his work very well. Also several Picassos (who leaves me cold). They also had some current exhibit of sculpture and art by contemporary artists, interesting to see. One was rather abstract charcoals, many on the subject of jazz and very clever. The other sculptures from scraps of (iron bike chains, tin cans etc) of human like figures- mostly funny and also at times very clever but not to me expressive of much significant feeling.

After 2 hours in the modern art we rode across town to see a much acclaimed aqarium [aquarium] which was really nothing special after all. Then we went back to a spot near the hostel and took an hour tour of the canals and harbor of Amsterdam on a touring boat. This was very interesting- particularly in the harbor and gave us a beginning orientation so that Sunday morning we could ride around for an hour on our bikes and see some things again more thoroughly. After dinner in a standup cafe we went back to the hostel for the evening to read, talk, and write letters.

I really came to like Amsterdam very much. It is a very friendly, fascinating city. The canals are everywhere- almost every block- and often crowded with bargesm house boars, small boats of all sorts. Also it is a bicyclers city. There are more bikes than cars and the cars just have to make out for themselves because the bikes assume the right of way. So we were right at home as we moved around in the stream of traffic from place to place.

We left Amsterdam about 10 AM Sunday, planned to ride on to Haarlem for the night. But leaving Amsterdam we picked up a lovely tailwind and so covered the 20 kilometers in one hour- nonstop. Boy! Wish it was that easy sailing all the time. When we got to Harlem we located the Franzhals Museum in a very small building on a side street. But it was closed until 1 PM. So we ate lunch on a cold park bench nearby and then decided to go on to the Hague for the night. The stretch between the Hague and Leiden is the famous tulip section of Holland. We were about a month too early for the real season but we did see a few fields in bloom here and there- deep blue and purple, pale blur, white, yellow (gorgeous daffodils). With these few and the many many fields which are now small green plants, we could imagine how spectacular it will be in April and May. Also, every house in Holland seems to have a potted plant or blooming flowers on its windowsills so we saw many more lovely varieties this way.

We stopped off briefly in Leiden to locate the famous old universitynothing specially physically for all of its academic splendor. And then rode on to the Hague and about 9 kilometers to Loos duinen on the west side of town where the youth hostel is located. It is an old mansion on a gigantic estate with a tree lined front drive that reminded me of Stanford Palm Drive. On 3 sides of the house are great open fields of green lawns and in the surrounding woods. small canals with wooden bridges and narrow walkways.

-4-

It is a beautiful spot in every way and I don't know how it ever became a hostel.

Yesterday morning before setting out to see the Hague, we took a short bike ride down to the beach. Rode along the path through huge sand dunes 20 or 30 feet high. It was a gray overcast morning and the sea and the horizon were one continuous mass, broken only by three small cargo ships steaming off to somewhere. It was my only look at the Atlantic (technically the North Sea) for this trip I don't mind that too much if it is always so gray and dreary.

In the city we went first to the Binnenhof, which is sort of a palaceadministration building. In the center court surrounded by an old bldg. filled with offices is a small building containing several large halls, the largest of these is a lovely hall on whose walls hang the flags of the Hollandish provinces, the shields of oast ruling princes, etc. At one end is a lovely round stained glass window (again the shields in the center). The roof is beamed hardwood, nailed with wooden pegs (re-built in 1904 though the building dates from 1280). Here are held special meetings of the legislature and large state receptions for visiting royalty or heads of state. And here in September each year the Queen marches in to officially open Parliament for the year.

After lunch we went to a small museum (the Mauritschuis) which contains several Rembrandts including the late self-portrait and "The Anatomy Lesson", Franshals, and a couple of good Vermeers. Then to find directions to the Peace Palce [Palace], built in 1918 by the US. We stopped in at the US information Service building which we happened to ride past. But here we found a small library and so sat down for a couple of hours to catch up on the news and relax. We bought the week's Time magazine in Amsterdam but a good reading of one day's New York Times aided a lot. After this interlude we arrived at the Peace Palace at 4:15 to find that the building closed at 4, so we had a tourist stylelook at the outside. Then the half hour ride back to the hostel and another relaxing evening. These easy evenings seem to be the best formula for the day's walking or biking and a 10 PM light's out in the hostels prevents concerts etc. anyway. So we just stay in after dinner and take it easy.

