Nou, the Ukraine meisje echt knock me out, zij vertreekt de west behind...
Well, I arrived back in D.C. / D.C. area vorige week woensdag 16 december, and it was a hearty trip. 2 rolling suitcases filled with gifts and books; one backpack laden with all the most heavy, most fragile, and most necessary things; and one softcase guitarcase (with a lightweight guitar inside), and some books in its outer pocket. I didn't know how I was going to manage, but a BFF from Amsterdam walked me to Centraal Station and hung around while I got my ticket, then lugged one of those ridiculous suitcases up some stairs to the platform--because my train was coming at the only spoor without an escalator. She brought a suitcase and the guitar (on her back) down 3 flights of stairs, too, in my building. We just about froze in the walk to the station, but she set me up on the train and then we said our adieus! Luckily she's going to roadtrip it up to see me, because she's from the New England issssshhhh area.
On the train, I met a nice Dutchperson who was quiet and I thought wouldn't want to talk, but in her quiet, even shy and slow-speaking way, you could tell that wasn't so--because she kept starting conversations. We talked about speaking Dutch, and how she's a nurse and is studying to work on ambulances, and how in the world stretchers can possibly work on those narrow vertical Dutch staircases (special shoes and bungee cords). Then she had to get off because it was her stop, and at the same stop another person (een andere mens) who was to become my friend entered. I cleared off the spot where the previous friend had sat, and he thanked me and sat there. He was from Sierra Leone and has lived in the Netherlands for 10 years, and been learning Dutch for the past 6 years, and is still taking classes. He turned out to be an airport security guard at Schiphol, where I was going. When we neared the airport, he asked how much luggage I had, since I had been living here, and when he saw my things, he picked them up, exited the train, plopped them down on a trolley, took me up on an elevator, pointed me in the right direction, shook my hand, and said goodbye. It was such a luck of fortune. I don't know how else I would have managed.
My guitar was able to enter the first plane, thankfully, and on the second, it was put below with everyone else's carry-on (tiny shuttle planes have no cabin space!), and came out undamaged. Also: both my suitcases turned out to be WAY underweight! Around 2/3 of what each could have been. So. I felt less bad about wearing my friend's and my arms out, because, you know, it turned out to be not as bad as it could have been! :) Just kidding. It was very nice that she, my friend from the U.S., walked me to the station.
Also, the night after I left Amsterdam, it snowed. They say it hasn't snowed in years in Amsterdam, and it snowed this year, that day. My housemates were all outside in it, having snowball fights, taking pictures, meandering. Apparently it was beautiful. The pictures sure make it look that way.
By my parents' house there have been 20ish inches of snow, and everything shut down for a while! It's pretty, but we're supposed to get a wintery mix / sleet soon.
Love. Groetjes! Goed Zegeningen! xo
woensdag 23 december 2009
zaterdag 12 december 2009
Conversations in Dutch
Vandag ik ging naar Muiden en zijn Muiderslot kasteel met een goed vriend.
En!!! Twee UITSTEKEND dingen gebeurde! Twee!
Met twee verschillende mensen, ik sprak Nederlands...in volledig conversaties. Twee!
Okay, so what that means is: today, I went to Muiden and its castle with a good friend of mine, and I had TWO whole amazing conversations with two different Dutch people, speaking Dutch! Geen Engels! Seriously.
Like so: My friend and I are leaving the castle, and we're walking back to the busstop to use our strippenkaart and take it back to Amstel, and to walk from there. And as we're leaving, we run into a little outdoor market we had discovered on our way toward the castle, and it ran until 5pm, so we decided to come back afterward (so we could catch the castle in the light, and not feel time-constrained). They had hot cider (FIRST cider we've seen in the Netherlands) and crepes and pestos and breads...and musicians and antiques and winter plants and children's crafts and toys and candles and beads and Christmas decorations and hats and scarves and all sorts of things! Lots of fun. And so then we go in and buy some things, and she gets a crepe, and we're oogling over the food and we eat samples and are tempted to buy some fresh cocoa and then, we're leaving and the Sun is firey blood red brilliant piercing rays of blinding, and they're everywhere and it's beautiful, and it makes the graffiti under the overpass by the busstop literally shimmer and shine and it's like firey moonlight on water, the way it reflects soooo so brightly.
And then a Dutch person is walking toward us with a stroller and two kids outside of the stroller (one in), and we are about the cross the cute little bridge by the cute little outlying Muiden houses, and she says to me:
(these conversations all happen really quickly, by the way!!!)
'Mag ik jou een vragen?' (May I ask you a question?) She is smiling and her eyes are so nice.
I say, 'Ja! Okee.' (Yes! Okay.)
Haar: 'Waar is het Muidenmarkt? Ik vind het niet.' (Where is the Muiden market? I can't find it.)
Ik: (pointing) 'Het is...daar.' (It's over there.)
Haar: 'Maar het markt...niet de Muiden winkels.' (But the market...not the stores in Muiden.)
I'm agreeing at first: Ja, ja. But when she's adamant we're talking about different things, I say:
Ik: 'It weet het niet.' (I don't know.)
Haar: 'O...ja, ik wil naar het Muidenmarkt gaan.' (Oh...yeah, I want to go to the Muiden market.)
She begins to move away.
Ik: 'Het buiden markt? Het is rechtdoor.' (The outdoor market? It's straight ahead!)
I point where I pointed before, where she hadn't believed me--she had thought I was speaking about the wrong thing.
Haar: 'O! O...ik zie het! Dank je wel!' (Oh...oh, I see! Thank you very much!) Her smile lights up her face with kindness and friendliness and gratitude, and it's a great feeling inside. It's an out-reaching smile, and it makes me glad we spoke.
A Dutch person stopped me and asked me for directions...and beamed when she knew where I was talking about, and thanked me.
A Dutch person stopped and asked me for directions...in Dutch.
Second story:
My friend and I need to take the bus back to Amstel, and we know the stop where we got off--but obviously if we got on the same bus, it would just continue to take us further along the line, and not back in the opposite direction; the direction from which we came.
So. I see someone standing in a busstop (a different one from the one we exited at, but next to it), and I approach. I consider asking if ze speaks English, but decide that's a silly question (ended up not being so silly).
Ik: 'Sorry...where is the busstop that will take us to Amstel?' (I say 'sorry' and 'Amstel' with a Dutch accent.)
Haar: 'You want the busstop for Amstel?'
Ik: 'Ja.'
Haar: 'O...' (She turns around and reads a sign listing all the busses at that stop & their destinations.) 'Een honderd zeven en vijftig gaat naar Amstel.' (157 goes to Amstel.)
Ik: 'Okee, okee.'
Haar: 'Ja...' (She continues to read and is speaking to me the whole time. She's talking about where they go, the different busses.)
Ik: 'Kan ik hier wachten?' (Can I wait here?)
Haar: (she's clearly confused) 'Ja, hier misschien. Een honderd zeven en vijftig stopt hier.' (Yeah, maybe here. 157 stops here.)
Then she indicates toward a busstop or two that are a block-ish away, on the other side of the parking lot we're next to, and says some other things.
Ik: 'O, het bus komt daar?' (Oh, the bus comes over there?)
She says some more things. I catch the word 'hier' (here).
Ik: 'Hier?'
Haar: 'Ja.' (She nods.)
Ik: 'Maar...het bus kunt hier niet stoppen...het busses naar Amstel zijn...' (But...the bus can't stop here...the busses toward Amstel are...)
I don't know the Dutch words for what follows, so I indicate with my hands:
'On the other side of the street.'
Haar: 'Ik weet it niet. Hier of daar...' (I don't know. Here or there...)
She makes a helpless hand gesture--*this is one important thing about the Dutch that differs from Americans. They will keep talking to you until they help you, even if the problem is not likely to be resolved in the near future. I love it, because it shows their interest and genuine care*
Ik: 'Okee, okee. Ja. Ja, ik ga daar; ik probeer daar. Dank je wel!' (Okay, okay. Yeah, I'm going to go try over there. Thank you very much!)
She keeps talking to me.
Ik: 'Ik probeer.' (I shrug, like it's no big deal.) 'Dank je wel!'
She says some more things I don't understand, but she's earnest, and I think, she must think--geez, this ridiculous person, why can't they understand anything I'm saying? This person isn't getting it at all! But, I'm understanding what I can understand, and the parts I'm picking up on tell me she's not sure which stop, but one of them should work. She must be aggravated inside, but she wants to help still.
Ik: 'Okee, okee. Dank je wel!'
Frustrating but exciting conversation! And she pointed out the other stops. My friend says she's glad she has me with her, because she'd have no idea what was just said, or earlier with the other Dutch person :) Big compliment. It meant a lot!
My friend and I head toward the other stops. One of them is perfect, and a bus comes in the next 5-10 minutes, and it goes perfect right to Amstel.
Also, we went to a castle, like I said. This time, unlike the ill-fated time I attempted to direct my parents toward De Haar castle in Vlueten outside Utrecht, it went according to plans! We go to Amstel, pick up the bus as we arrive--just as my notes said we should (right bus, right direction)--it takes 2 zones and 15-20 minutes to get there. We get off and Muiden is SPECTACULAR. Like every other place (except Vleuten) I've been in the Netherlands, I plan on living there. Also, I've found the perfect house for myself. Some old people live there now. It's nautical and cute. Anyway. And we go to the castle, and it's open, and there are pamphlets in Engels, and we go in, and there are gardens, and oh, well it's lovely, and it's cute inside. Small, and lots of little costumed children running around everywhere, beating each other up for other small children (the 'girls'). Beautiful sky. Sometimes it looked like there was zero atmosphere, it just felt so...empty, naked free, spaceless. There was a particular tree that, the way it was situated and right against this perfect sky, it looked so...spaceless. Like there was a vacuum around it, like it was inside zero air, zero anything. It looked like it occupied...just, an alien space. It was amazing, crazy amazing! I also spoke Dutch to some other people.
Those are my stories.
Love,
Miranda.
p.s.
En!!! Twee UITSTEKEND dingen gebeurde! Twee!
Met twee verschillende mensen, ik sprak Nederlands...in volledig conversaties. Twee!
Okay, so what that means is: today, I went to Muiden and its castle with a good friend of mine, and I had TWO whole amazing conversations with two different Dutch people, speaking Dutch! Geen Engels! Seriously.
Like so: My friend and I are leaving the castle, and we're walking back to the busstop to use our strippenkaart and take it back to Amstel, and to walk from there. And as we're leaving, we run into a little outdoor market we had discovered on our way toward the castle, and it ran until 5pm, so we decided to come back afterward (so we could catch the castle in the light, and not feel time-constrained). They had hot cider (FIRST cider we've seen in the Netherlands) and crepes and pestos and breads...and musicians and antiques and winter plants and children's crafts and toys and candles and beads and Christmas decorations and hats and scarves and all sorts of things! Lots of fun. And so then we go in and buy some things, and she gets a crepe, and we're oogling over the food and we eat samples and are tempted to buy some fresh cocoa and then, we're leaving and the Sun is firey blood red brilliant piercing rays of blinding, and they're everywhere and it's beautiful, and it makes the graffiti under the overpass by the busstop literally shimmer and shine and it's like firey moonlight on water, the way it reflects soooo so brightly.
Op het Muidenmarkt
And then a Dutch person is walking toward us with a stroller and two kids outside of the stroller (one in), and we are about the cross the cute little bridge by the cute little outlying Muiden houses, and she says to me:
(these conversations all happen really quickly, by the way!!!)
'Mag ik jou een vragen?' (May I ask you a question?) She is smiling and her eyes are so nice.
I say, 'Ja! Okee.' (Yes! Okay.)
Haar: 'Waar is het Muidenmarkt? Ik vind het niet.' (Where is the Muiden market? I can't find it.)
Ik: (pointing) 'Het is...daar.' (It's over there.)
Haar: 'Maar het markt...niet de Muiden winkels.' (But the market...not the stores in Muiden.)
I'm agreeing at first: Ja, ja. But when she's adamant we're talking about different things, I say:
Ik: 'It weet het niet.' (I don't know.)
Haar: 'O...ja, ik wil naar het Muidenmarkt gaan.' (Oh...yeah, I want to go to the Muiden market.)
She begins to move away.
Ik: 'Het buiden markt? Het is rechtdoor.' (The outdoor market? It's straight ahead!)
I point where I pointed before, where she hadn't believed me--she had thought I was speaking about the wrong thing.
Haar: 'O! O...ik zie het! Dank je wel!' (Oh...oh, I see! Thank you very much!) Her smile lights up her face with kindness and friendliness and gratitude, and it's a great feeling inside. It's an out-reaching smile, and it makes me glad we spoke.
A Dutch person stopped me and asked me for directions...and beamed when she knew where I was talking about, and thanked me.
A Dutch person stopped and asked me for directions...in Dutch.
