Dorgknorl Road Rambles

Yo Yo Yo, As Promised

2008-07-08T06:49:00.001+02:00

New Space, Read On.*

*Addendum - Thus Dutch will be preserved in its entirety here, and I'll warn ya over at Thought Flesh if I'm going to post something new here (possible, if I go back to Europa).

A Note On Re-Entry

2008-06-21T21:31:00.002+02:00

It's less strange than I expected to be, or perhaps it would be better to say that I could not and did not predict the ways in which it is strange. That said, I have so much more re-entering to do. I've only spent one full day in Buffalo since I've been back, what with jetting off to the Cape and the Big Apple and whatnot. And St. Paul is a whole new kettle of fish to tackle. I do think I want to keep blogging, although doing it in this space seems weird to me. I'm going to keep Thus Dutch as a travel blog, and I'm going to make a new one for anything that happens in America. I have to organize myself first though, and decompress a little. Stay tuned. Much love to all.

Last Daze

2008-06-08T11:28:00.004+02:00

Today is my last day, and I still have 5000 words to write. Can't focus. I'm wandering around my room reading highlighting pacing eating putting things in garbage bags trying to decide how best to get to the airport compulsively checking my email making a bibliography turning the fan on and off cleaning crying. I can't finish anything I start, it seems. What wreckage.

I couldn't have asked for a better last few days here, with everyone. Wednesday made a last round through Kitsch Kitchen, La Tertulia. Thursday night the Bitterzoet for the very very last time, everyone ecstatic, burning through joy liquor sorrow confusion and the building set of tensions within each of us as we prepare emotionally for departure (or fail to). A snapshot of the amazing : Hallie broke out her moves! Hipsters passing their hipster hats all around for everyone to wear, a case full of perfect cigs rolled en avance and on the dancefloor, a round robin of badass she-js, boyz in backpackz, a new height to our collective euphoria. Moshing with strangers, first ODB then Bodyrox then Dead Prez then don't push me...i don't wannaaaaa! then Bloc Party then A-ha. So many jams. Everyone happy pushing each other spilling beer on each other hugging kissing each other, friends and strangers alike, hands over shoulders, boys in pinstripe shirts with beautiful fros, girls with open shirts and black bras and Euro mullets, the requisite Rastas chillin' with their blunts in the corners, nodding. Four hours later we spill wet with beer and sweat and happiness into the street and lie down on the curb to reflect/pick glass out of our shoe-bottoms, trudge home elated. The best last night at the Bitterzoet that anyone could ask for. I danced so HARD with all of my being and screamed and stood next to the amp and I don't know when I'll next get to do that, certainly don't know when I'll next get to do that without a slew of worries attached. Texaco for ijsjes and water on the way home, up early Friday for one last lunch with Letje and Christy at our favorite cafe where we went faithfully every Wednesday, sat on a canal for an hour or two dangling feet watching birds getting viciously sunburned, wandered the Jordaan and Museumplein, yesterday Waterloo and the Resistance Museum and Alex's fake birthday (her real one is tomorrow) and a songs-of-our-youth singalong that lasted long into the night.

In the immortal words of our beloved Aaron Carter, circa House of Carters, my heart is so big right now. I feel like I'm straining so hard to preserve everything in every variety of sensory memory.

love is like tryin' to drink with no glass, cuppin' water in your hands tryin' to make it hold fast,
but be careful, sometimes the harder you grasp the quicker you lose your grip,
sip slow, make it last, everybody's gotta follow their path, and sometimes those of others intermingle with ours...

My cup runneth over. Everything about this place, these people, moments where I catch the eyes of others on the street or the bus or the tram, moments where I stop and look around me, the way my belly felt as I tried to rest in the sand on our last beach day, the way my arm felt when I woke up this morning having slept on it, crisscrossed with lines from my sheets, the way my headphones rest snugly in my ears, the way the air felt loose with storm-memory as I shuffled to school for the last time eating rasberries on Thursday, the particular combination of Christy and I jumping and shrieking trying not to burn our fingers lighting 21 candles on a cake from Albert Heijn, the particular combination of the six of us sitting in one room talking singing observing laughing. I had to stop in the middle of the party and clean the kitchen (not mine) until I calmed down, scrub, pour and consolidate. All of these things hit me BAM in the heart. I'm nothin' but a ball of nerve endings, hurtling through stimulus absorbing and feeling. A hyperconnection to my physical body in this sense of it transporting/creating memory and reacting to its surroundings, a huge disconnect in the sense of moderation, normalcy, what I put into it.

Alex wrote a beautiful post that expresses so much of what I'm feeling, the wants and not wants and, I think, most of all, the sense of community that we have here. It is us, the group of us who have bundled together and braved and enjoyed everything in concert with each other, but it is also more than us. Know, my lovely Amsterdam fambly, that I will be thinking of you always. I will be thinking of you when I leave my room finally in its barren state, I will be thinking of you hearing Dutch around me for the last time on the train to Schiphol, I will be thinking of you sitting exhausted in planes and airports, I will be thinking of you when I am home and it doesn't quite feel like home, in Minnesota when I am making sandwiches and sweating through the unbearable heat and dancing and laughing and taking walks with people who are not you.

I carry your hearts, I carry them with me in my heart.

New Things

2008-06-04T12:33:00.001+02:00

I am procrastinating. Now I'm linked to everything! Check it.

2008-06-03T12:33:00.001+02:00

SANY2245
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

I'm cracking down on my field experience paper, which is stressing me out to no end - I made an experiment out of it, in the hopes that I would discover some sort of new and exciting medium between academic research and narrative/creative/highly descriptive writing. I'm starting to despair a bit. I think I can yank myself out of it, it's just that I need to stop setting these grandiose change-the-world-in-one-semester goals and start just seeing what happens when I try hard.

Yesterday we went to the beach, for what is sposed to be the last beautiful day we have here. Tim and Christy and Alex fell asleep and I took creepy pictures of them napping in the sand. There was a really cute baby in a pink bandana running away from his mama, and a realistic seagull kite. A coke cost 3 euros, but I got one anyway. M+Ms were eaten, water was waded in. I have a strange sunburn on 1/2 of my right arm. Came home, ate falafel, wrote.

Wind-Down

2008-05-30T13:35:00.002+02:00

My memory is a funny thing - highly sensory - sort of photographic, but more like cinematic. I can usually tell ahead of time when a moment is going to become a memory - a certain combination of senses hitting me at once in the head, the heart, the gut. These days my brain is working overtime to capture and store indefinitely, and I can do nothing but stand, rooted, when it hits me - watching C. buy flowers in the Dappermarkt, strolling along the Leidsestraat in the light rain, making lists of the last things I have to buy, see, photograph, walk through, do; the last benches I have to sit and write on, the last times (for a while, anyway), that I will laugh and dance, talk, drink, eat, listen, observe, with this constellation of people who I have entwined myself with in Nederland.

