- Mort
- Jan 31, 2020
- 3 min read
Let me explain a little more about the trip before I start. A small group of us from Glyndwr and our tutor were invited to stay in a 1911 clipper boat to collaborate and bounce ideas off a group of students from Germany and the Netherlands. Primarily a comics project we were told that the theme for our work would be the 'future'.
So, at 5.00am eight of us set off on a journey to Leiden. I'm quite the morning person, and as a plus I managed to squeeze in a cup of tea so I was very ready and raring to go. The morning was extremely foggy, we had maybe not even 10 meters of visibility as we convoyed our way to Manchester airport.
Due to the adverse weather conditions the majority of the group had to dash off for their flight was earlier than mine. It was a rather leisurely wait, the three of us on the later flight got through security with no fuss and the actual flight was very pleasant.
We arrived in Amsterdam at around early afternoon and immediately got the train to Leiden. (They have double-decker trains, like what the heck, how cool is that?)
My first impression of Leiden was pretty positive, there were cycle lanes everywhere and the public transport had been really efficient. Our tutor brought up a maps app and we began our 10 minute trek to the boat we'd be staying in. We met up with the students and tutors from Germany and the Netherlands on the way there and descended on the boat as a mass of nervous but excited art students.
The boat was very cool, it was a very clever way of getting a lot of usually hermitted illustration students to socialize and interact with each other. I was proud of the effort I made to talk to people from the other universities, even if my introverted nature meant I reached my social quota around lunch time each day.
I did have my doubts about how everyone was going to work in such a communal area, but it worked - the lack of internet may have had something to do with it, a god send in hindsight - I was at my most productive over that week and I'll be sharing my work in a different post.
I was able to visit the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) which has one of the best collection of Egyptian and Roman artifacts I've ever seen, it was a very inspirational place and if you're ever in the area go and visit. Leiden has an excellent collection of museums and if you're a student take your student card, we got half the price off our museum tickets! Here are some of my favourite artifacts:
From here, we started our comics project. The rest of the trip was taken up mostly with drawing, but I did do a lot of walking. On our way home, we had a quick stop in Amsterdam, and we visited Lambiek (Europe's first comic shop!). It was cram-packed with amazing comics, and the staff there were incredibly friendly and helpful, if you're ever in Amsterdam I'd recommend seeking it out.
One last note, the Dutch students had the greatest joy introducing us British folk to something called pure hagelslag - which translates to pure sprinkles.
We all had a go at putting these chocolate sprinkles onto buttered slices of bread and by the gods, it's the tastiest thing!
I had it for breakfast most days.
So that covers most of the trip, our flight back was delayed, but we were all in good company and the time passed quickly. I got into my bed at Wrexham around 00.10am and slept solidly for eight hours.
All in all, a good trip. I will include a gallery at the bottom for more photographs that I'd like to share with you!
Thanks for reading, see you next time,
Mort