Het kasteel van de tuinen
Second story:
My friend and I need to take the bus back to Amstel, and we know the stop where we got off--but obviously if we got on the same bus, it would just continue to take us further along the line, and not back in the opposite direction; the direction from which we came.
So. I see someone standing in a busstop (a different one from the one we exited at, but next to it), and I approach. I consider asking if ze speaks English, but decide that's a silly question (ended up not being so silly).
Ik: 'Sorry...where is the busstop that will take us to Amstel?' (I say 'sorry' and 'Amstel' with a Dutch accent.)
Haar: 'You want the busstop for Amstel?'
Ik: 'Ja.'
Haar: 'O...' (She turns around and reads a sign listing all the busses at that stop & their destinations.) 'Een honderd zeven en vijftig gaat naar Amstel.' (157 goes to Amstel.)
Ik: 'Okee, okee.'
Haar: 'Ja...' (She continues to read and is speaking to me the whole time. She's talking about where they go, the different busses.)
Ik: 'Kan ik hier wachten?' (Can I wait here?)
Haar: (she's clearly confused) 'Ja, hier misschien. Een honderd zeven en vijftig stopt hier.' (Yeah, maybe here. 157 stops here.)
Then she indicates toward a busstop or two that are a block-ish away, on the other side of the parking lot we're next to, and says some other things.
Ik: 'O, het bus komt daar?' (Oh, the bus comes over there?)
She says some more things. I catch the word 'hier' (here).
Ik: 'Hier?'
Haar: 'Ja.' (She nods.)
Ik: 'Maar...het bus kunt hier niet stoppen...het busses naar Amstel zijn...' (But...the bus can't stop here...the busses toward Amstel are...)
I don't know the Dutch words for what follows, so I indicate with my hands:
'On the other side of the street.'
Haar: 'Ik weet it niet. Hier of daar...' (I don't know. Here or there...)
She makes a helpless hand gesture--*this is one important thing about the Dutch that differs from Americans. They will keep talking to you until they help you, even if the problem is not likely to be resolved in the near future. I love it, because it shows their interest and genuine care*
Ik: 'Okee, okee. Ja. Ja, ik ga daar; ik probeer daar. Dank je wel!' (Okay, okay. Yeah, I'm going to go try over there. Thank you very much!)
She keeps talking to me.
Ik: 'Ik probeer.' (I shrug, like it's no big deal.) 'Dank je wel!'
She says some more things I don't understand, but she's earnest, and I think, she must think--geez, this ridiculous person, why can't they understand anything I'm saying? This person isn't getting it at all! But, I'm understanding what I can understand, and the parts I'm picking up on tell me she's not sure which stop, but one of them should work. She must be aggravated inside, but she wants to help still.
Ik: 'Okee, okee. Dank je wel!'
Frustrating but exciting conversation! And she pointed out the other stops. My friend says she's glad she has me with her, because she'd have no idea what was just said, or earlier with the other Dutch person :) Big compliment. It meant a lot!
My friend and I head toward the other stops. One of them is perfect, and a bus comes in the next 5-10 minutes, and it goes perfect right to Amstel.
Kasteel ingang
Also, we went to a castle, like I said. This time, unlike the ill-fated time I attempted to direct my parents toward De Haar castle in Vlueten outside Utrecht, it went according to plans! We go to Amstel, pick up the bus as we arrive--just as my notes said we should (right bus, right direction)--it takes 2 zones and 15-20 minutes to get there. We get off and Muiden is SPECTACULAR. Like every other place (except Vleuten) I've been in the Netherlands, I plan on living there. Also, I've found the perfect house for myself. Some old people live there now. It's nautical and cute. Anyway. And we go to the castle, and it's open, and there are pamphlets in Engels, and we go in, and there are gardens, and oh, well it's lovely, and it's cute inside. Small, and lots of little costumed children running around everywhere, beating each other up for other small children (the 'girls'). Beautiful sky. Sometimes it looked like there was zero atmosphere, it just felt so...empty, naked free, spaceless. There was a particular tree that, the way it was situated and right against this perfect sky, it looked so...spaceless. Like there was a vacuum around it, like it was inside zero air, zero anything. It looked like it occupied...just, an alien space. It was amazing, crazy amazing! I also spoke Dutch to some other people.
Little children fighting in costume & with swords!
Those are my stories.
Love,
Miranda.
p.s.
The castle as we're leaving
donderdag 3 december 2009
Protests in Amsterdam
This past Tuesday, I did something the Office of International Studies Director at my U.S. University said I should never do when studying abroad: I got involved in a political protest. The Netherlands recently passed a ban on squatting (a movement that was legalised in the 1970s: it's a protest against inefficient land usage in the Netherlands. There's a housing shortage, and yet some people own and hold on to property / houses without using them, leaving them vacant for upwards of a year, with no plans for improvement, &c., and without selling or renting out. So squatters were allowed to reclaim such places after a year of inactivity). However, the mayors of the Netherlands' four big cities (Utrecht, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Den Haag) have given public speeches saying they won't uphold the ban, &c.
Nonetheless, the squatters all over the Netherlands have been protesting the ban, and one of my closest friends here came over for hot cocoa, told me about it, and then we set out!
Right in front of the Royal Palace in Dam Square, 2 or 3 tents had been combined and covered in tarps to turn it into a miniature Royal Palace, with a Pirate Flag waving from the top (instead of the Royal crest). Someone was dressed up as Queen Beatrix, and people were carrying signs and torches (torches / candles...for realz). There were two loud-speakers attached to a rolling platform, and someone with a mic. Also, free (vegan) soup. My friend and I listened without understanding the speeches (something about learning lessons, living rights, and a few other tiny snippets I could catch). Then...we march! As we march, the crowd grows larger--my friend and I had been disappointed at first by what we thought was a relatively small (for the Netherlands, compared to Utrecht) gathering in Dam Square. Then again, it was a Tuesday night, and I wonder if the kind of people who would live in Amsterdam might be the more touristy, commercialised, materialistic type of people who become apathetic or distracted and wouldn't show up for a protest.
And, of course, the music via speakers was carried with us. Loud punk rock / death metal (obvi not the same thing, but both were present) blared and they rolled they speakers right along with all the marchers, armed with torches and candles, down Kalverstraat, down to Spui Centrum, then up Spuistraat back to Dam Square...where some anti-squatters got into an altercation with our protest movement, and the Police Calvary had to move in. The police had also stationed gigantic grey-painted box-looking vans all around the place, and some moved along with us. To me, they looked like a civilian European version of street tanks. My friend (from Sweden) agreed. She said, in Sweden they couldn't have those tanks out there because it would be considered provocative. When the police went in on their horses, I thought, for sure the police are beating the people--and I was thinking of my friends in Chicago at a radical queer conference, when the police began to beat them. My friend pulled me away, and I heard the loud-speakers wail: '...komt, alstublieft. ...komt, alstublieft' (basically, withdraw--come away, please).
We asked two people we found there what was happening, and they started to explain that this was a squatting rights protest, and we had to explain that we already knew--but what was happening with the shouting and apparent fighting? Were the police attacking? They looked at me strangely for asking that and laughed and said '...No. The police can't do that. They can't go in without a reason. They're breaking up a fight.' Strange world, no?
We got to talking in general, as all the squatters drew back to a big art squat back on Spuistraat. I wanted to follow them, but my friend didn't want to be arrested or for us to be in the midst of violence, should it break out again. The cool people we met started telling us how they were neighbours, how one of them, 6 years ago, had lived in a squat in the countryside with 3 guys. They were friendly with all the neighbours, had cake and tea with them, but there was one guy who didn't like them. The squat-guys all had cars, and she didn't, and one night all 3 were away and she was left home alone, and the creepy neighbour saw a light burning in her window, and thought to threaten and scare her away for good. So there's a knock at the door, she answers it...and there's the neighbour...WITH AN AXE.
I say, 'WHAT.'
She says she closed the door and went upstairs, and in the morning they found the axe in the door. It took all the squatters 2 hours to get it out.
I say, he sounds dangerous, and both people we're talking to look at me funny again and say, no, he wasn't actually going to hurt her. I say...he brought an axe to your door and showed it to your face and then jammed it into the front door when you closed it. They say, it was only a warning! I say, you must have a funny kind of warning system around here. I've never heard of a warning like that before.
Strange world, again.
Apparently everything got along fine after that, because all the other neighbours were supportive of the squat and reassured them that there was nothing to fear: all the neighbours would stick up for them if it came to that. They shouldn't be worried in the future.
Then it came out somehow from the former-squatter that it was a Full Moon that day (true: in restless, communicative Gemini), and I say: '!!!! And Uranus just went direct!' And then the two people and I go on about how, oh goodness, how this is the PERFECT night for the protest we're having! (Uranus is the ruling planet of Aquarius--it's the planet of revolution, transformation, &c.) SWEET.
It's also revealed that somewhere around 20-30 of the people in the protest are undercover cops. Our new friends recognise them as neighbours, plus by their shoes.
Also, apparently, people throughout the Netherlands can't understand each other because of the presence of around 230 different dialects (ranging from German, French, and Flemish-influenced), despite the fact that it's a tiny country. The medieval history of isolation in tiny villages is pronounced the source.
Other things I hope to someday update you about:
Love,
Me
Nonetheless, the squatters all over the Netherlands have been protesting the ban, and one of my closest friends here came over for hot cocoa, told me about it, and then we set out!
Right in front of the Royal Palace in Dam Square, 2 or 3 tents had been combined and covered in tarps to turn it into a miniature Royal Palace, with a Pirate Flag waving from the top (instead of the Royal crest). Someone was dressed up as Queen Beatrix, and people were carrying signs and torches (torches / candles...for realz). There were two loud-speakers attached to a rolling platform, and someone with a mic. Also, free (vegan) soup. My friend and I listened without understanding the speeches (something about learning lessons, living rights, and a few other tiny snippets I could catch). Then...we march! As we march, the crowd grows larger--my friend and I had been disappointed at first by what we thought was a relatively small (for the Netherlands, compared to Utrecht) gathering in Dam Square. Then again, it was a Tuesday night, and I wonder if the kind of people who would live in Amsterdam might be the more touristy, commercialised, materialistic type of people who become apathetic or distracted and wouldn't show up for a protest.
And, of course, the music via speakers was carried with us. Loud punk rock / death metal (obvi not the same thing, but both were present) blared and they rolled they speakers right along with all the marchers, armed with torches and candles, down Kalverstraat, down to Spui Centrum, then up Spuistraat back to Dam Square...where some anti-squatters got into an altercation with our protest movement, and the Police Calvary had to move in. The police had also stationed gigantic grey-painted box-looking vans all around the place, and some moved along with us. To me, they looked like a civilian European version of street tanks. My friend (from Sweden) agreed. She said, in Sweden they couldn't have those tanks out there because it would be considered provocative. When the police went in on their horses, I thought, for sure the police are beating the people--and I was thinking of my friends in Chicago at a radical queer conference, when the police began to beat them. My friend pulled me away, and I heard the loud-speakers wail: '...komt, alstublieft. ...komt, alstublieft' (basically, withdraw--come away, please).
We asked two people we found there what was happening, and they started to explain that this was a squatting rights protest, and we had to explain that we already knew--but what was happening with the shouting and apparent fighting? Were the police attacking? They looked at me strangely for asking that and laughed and said '...No. The police can't do that. They can't go in without a reason. They're breaking up a fight.' Strange world, no?
We got to talking in general, as all the squatters drew back to a big art squat back on Spuistraat. I wanted to follow them, but my friend didn't want to be arrested or for us to be in the midst of violence, should it break out again. The cool people we met started telling us how they were neighbours, how one of them, 6 years ago, had lived in a squat in the countryside with 3 guys. They were friendly with all the neighbours, had cake and tea with them, but there was one guy who didn't like them. The squat-guys all had cars, and she didn't, and one night all 3 were away and she was left home alone, and the creepy neighbour saw a light burning in her window, and thought to threaten and scare her away for good. So there's a knock at the door, she answers it...and there's the neighbour...WITH AN AXE.
I say, 'WHAT.'
She says she closed the door and went upstairs, and in the morning they found the axe in the door. It took all the squatters 2 hours to get it out.
I say, he sounds dangerous, and both people we're talking to look at me funny again and say, no, he wasn't actually going to hurt her. I say...he brought an axe to your door and showed it to your face and then jammed it into the front door when you closed it. They say, it was only a warning! I say, you must have a funny kind of warning system around here. I've never heard of a warning like that before.
Strange world, again.
Apparently everything got along fine after that, because all the other neighbours were supportive of the squat and reassured them that there was nothing to fear: all the neighbours would stick up for them if it came to that. They shouldn't be worried in the future.
Then it came out somehow from the former-squatter that it was a Full Moon that day (true: in restless, communicative Gemini), and I say: '!!!! And Uranus just went direct!' And then the two people and I go on about how, oh goodness, how this is the PERFECT night for the protest we're having! (Uranus is the ruling planet of Aquarius--it's the planet of revolution, transformation, &c.) SWEET.