I think that leaving Amsterdam is going to be harder for me than leaving anywhere else has been, although it always rips at my heart a little to be transplanted. I've grown up here in a sense - navigated a language barrier, a bicycle, new neighborhoods, new ways of teaching and learning, making friends of my own accord,pursued curiosity rather than fear, taken care of myself, begun to integrate myself, and chosen things to love wholly without the influence of people I knew, emulated, adored, or needed before I came here. Even in Saint Paul, in the beginning, I had the comfort of a small campus and people who lived in the rooms directly surrounding me, moreover, I had the examples of cousins and bookstore friends and parents and people I had known my whole life to build upon and follow, a set of ideas about what college and liberal arts college and the Midwest could do for me. Here, I did not have that - I was ready, after years of fear and self-examination and worry and slow, steady rehabilitation from these things, to stumble into the world on my own shakey toddler legs, and I did, and I could not predict or regulate what would be difficult or easy, and I loved being thrown into that maelstrom fiercely, with all my heart. I'm concerned that I have/will become addicted to change of environment, reinvention, and the constant set of challenges and rewards spit at me from living in an unfamilier culture. Despite the fact that I am emotionally preparing to leave, wrapping things up, buying and taking pictures of last things, grappling with what it will be like to leave the life I have begun to build here, despite the fact that pieces of my heart are firmly grounded in Buffalo, Eagle, Saint Paul, North Truro, Many Glacier, Trumansburg, despite the fact that I love so many people who are not here, despite the fact that I am young still and far from full-grown, or even mature, I think in some ways I will always think of Amsterdam, of Nederland, as my first adult home.

Two nights ago, at the Bitterzoet, we listened to a Dutch funk family band blow the roof off for two solid hours. They were sweating, they were smoking, they were belting. The drummer sang a la Levon Helm, the bassist stuck his tongue out when he was concentrating, the sax player moved every part of his body except his arms, the lead singer was the one of the teeniest tiniest frailest looking waifs of a white girl I have ever seen, but she could have given Aretha a run for her money. They came back for an encore, the DJs began to spin - Sister Nancy, People Get Ready, A Tribe Called Quest for good measure. I was dehydrated, I had not been home for twelve hours, I was carrying my school bag on my right arm, I had just said goodbye to Letje, I was dancing with a familiar fever, a familiar smile. I looked around at my beautiful friends all concentrating, all happy, all busting moves that I have come to feel so much at home in the middle of. At the hipsters and go-go Dutch girls and slow rastas with beautiful dreads and scruffly young men with backpacks and headphones around their necks wagging their knees. And I teared up a little, realizing that I have only nine more nights of the potential to be surrounded by these particular characters and motions and sounds, to be in the midst of this particular mental film.

I'm not even entirely sure who my readership is, though I do know some. But whoever you are, I'd like you to think about whether you want me to continue this blog or not when I return, and let me know. I'm torn.

Check It

2008-05-25T12:53:00.001+02:00

SANY2218
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

Eastern Docklands

2008-05-21T09:22:00.001+02:00

If I had had my camera with me when the contents of this post happened, you'd be staring at the sun setting in orange, yellow, purple, red over open water, bright wispy jet trails, a darker cloud from adjacent smokestack floating in front. You would be wishing you were in Amsterdam.

As it happens, I did NOT have my camera with me last night, so you'll have to imagine it. I wanted to watch Shortbus, but there was nowhere to go, so C+I decided to take a walk down to KNSM Eiland instead. My secret inner plan was to pull over at the cafe where we played Dutch Monopoly a few weeks back and devour a platter of nachos, but nope. We got over there and it looked crowded. Two small Asian girls were sitting on the steps. They started to wave at us and shout "Hey!!! Hello!!!" My first thought was that some kind of event was going on inside, and they were the promoters. "Let's humor them," I thought, hoping that free beer or free music or something was in the cards.

They were not promoters. They were French teenagers, and I'm pretty sure they just wanted to practice their English. They asked where we were from, if we lived with our parents, if we played guitar, if we skateboarded, if we were 50 years old. They were from outside Paris, wanted to buy "I Love New York" shirts, and "didn't think the museum was very interesting." It was sort of cool and pretty bizarre being waylaid by them. I felt like we were going to run out of things to talk about, the cafe was still crowded, an enthusiastic pair of middle aged men was beckoning us from the window, and the night was young (it was 9:30, still light out, which is pretty standard here these days), so we moved on sans nachos.

The Eastern Docklands are "our" area of Amsterdam, but I haven't really explored them much. They're a group of islands in the "Y-Lake," which, as far as I understand, is sort of like an ocean delta that the city is situated on, connected by glamorous hypermodern bridges with majestic white arches. A combination of old harbor warehouses and incredibly stunning super modern architecture, artists' lofts and public housing. They're totally different from any other part of Amsterdam that I've been to - feel more like home, in ways. Quieter, less people. Open water and the smell of the ocean, big waves, buildings that make my heart pound, sights and smells of heavy industry lining the opposite shore (Niagara River, anyone?), fast cars bumping hip-hop and brash skateboarders. We walked for about an hour, eventually finding our way back to Funen after circling most of KNSM and sitting and contemplating the ridiculous sunset on a seaside bench for a while. As we circled away from the water and back towards our branch of civilization, we saw a motorboat with three dancing figures silhouetted against the water, an unmistakably familiar wail and bassline. "Is that - are they really playing that?" asked C, and they were. Sipping on coke and rum
I'm like so what, I'm drunk,
It's the freakin'weekend baby
I'm 'bout to have me some fun...
Oh, R. Kelly. Made my night to hear that bouncing off the waves - an extra little taste of home!

We walked back past a house that looked like it was made of Legos, across one of the bridges, along the train tracks and past an apartment building that had rapidly sparkling lights flashing to some kind of rhythm built into the ground of its courtyard.

Got chips at the Texaco (Sweet Chili Pepper Doritos, which much to my chagrin do not exist in America), home, bed.

Whitney arrives today, and Jordan tomorrow!

Chi

2008-05-14T12:01:00.001+02:00

chi machine
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

Yep, that's a Chi Machine. L has one - and I thought only Pam knew about this business! For those of you who don't know, you put your feet in a chi machine and it sort of rocks you back and forth for a while, and when you are done you feel very tingly and your chi, supposedly, is aligned.

Honore is a dear.

Another good food experiment: ham and leek in soy, lemon, coke, garlic, lemon pepper marinade.

Ham n Eggz

2008-05-12T12:55:00.002+02:00

I've settled into life with Honore, overlooking the Bestevaerstraat. I made something delicious - ham + eggs scramble with cane sugar and lemon pepper (fully stocked spice cabinet)!

