Late

SANY0920
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

Last night pulled my first all-nighter in a foreign land - it was stange. Before the all-nighter Christy bought this brite and delicious donut and gave me half. Props to her and Hallie also for lending me caffeine to get through the long hard night (in exchange for envelopes).

Yesterday we took a neighborhood walk around the Jordaan with my Dutch class, although to my disappointment Freek did not come (although he did race by briefly to count heads and grin at us, before dashing back to his office). The Jordaan is a kind of quiet, hipstery neighborhood gridded along the canals in the northwest center of the city - there are lots of galleries, little places to eat, men in leather pants zipping around on fancy Italian motos (this is terrifying, as a pedestrian, on narrow streets) and babies toddling by. Our tour guide, Emily, was wearing some boss leather pants herself and was a wealth of information to boot. Apparently, the neighborhood was a slum until the 1960s, and then, as she put it "They just fixed this part of the city." Fixing neighborhoods here seems like a much more careful process than it is in the States - the Jordaan is very old and still looks it. For example, there are houses with stepped gables (the oldest kind of gabling) that have been equipped with brand new windows. I wish I had taken pictures, but I'll go back and do that some other time. Emily also told us that there's a huge fabric market on Monday mornings, so I'm hoping to get there one day soon and pick up some souvenirs for the textile lovers in my life (I see you, Maman, and Ashley). I also learned in Dutch class that housing is limited by salary in Holland, so you have to live somewhere that meshes well with your lifestyle - not too big or too small for your means. If you make 2000 euros a month you are only alowed to rent nice apartments. There are apartments on the ground floor of most buildings that are reserved for old people as well. It was a beautiful day and the Jordaan is one of my favorite parts of the city, so I was daydreaming about moving there permanently as we wandered - it was comforting to think that there would be some kind of nifty housing reserved for people of my demographic. It would be stressful to look for an apartment anywhere, but less so if the government had some provisions to help you with the process.

Today I bought mango sticks from Albert Heijn (good decision) and had a very productive networking meeting with Letje. I'm writing a letter to get permission to access an archive and calling some organizations, and I have a date with a man named John who is going to chat with me and show me around a male bordello that is just up the street from school. I pass it everyday and never knew, which goes to show how seamlessly integrated sex work is into this society.