It's also revealed that somewhere around 20-30 of the people in the protest are undercover cops. Our new friends recognise them as neighbours, plus by their shoes.
Also, apparently, people throughout the Netherlands can't understand each other because of the presence of around 230 different dialects (ranging from German, French, and Flemish-influenced), despite the fact that it's a tiny country. The medieval history of isolation in tiny villages is pronounced the source.
Other things I hope to someday update you about:
- mijn reis naar Stockholm vorig weekend
- Sinterklaas: parties, RAs, gifts, treats, traditions I love, poems
- buying a Dutch Harry Potter book in Dutch
- apartment preparations for Christmas
Love,
Me
woensdag 18 november 2009
Naar Napoli en terug!
My journey (reis) began as follows:
I wake up at 4am, am at Centraal Station by 5am, Schiphol by 5.45, and on the plane by 6.45 / 7am. Online check-in is also the best invention ever. + Lufthansa = amazing.
Everybody always says that on 'international' flights (including intra-EU / EC flights) they're constantly feeding you, but the truth is that they're constantly paying attention to you. Plus you pay a fraction of the cost to go roughly the same distance (for instance, Amsterdam - Napoli is roughly 910 miles, and DC - St Louis is roughly 878 miles...but a round trip deal for that, my friends, would be many hundreds of dollars, or at least several, even though you're intra-country!)...wait, okay, let me rephrase: you pay much less to go just as far--and you are lavished with attention and goodies! Here is how my flights go:
6.45 / 7am. Boarding my Lufthansa vlucht naar Munich. I enter the plane and the crew member standing at the entrance zegt, 'Morgen.' She says it with a funny accent by pronouncing the 'n' at the end and saying the 'g' like we do in English. I wonder if she is from Belgium, and I say 'Morgen' back to her, the correct way, and then ponder on the possibility that she is American or some other English-speaker (Canadian?) and she just doesn't have the accent down right. Then I pass the label inside the plane that says this craft was named after some tiny little town in Germany, and it dawns on me: she wasn't speaking Dutch at all! Silly Germans.
I sleep as much as I can. There is no one sitting next to me. It is great. Somehow, I always get the view-of-the-wing seat.
De vlucht aan komst in MΓΌnchen om 8.25, but it seems like all these European flights use little shuttle buses to get back and forth between the planes and the airports, so we're not in the building until a little after 9, and I'm glad because I don't have to waste too much time waiting for my 9.25 vlucht naar Napoli. I wonder why the Schiphol airport is 'award-winning' (the best airport in Europe!) and Munich isn't. Seems pretty nice to me.
Although! So crazy! We get off the plane and are boarding the little bus and, not only can I see my breath when I breathe out of my mouth...but I can see my breath when I breath out of my nose. And by 'see my breath', I mean, I am a dragon. It is cold in Munich. Who knew? It wasn't that bad in Amsterdam! And aren't we more Northern?
Lufthansa, like every other friggin' airline company under the Sun (and their moms?), contracts out other planes and companies to do some of their work. I think this one is called 'AirDolomiti' or something like that--it's an Italian flight, run by Italians, and I'm so tired and confused and dazed and thrown off by the earlier German (not Dutch!) speaking that I'm even more confused when the flight crew greets me with 'Caio!' as I board the plane. I whisper, 'Hoi', to them in a delirious manner, and then they confuse me some more by asking, 'Journalista?' (newspaper?). I look at them perplexed and answer, 'Nee'. Then I wonder if they even understood me.
(Also, to back-track: on my German flight...the crew translated everything into German & English--and then used a recording for Dutch! What is that! Also, that Dutch speaker had a BAD accent. Like, a bad automated teacher who was overdoing everything. So stilted and geez...oh man, that accent was BAD. I was like, cringing for the Dutch and German people alike).
But (to return), that is sort of the beginning of the point of the airline story: they have so many little freebee gifts! I walk in, they have newspapers of many different languages all lined up, and people in front and behind are taking them, and then I go to sit down...and this is a picture of the aircraft inside:
Everything is the same aquamarine colour. The tip of the wing outside my window matches, and the flight crew are all wearing specially made & tailored matching suits or skirts. On my way back from Napoli to Munich on Monday (maandag), they even had matching tailored pea coats. NO joke! Crazy! I mean crazy in a good way :) I love the attention to detail and to making everything so...well...sort of like a set, you know? Like, really creating their own fantasy aquamarine land here. I thought it was SO cool! And way more than you would ever see a US airline do.
I fall asleep on this flight, too, with my articles for class and a pen dangling out of my hand, hanging over my legs in front of me. I am glad I drank some Airborne / Emergen-C before getting on the flight. When I wake up, people around me are drinking coffee and orange juice and water out of little containers in bright raspberry-covered boxes. It's like a strange fairytale land. I'm mildly disappointed I missed me turn, but it doesn't matter much, because then I would have to pee anyway. I look out my window (there's no one next to me on this flight, too--and I always get aisle seats because I have to pee frequently and am mildly claustrophobic)...and I see the Alps.
I literally wake up to see the Alps outside my window. Just in time, too :) And then I look at the seat between myself and the window...and there's a little rectangular raspberry-covered box waiting, placed there, just for me. Next to it, closer to the window, lies my article for class, though my pen is still dangling in front of me in my hand. The image of a kind crew member leaning down and picking up my fallen papers and placing them gently, gingerly, on the seat beside me, along with a waiting gift, fills my head and I am full of love and kindness back.
When the cart comes through with orange juice and magickalness, I try to thank the kind employees for their treatment of me, and the person I talk to smiles and says, 'It's included!' She means that, of course I have food, because I paid for the flight. I think, good deeds are truly good when they are done anonymously, so I don't spend a lot of time trying to find the person who took care of me.
For the record, when the Italians speak English on the flight, there's no understanding that they're even speaking English. It's like, thickly Italian-accented English words, slurred all together to the point that the English becomes Italian again. I catch one or two words in a sentence that allow me to identify it as 'English'.
As the plane is landing, I glance around to see what the Italians are wearing so I'll know how cold / hot / moderate it is. Weather.com says it's supposed to be a high of 14-16 degrees, but I see quilted winter coats with fur-lined hoods all around me. It can't possibly be that cold--it can't possibly! I put on my small summer jacket, then go for my autumn coat. I wonder if I should combine the two: people are making me nervous!
We arrive (de vlucht aan komst) om 11.05 uur, and my phone won't call Alex, but it will text her. We spend a little bit of time figuring out where we both are, and then I'm outside and it's HOT! I am sweating (these Italians are CRAZY! Winter coats? Fur? Are you kidding me? I had to take *all* my coats off!) and Alex is in her car, being bullied into driving away by a strict Italian security guard. I flag her down with my scarf (unnecessary due to the warmth then), and I get it and: IT'S REUNION! :) :) :)
Alex and I have not actually see each other since Senior year of High School. It's THAT type of Reunion. AWESOME type!
We drive away from the airport and toward her home, and I'm getting an eye-full of Southern Italian architecture. Also of Italian driving. Lines on the road mean nothing. Absolutely nothing. Also, if there's a speed min / max (which there are), you really can't tell. People going absolutely any speed they please--30mph, 80mph, anything goes. Well, sort of. You'll definitely get tailgated and people zip around any which way without any turn signals. Alex jokes that they can always tell she's American because she uses her turn signals.
Alex speaks REALLY good Italian, btw. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but I haven't seen her for 2.5 years, so seeing her level of functionality and knowledge &c. is incredible to me. Of course, the Italians don't speak any (ANY) English, so it is total immersion--but the other Americans in the area (on base, particularly: and other internationals on the bases) do not know Italian and aren't learning, so she could easily just communicate with them (especially because it's such a large international community--four bases in the area). Her accent is really great, too. She says sometimes she feels Italian, and I can see it even in the way she uses her hands to speak--like a native would, not like a foreigner who's trying to explain what they're saying. That's how I talk :) All her little gestures lend itself to the depth of her Italian understanding.
Vrijdag 15 november we hang out, I see her house and meet her two wonderful puppies (dogs) and her dad (so funny and nice!), and we talk and laugh and confide and think and talk some more. Her dad comes home with tickets for us to go visit Roma tomorrow, because we intend to see an art gallery there with an exhibition by one of her favourite artists (David Stoupakis), and Alex and I go out and have some real Italian food around nearby. The Italian way of making eggplant is THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER. Thinly sliced, crisp, oiled and salted and I don't even know but it's AMAZING. She tells me that it's easy to be vegetarian / vegan in ItaliΓ« because they eat all their meats and pasta / veggies separately, and you can get the cheese on the side easily. I'm glad she's able to do all the cheese-less ordering for me, though, because like I said: the Italians speak null Engels! Plus, to all those U.S. pizza-buyers who think cheeseless pizza is weird, apparently it's the national cuisine hobby to eat cheeseless pizza: just marinara sauce, garlic, and basil / oregano, and you are SET, my friend. Plus it's not weird to order a veggie pizza sans the leche-products.
It's good, kids. But, more importantly: it's CHEAP.
Our meal: 2 drinks, 2 entrees, 1 appetizer. € 15. Amsterdam: 1 entree. € 15. There is a difference there.
Crazy Italians.
We watch Final Destination and I hide my face a lot and then we go to sleep. I don't have nightmares or stay up late scared over the movie! I'm very proud of myself, and we discuss the various ways in which the ending should have been revised: i.e. what? Pregnancy was clearly the answer. DUH, kids!
Zaterdag, our trein vertrek om 8.42 naar Roma, so we're up by 7am to get ready and drive to the treinstation met haar vader. We get a little lost due to some roads blocked by construction, but we get there, the train is a little late and not listed on any signboards (yet everyone seems to know what's happening), and then we're onboard! It's like a Harry Potter train, with 6-person cabins and a little narrow aisle down the right side where a person with a food / drink cart comes down. We try to remember whose seats we're sitting in: in the most recent movie, post-Hermione's anger with Ron, I am sitting in Harry's seat, and she in Ron's. I'm pretty sure pre-anger, I am in Hermione's seat, because Harry Potter always comes in late with his melodramatic face, going:
'GUYS. I just saw Draco Malfoy and he's trying to kill me'
with that little aghast shocked scandalised determined conspiring melodramatic intense face he has. You know the one. With the wide eyes and confused eyebrows (confused because they don't know whether to be determined, angry, intent, set, or bewildered / surprised, and frustrated with his friends for not understanding) and gaping mouth. Plus his gestures are always really stiff like: this unsure robot with an important message is moving toward you now.
Anyway. He always enters late. And he always has some ridiculous adventure to recount.
I want to buy Harry Potter in Nederlands (1: Harry Potter en de Steen der Wijzen) so I can read it and hear it read aloud via audiotapes. My Spanish housemate is doing that with English and it's working for him.
***I LOVE speaking in English in ItaliΓ«. It's so great because I've never had a secret language before, but because no one understands English, it's like...we're liberated. We're completely free to do and say and think whatever we like because only we two will know. We can make disparaging comments, or wonder aloud about the other people on the train, or just talk about our personal pasts and thoughts and feelings and confidential things, and no one will know our words.
Also: I have learned that I have forgotten how to say anything in any language besides Dutch or English. And by 'anything', I mean, the important everyday words like: Please, Thank You, Sorry, and even No. Seriously. I can't say anything but 'Nee' anymore, unless I'm speaking English to English-speakers. Also, Accents. Don't possess any other accent but Dutch and English anymore.
I'm kind of proud of myself in a sick way. It makes me feel more Dutch? More integrated?
We find Rome and it's SUPER huge. Like, the maps for Amsterdam show it as being really large, but that's only because there's so many friggin streets all condensed into a small area, and not always in an organised fashion, so you really need some room to explain the geography (and street names, which largely change every block or two). But, of course, Amsterdam is very small. So, I got used to that, and I saw the map, and I was like, yeah, this is the same size as Amsterdam!
Well, no, it is not.
It is not the same size as Amsterdam.
Rome is very large, as anyone who knew anything about Rome (myself obviously excluded) would know or guess or imagine. It's HUGE! And the traffic patterns have not gotten any better. Wow--there are cars and buses and metros and people people people tour buses (wow...tour buses!) and lots of old things coexisting non-challantly in the city, and I'm reminded of New York and how I haven't seen like a *real* big city in forever. I love Amsterdam, and I would choose its version any day, but it was exciting and surprising to be in a big-time fast-paced hustle-bustle city again. Rome is HUGE.
I've got my camera out full-time now, and we're looking like tourists, but that's fine. Creepy Italian guys are everywhere. We head off to find the Gallery, which ends up being closed, but we meet some nice people along the way who give us directions (or, Alex directions, since she's the one a-speakin' Italian!). The Gallery is very pretty, with great graffiti, and we hang out for a while calling the number on the door, because it should be open, but it's not, so we take some pictures, sit down, prey on locals (naw, just kidding), and then head off to find the Colosseum.