Reading Edie is an eye-opener. You hear these names, you know, but all I know about the Warhol gang comes from Basquiat, which is another matter entirely. The Sedgwicks were a mythical, crazy family, and Edie became mythical and crazy in her own right. It's also written really interestingly - pieced together from accounts from all sorts of people in her life. Bob Dylan and Bob Neuwirth are in there, Andy's in there, Ginsberg's in there. Paul America + Paul Morrissey, Viva. What a weird world. I've also been doing a lot of reading for school, and trying to further my hip-hop education.

some writing. cat hair everywhere. sunshine.

HOT

2008-05-08T19:11:00.002+02:00

It is HOT here. Beautiful, but HOT. I had forgotten that I don't do so well in the heat. I guess it's good preparation for the Saint Paul summer. Ha.

Another meeting with M. today about my paper, which turned into a long debate over appelsap about American and Dutch politics, about the Dutch fear of "Islamicisation", about sex tourism. He is so interesting to talk to because he thinks in the same way that I do - all over the place, connecting everything that he perceives. He says he's not concerned about my mess of a paper because I'm scrupulous and I'm just psyching myself out right now and I'll pull it together in the end. But what I think he means is that he's not concerned because I think like him, which is sort of comforting and sort of not. It is nice to see such a similar mind in the academic world - it makes me feel better about my chances hacking it. On my way out, he noted that my skirt is "an homage to the Warhol gang" and dragged me to his partner's apartment downstairs to look at his extensive Warhol library. I left with "Edie," which I've been instructed to read right away.

It's super nice to feel like I have an intellectual community of sorts in this country, one that I've built with my own intellectual connections with people and not with the names or skills of my very literary, very intellectual parents. I think I'll always feel that in Buffalo, to a certain extent whatever intellectual acceptance I find will be on their coat-tails rather than on my own merits. Not by virtue of recommendation, exactly, but by virtue of access. Like if I hadn't been running around poetry readings and literary parties when I was 4, if I hadn't spent so much time at the bookstore schmoozing, would I have that access? Maybe, but I'm not sure. Permeability of intellectual community is an interesting concept.

We talked a bunch about the pitfalls and advantages of postmodernism. M described it as a sort of "deprogramming," a good thing for people who want to be creative and fresh thinkers to go through. But if you stick to the language of deprogramming rather than a more communicable language when trying to apply postmodern ideas to concrete things, you lose your ability to do so. It's funny because I had a similar conversation with L. the day before, when I went to her house to get the keys and meet her cat, Honore de Balzac (formerly Guillaume), who I'll be caring for for the next ten days or so. It's something that I'm preoccupied with and more and more interested in parsing through, because postmodernist theory was the catalyst for some very real, very concrete changes in my life, thought processes, introspective patterns, and ways of relating to other people. I credit it with much of the transformation I've been going through over the past several years, and with helping me to be a happier and more grounded person. In conversation, it often comes up that fellow peers or professors find it too abstract, too empty,not applicable to the "real world" - which has been the opposite of truth for me. Chela Sandoval and Jose Estaban Munoz, two theorists who changed my life,also have many examples of the very concrete power and applicability of highly abstract thought.

Anyway. I've been mulling that over. I move into L.'s apartment for my cat-sitting duties on Sunday, tomorrow I am going to Leiden to see Sarah's childhood hangouts, and other things (like the University). Today I am going to try to push through the heat and get things done, and maybe take a trip to the market. The RA, embarrassingly, has to help me cut Lupe loose from the rack under cover of darkness, because I was dumb and somehow lost my keys.

Berlin The Second, or Why You Should Use the City Toilette

2008-05-05T18:24:00.001+02:00

SANY2145
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

Day two of Berlin was busy – early rise, a long + fruitful trip to the Judische Museum, which we spent a solid 3 hours in, delicious falafel, and the East Side Gallery – a portion of the Wall that’s been preserved and dedicated to murals and messages from people the world over.

Public art is a particular kind of heaven for me, so I was just wandering along the wall in a happy daze at my own pace, and taking an obscene amount of pictures. A short man dressed all in white made me take his picture (with my camera) and then said ‘thank you” and wandered off with his tall blonde beautiful girlfriend. “He’s a ----(word that I could not understand)!” she repeated twice as they continued on their merry ways. I wonder if he was famous? or maybe he just likes posing for photos.

Sat and wrote postcards by an old church around the bend from Museum Island, went off in search of currywurst, which I passed up for a bacon pickle potato omelette, in the end. I'm sure it's delicious, but at the time I really felt strongly that I needed some gherkin.

We wanted to see the Reichstag at night, but we wanted to wait until it got dark, and had a few hours – so we rambled down the leafy, pristine West Berlin side of the Unter den Linden boulevard with our sights set on reaching the gold statuesque beauty in the distance. “The chick on a stick,” we called her affectionately. We hoped to get as far as Charlottenburg Palace, but it quickly became clear that dusk was approaching, and the Chick was as far as we were going to get if we wanted to make it back to the Reichstag before 10:15, the time of the last admittance. “We’re going to have to briskly strut if we want to make it,” observed C as we started to hurry back. We were either not brisk enough, or did not strut hard enough – held up + distracted by laughter, my imminent need to pee, and the discovery that setting your camera on the ground can result in some interesting photos. (“Hey look, it looks your foot is crushing that streetlight!”)

Needless to say, when we reached the Reichstag we were greeted by friendly women in red windbreakers, earnestly informing us that we probably wouldn’t make it in and might want to come back the next morning.

By this point I REALLY needed to pee and was dancing + prancing my way to a sketchy looking public toilet I had seen near the beginning of the park along Unter den Linden. Public urination is legal in Berlin, for boys AND girls, but the last time I tried that I peed on my shorts, so I wasn’t eager to risk it again, especially considering that I had tights in the way as well. At least I was wearing rain boots, if it had come to that.

This toilet looked like a phone booth or something – a little circular enclave set back in the urban forest. It looked like the kind of place where serial killers might lurk. I didn’t have enough change, nor did I really have enough time to read the instructions before I entered, or worry too much about the serial killers. It is a) hard to believe that anything bad could happen to you along Unter den Linden, and b) we made a big ruckus so we wouldn't shock them. There was a lot of hilarity as Christy hastily paid the required 50 cents and she and Hallie watched me bum rush the automatic-open door and lift my skirt almost before it closed again.

But let me tell you, this toilet was one of the highlights of my journey! From the Muzak that pleasantly began to filter in as the light turned on and the bathroom came to life for me, to the pee disappearing into an abyss, compost-toilet style, to the dim fluorescent lights and the automatic water, soap, and air dispensers over the “sink,” this was practically a luxury experience. A sign by the automatic door open /close buttons, much like those of an elevator, informed me that I was only allotted 20 minutes in the oasis. I could gladly have spent that, or more, exploring all the nifty gadgets and pacing up and down the wide space that I was allotted, contemplating my day in solitude, soaking in the tunes. What a wonderful experience! When I exited, the doors shut behind me, the lights and Muzak shut off, and the whole unit began to tremble. A lit-up sign by the door said something in German, we think “cleaning.” And more satisfied than I had expected to be, EVER, by a public toilet, off we meandered back to the Wombat, and the roof terrace of the so-called “Wombar," to finish off our journey with a quiet drink and a stunning view of the city.