This morning, up as usual, and away about 9 to bike to Rotterdam, 30 kilo. It was against the wind all the way, some up and down, and we are getting stronger by now and did the distance in 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Went first off to the American Express and I found 6 letters waiting for me!

After a very short ride through Rotterdam to bought train tickets to Koln and got here about 6:30 this evening. On the way (Utrecht, Arnhem, Emmerick Oberhausen, and Deuseldorf) we came through the Ruhr, of course and saw endless smoke stacks and heavy factories. It is really industry saturated.

This does it for this installment. More to come real soon. Isn't it a pity we sold George bicycle so long ago. He probably would have more fun with it now.

Cambridge before going on to Stanford- Economics seminar is my class from him.

April 4th

In talking with the other kids I find that, between us, we really covered the continent except perhaps Scandinavia where it is too cold. The most interesting trip in the long run will probably be the group of 14 that went to Russia. They had a really fascinating, sovering view of the zealous work of the people to build a new Utopia. and of the loss of freedom and individual creativity and welfare that accompanies this eager submission to the glory of the materialistic state.

As I think back over our own trip, I don’t discover any such tremendous intellectual experiences- our was more an eclectic assembly of several bebefits to lesser degree. We saw a tremendous amount of scenery and much more interesting countryside from our bicycles- much more thoroughly than you could from train or car-forming impressions that should last much longer. We also saw several large cities: Amsterdam, Cologne, Heidelberg and many many more of the small villages than the auto traveler ever does. We saw some excellent paintings and a variety of architecture from medieval fortresses to the Cologne cathedral to modern Rotterdam. We spoke with a few people at length, though fewer than those on the burg who hitch-hiked. mostly hostel fathers and got much good practice for our German. We biked about 800 kilometers- 500 miles- averaging about 60 a day and took the train for about 1300 more. We spent about $56.pp apiece, including about #24.00 for train ticket which is really cheap living for three weeks in two countries as well as we ate. And, not least important, we spent most of our time in the healthy outofdoors- built new leg muscles and got suntanned and windtoughened faces, and feel good and healthy. And we can tell our children that we once took a bike trip around Europe, so all in all it was a pretty worthwhile I think.

You might be interested in the general outline of this quarter. Classes are:

World Literature of Renaissance and Reclamation period- Dr. Whittaker International Economics – Advance seminar because I have already taken Econ 1 – Dr. Tarshus. German.

The main trips and dates:

April 14-18- Easter in Paris. April 26-May 2nd- Berlin- group trip May 16-19 (not definite) Group trip to Luxembourg to study European economic community of coal and steel, problems of European integration. June 3-7 Five days in Vienna June 8th and 9th- finals June 10- Finish papers and pack and Goodbye party June 11th- See you at the Airport!!!!!!!

21.5.60

Dear Folks

Well, here I am in the midst of the next-to-last big trip of the season. We're going to spend a couple of hours in the hostel here in Antwerp this morning studying (and writing letters), since we haven't had time to do much yet in previous evenings.

We took off right after lunch Wednesday, spent a couple of hours in Stuttgart running errands. [I confirmed my plane flight with PAA, having gotten my ticket O.K., so that is all set]. Then we drove on the autobahn as far as Mainz; at this point we picked up the road along the Rhine which Bridge and I came down by bicycle. We drove in three hours over as much territory as Bridge and I biked over in 3 days, which gives you some idea of how much less you observe by car. But it was wonderful to see the Rhine again, especially since it is now green and lush, much more beautiful (and more romantic!) than when we first saw it. We stayed Wednesday night in the hostel in Bad Honnef, and awoke Thursday morning to find it pouring rain. May seems to be that sort of month in Europe: several days of warm sunshine, a day or two of heavy rain (often a really blazing thunder and lightning storm) to freshen up the air and earth. We drove most of the day Thursday to reach Amsterdam - through the Ruhr area past Düsseldorf, Duisburg, out into the flutter farming country through Emmerlich, Arnhem and Utrecht. Is is all wet and almost tropical green in foliage and thick grass; the trees along the roadside often joined arms overhead to shade the road. We got into Amsterdam around 4 pm and after registering at the hostel we repeated the boat tour of the canals which Bridge and I took - and I learned a lot more on the 2nd time through too. Then we found a small restaurant and had a huge delicious steak dinner (salmon salad, chicken tomato soup, potatoe, peas, milk, coffee, fruit custard too) for about $1.80!

Yesterday we drove north out of Amsterdam to Alkmaar, a smaller town