Because Rome is a lot larger than Amsterdam, all of my estimations for walking time are completely thrown off, but we stop over at a little neighbourhood park on the way, eat some Italian Thai / Chinees food (Chinees = Dutch spelling), and I giggle because all 'noodles' are called 'spaghetti' in ItaliΓ«, so Pad Thai becomes 'rice spaghetti'. Cute.
You cannot drink the water in ItaliΓ«. So we don't.
When we reach the Colosseum, we start to get a little lost because so many ancient-timey Romany things are happening at once (I mean, they're happening ALL over the city, but, now it's not just like lots of walls and some random structures--it's like, the big-time dealios &c.), so I call out to some Americans walking by to help us out, and they look at us strangely and start to continue on. Alex calls out, 'NO SERIOUSLY. We need your help' and then they finally pay attention to us--but c'mon, now! If we're speaking English with American accents to you in ItaliΓ«, I think you can count on the idea that we're not just creepy Italian men trying to pick you up. SERIOUSLY.
(btdubs, as for not even noticing the incredibly old UNBELIEVABLY INCOMPREHENSIBLE age of the surroundings, here's a picture of a gas station just sort of, y'know, existing in front of an old Roman wall. What's up. Hey, cool):
The Colosseum is gorgeous. I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did--I mainly wanted to see it because, how can I be in Rome and not see it? I thought no one would forgive me. But this thing is ginormous, and you walk up, and the first thing you thinkbreatheseefeel is just incredible age, and you know how I love age. So, here's the Colosseum:
Then we try to walk back to the Termini treinstation, thinking our train leaves at 6pm (actually 6.24pm), and as we try to weave our way away from the Colosseum, it increasingly feels like being in The Prisoner (remember that show? traumatised me when I was younger), and we're slowly losing time. Finally at 5.30 we ask where a metro station is (right below us, right in front of the Colosseum--we had actually started to make a bit of progress at this point), and it costs us--I kid you not--a single euro each to ride the metro for 75 minuten. One euro. A single euro. I still cannot even believe it. What?!
Anyway, we get to the station, but the problem is: there had been wonderful nice horseys right around the Colosseum--and we discover that Alex must be allergic! All my Allegra and Singulair is at her home, so we have to sit there and wait as she dabs at her eyes with tissues and tries not to look like she's crying :( I feel badly that I can't do anything to help, and I know how awful it feels to have allergic reactions. In the middle of visiting Rome, it can't be fun.
We get home, make some Indian curry, and then we go exploring local shopping centres with her daddy. ItaliΓ« looks cute dressed up for Christmas:
We go home and talk talk talk, and then to sleep! :)
Alex takes me into Napoli today, but I sleep so long and then we have lunch at home that we don't leave the house until 4pm! We reach town as the lights are coming on, and that's my favourite time anyway, so we'ze all good, chicas :)
First off, we find my name listed on a random street sign (one of the few), with an icon for a Ford dealership right next to it, so we don't really know what my name is indicating, but then we wander, ask where the water is (the coast! the sea!), go back to the car and finagle with the GPS system until we can find the nearest shore.
The city by the shore is *beautiful*. It's not technically 'Napoli', really, although a random town-sign listed by some abandoned building or other claims it is. I take pictures of doors where I go, because my mother's family is Italian / Sicilian, and she would love to be in my spot right now, and she has asked me for pictures of doors (presumably in the Netherlands). So I take pictures of doors for her here. I cannot recreate the experience, but I can try. But we wander around, and ask for directions to the water's edge, and bump into 3 old men whom Alex asks. One says he'll lead us there, and so we go, and they carry on a conversation in Italian and Alex translates for me when there's a pause. He's a sweet old man, and his skin is wrinkly and worn, like leather, and all I can think is, he reminds me of my grandfather he reminds me of my grandfather he reminds me of my grandfather. He's so small, and his eyes are so bright, and his skin is just so wrinkled. He has a sparkle to him, and he wears an artist's sort of berret hat (not quite a berret), the same as my grandfather used to wear, if I remember correctly from stories and photos. He's just small and wiry.
He leads us to the coast, and there are boats lined up everywhere against a shoreline tinged with rocks, and to our right, on a rising hill, Napoli is shining with lights on all over. My grandfather used to take pictures of rocks and shorelines and boats. We have pictures he took (and drew) of piers and docks, especially in Gran Manan, in our house. He would have loved this place. He loved Spain and Puerto Rico, anyway.
The man carries around an assortment of photos he's taken in his pocketbag, and he takes them out and shows us several times as we walk with him. There are some of religious processions, some of the city, and many of the waterside. The ones of the waterside could be siblings of my grandfather's. I tell Alex over and over that he reminds me of my grandfather, and then we're sitting down with the man in his special sacred thinking spot by the sea, and I say, everything in this moment is overflowing with my grandfather. I can touch and taste him everywhere. He's in the sea air ('Breeeeathe that salt air!', which, I do--I stand by the railing on the cobblestone and motion to the man that I am breathing in and out and he says, in Italian, it is pure air: you come here to breathe pure air if you are sick), in the boats and gruffness, gritty dirtiness of the city, in the rocks and in the old man. And in the photographs. And so Alex tells him, You remind her of her grandfather. And he says, Of course, because I am old and she is young! He is eccentric and quirky, with a quickness of step and sharpness of mind and attitude. He says constantly, there is no respect for this city. Look at the filth and the trash and the garbage--this place should be a paradise, but there is no respect for the city. I speak to him two or three times in broken Spanish ('La ciudad es de arte', 'Tu tienes un muy bueno...profile', 'solo touristas') and even try some Italian, and sometimes I can understand what he's saying and Alex doesn't need to translate. He says, this is the way it should be: natural communication, without people having to learn a hundred languages. Alex tells me that. I frequently am looking at him and he says things with shining eyes and I smile back, but hesitate because I have no idea what he's saying! He learns that I am learning photography, and using Alex's camera, tries to teach me. I feel uncomfortable because this is her camera, and because it is silly that he is teaching me--since he has never even seen what she is capable of, and he would be astounded, utterly overwhelmed by her genius and ability. But then again, she doesn't need his help, and so he helps me. He tries to compensate for the fact that I don't speak Italian and am often unable to participate in the conversations by turning and communicating with me at times.
His name is Raphael, but his friends call him Rafe-Cafe, and he is gentle but gruff. I hug him once unexpectedly, and though he was awkward, Alex says he was smiling. Later, I kiss his cheek, and I am overwhelmed by how much of my grandfather this moment radiates. He is maybe 60 or 70 years old, and his photographs are from decades ago. He offers me one of his photographs to take with me, to choose. I shuffle through and one falls out and--like Tarot--this is the one I must take. I ask him to sign it for me, and, deferentially and somewhat abashedly, he does.
Finally, I say we have to go because I have another early flight and I want to be healthy--plus I'm starting to shake from tiredness. Our nice Rafe-Cafe walks us back to the car without prompting, and I'm very very grateful, because I had wanted to ask him, since there are creepy men everywhere in ItaliΓ«. Catcalls cannot be avoided, but having our aging local with us made me feel more secure in our trek. We say goodnight, and he tells Alex he would adopt me, haha.
There are creepy weird religious icons and shrines EVERYWHERE. Creepy.
On the way home we get stuck under some overpasses (which go waaaaay high in the sky--they're terrifying and do not look safe), and lose the GPS signal. So we're riding for a bit, and it looks like the set of iRobot where all the sheds are piled up next to and on top of each other, where the robots pop out of. I'm thinking zombie crack and heroine addicts are going to pop out with weapons, but they don't. Alex says it looks like the set of Will Smith's other recent disaster movie (the one with the dog? I forget the title), but I don't know because I didn't see it. I was worried about the dog.
Anyway, those overpasses are scary. We make it home and I'm in bed by 1.30am.
I wake up at 4.30am and Alex's daddy drives me to the airport. Repeat the flights from Amsterdam naar ItaliΓ«, only in reverse. I get home, and I forget how to speak Dutch a little, and then I go to sleep :)
Love,
Miranda
Eerste Dag
I wake up at 4am, am at Centraal Station by 5am, Schiphol by 5.45, and on the plane by 6.45 / 7am. Online check-in is also the best invention ever. + Lufthansa = amazing.
Everybody always says that on 'international' flights (including intra-EU / EC flights) they're constantly feeding you, but the truth is that they're constantly paying attention to you. Plus you pay a fraction of the cost to go roughly the same distance (for instance, Amsterdam - Napoli is roughly 910 miles, and DC - St Louis is roughly 878 miles...but a round trip deal for that, my friends, would be many hundreds of dollars, or at least several, even though you're intra-country!)...wait, okay, let me rephrase: you pay much less to go just as far--and you are lavished with attention and goodies! Here is how my flights go:
6.45 / 7am. Boarding my Lufthansa vlucht naar Munich. I enter the plane and the crew member standing at the entrance zegt, 'Morgen.' She says it with a funny accent by pronouncing the 'n' at the end and saying the 'g' like we do in English. I wonder if she is from Belgium, and I say 'Morgen' back to her, the correct way, and then ponder on the possibility that she is American or some other English-speaker (Canadian?) and she just doesn't have the accent down right. Then I pass the label inside the plane that says this craft was named after some tiny little town in Germany, and it dawns on me: she wasn't speaking Dutch at all! Silly Germans.
I sleep as much as I can. There is no one sitting next to me. It is great. Somehow, I always get the view-of-the-wing seat.
De vlucht aan komst in MΓΌnchen om 8.25, but it seems like all these European flights use little shuttle buses to get back and forth between the planes and the airports, so we're not in the building until a little after 9, and I'm glad because I don't have to waste too much time waiting for my 9.25 vlucht naar Napoli. I wonder why the Schiphol airport is 'award-winning' (the best airport in Europe!) and Munich isn't. Seems pretty nice to me.
Although! So crazy! We get off the plane and are boarding the little bus and, not only can I see my breath when I breathe out of my mouth...but I can see my breath when I breath out of my nose. And by 'see my breath', I mean, I am a dragon. It is cold in Munich. Who knew? It wasn't that bad in Amsterdam! And aren't we more Northern?
Lufthansa, like every other friggin' airline company under the Sun (and their moms?), contracts out other planes and companies to do some of their work. I think this one is called 'AirDolomiti' or something like that--it's an Italian flight, run by Italians, and I'm so tired and confused and dazed and thrown off by the earlier German (not Dutch!) speaking that I'm even more confused when the flight crew greets me with 'Caio!' as I board the plane. I whisper, 'Hoi', to them in a delirious manner, and then they confuse me some more by asking, 'Journalista?' (newspaper?). I look at them perplexed and answer, 'Nee'. Then I wonder if they even understood me.
(Also, to back-track: on my German flight...the crew translated everything into German & English--and then used a recording for Dutch! What is that! Also, that Dutch speaker had a BAD accent. Like, a bad automated teacher who was overdoing everything. So stilted and geez...oh man, that accent was BAD. I was like, cringing for the Dutch and German people alike).
But (to return), that is sort of the beginning of the point of the airline story: they have so many little freebee gifts! I walk in, they have newspapers of many different languages all lined up, and people in front and behind are taking them, and then I go to sit down...and this is a picture of the aircraft inside:
I fall asleep on this flight, too, with my articles for class and a pen dangling out of my hand, hanging over my legs in front of me. I am glad I drank some Airborne / Emergen-C before getting on the flight. When I wake up, people around me are drinking coffee and orange juice and water out of little containers in bright raspberry-covered boxes. It's like a strange fairytale land. I'm mildly disappointed I missed me turn, but it doesn't matter much, because then I would have to pee anyway. I look out my window (there's no one next to me on this flight, too--and I always get aisle seats because I have to pee frequently and am mildly claustrophobic)...and I see the Alps.
I literally wake up to see the Alps outside my window. Just in time, too :) And then I look at the seat between myself and the window...and there's a little rectangular raspberry-covered box waiting, placed there, just for me. Next to it, closer to the window, lies my article for class, though my pen is still dangling in front of me in my hand. The image of a kind crew member leaning down and picking up my fallen papers and placing them gently, gingerly, on the seat beside me, along with a waiting gift, fills my head and I am full of love and kindness back.
For the record, when the Italians speak English on the flight, there's no understanding that they're even speaking English. It's like, thickly Italian-accented English words, slurred all together to the point that the English becomes Italian again. I catch one or two words in a sentence that allow me to identify it as 'English'.
As the plane is landing, I glance around to see what the Italians are wearing so I'll know how cold / hot / moderate it is. Weather.com says it's supposed to be a high of 14-16 degrees, but I see quilted winter coats with fur-lined hoods all around me. It can't possibly be that cold--it can't possibly! I put on my small summer jacket, then go for my autumn coat. I wonder if I should combine the two: people are making me nervous!