This morning we woke up at 6 and got to the train station way too early, and now we are headed back to the Dam.

Berlin is/was/will always be incredible. It energized me and I fell in love with it and I probably won’t ever shut up about it.

Berlin the First: Ik Ben Verlieft

2008-05-05T18:18:00.001+02:00

SANY1978
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

(n.b. - I wrote these on the road, and that is why the tense is weird.)

Berlin is electric. It took me right away, as many "A" and "B" cities seem to (Amsterdam, Austin, Buffalo, Barcelona...). Could my love for it endure? I don't know, but two days isn't enough. I need to come back.

Christy and Hallie and I pulled into town on the train and enjoyed Pizza Hut (for shame, but we were so hungry and we WANTED it) in the shadow of T-Punkt (T-Mobile), took the S-bahn to the U-bahn, disembarked by a large white brand new building that houses our hostel, called Wombat's - the windows are floor to ceiling and every room has a shiny bathroom - the bar, on the 7th floor, has a sizeable terrace that looks out into whatever you want to see of the East Berlin night.

It was warm and clear and the TV tower and the sky were massive and stunning. Off we took into the beautiful evening, down the beautiful Torstrasse, and it hit us - as we passed gallery after gallery, as we noticed the enthused, fedora-adorned "walk" symbol, as cyclists zipped by us. Convenience stores have bar stools, food that costs 12 euro in Amsterdam costs half as much here, we passed a lively bar with a full living room set up on the street in front of it - worn oriental carpet, threadbare plush chairs and couches, a floor lamp. The graffiti is beautiful or shocking, or both, more often than not, even when it is tiny enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

Today we took the best tour I have ever taken of anything, James Monroe's house in Virginia (which we only went to because Monticello was crowded and impossible), coming in a close second. Our guide's name was Nick and he is some sort of badass Nazi-bunker-specialist archaeologist with a penchant for rolling his own cigarettes. He was hilarious and British and full of more information and witticisms than I can even begin to recall. At the site of Hitler's bunker (he wrote the text for the English part of the modest commemorative sign, so he must be pretty important around these parts), he whipped this out (I scribbled it on the back of my map so I wouldn't forget, something I should have done more often) - "You don't think Hitler's really dead? Well he'd be gettin' on a bit, wouldn't he? You think he's off having mojitos somewhere with Biggie and 2Pac and John Lennon and all those other people who die and aren't allowed to be dead? No, let me tell you, he's really dead."

Berlin has so much history and so much memory packed into the center, it boggles the mind. The Reichstag has a transparent roof and is always open to the public, so people can look down on their politicians and the politicians can look up at them, and everyone can remember what they're sposed to be doing. The Holocaust Memorial is a sea of cement blocks. The Book-Burning Memorial (see photo) is underground and shows many, many empty shelves. There are only tiny, war-scarred (but still grand) bits of the glorious Prussian empire left over. At the end of the tour (which lasted almost four hours), Nick stopped us and told us the story of the Wall coming down. It almost brought tears to my eyes, really and truly, and I hope I can remember it so that I can retell it one day. A pale imitation of how he told it, I'm sure, but I bet I could capture some of the energy. The history of Communist East Berlin is, like many Communist histories, pretty horrifying. The history of its end is, like many histories of ends of Communist regimes, pretty spectacular.

Berlin, as an undivided city, is only 18 years old. And it's a great example of what can happen when enough people fiercely love a place and fight and improvise and pour their hearts into it to build up a vibrant culture out of destruction (Buffalo, take note).

After the tour, sat in a cafe and ate a big meal for not very many euro, sauntered through some tourist stores (so far, my junk collection habit in Europe has been limited to postcards, which are both aesthetically pleasing and useful - but here, on account of the low low prices and my panic at leaving Europe sooner than later, my hoarding out-of-context glittery crap instinct kicked in and I bought - drumrolllllll - a black ashtray with a gold filigree/pastel drawing of the Brandenburg Gate in the bottom! I don't even know).

Evening brought us, on a whim, to the Konzerthaus, where we joined many many aging German people to sit in prime cheap seats directly behind the orchestra. I can't even begin to describe how amazing it was. There was some Beethoven and some Bartok, the concert hall itself is decked out in red plush and white marble and gold leaf and Prussian charm. We could see the conductor's face, which was wicked. He was incredible. He conducted without a score (I didn't think about that being a big deal, but Christy, who is a violist, made it clear that it's pretty rare, and risky), and he moved his whole body as he directed, and it was beautiful to watch and to listen to the synchronicity he was causing. The orchestra themselves were wonderful as well. We were sitting sort of behind the basses and cellos. Good place to be.

I don't know, here I am collecting places to love again. It's so exciting to be somewhere that is not only rebuilding, but excited about all the possibilities in its rebuilding. Tomorrow we will see more and I'm sure I will love more.

Time for bed.

(Queen's) Night + Day

2008-05-05T18:11:00.001+02:00

SANY1892
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

The night of April 29th is a special time in Amsterdam. Stages get set up all over the city, for Dutch pop stars to wail and gyrate on, expensive beer and giant inflated beer bottles can be found on every corner, and the Dutch go wild – dancing in the streets, decked out in orange (I saw some pretty choice outfits), drunken, uninhibited. It’s a sight to be seen, for sure. This is Queen’s Night, and the next day is Queen’s Day – all a big celebration of Beatrix, the current matriarch of the nation, and Wilhelmina before her.

Monday night I got a fuzzy phone call, and pulled an all-nighter to write a paper that (surprise!) turned out not to be due the next day. Tuesday I ran on adrenaline all day long, and well into the night, as we roamed around the city taking in/partaking in the spectacle. And around midnight, I went to meet Eleni and Anne, who came up from Maastricht for the big day and stayed with/wandered around with me. It was so wonderful to see them! These occasional appearances by Mac friends make me realize, cornily, what a special place our school is, and how cool it is that despite many differences we all share a certain sensibility – a sense of humor, an endless curiosity, a taste for the wonder in the everyday. Blah blah blah. But really, it was great to have them!

We did NOT stay up all night (some people did, but I don’t think I could have handled a double all-nighter) and had a leisurely start on Wednesday. Once we got going, we managed to spend almost eight hours walking (with the occasional dance or rest break), and hit every major square in the city. From Funen to Rembrandtplein to Museumplein, to Leidseplein to Spui (where we got some beer and chorizo and danced for a bit), to Dam Square (where Anne got “normal” sized Suikerspin (cotton candy) that was half her size), to Nieuwmarkt (through an almost-brawl in the Red Light District – racial slurs, a lot of shoving, and a man brandishing a banana liquer bottle over his head), and finally back home in the most glorious sunset I’ve seen in a while. Or rather, the most glorious sunset I would have seen in a while, until I got to Berlin (see next entries). There was lots of good food and good music and lots of people were selling their old junk on the streets – the city was sort of like a giant garage sale/block party – and it was really neato to see the Dutch go nuts, and to be a part of something with such an amazing spirit. Hopefully one day I can come back and do the whole thing again. So much to see, and you can barely even scratch the surface in one day. My camera died which I was super bummed about.