We arrive (de vlucht aan komst) om 11.05 uur, and my phone won't call Alex, but it will text her. We spend a little bit of time figuring out where we both are, and then I'm outside and it's HOT! I am sweating (these Italians are CRAZY! Winter coats? Fur? Are you kidding me? I had to take *all* my coats off!) and Alex is in her car, being bullied into driving away by a strict Italian security guard. I flag her down with my scarf (unnecessary due to the warmth then), and I get it and: IT'S REUNION! :) :) :)
Alex and I have not actually see each other since Senior year of High School. It's THAT type of Reunion. AWESOME type!
We drive away from the airport and toward her home, and I'm getting an eye-full of Southern Italian architecture. Also of Italian driving. Lines on the road mean nothing. Absolutely nothing. Also, if there's a speed min / max (which there are), you really can't tell. People going absolutely any speed they please--30mph, 80mph, anything goes. Well, sort of. You'll definitely get tailgated and people zip around any which way without any turn signals. Alex jokes that they can always tell she's American because she uses her turn signals.
Alex speaks REALLY good Italian, btw. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but I haven't seen her for 2.5 years, so seeing her level of functionality and knowledge &c. is incredible to me. Of course, the Italians don't speak any (ANY) English, so it is total immersion--but the other Americans in the area (on base, particularly: and other internationals on the bases) do not know Italian and aren't learning, so she could easily just communicate with them (especially because it's such a large international community--four bases in the area). Her accent is really great, too. She says sometimes she feels Italian, and I can see it even in the way she uses her hands to speak--like a native would, not like a foreigner who's trying to explain what they're saying. That's how I talk :) All her little gestures lend itself to the depth of her Italian understanding.
Vrijdag 15 november we hang out, I see her house and meet her two wonderful puppies (dogs) and her dad (so funny and nice!), and we talk and laugh and confide and think and talk some more. Her dad comes home with tickets for us to go visit Roma tomorrow, because we intend to see an art gallery there with an exhibition by one of her favourite artists (David Stoupakis), and Alex and I go out and have some real Italian food around nearby. The Italian way of making eggplant is THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER. Thinly sliced, crisp, oiled and salted and I don't even know but it's AMAZING. She tells me that it's easy to be vegetarian / vegan in ItaliΓ« because they eat all their meats and pasta / veggies separately, and you can get the cheese on the side easily. I'm glad she's able to do all the cheese-less ordering for me, though, because like I said: the Italians speak null Engels! Plus, to all those U.S. pizza-buyers who think cheeseless pizza is weird, apparently it's the national cuisine hobby to eat cheeseless pizza: just marinara sauce, garlic, and basil / oregano, and you are SET, my friend. Plus it's not weird to order a veggie pizza sans the leche-products.
It's good, kids. But, more importantly: it's CHEAP.
Our meal: 2 drinks, 2 entrees, 1 appetizer. € 15. Amsterdam: 1 entree. € 15. There is a difference there.
Crazy Italians.
We watch Final Destination and I hide my face a lot and then we go to sleep. I don't have nightmares or stay up late scared over the movie! I'm very proud of myself, and we discuss the various ways in which the ending should have been revised: i.e. what? Pregnancy was clearly the answer. DUH, kids!
Tweede Dag
Zaterdag, our trein vertrek om 8.42 naar Roma, so we're up by 7am to get ready and drive to the treinstation met haar vader. We get a little lost due to some roads blocked by construction, but we get there, the train is a little late and not listed on any signboards (yet everyone seems to know what's happening), and then we're onboard! It's like a Harry Potter train, with 6-person cabins and a little narrow aisle down the right side where a person with a food / drink cart comes down. We try to remember whose seats we're sitting in: in the most recent movie, post-Hermione's anger with Ron, I am sitting in Harry's seat, and she in Ron's. I'm pretty sure pre-anger, I am in Hermione's seat, because Harry Potter always comes in late with his melodramatic face, going:
'GUYS. I just saw Draco Malfoy and he's trying to kill me'
with that little aghast shocked scandalised determined conspiring melodramatic intense face he has. You know the one. With the wide eyes and confused eyebrows (confused because they don't know whether to be determined, angry, intent, set, or bewildered / surprised, and frustrated with his friends for not understanding) and gaping mouth. Plus his gestures are always really stiff like: this unsure robot with an important message is moving toward you now.
Anyway. He always enters late. And he always has some ridiculous adventure to recount.
I want to buy Harry Potter in Nederlands (1: Harry Potter en de Steen der Wijzen) so I can read it and hear it read aloud via audiotapes. My Spanish housemate is doing that with English and it's working for him.
***I LOVE speaking in English in ItaliΓ«. It's so great because I've never had a secret language before, but because no one understands English, it's like...we're liberated. We're completely free to do and say and think whatever we like because only we two will know. We can make disparaging comments, or wonder aloud about the other people on the train, or just talk about our personal pasts and thoughts and feelings and confidential things, and no one will know our words.
Also: I have learned that I have forgotten how to say anything in any language besides Dutch or English. And by 'anything', I mean, the important everyday words like: Please, Thank You, Sorry, and even No. Seriously. I can't say anything but 'Nee' anymore, unless I'm speaking English to English-speakers. Also, Accents. Don't possess any other accent but Dutch and English anymore.
I'm kind of proud of myself in a sick way. It makes me feel more Dutch? More integrated?
We find Rome and it's SUPER huge. Like, the maps for Amsterdam show it as being really large, but that's only because there's so many friggin streets all condensed into a small area, and not always in an organised fashion, so you really need some room to explain the geography (and street names, which largely change every block or two). But, of course, Amsterdam is very small. So, I got used to that, and I saw the map, and I was like, yeah, this is the same size as Amsterdam!
Well, no, it is not.
It is not the same size as Amsterdam.
Rome is very large, as anyone who knew anything about Rome (myself obviously excluded) would know or guess or imagine. It's HUGE! And the traffic patterns have not gotten any better. Wow--there are cars and buses and metros and people people people tour buses (wow...tour buses!) and lots of old things coexisting non-challantly in the city, and I'm reminded of New York and how I haven't seen like a *real* big city in forever. I love Amsterdam, and I would choose its version any day, but it was exciting and surprising to be in a big-time fast-paced hustle-bustle city again. Rome is HUGE.
I've got my camera out full-time now, and we're looking like tourists, but that's fine. Creepy Italian guys are everywhere. We head off to find the Gallery, which ends up being closed, but we meet some nice people along the way who give us directions (or, Alex directions, since she's the one a-speakin' Italian!). The Gallery is very pretty, with great graffiti, and we hang out for a while calling the number on the door, because it should be open, but it's not, so we take some pictures, sit down, prey on locals (naw, just kidding), and then head off to find the Colosseum.
You cannot drink the water in ItaliΓ«. So we don't.
When we reach the Colosseum, we start to get a little lost because so many ancient-timey Romany things are happening at once (I mean, they're happening ALL over the city, but, now it's not just like lots of walls and some random structures--it's like, the big-time dealios &c.), so I call out to some Americans walking by to help us out, and they look at us strangely and start to continue on. Alex calls out, 'NO SERIOUSLY. We need your help' and then they finally pay attention to us--but c'mon, now! If we're speaking English with American accents to you in ItaliΓ«, I think you can count on the idea that we're not just creepy Italian men trying to pick you up. SERIOUSLY.
(btdubs, as for not even noticing the incredibly old UNBELIEVABLY INCOMPREHENSIBLE age of the surroundings, here's a picture of a gas station just sort of, y'know, existing in front of an old Roman wall. What's up. Hey, cool):
The Colosseum is gorgeous. I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did--I mainly wanted to see it because, how can I be in Rome and not see it? I thought no one would forgive me. But this thing is ginormous, and you walk up, and the first thing you thinkbreatheseefeel is just incredible age, and you know how I love age. So, here's the Colosseum:
Then we try to walk back to the Termini treinstation, thinking our train leaves at 6pm (actually 6.24pm), and as we try to weave our way away from the Colosseum, it increasingly feels like being in The Prisoner (remember that show? traumatised me when I was younger), and we're slowly losing time. Finally at 5.30 we ask where a metro station is (right below us, right in front of the Colosseum--we had actually started to make a bit of progress at this point), and it costs us--I kid you not--a single euro each to ride the metro for 75 minuten. One euro. A single euro. I still cannot even believe it. What?!
Anyway, we get to the station, but the problem is: there had been wonderful nice horseys right around the Colosseum--and we discover that Alex must be allergic! All my Allegra and Singulair is at her home, so we have to sit there and wait as she dabs at her eyes with tissues and tries not to look like she's crying :( I feel badly that I can't do anything to help, and I know how awful it feels to have allergic reactions. In the middle of visiting Rome, it can't be fun.
We get home, make some Indian curry, and then we go exploring local shopping centres with her daddy. ItaliΓ« looks cute dressed up for Christmas:
Derde Dag
Alex takes me into Napoli today, but I sleep so long and then we have lunch at home that we don't leave the house until 4pm! We reach town as the lights are coming on, and that's my favourite time anyway, so we'ze all good, chicas :)
First off, we find my name listed on a random street sign (one of the few), with an icon for a Ford dealership right next to it, so we don't really know what my name is indicating, but then we wander, ask where the water is (the coast! the sea!), go back to the car and finagle with the GPS system until we can find the nearest shore.
The city by the shore is *beautiful*. It's not technically 'Napoli', really, although a random town-sign listed by some abandoned building or other claims it is. I take pictures of doors where I go, because my mother's family is Italian / Sicilian, and she would love to be in my spot right now, and she has asked me for pictures of doors (presumably in the Netherlands). So I take pictures of doors for her here. I cannot recreate the experience, but I can try. But we wander around, and ask for directions to the water's edge, and bump into 3 old men whom Alex asks. One says he'll lead us there, and so we go, and they carry on a conversation in Italian and Alex translates for me when there's a pause. He's a sweet old man, and his skin is wrinkly and worn, like leather, and all I can think is, he reminds me of my grandfather he reminds me of my grandfather he reminds me of my grandfather. He's so small, and his eyes are so bright, and his skin is just so wrinkled. He has a sparkle to him, and he wears an artist's sort of berret hat (not quite a berret), the same as my grandfather used to wear, if I remember correctly from stories and photos. He's just small and wiry.
He leads us to the coast, and there are boats lined up everywhere against a shoreline tinged with rocks, and to our right, on a rising hill, Napoli is shining with lights on all over. My grandfather used to take pictures of rocks and shorelines and boats. We have pictures he took (and drew) of piers and docks, especially in Gran Manan, in our house. He would have loved this place. He loved Spain and Puerto Rico, anyway.
The man carries around an assortment of photos he's taken in his pocketbag, and he takes them out and shows us several times as we walk with him. There are some of religious processions, some of the city, and many of the waterside. The ones of the waterside could be siblings of my grandfather's. I tell Alex over and over that he reminds me of my grandfather, and then we're sitting down with the man in his special sacred thinking spot by the sea, and I say, everything in this moment is overflowing with my grandfather. I can touch and taste him everywhere. He's in the sea air ('Breeeeathe that salt air!', which, I do--I stand by the railing on the cobblestone and motion to the man that I am breathing in and out and he says, in Italian, it is pure air: you come here to breathe pure air if you are sick), in the boats and gruffness, gritty dirtiness of the city, in the rocks and in the old man. And in the photographs. And so Alex tells him, You remind her of her grandfather. And he says, Of course, because I am old and she is young! He is eccentric and quirky, with a quickness of step and sharpness of mind and attitude. He says constantly, there is no respect for this city. Look at the filth and the trash and the garbage--this place should be a paradise, but there is no respect for the city. I speak to him two or three times in broken Spanish ('La ciudad es de arte', 'Tu tienes un muy bueno...profile', 'solo touristas') and even try some Italian, and sometimes I can understand what he's saying and Alex doesn't need to translate. He says, this is the way it should be: natural communication, without people having to learn a hundred languages. Alex tells me that. I frequently am looking at him and he says things with shining eyes and I smile back, but hesitate because I have no idea what he's saying! He learns that I am learning photography, and using Alex's camera, tries to teach me. I feel uncomfortable because this is her camera, and because it is silly that he is teaching me--since he has never even seen what she is capable of, and he would be astounded, utterly overwhelmed by her genius and ability. But then again, she doesn't need his help, and so he helps me. He tries to compensate for the fact that I don't speak Italian and am often unable to participate in the conversations by turning and communicating with me at times.
His name is Raphael, but his friends call him Rafe-Cafe, and he is gentle but gruff. I hug him once unexpectedly, and though he was awkward, Alex says he was smiling. Later, I kiss his cheek, and I am overwhelmed by how much of my grandfather this moment radiates. He is maybe 60 or 70 years old, and his photographs are from decades ago. He offers me one of his photographs to take with me, to choose. I shuffle through and one falls out and--like Tarot--this is the one I must take. I ask him to sign it for me, and, deferentially and somewhat abashedly, he does.
We stood in the inlet spot, where the waves are making the arc further onto the land. There are boats and stairways there now, and a little collection of small, one-room fishermen's dwellings. The little outpost on the portion of land jutting into the water was right ahead of us, but there are some factories there now, too.
There are creepy weird religious icons and shrines EVERYWHERE. Creepy.
On the way home we get stuck under some overpasses (which go waaaaay high in the sky--they're terrifying and do not look safe), and lose the GPS signal. So we're riding for a bit, and it looks like the set of iRobot where all the sheds are piled up next to and on top of each other, where the robots pop out of. I'm thinking zombie crack and heroine addicts are going to pop out with weapons, but they don't. Alex says it looks like the set of Will Smith's other recent disaster movie (the one with the dog? I forget the title), but I don't know because I didn't see it. I was worried about the dog.
Anyway, those overpasses are scary. We make it home and I'm in bed by 1.30am.
Vierde Dag (maandag)
I wake up at 4.30am and Alex's daddy drives me to the airport. Repeat the flights from Amsterdam naar ItaliΓ«, only in reverse. I get home, and I forget how to speak Dutch a little, and then I go to sleep :)
Love,
Miranda
zaterdag 31 oktober 2009
Mi Amour
Lists and Lots of Writing:
Here are all the reasons I'm deeply, passionately in love with the Netherlands, and with Amsterdam in particular:
1) Dutch. I love the language. I love learning it. Apparently, some Renaissance artist / poet / thinker of sorts claimed that Dutch was the most logical language of all, and therefore was the language Adam and Eve spoke in Paradise / the Garden of Eden. I really do love the language. Want to continue learning it.
2) The people. I like them, and I like their culture.
3) They're not rude! They're just practical + I think there's even an implicit understanding of some basic, assumed level of niceness that makes extra "niceties" frivolous. If I bump into you in a grocery store, I *obviously* didn't mean to bump into you. So there's no reason for us both to go snivelling over how we're both sorry to get into each other's way. So, I think this actually doesn't just reflect pragmatic directness, but it actually reflects a more basic understanding that we're all just doing what we do, and not trying to run into other people, so if you have to push past someone...it's not personal. You're just pushing past someone. It's not a personal judgment, and there's no reason to treat it like one. No one was trying to target you to pick on.
4) They're not rude!: once again, and for different reasons. They're just honest, and not passive-aggressive.
5) The Dutch wink a lot, which is something I really enjoy. It's a thing we've almost all observed: being winked at, but it's not creepy--it's just endearing, friendly, open. So, for all those people who think the Dutch are cold or abrupt or don't appreciate the falsity of smiles in the streets from strangers, I disagree. I think they love it. I think they do it right back.
6) Food. It's so easy to be vegan here--I kid you not, the local supermarkt chain Albert Heijn carries its own brand of vegan food. As in, the Albert Heijn brand. And it's just your generic Dutch Shoppers or Giant Food Warehouse, or whatever. There's one practically anywhere in the city, and everyone carries around AH bags all the time. It's a mammoth here--their Starbucks, maybe. Well, that would be Coffee Company. But anyway. And so you walk into this generic chain grocery store--and they have, legit, their own AH line of vegan meatballs, falafel, vegan 'beef' crumbles, vegan 'chicken' slices, soymilk--EVEN SOY ICE CREAM (soja ijs).
Moreover, food is far less processed here--as I've observed before in this blog, bread (brood) contains maybe 5-10 ingredients, versus 20-30 in the U.S. Consequently, it also goes bad more quickly because it has less preservatives, but you know it's fresh, and you know it's healthier, and most importantly, you actually know what's in it. There aren't strange Latin-seeming words you've never seen before and have to interpret and analyse and google / wikipedia. It's just bread.
7) Candles. There are candles everywhere in Amsterdam. I think my friends / people around me thought I was crazy for how much I loved candles, how I would try to find opportunities to light them all the time. My bedroom in my parents' house is filled with around 40+ candles and fun candle-holders. It's an atmospheric thing, an aesthetic thing--and, apparently, a Dutch ( / European?) thing. Something they get, and practice regularly. When I walk around the city, I'm always (sneakily) looking into people's houses, trying to imagine myself in them, or reinvent it as my own / mapping mine onto what I see inside, and when I'm doing this, one thing I continually observe is that there are candles everywhere, and they are always lit as soon as the sun goes down (say, 4 or 5pm). They have already discovered what I have discovered, and made it a whole cultural practice. <3 <3 <3
8) Gender. Again, there are multi-stall multi-gender bathrooms here. I've twice gone into bathrooms, only to see (ostensibly) 'boys' from my classes coming out of stalls or entering the room, too, and we'll say, 'What's up?' and then go about our business like usual. The first time it didn't even strike me as out-of-the-ordinary until I was walking home that evening and suddenly I stopped and realised, and was like: '...WHAAAAT!' It's true. Explicitly multi-gender, multi-person bathrooms.
Also, motorbikes. While primarily a 'masculine' phenomenon in the U.S., it is a matter of less gendered practicality here. Bicycles are the average way to get around. But, if you want to get around with all the ease and flexibility and convenience of a bicycle...but want to get there faster (and with less effort), you use a motorcycle / motorbike. And...shocker! Maybe more than fifty percent of the people I see on motorbikes seem to be presenting as 'wymyn.'
9) You guessed it...city design / architecture / canals. My Dutch teacher pointed out that the canals not only add aesthetic qualities to the city, and open it up so roads are larger and also feel more spacious / less oppressive, but they also bring in wildlife (geese, birds, swans), and brighten up the city because--!!!--light reflects off water! So the city is more full of light.
10) Winter Festivities Preparations. There's nothing more beautiful than Amsterdam as it prepares for Christmas. Period.
Other wonderful things that have happened recently:
a) a close friend and I booked our bus tickets (€20 roundtrip!) to Bruxelles. We found an AMAZING couch surfing host and were really excited. Then we both got sick, of course, so we couldn't go--but the point was, we *were* going to go to Brussels over the Halloween weekend, and we have become involved with the Couch Surfing community / website, and connected with a really cool host, which was awesome. So.
b) CONTRA DANCING! My housemate and I went contra dancing last night (30 okt.) and she said it was one of the best times of her life :) I couldn't believe contra dancing could be *that* amazing, but I was really glad to go & we had a great time. It was mainly older Dutch people, but there were about 7 youngsters (2 Dutch, 3 other originally-Americans, myself, & my housemate), and we all got along great. There was this one older gentlemen who always was offering us hors d'oeuvres that he had smuggled from the food table and had on the ready at any moment that a "young lady," presumably, was in need of instant snacks.
The first person there to really take an interest in us and start talking to us was another older gentleman, originally British, who had lived in the Netherlands for 30 years now. He said he preferred New England contra dancing to English country dancing, but that we were basically dancing a fusion here (I added my own little New England flairs--more spinning, twirling my partners, extra swishing of the skirts, &c.) He could be a bit up-tight and English-proper, obsessed with discipline & control & all that, too. He was the only person, really, at the dance who was sort of a control-freak. I danced in an 8-person group with him, the old man with the hors d'oeuvres, and my housemate the first dance, and he made us stop several times, in a very firm, crisp, precise voice / tone, and made us go back to where he thought we had messed up, and do it again. I wasn't really enjoying that part--especially because I've done this before and sometimes he was just wrong. I.e. he was in the wrong spot, and then the dance got confused, or he interpreted someone else as being wrong when they were confused because someone else had gotten confused, so he'd point the finger at the wrong person (indirectly, of course). And so then, whenever he felt like the dance was not patterned enough to suite his proper sensibilities, he'd take control and order us back to the beginning. Finally another dancer in my group said, "okay--let's just do it this time, and for fun." Me: "Agreed!" He was actually very nice, though, and when you got something right, he would beam at you, as if to say: well, I'm proud you're trying hard and maybe have finally gotten something right that is probably beyond your capabilities anyway. Good for you! So, patronising, but still a kind smile.
The next dance, though, his group was selected by the contra dance leader / teacher to lead the demonstration, and the teacher entered his group, and he TOTALLY messed up and confused the dance again, but of course you can't contradict the teacher, and she was laughing and laughing and enjoying the good time, so he was forced to, too. Then she led them back to the previously fatal portion, and carefully guided them through--with a particular kind emphasis on him. So. He got called out. YO. But by a very nice and encouraging person who tried not to damage his pride. His manner of speaking, his face, and his build / height reminded me a lot of my great-Uncle Don. Really a lot. So I liked him for that, not just for his interest in getting to know all the new dancers and ease of talking to between dances.
I never thought of myself as a dancer, but one lady in that first 8-person group said she thought I was very good and guessed I must have already done this before (true: for 2 years, off and on) because I looked like I knew what I was doing. So then the two of us danced the next dance as partners, and I taught her to twirl me whenever releasing my hand, and it made everything a lot more fun! Of course it was already fun. She looked like she enjoyed learning that new trick, too--though at first she didn't realise it was a possibility and became confused when I tried to spin her! She said: "Nee, nee," and I said, "Ja, ja. You can do that. Ja." It was funny. (If I had thought ahead, I could have said "Ja, ja. U kan dat doen." I did practice my Dutch a bit throughout the evening, though--mostly as trying to practice my listening skills, which are sadly much worse than I suspected. I used my direction words, though: "licht," "recht," and I answered one or two questions in Dutch--about whether or not I knew or was learning Dutch.)
Anyway, at one point my partner and I ended up in a four-person group with the English dude, and I was wearing a skirt one of my housemates had lent me, and making full use of it dance-wise, so I held the edge and when English person and I had to sashay, I sashayed while holding my skirt and he started grinning and smiling and then--lost his place in the dance and totally messed up and all four of us started laughing hysterically and my partner yelled out to me: "Mooi!" (beautiful), and then afterward said, "He was so charmed by your dancing that he was distracted! You dance like you're in a court. You know a court? Is that how you say in English? Like, with princes and princesses? Queens?" Me: (laughing) "Yes, yes, a court! Dank u, dank u wel!"
The final dance, I chose my housemate as my partner, but it ended up being a switch-off dance where you're constantly exchanging partners, and so I took the opportunity to introduce some extra New England liveliness by spinning all my new partners. At first they seemed surprised, but by the second or third person, they almost began starting to spin themselves--anticipating it, but also, in my mind, looking forward to it. Like they had noticed I was doing that, and were excited, haha. I also had told my last partner that she should teach others to start twirling, so maybe my new partners expected this treatment because she was also doing this now. Oh! Another thing that really confused them was how, in New England contra dancing, "do-si-do"-ing involves extra spins and twirls the whole time you're circling your partner, and they tried to tell me I was doing it wrong, but when I explained they said, "OH! My! Well, that's just more dynamic that we do. Just the basics; very static. I like it." Contra dancing, fyi is a New England phenomenon--a folk evolution from English country dancing. It's now in the mountain areas of the U.S., too (like South Carolina, &c.), so...what we do in New England goes. It's correct. They seemed to like these new influxes of techniques and information.
There wasn't any live music, unfortunately (but: it proves you can contra dance to anything--including a CD instrumental version of Disney's "Bear Necessities of Life"), but we had a great time (and an adventure trying to find the place...it's soooo hidden). My housemate had never been contra-ing before, and she's going to go again in November. I'll be in Stockholm during that dance, so I can't go.
Oh! Remember the old man with the cashews and other hors d'oeuvres? Well, he and another dancer ended up getting off at the Metro stop my housemate and I took, and invited us to an all-day contra event this coming Sunday in Utrecht. It wasn't good timing for us, but they were soooo kind--and the nice old man had more cashews in his hand, still, and offered them again. He has such a thick snowy white beard; he reminded me a bit of the police officer in Hot Fuzz who was really hard to understand when talking, and who was always with the dog. The way he talked, though, reminded me of the grocer's father in Amelie who says: "Brodeteau, what more can I say?" The person he was with said she'd e-mail / contact me about the next dance in Utrecht or elsewhere in the area, and the fact that she offered all this by herself, and specifically asked my friend and I if we'd like to go--I don't know. It was just so out-reaching, and so friendly. I had told my friend that you'll meet just the nicest people when you're contra dancing, but now I'm proven. Just such nice, nice, embracing, warm, friendly, good, kind people, who are interested in other kind nice people.
p.s. I LOVE my professors. They're phenomenal. I'm a little in love with them all.
Here are all the reasons I'm deeply, passionately in love with the Netherlands, and with Amsterdam in particular:
1) Dutch. I love the language. I love learning it. Apparently, some Renaissance artist / poet / thinker of sorts claimed that Dutch was the most logical language of all, and therefore was the language Adam and Eve spoke in Paradise / the Garden of Eden. I really do love the language. Want to continue learning it.
2) The people. I like them, and I like their culture.