When we first got to Amsterdam, Queen’s Day seemed so very far away. It was almost unfathomable to try and imagine what our lives would be like three months after arriving. Now, it’s unfathomable to try and imagine what the next month of frantic finishing-everything trying-to-see-everything trying-to-bond-with-everyone will be like, and, even more frighteningly, what my life will be like upon return. If Glacier was any indication, I am going to have really severe reverse culture shock. Dang. Best make the most of these last few weeks.

Blijburg

2008-04-27T00:51:00.005+02:00

Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

You roll out of Funen with your homegrown biker gang five deep, cross a hodgepodge of really-real urbanscape and salt marsh, you bike up a sleek ultramodern loopy bridge that is a veritable mountain (the pained cry of Christy behind me, as we clambered, and I huffed and puffed and focused every muscle on not backsliding - "what...the hell...IS THISSSS..."), past what almost looks like it could be a New Urban Wasteland but is not, and arrive at the lovely zee itself.

The beach is called Blijburg, and translates to "Happyville," and there are many naked children and amiable dogs, many hip parents with long dreadlocks and tall black boots or perhaps Fela tshirts or perhaps lip rings, there is a tiki shack and a restaurant with battered wooden benches and too-melted candles, and there you must pay for your ice cream or your beer (if they believe you are over 16, which if you hang back from the counter and are barefoot and mill awkwardly with your party, some of whom hesitantly and quietly speak broken Dutch, some a melange, some only English, they may not), they give you a red plastic token with a starry "one" in the middle and you wander to a window outside and hand the snarky open-shirted single-earringed teenager the token and he smirks and hands you a towering, shiny cone that looks like it might be made of paint, but is in fact made of air, sugar, cold, heaven. There is a bus of the ancient hippie variety (for sale!) and a blue Model T of the nouveau biker-with-cash variety (not for sale!), and many towering Buddhas throwing up peace signs, an "Om" alter, you do not discover your burns til later - one angry red arm here, one angry red shin there, no burns for those who sported sunscreen (me) or were already tan (Bri) or are genetically gifted (Tim). You wonder at pens notebooks sand in shoes Coke doritos + pesto + cheese (together), you stare blatantly into the sun, you hear we're jammin', we're jammin', I hope you like jammin' too.

So quite a new thing, this day - or rather, its capacities - how full are you of happy? Brimming.

On the way home, I slam into a brick wall on my bike and escape completely unscathed, except for one teeny scrape on my left ring finger knuckle. I SLAMMED INTO A BRICK WALL while going FAST on a BIKE and it did not phase me. Another warning? No one else has had this many accidents, or perhaps to put it better, near misses. I am beginning to wonder.

Been a While

2008-04-26T12:34:00.001+02:00

Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

I've had other things on my plate. Mostly just procrastination, and some wanderings. Had a picnic one day, on the Herengracht (a canal that I hadn't explored before). Had to break out a sundress/sunscreen, another day, and read outside. Spent one day cooped up reading in the Bibliotheek cafe. Two days ago, we hit up Poptrash, which is a pretty intense dance party at the Melkweg in Leidseplein - every time we've gone, I've groggily emerged from my bed after noon the next day, usually with some ailment - this time, whiplash. All my friends reported soreness. DANCE DANCE DANCE. Yesterday I spent working on my research paper and "making flair" - I won't go into what that means, because it's convoluted and kind of embarrassing, but it basically involves making virtual buttons that you can send to people. I had a pretty great time. Evening came and the posse convened, decided to go rest in the gorgeous half-light at a cafe. Tim led us behind Funen, across a bridge to an island with names reminiscent of Indonesia (Borneolaan, etc.). There we sat and talked and played Monopoly in Dutch (mostly worked out, except we couldn't read a lot of the Community Chest and Chance cards so we sort of arbitrarily decided what they meant.) Kalverstraat is the Boardwalk of Dutch Monopoly - can't say I'm surprised. I also got what might be some of THE BEST nachos I have ever consumed, ever. They were smothered in sour cream (which is a little thicker here), guac, melted cheese, and a sweet chili sauce with it's roots in Indonesia that perfectly complemented everything else. It stayed light out until almost 10, I gawked at the beautiful hypermodern buildings across the water from where we sat, we came home and I read Into the Wild for about five minutes before passing out. Had a strange epic dream that left me, this morning, a little uneasy - it didn't come to a conclusion, but it was surrealist and involved traveling and losing things and small evil salamander-like creatures biting me and it kept looping back on itself. Today, there's been talk of finding a beach and sitting on it. For now, I am writing about Dandyism and reading about homonormativity.

Keukenhof

2008-04-20T03:54:00.001+02:00

SANY1528
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

Today, went to the Keukenhof. Flowers galore! Took 134 pictures, many with 100% legit nutso colors, which are up on the Flickr. I'm so glad I got to go - really, flowers are pretty beautiful, and it's a whole park chock full! We stayed for four hours, which is approximately two more than I estimated I could spend looking at flowers. Guessed wrong!

Came home, ate vegetables which I had let marinate for 24 hours, and wild rice! Pineapple, snap pea, green bean, onion, garlic. Marinade/sauce: soy, apple cider vinegar, honey, pepper, garlic.

Tonight, Live at the BBQ round 2. The Bitterzoet is great. Everyone is happy there, and hip! A girl near us was wearing a shirt that said "Funky Fresh, In the Flesh." They played Cadillac Grillz and I freaked out.

Love.

Mon Coeur

2008-04-16T13:09:00.001+02:00

n9349232_47263651_6916
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

This city is officially cemented as a place that I want to live one day. It was a very different experience than the first time around - partly because it was warmer, partly because I was more touristing than visiting, partly because our collective language skills in this nation pale in comparison to those of Andrew and Ben. Still, though, having such a different experience of it, it made my heart burst. Catalunya here I come, hopefully, someday.

My camera battery died immediately. I had foreseen this and packed my charger, but a pretty important piece of the cord didn't make it to Spain, meaning that the majority of my photos are actually Bri's photos. She did such a good job though!