3) They're not rude! They're just practical + I think there's even an implicit understanding of some basic, assumed level of niceness that makes extra "niceties" frivolous. If I bump into you in a grocery store, I *obviously* didn't mean to bump into you. So there's no reason for us both to go snivelling over how we're both sorry to get into each other's way. So, I think this actually doesn't just reflect pragmatic directness, but it actually reflects a more basic understanding that we're all just doing what we do, and not trying to run into other people, so if you have to push past someone...it's not personal. You're just pushing past someone. It's not a personal judgment, and there's no reason to treat it like one. No one was trying to target you to pick on.
4) They're not rude!: once again, and for different reasons. They're just honest, and not passive-aggressive.
5) The Dutch wink a lot, which is something I really enjoy. It's a thing we've almost all observed: being winked at, but it's not creepy--it's just endearing, friendly, open. So, for all those people who think the Dutch are cold or abrupt or don't appreciate the falsity of smiles in the streets from strangers, I disagree. I think they love it. I think they do it right back.
6) Food. It's so easy to be vegan here--I kid you not, the local supermarkt chain Albert Heijn carries its own brand of vegan food. As in, the Albert Heijn brand. And it's just your generic Dutch Shoppers or Giant Food Warehouse, or whatever. There's one practically anywhere in the city, and everyone carries around AH bags all the time. It's a mammoth here--their Starbucks, maybe. Well, that would be Coffee Company. But anyway. And so you walk into this generic chain grocery store--and they have, legit, their own AH line of vegan meatballs, falafel, vegan 'beef' crumbles, vegan 'chicken' slices, soymilk--EVEN SOY ICE CREAM (soja ijs).
Moreover, food is far less processed here--as I've observed before in this blog, bread (brood) contains maybe 5-10 ingredients, versus 20-30 in the U.S. Consequently, it also goes bad more quickly because it has less preservatives, but you know it's fresh, and you know it's healthier, and most importantly, you actually know what's in it. There aren't strange Latin-seeming words you've never seen before and have to interpret and analyse and google / wikipedia. It's just bread.
7) Candles. There are candles everywhere in Amsterdam. I think my friends / people around me thought I was crazy for how much I loved candles, how I would try to find opportunities to light them all the time. My bedroom in my parents' house is filled with around 40+ candles and fun candle-holders. It's an atmospheric thing, an aesthetic thing--and, apparently, a Dutch ( / European?) thing. Something they get, and practice regularly. When I walk around the city, I'm always (sneakily) looking into people's houses, trying to imagine myself in them, or reinvent it as my own / mapping mine onto what I see inside, and when I'm doing this, one thing I continually observe is that there are candles everywhere, and they are always lit as soon as the sun goes down (say, 4 or 5pm). They have already discovered what I have discovered, and made it a whole cultural practice. <3 <3 <3
8) Gender. Again, there are multi-stall multi-gender bathrooms here. I've twice gone into bathrooms, only to see (ostensibly) 'boys' from my classes coming out of stalls or entering the room, too, and we'll say, 'What's up?' and then go about our business like usual. The first time it didn't even strike me as out-of-the-ordinary until I was walking home that evening and suddenly I stopped and realised, and was like: '...WHAAAAT!' It's true. Explicitly multi-gender, multi-person bathrooms.
Also, motorbikes. While primarily a 'masculine' phenomenon in the U.S., it is a matter of less gendered practicality here. Bicycles are the average way to get around. But, if you want to get around with all the ease and flexibility and convenience of a bicycle...but want to get there faster (and with less effort), you use a motorcycle / motorbike. And...shocker! Maybe more than fifty percent of the people I see on motorbikes seem to be presenting as 'wymyn.'
9) You guessed it...city design / architecture / canals. My Dutch teacher pointed out that the canals not only add aesthetic qualities to the city, and open it up so roads are larger and also feel more spacious / less oppressive, but they also bring in wildlife (geese, birds, swans), and brighten up the city because--!!!--light reflects off water! So the city is more full of light.
10) Winter Festivities Preparations. There's nothing more beautiful than Amsterdam as it prepares for Christmas. Period.
Other wonderful things that have happened recently:
a) a close friend and I booked our bus tickets (€20 roundtrip!) to Bruxelles. We found an AMAZING couch surfing host and were really excited. Then we both got sick, of course, so we couldn't go--but the point was, we *were* going to go to Brussels over the Halloween weekend, and we have become involved with the Couch Surfing community / website, and connected with a really cool host, which was awesome. So.
b) CONTRA DANCING! My housemate and I went contra dancing last night (30 okt.) and she said it was one of the best times of her life :) I couldn't believe contra dancing could be *that* amazing, but I was really glad to go & we had a great time. It was mainly older Dutch people, but there were about 7 youngsters (2 Dutch, 3 other originally-Americans, myself, & my housemate), and we all got along great. There was this one older gentlemen who always was offering us hors d'oeuvres that he had smuggled from the food table and had on the ready at any moment that a "young lady," presumably, was in need of instant snacks.
The first person there to really take an interest in us and start talking to us was another older gentleman, originally British, who had lived in the Netherlands for 30 years now. He said he preferred New England contra dancing to English country dancing, but that we were basically dancing a fusion here (I added my own little New England flairs--more spinning, twirling my partners, extra swishing of the skirts, &c.) He could be a bit up-tight and English-proper, obsessed with discipline & control & all that, too. He was the only person, really, at the dance who was sort of a control-freak. I danced in an 8-person group with him, the old man with the hors d'oeuvres, and my housemate the first dance, and he made us stop several times, in a very firm, crisp, precise voice / tone, and made us go back to where he thought we had messed up, and do it again. I wasn't really enjoying that part--especially because I've done this before and sometimes he was just wrong. I.e. he was in the wrong spot, and then the dance got confused, or he interpreted someone else as being wrong when they were confused because someone else had gotten confused, so he'd point the finger at the wrong person (indirectly, of course). And so then, whenever he felt like the dance was not patterned enough to suite his proper sensibilities, he'd take control and order us back to the beginning. Finally another dancer in my group said, "okay--let's just do it this time, and for fun." Me: "Agreed!" He was actually very nice, though, and when you got something right, he would beam at you, as if to say: well, I'm proud you're trying hard and maybe have finally gotten something right that is probably beyond your capabilities anyway. Good for you! So, patronising, but still a kind smile.
The next dance, though, his group was selected by the contra dance leader / teacher to lead the demonstration, and the teacher entered his group, and he TOTALLY messed up and confused the dance again, but of course you can't contradict the teacher, and she was laughing and laughing and enjoying the good time, so he was forced to, too. Then she led them back to the previously fatal portion, and carefully guided them through--with a particular kind emphasis on him. So. He got called out. YO. But by a very nice and encouraging person who tried not to damage his pride. His manner of speaking, his face, and his build / height reminded me a lot of my great-Uncle Don. Really a lot. So I liked him for that, not just for his interest in getting to know all the new dancers and ease of talking to between dances.
I never thought of myself as a dancer, but one lady in that first 8-person group said she thought I was very good and guessed I must have already done this before (true: for 2 years, off and on) because I looked like I knew what I was doing. So then the two of us danced the next dance as partners, and I taught her to twirl me whenever releasing my hand, and it made everything a lot more fun! Of course it was already fun. She looked like she enjoyed learning that new trick, too--though at first she didn't realise it was a possibility and became confused when I tried to spin her! She said: "Nee, nee," and I said, "Ja, ja. You can do that. Ja." It was funny. (If I had thought ahead, I could have said "Ja, ja. U kan dat doen." I did practice my Dutch a bit throughout the evening, though--mostly as trying to practice my listening skills, which are sadly much worse than I suspected. I used my direction words, though: "licht," "recht," and I answered one or two questions in Dutch--about whether or not I knew or was learning Dutch.)
Anyway, at one point my partner and I ended up in a four-person group with the English dude, and I was wearing a skirt one of my housemates had lent me, and making full use of it dance-wise, so I held the edge and when English person and I had to sashay, I sashayed while holding my skirt and he started grinning and smiling and then--lost his place in the dance and totally messed up and all four of us started laughing hysterically and my partner yelled out to me: "Mooi!" (beautiful), and then afterward said, "He was so charmed by your dancing that he was distracted! You dance like you're in a court. You know a court? Is that how you say in English? Like, with princes and princesses? Queens?" Me: (laughing) "Yes, yes, a court! Dank u, dank u wel!"
The final dance, I chose my housemate as my partner, but it ended up being a switch-off dance where you're constantly exchanging partners, and so I took the opportunity to introduce some extra New England liveliness by spinning all my new partners. At first they seemed surprised, but by the second or third person, they almost began starting to spin themselves--anticipating it, but also, in my mind, looking forward to it. Like they had noticed I was doing that, and were excited, haha. I also had told my last partner that she should teach others to start twirling, so maybe my new partners expected this treatment because she was also doing this now. Oh! Another thing that really confused them was how, in New England contra dancing, "do-si-do"-ing involves extra spins and twirls the whole time you're circling your partner, and they tried to tell me I was doing it wrong, but when I explained they said, "OH! My! Well, that's just more dynamic that we do. Just the basics; very static. I like it." Contra dancing, fyi is a New England phenomenon--a folk evolution from English country dancing. It's now in the mountain areas of the U.S., too (like South Carolina, &c.), so...what we do in New England goes. It's correct. They seemed to like these new influxes of techniques and information.
There wasn't any live music, unfortunately (but: it proves you can contra dance to anything--including a CD instrumental version of Disney's "Bear Necessities of Life"), but we had a great time (and an adventure trying to find the place...it's soooo hidden). My housemate had never been contra-ing before, and she's going to go again in November. I'll be in Stockholm during that dance, so I can't go.
Oh! Remember the old man with the cashews and other hors d'oeuvres? Well, he and another dancer ended up getting off at the Metro stop my housemate and I took, and invited us to an all-day contra event this coming Sunday in Utrecht. It wasn't good timing for us, but they were soooo kind--and the nice old man had more cashews in his hand, still, and offered them again. He has such a thick snowy white beard; he reminded me a bit of the police officer in Hot Fuzz who was really hard to understand when talking, and who was always with the dog. The way he talked, though, reminded me of the grocer's father in Amelie who says: "Brodeteau, what more can I say?" The person he was with said she'd e-mail / contact me about the next dance in Utrecht or elsewhere in the area, and the fact that she offered all this by herself, and specifically asked my friend and I if we'd like to go--I don't know. It was just so out-reaching, and so friendly. I had told my friend that you'll meet just the nicest people when you're contra dancing, but now I'm proven. Just such nice, nice, embracing, warm, friendly, good, kind people, who are interested in other kind nice people.
p.s. I LOVE my professors. They're phenomenal. I'm a little in love with them all.
dinsdag 20 oktober 2009
Parents & Weekends
Hello!
Vernie was here 2 weekends ago, which was amazing, and then a week later, my parents were here! Both parties only stayed about 2 - 2.5 days, which made me sad to see them go (obviously), but also meant there were always things to do & say. Vernie & I explored Utrecht accidentally on our way back from the airport to A'dam, and then spent the next two days wandering Amsterdam--Vondelpark, I amsterdam sign, Jordaan, Red Light outcropping sections, Dam Square, Dappermarkt / Oost Amsterdam, &c. We really covered a lot! She was pretty exhausted by the time she left (my bad!), but we got to see a lot, and it was nice showing the city off and acting as a tour guide (only consulted my map tweede--twice--and not because we were lost).
Then the following vrijdag, mijn ouders came to Amsterdam, and it was sooo wonderful to see them; it was really hard to let them go. It was like, difficult even walking home afterward, ha. Anyway, we had lots of fun, and went to Leiden and Vleuten (a little suburb about 15 min. outside Utrecht, and I never quite figured out how to pronounce its name--I heard varying interpretations from Dutchies), and from Vleuten we walked between an hour and an hour and a half to get to Haarzuilens and the associated Kasteel de Haar, which we missed all the tours for (and thus couldn't go inside) but were kindly allowed to view the grounds of, despite the fact that we came just as they were closing. This fortunately meant that we did not have to spend any money on local transportation (taxi or bus to get the castle) or on admission, but it was mainly due to the fact that this sleepy little suburb has NO ACTIVITY on zondag, and thus...no buses or taxis to spend money on. (A fact which was somehow omitted on the de Haar website, and which I hope will be corrected after a very very friendly & very polite e-mail I wrote to them informing them of the transportation / tours problem). Hence the walking and hence arriving ridiculously late. It was beautiful, though, and we'll be back--and we'll go on a tour next time! Just, probably in some years. We also toured the Rembrandthuis museum and went to an old cathedral / church (kerk) for my mommy, and walked to zuid-Amsterdam by Albert Cuypstraat so they could see some daily life and open markt-action!