When we arrived it was rainy, and the sole of my boot legitimately, completely fell apart. Like, my toe sticks out. Time to either go to a cobbler, or buy new shoes. We wandered around, up and down the Rambla, in and out of the Boqueria, which is a big beautiful market, by the cathedral (where, incidentally, someone was getting married - must have been weird with all the tourists floating in and out), into a parlor where the waiters wore bow-ties and we ate chocolade (which is like a cross between hot chocolate and chocolate pudding - so rich - it took us a long time to finish), went back and hung out in our hostel. We were calling it the "treehouse," although it wasn't wooden, because our beds were lofted and behind curtains and it felt like we were five and fort-building. It was so cool! The staff were young and punky and there were murals everywhere and there was always loud music playing in the common area. Bri went to bed and Whitney and I attempted to venture out - we wandered not very far, to a bar that looks like a forest and is hidden away behind the wax museum. There are trees and stumps and stuff inside, it's very surreal and lovely and ambient. Retired early.

Day 2 was Tibidabo - you take the metro and emerge into sunlight and buildings that you wish you lived in, and then you hike up an urban mountainside for awhile, and then you take a funicular. And when you get to the top, surprise! There's a huge church with an observation tower, and a charming amusement park! The weather and the views were amazing and we just sort of wandered around in awe for awhile, and took the ferris wheel in awe, and wandered up by the church in awe. Walked to Parc Guell, which was more of the same (beauty, and awe). Afternoon brought us to the Boqueria and the supermercat to buy lunch fixings - Whitney bought a KILO of strawberries for 1.69, which is ridiculous. They were great, became a hassle to carry around though. After some time at the beach they wound up getting sat on, and met with a sad end. We also bought a half kilo of the BEST chorizo I have ever had, and ate it. All of it. Just the two of us. It's amazing how cheap good food can be in Spain - we bought a veritable feast, certainly enough food to last us 24 hours, and it only cost us about 8 euro each. Most of that cost was the meat and cheese - fruit was 1 euro in the market, and bread was 43 cents, and I bought a jar of olives for 83 cents, and it was such a change from Albert Heijn (which, while I am obsessed, costs significantly more). We spent all afternoon blissfully lying on the beach and eating and all evening blissfully wandering from beach to beach. Saw Whitney off on her night bus to Bilbao and retired early, again. We were not party animals, this journey.

Sunday Bri and I had dubbed "animal day," which meant we were going to the zoo and the aquarium. Oh man. The walk down Passeig de Luis Companys and through the Parc de la Ciutadella to the zoo is really beautiful. You walk under the Arc de Triomf and down a palm-lined passageway and then you meander through a park that looks like it belongs in prehistory, or would if the scale were a little bigger. Meaning, the trees have gargantuan trunks and roots and big flat leaves. There is also a mammoth statue! The zoo was big and we spent a lot of time there. There were European bison, and an escaping tortoise, and angry macaws, and tapirs! The aquarium was cool too - there was a shark tunnel, which means that you step onto a slow-moving walkway and there is a huge tank above and in front of you, full of sharks, manta rays, and other gigantic fish. This lasts for about ten minutes. My favorite was the guitar fish, which I can't really describe. But he was cool. Google him! A lot of the sharks had big scars, which made me wonder about their lives before captivity. Or if, perhaps, they fight each other. Being in the shark tunnel when a shark fight broke out would be pretty terrifying. Afternoon was supermercat and beach again. We sat in the same spot on the beach every day, and the beer dudes who roam the city would wander past us with their backpacks muttering "cervesa-beer?" We also witnessed a pretty strange phenomenon, which was a lady roaming the beach selling 5 euro massages. What would that even entail? She was so persistent. "Ola, massagia?" "No, gracias." As she wandered off, clutching her red baseball cap, she would mutter a menacing and drawn-out "Yesss..." This happened to us every day. At night we stumbled, sunburned and exhausted, into one of the numerous beachside eateries. I ordered razor clams, but there were only six of them and my seafood craving hadn't subsided, so while Bri got dessert, I got steamed mussels. A GIANT pot of about 45 steamed mussels. I was shocked at first, but they were unbelievably delicious. And talk about good value! 6.90 for a full tummy that carried me through to the next morning. On our way back to the Metro we saw the Sagrada Familia in the distance and decided to walk there so we could look at it at night. What a good decision. The weather was balmy, the walk was perfect, and the cathedral, lit up at night, is truly the best concrete, man-made expression of awe of heavenly power that I have ever seen. I doubt something more miraculous exists anywhere in the world. We wandered around it in circles, staring, for probably close to an hour. The kind of mind that it takes to put something so ornate and seemingly incongruous, and yet so beautiful, together, is mind-boggling. What I would give to have known Gaudi.

Monday was our last day, and we were spending the night in Girona to catch our early flight back to Nederland, so we wanted to make it count. Got up early, said farewell to the hostel, and climbed to the top of Mont Juic. I think that beach + mountains + city is about as good as it gets, for my soul's odd combination of need for urban grit and natural majesty, old things and new things. Spent the afternoon, again, on our little stretch of beach, but were driven away by wind and clouds. We went to bed super early once we got to Girona, in preparation for early rising. But the hotel was really cool! Even though it was next to the airport. The woman insisted on PACKING US a continental breakfast, because we would miss theirs and it was included in the price of the room. What service!

Came back to Amsterdam, which, while cold in comparison, was still shining and welcoming and wonderful.

How do I contend with such a big part of my heart having been ceded to these European cities? Moreover, how do I contend with such big parts of my heart being ceded to so many places - to Buffalo, to Glacier, to North Truro, to Eagle, to Minneapolis? When will it reach capacity, when will it burst, will it burst? I am only 20. Imagine what could happen if I (godwilling) continue to explore my country and the rest of the world and find outlooks, people, streets, buildings, skies, oceans, graffiti, friends that I cannot bear to always leave behind. And how, when so many places grip my heart, do I decide on a place to settle?

Today Was Good.

2008-04-10T18:09:00.005+02:00

Yesterday, in Fun Hour With Letje, I decided that it's important to me to make my project not just straight-up research, but also an experiment with narrative, memory, reflection, oral history. Amping up my subjectivity as researcher, basically, and seeing what comes out of it. I'm excited.

Today, for Squiggling Ocean (the writing roundtable that Bri and Nick and Tim and i hold weekly), I actually submitted something new. Well, that's not entirely true. It was born out of a freewrite that I did in Parc de la Ciutadella when I was in Barcelona, so fragments of it are old, but it is basically new. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, if it is dull or productively tense; if it is absurd, or boring for people who don't know French. I kept thinking about Mary Poppins In the Park when I was writing it. I'm excited to go back for round two! Even if I will not have the advantage of a good friend and tour guide, this time.
For your viewing pleasure.

Partout, n'Importe Où, Le Coeur Casse

Pigeon poop.
Gratis.
Hungry.
Parc.
Bonsoir?
Elle ne dit pas bonsoir?
Men and pigeons.
What?
The scent of fresh feces.

Tu marches trop vite pour moi.
Je ne peux plus t’ignore.
Qui en plus?
Vieux hommes whistling a tune.
Welcome to umbrella leaves tickling your head-top,
Stylish mothers wheeling strollers.

In Turkïye, you go and sit down next to someone you don’t know, you say
“Hello uncle, how are you, fine weather today,"
And in this country they look at you like you are a murderer.

Where did I get off the Metro?
Where you at, crayzee?

Duh, bébé, I am hungry for this.
Maybe appetite is not as urgent a breathing thing as I thought, once.

Torrent,
If you do not turn around.
If you do not open your eyes, if we do not meet just yet.
If we do not find what we are looking for here.

If I do not know what direction you are coming from, if maybe you have forgotten me,
If perhaps I get a little cold waiting;
If I see you emerge calm from the mer of scenester bikers jumping twirling, and smile,
If the pigeons are smiling also,
If we do not understand foreign airports,

You home?

I would have guessed you were French.
I would have guessed you were from Ireland,
I would have guessed you would have learned Spanish before coming here.
I would not have guessed, from your demeanor, that you missed me ever or at all.

Where you first jumped off the boat.
How high, my man, how high?
This time she will pick up.
This time we will climb the montagne.
Who bought food for this journey,
Pain and chorizo, drinks and drinks.
As I said, skip to skip on the boardwalk as we passed your ship,
How high?

Made in Espagne,

Si,
Si,
Claro,

Oui,
Oui,
Claire.

Academia, What?

2008-04-09T11:52:00.001+02:00

SANY1462
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

It's been a pretty uneventful week, except for the daily joys of trundling about the city, looking at beautiful things, eating, playing with my friends, blah blah blah. I'm going back to Barcelona for the weekend, with Bri and Whitney, which I'm super pumped for.

Last Friday I had a meeting with Mattias, my Masculinity + Migration professor, and it was unbelievably fruitful. it was nice to be in the house of an academic, drinking tea, and surrounded by books and plants and talking about gender theory. He gave me a lot of really useful books and contacts that will help to further my project. For example, he asked me if I had read anything by Paul van Gelder, who is THE Dutch male prostitution expert. No, I said, because his work hasn't been translated into English. "Oh!" said Mattias, "But you know, you could talk to him! You will like each other very much!" And at the end of our meeting, I left his house with Paul van Gelder's email address in hand. It is times like that that I am sure that academia is where I belong.

But there are also other times. I emailed Christine a while back to update her and get an update (Christine, for those of you who don't know, is the woman who brought me into the WGSS fold where I since have been comfortably residing). I also wanted to pick her brain about History of Consciousness. She sent me back a nice long email chock-a-block full of the humor and bluntness that I had forgotten made me love her, and with a lot of information about the program. She talked about it as if she thought I could probably get in, if I play my cards right - and then she went into detail about what those cards are. it's not anything out of this world, but it reminded me that the life of an academic is more than sitting surrounded by books and papers and having revelations and publishing books that People Like and having cozy meetings with your students wherein you change their lives a little. It's also strenuous, and political - the politics of getting into grad school, the politics of doing and writing the right things to get you money and a job, the politics of academic self-representation. Maybe it's just because I'm still a little worn from the rigamarole that I went through with high school and IB and college applications, but I'm not sure that I have the patience for those games. Where does that leave me, though? I can't envision what my life would be without school, pens, books, an intellectual community. Maybe I just need to grow up a little before I can enter that world, and let go of my vague and unrealistic hopes of being a prodigy. Or maybe I need to use my mind to radically shape an intellectual world around myself and my beliefs. Possible? I don't know. Mostly, what I know is that I want to think and write as much as possible. I'm not sure that the sort of thinking and writing actually matters to me very much at all.

April 2nd

2008-04-03T12:02:00.001+02:00

SANY1386
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

I mark this day (all these days, really) with a white stone. That's what Lewis Carroll said about days that were really perfect some way or another. Yesterday was the first tangible spring. Occasional drizzle, of course ("April does what it wants."), but a lot of sun and ridiculous cloudscapes, a soft twilight that lasted until 8, etcetera.

Had tea as per usual, fresh mint this time which is a brilliant green color, and Christy and Nate had open-faced sandwiches as well which are always delicious. I did not have one because I had cheesecake, which was also delicious. There was lemon yogurt on top!

Witnessed an anticlimactic bike-on-pedestrian collision - the cyclist rolled his eyes and the pedestrian laughed and stepped back up to the curb, cigarette still in hand. No words were had, and no one fell over. I guess my bike-on-pedestrian collision was dramatic because I am incompetent, and because we both fell over.

Wandered down de Warmoestraat and Zeedijk, which are very close-together streets, narrow with tall buildings, so you feel like you're in a city fortress. Passed the Chinese bakery which was, once again, closed. Passed a place where they have dim sum! Passed the place where we once ate waffles dripping in pink frosting and chocolate sauce. Stepped out into Nieuwmarkt, which is a pretty big deal (but I had never been there). There is a lot of open space and a big church, and some mosaiced benches that look like they belong in Barcelona. Sat on one of said benches for some time, and looked at the happy group of Dutch ragamuffins sitting across from us, juggling and rolling a joint. Some bicycle police came by and talked to them sternly for a while, but then they got derailed by another pair of bicycle police and all stood around in a jolly circle and did nothing. Both the juggling and the joint-rolling continued.

Walked to the OBA, stood at the cafe's roof-deck and soaked in the wonderful evening. Took lots of photos, including this one of the Nemo (there's a science museum in there). If you look closely between the masts of the pirate ship you will see the windmill. That means home! The light was beautiful, the library was beautiful, the clouds were beautiful, the water was beautiful, the company was beautiful. Came home and watched "Martian Child," which was also beautiful. John Cusack as adoptive father of dysfunctional child. Glued the sole of my boot back together. Bed.

The Burger and the King

2008-03-29T18:01:00.002+01:00

Woke up early, hit Waterlooplein to try to find Christy a birthday dress, bought a pretty bracelet, biked to Vondelpark without getting lost or hit, and settled in for a priceless film that I recommend to anyone interested in Elvis, fast food, America, or documentaries. Entitled The Burger and the King, it's about Elvis's eating habits - complete with recipes, interviews with his personal chefs, interviews with lunch ladies at his elementary school, etc. Fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, pbj banana and bacon whole-loaf sandwiches, sloppy joes, cheeseburgers, and this priceless quote (one of many):

"Have you ever dreamed of lathering Elvis's coffee? Putting cream and sugar in it, stirring it up? Have you ever dreamed of giving Elvis a back massage? Well, ladies, I have lived your dream."

It was strange and very cool to get such a dose of Americana in Amsterdam. Ate delicious broodjes at Vertigo, the Filmmuseum's Hitchcock themed restaurant. All the Nederlanders out playing in the sun and warmth. Hit the Jordaan, where I was again charmed by Laser 3:14. His opening is next Sunday - we are going. Some Mac kids are in town and tonight we are having a Burger and the King party and maybe going out later.