When I came back from Centraal Station, dropping my parents off, I stopped in a local mart to buy brood (bread--which they didn't have any of), and I met a tiny kitten who ran up to me eagerly and enthusiastically and commenced immediately to play with my bright and fringe-y scarf. She made my day so much better after the earlier sadness of saying goodbye :)
I think my favourite thing about having people visit (besides the obvious wonderfulness of seeing people I love in a place I love) is...here we go...the sharing of the city with them: getting outside and into different parts than I normally go on my daily routines, and especially when I'm inside working. Besides boosting my navigation-confidence, it's nice to see not only more of the city, but also to see parts you're familiar with again. Because, the sad part is, that after a while you stop noticing the pretty leaning buildings. You've seen them almost a hundred times, and you 'know' them. You're paying attention to the time, or the traffic, or you're noticing people (which is still fun & A'dam-centric), but you've become normalised to your 'extra-normal' environment. And re-discovering that and seeing it with fresh eyes through the experiences of your guests is lovely. So, yeah. That's nice. Being a tour-guide now becomes a selfish activity! Ahh!
Also, as a final note, midterms this upcoming weekend & week! Yay!
Love you all! Dag!
Vernie was here 2 weekends ago, which was amazing, and then a week later, my parents were here! Both parties only stayed about 2 - 2.5 days, which made me sad to see them go (obviously), but also meant there were always things to do & say. Vernie & I explored Utrecht accidentally on our way back from the airport to A'dam, and then spent the next two days wandering Amsterdam--Vondelpark, I amsterdam sign, Jordaan, Red Light outcropping sections, Dam Square, Dappermarkt / Oost Amsterdam, &c. We really covered a lot! She was pretty exhausted by the time she left (my bad!), but we got to see a lot, and it was nice showing the city off and acting as a tour guide (only consulted my map tweede--twice--and not because we were lost).
The crest / coat of arms by the Leiden Battlement.
They were doing some construction / preservation work on the castle & its foundations.
When I came back from Centraal Station, dropping my parents off, I stopped in a local mart to buy brood (bread--which they didn't have any of), and I met a tiny kitten who ran up to me eagerly and enthusiastically and commenced immediately to play with my bright and fringe-y scarf. She made my day so much better after the earlier sadness of saying goodbye :)
She's grabbing at the camera cord there.
I think my favourite thing about having people visit (besides the obvious wonderfulness of seeing people I love in a place I love) is...here we go...the sharing of the city with them: getting outside and into different parts than I normally go on my daily routines, and especially when I'm inside working. Besides boosting my navigation-confidence, it's nice to see not only more of the city, but also to see parts you're familiar with again. Because, the sad part is, that after a while you stop noticing the pretty leaning buildings. You've seen them almost a hundred times, and you 'know' them. You're paying attention to the time, or the traffic, or you're noticing people (which is still fun & A'dam-centric), but you've become normalised to your 'extra-normal' environment. And re-discovering that and seeing it with fresh eyes through the experiences of your guests is lovely. So, yeah. That's nice. Being a tour-guide now becomes a selfish activity! Ahh!
Also, as a final note, midterms this upcoming weekend & week! Yay!
Love you all! Dag!
vrijdag 9 oktober 2009
New Favourite Things
I love the Dutch. The Dutch are flipping sweet. Two days ago, I found an explicitly multi-gender bathroom (with 3 stalls...so it's not like it was a single or something) in the UvA law building where I have 3 of my classes, and the next day I found a second one. Why are the Dutch so cool!???! I'd like to think they're phasing out gender, or at least gendered bathrooms, entirely. We'll pretend they are.
Vernie arrives today! I'm very very happy :) I also had something else I wanted to tell you about, but I forgot. Some days it feels like Christmas because it gets dark so soon. I didn't have my bike for a few days, which gave me a chance to walk around the city and listen to my "Europe" playlist on my iTunes that I made when back at Wesleyan and dying inside to be in Europe. It also really made me appreciate my bike. Even if it's cold to have the wind whipping by you, it's better than a 20 minute walk to class, trying to navigate around the bikes since you're no longer on one!
Also, it's long-john weather here now, folks. Tis the season. Long Johns are ALSO my favourite winter accessory ever, in case you were wondering. Although I'm also enjoying the hat I recently lined.
Don Moon has also informed me how to begin "beguiling" professors into allowing me to do research with them, so we'll see how that goes....Ahh! I hope I'll have good luck. REALLY hope.
(I used the word "also" 6 times in this post...and now 7. Just for the record).
Vernie arrives today! I'm very very happy :) I also had something else I wanted to tell you about, but I forgot. Some days it feels like Christmas because it gets dark so soon. I didn't have my bike for a few days, which gave me a chance to walk around the city and listen to my "Europe" playlist on my iTunes that I made when back at Wesleyan and dying inside to be in Europe. It also really made me appreciate my bike. Even if it's cold to have the wind whipping by you, it's better than a 20 minute walk to class, trying to navigate around the bikes since you're no longer on one!
Also, it's long-john weather here now, folks. Tis the season. Long Johns are ALSO my favourite winter accessory ever, in case you were wondering. Although I'm also enjoying the hat I recently lined.
Don Moon has also informed me how to begin "beguiling" professors into allowing me to do research with them, so we'll see how that goes....Ahh! I hope I'll have good luck. REALLY hope.
(I used the word "also" 6 times in this post...and now 7. Just for the record).
zondag 4 oktober 2009
Leiden
Pronounced "Lay (with a soft a) den," and apparently with an amazing University?, this little town 40 minutes southwest (zuidwesten) of Amsterdam just had a festival that was basically the whole town coming to life. It lasted all weekend, starting Friday, and ran morning to evening (basically morning again), and features carnival / faire - like attractions (small roller coasters, ferris wheels, cotton candy, many many side vendors, &c.), as well as bands on barges, street parties and dancing, randomly-placed DJs with blasting music, people giving away sunflowers, &c. In the course of about 2 hours, I heard a band play their (outstanding) rendition of With A Little Help For My Friends, Eminem & more Beatles blaring from storefronts, and various ABBA songs in a medley from a DJ in an elevated stand by the old castle / cathedral. We obviously danced and sang to the ABBA songs, because that is what you do when ABBA songs are playing. It just is.
The town features beautiful structures and ornamental bridges, enduring outcroppings of a medieval castle, old old old roads, parks, and just a wonderful design in general. Buildings were shorter than in Amsterdam, and roads and waterways were more open, reminding me of various French streets in a way. It's a very historic town, obviously, and very linked to its maritime heritage. We passed several very old boats anchored to the canal sides, and a historic fishermen's choir singing traditional, boisterous tunes and playing old flutes and drums. It was just very picturesque and quaint, and clearly with a distinct and artful culture of its own.
Yesterday (zaterdag), my whole flat (minus one person, but plus another friend) went to the festival together, and we stayed there for a good three or so hours. Some people arrived earlier, but we all left together, around 7pm or so. As one of my friends and I were walking along a main canal street, a womyn with large bundles of sunflowers was closing up shop and began giving out the remaining flowers to all the passersby. My friend went around to all the bikes she found and put a sunflower in them. It was so beautiful. I held onto mine, and when I would walk places carrying my bundle of free & gifted sunflowers, random people would smile or grin at me, or call out to me, or make special room for me to get by so I wouldn't crush the flowers. One random semi-drunk man said, "Oh, dat zijn mooi bloemen" (Those are beautiful flowers), and not only did I understand him, but I thanked him in Dutch ("Bedankt!") and felt pleased with myself that even drunk strangers could be so nice and warm and out-reaching...and not even in creepy ways. Plus I'm learning to discern Dutch words, and split them separately up so they're not a string of guttural sounds without pauses between, and occasionally recognising things. But I was very proud of myself for understanding him--constructing basic sentences is one thing, but learning listening skills is another. Another group of guys, as I walked past, started hollering excitedly when they saw the flowers and saying things in Dutch that I didn't understand, and beckoning for me to bring the flowers back (which, I mean, I obviously didn't do because that is mildly creepy).
So it was basically a combination of a gigantic county faire and then a gigantic open street festival. It was wonderful. Plus, we spent a healthy chunk of time up in an old out tower of the castle, wandering the turret and taking pictures and translating signs that were already translated into English at the bottom. There was an old tavern at the base, outside of the tower, that was fitted snugly into a little turn in a very old cobbled road / side-road, and the lights were all coming on early, and it was just...well, yeah. Plus Autumn is my favourite season, ever.
The town features beautiful structures and ornamental bridges, enduring outcroppings of a medieval castle, old old old roads, parks, and just a wonderful design in general. Buildings were shorter than in Amsterdam, and roads and waterways were more open, reminding me of various French streets in a way. It's a very historic town, obviously, and very linked to its maritime heritage. We passed several very old boats anchored to the canal sides, and a historic fishermen's choir singing traditional, boisterous tunes and playing old flutes and drums. It was just very picturesque and quaint, and clearly with a distinct and artful culture of its own.
Yesterday (zaterdag), my whole flat (minus one person, but plus another friend) went to the festival together, and we stayed there for a good three or so hours. Some people arrived earlier, but we all left together, around 7pm or so. As one of my friends and I were walking along a main canal street, a womyn with large bundles of sunflowers was closing up shop and began giving out the remaining flowers to all the passersby. My friend went around to all the bikes she found and put a sunflower in them. It was so beautiful. I held onto mine, and when I would walk places carrying my bundle of free & gifted sunflowers, random people would smile or grin at me, or call out to me, or make special room for me to get by so I wouldn't crush the flowers. One random semi-drunk man said, "Oh, dat zijn mooi bloemen" (Those are beautiful flowers), and not only did I understand him, but I thanked him in Dutch ("Bedankt!") and felt pleased with myself that even drunk strangers could be so nice and warm and out-reaching...and not even in creepy ways. Plus I'm learning to discern Dutch words, and split them separately up so they're not a string of guttural sounds without pauses between, and occasionally recognising things. But I was very proud of myself for understanding him--constructing basic sentences is one thing, but learning listening skills is another. Another group of guys, as I walked past, started hollering excitedly when they saw the flowers and saying things in Dutch that I didn't understand, and beckoning for me to bring the flowers back (which, I mean, I obviously didn't do because that is mildly creepy).
So it was basically a combination of a gigantic county faire and then a gigantic open street festival. It was wonderful. Plus, we spent a healthy chunk of time up in an old out tower of the castle, wandering the turret and taking pictures and translating signs that were already translated into English at the bottom. There was an old tavern at the base, outside of the tower, that was fitted snugly into a little turn in a very old cobbled road / side-road, and the lights were all coming on early, and it was just...well, yeah. Plus Autumn is my favourite season, ever.
woensdag 30 september 2009
een meer update
vrijdag, 23 sept. 2009:
The streetlamps came on here yesterday at 3pm, so it's officially Autumn.
Hooray!
Also, today, a group of Indonesian students studying abroad here told me I didn't look like the typical American because I didn't have blonde hair. I explained that many people in the U.S. don't have blonde hair--white people with brown hair, people who aren't white...&c. They were intrigued to hear all the places in Europe my family is from, and wondered if I still had family in all of those places. They also asked if the reason I wanted to be in the Netherlands was because I thought it "was better" than the States, which I thought was interesting, and it lead to a discussion of all the various amazing places in the U.S.--including San Francisco, to which they said, worriedly, that they had "heard it had a lot of...gays," and Seattle, which they had heard was very very cold (they didn't know what I was talking about when I compared it to New England and Minnesota / Michigan). Sometimes I laughed, but it was nice to talk about all these things. Explaining the U.S. is a funny business. Sometimes also an embarrassing business.
Here are some pictures of Amsterdam. It is magick.
Some things I love most:
beautiful cities in the fall
yellow leaves falling gently, slowly down
red traffic lights in Autumn
dull grey skies juxtaposed with vibrant yellow leaves
cats in Amsterdam, which are everywhere
There is also construction everywhere. That is less fun.
I am going to try to use the internet less now. It is better to Be in Amsterdam.
The streetlamps came on here yesterday at 3pm, so it's officially Autumn.
Hooray!
Also, today, a group of Indonesian students studying abroad here told me I didn't look like the typical American because I didn't have blonde hair. I explained that many people in the U.S. don't have blonde hair--white people with brown hair, people who aren't white...&c. They were intrigued to hear all the places in Europe my family is from, and wondered if I still had family in all of those places. They also asked if the reason I wanted to be in the Netherlands was because I thought it "was better" than the States, which I thought was interesting, and it lead to a discussion of all the various amazing places in the U.S.--including San Francisco, to which they said, worriedly, that they had "heard it had a lot of...gays," and Seattle, which they had heard was very very cold (they didn't know what I was talking about when I compared it to New England and Minnesota / Michigan). Sometimes I laughed, but it was nice to talk about all these things. Explaining the U.S. is a funny business. Sometimes also an embarrassing business.
Here are some pictures of Amsterdam. It is magick.
My bike. It's a child's bike.
Some things I love most:
beautiful cities in the fall
yellow leaves falling gently, slowly down
red traffic lights in Autumn
dull grey skies juxtaposed with vibrant yellow leaves
cats in Amsterdam, which are everywhere
There is also construction everywhere. That is less fun.
I am going to try to use the internet less now. It is better to Be in Amsterdam.
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