Everything In Its Place

2008-03-28T14:41:00.003+01:00

I feel like my posts have been lacking something lately. Intrigue, perhaps? I'm really settled in, at this point. It occurs to me that I might not cotton to Amsterdam if I came here as a tourist - certainly if I had someone to show me around, I would love it, but if I just came here and was left up to my own devices I'm not sure I'd be wild about it. As a tourist you can come here and stay within a one mile radius of Centraal, surrounded by other tourists, huge international chain stores, flashing lights and coffee shops, with the Red Light District and all you might think it entails directly to your left. In any case, the point is that I'm going crazy about this city, as a place to live. There are amazing creative people here, there are amazing creative things and good food and beautiful canals and nice places to bike and hip hole-in-the-wall stores and bars and restaurants and galleries all over the place. I walk down certain streets, the Singel and Koningsplein, for example, at least a few times a week. I notice new and exciting things almost every time.

I only had one class this week, so I've been laying low and trying to get things done. Taking Lupe for spins around town, walking and exploring, cleaning, reading for school and for the field experience, pondering my future, etc. My gut has not been quite the same since the food poisoning incident. I bought a really cool skirt with Warhol-esque faces on it for 3 euro! We finally made the trek to the Dappermarkt, a huge market with clothes and food that's just around the corner. I had a real stroopwafel hot off the griddle, and vowed to come back the next time I'm shopping for vegetables. Produce in Dutch grocery stores is often lacking, and yesterday Hallie mentioned as we wandered spellbound past stalls displaying bounties of leafy greens and gigantic root vegetables that this could probably be attributed to the fact that most Dutch people buy produce at markets. It hadn't occurred to me, but I'm going to try that from now on. I found a coffeeshop in Leidseplein that I really like, it's called Dolphins. It's underwater themed, so there is coral everywhere, and sea murals, and a big plastic dolphin near the door. And comfortable couches. All ages and types congregate there.

Last night we went out to De Duivel again. This place is quickly becoming my favorite bar in Amsterdam. Rembrandtplein is easy to get to by bike, and there seem to be an endless number of late night fast food options, an always very welcome characteristic of a neighborhood. Sat for an hour or two, bopped along to the wonderful music they are always spinning, drank een biertje and chatted. A rasta complimented my shoes. A girl sitting on the bench next to us whipped out a sketchbook. Everyone was grooving and standing in circles and patting each other on the back and laughing.

A word about something very strange that's going on here right now. Geert Wilders' anti-Qu'uran film Fitna came out yesterday. Watch it. Geert Wilders is one of the Dutch politicians who has been very vocally anti-Islam in the aftermath of the Theo Van Gogh murder. It's really interesting to see what Islamophobia in the Netherlands is like compared to Islamophobia in the States. Here, curiously enough, it's based in a logic of what one might call "tolerance-gone-wrong". The Dutch pride themselves on their long history of progressive policy towards religion, integration, and gender. There is a rampant belief in the current political regime that Islam is a danger to these relations, and that integrating the ever-growing number of Islamic immigrants into Dutch society will threaten "Dutch values" of, for example, gender and sexual equality. There is a huge lack of recognition that all Islam is not practiced in the way that religious fanatics practice it. This is obviously hugely problematic for a number of reasons, and deserves a much more in-depth analysis than the very brief and general gloss I'm giving it here. Islamophobia is more insidious here. Watch the film - it's about 15 minutes long. Take note of the moment where Islam is compared to Nazism and Communism. Read Ian Buruma's book Murder in Amsterdam, which gives a context for the circumstances surrounding Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the death of Theo Van Gogh. Read Hirsi Ali to get a fuller context of the anti-Islam stance. Try to track down the film that she made with Van Gogh. It's such a different set of fears and such a different framing of debate than we are used to in post-9/11 America.

Love you all.

Xtreme Luxembourg, Round Two

2008-03-25T13:40:00.001+01:00

SANY1317
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

Luxembourg was lovely again, and legitimately more extreme this time. It was snowing there (as it has been in Amsterdam) when we arrived, but intrepid souls that we were we wandered the city anyway.

Alex and I had been unable to book rooms in the sole youth hostel in the city, so we left Bri to her own devices at around 9 (when the public transport stops running) and stayed in a hotel out by the airport. There were distinct advantages and disadvantages to this experience. Advantages included: British MTV, including a bizarre game show that takes place in silence in a library. It is called Fist of Zen. The best complimentary continental breakfast I have ever had (pain au chocolat! cold cuts! douwe egberts coffee! fresh-squeezed orange juice!). Having a private bathroom was also an advantage. Why did I need a private bathroom? That comes later. Disadvantages were mostly our distance from the city (not so bad, once we discovered how smooth the bus system is) and the hours we spent being hassled by a ghost. I'm not kidding. It was terrifying.

Saturday we hitched the bus to Echternach, a little town by the German border in a region that calls itself "Little Switzerland." Here we ate the glorious ice cream you see above, bought things fer cheap (the whole town was on sale, for some reason), and spent the two hours of beautiful sunshine hiking through woods and gorges. It was amazing to be in nature - I didn't even realize I had been missing it. Amsterdam is beautiful, but it's not a very green city. I almost died numerous times on our hike. This was partly because everything was slick and I was wearing virtually tractionless shoes, and partly because something funky and painful happened to my left hip and knee. By the end of the day, I could barely hobble down inclines. Echternach, though, was splendid.

I was the only one who hadn't been able to book a hostel room the second night, so we embarked on a clandestine operation to sneak me into Alex's bed. This worked out ok, but it was A LOT of stress. Turns out I am not a law-breaker. There was an old woman sleeping below us and she freaked out and started mumbling in French in the middle of the night, I hoped not about my presence.

Easter Sunday was gloriously beautiful. My leg was better and we did lots of roaming of the teeny city - through the Parc Petrusses, which is basically in a gorge, and then through the Petrusses Casements. It was really cool to be inside the walls of such an intense fortress. Luxembourg takes a lot of pride in its military history. There was also a festival going on in the main square - "New Orleans Meets Luxembourg." It was a lot of jazz and blues and gospel musicians from the US, and it was free, and we spent some time happily perching and listening and eating one-euro gelato. I decided that I didn't want to deal with the stress of sneaking into the hostel again, so I went back out to the Campanile and booked a room for that night. And conducted the entire transaction in French! On my way back into the city my tummy started to feel a little funny. "Oh," I thought, "I must be getting a little bus-sick." Wrong. What I was getting was food poisoning. I've never thrown up in so many public places before. They include buses, trash cans on the street, trash cans in lobbies, restaurant restrooms and public restrooms. Alex and Bri came back out to the hotel with me and I curled up and watched TV and was sick for a long time. Alex, kindly, stayed with me through the night and fetched me glasses of coke and ice periodically. I was really worried that I wouldn't be better by the next morning, when we were going to take the (10 hour) bus back to Amsterdam. Stranded alone in Luxembourg, and ill, did not sound like what I wanted to be doing. Thankfully I was mostly better by the morning, although standing up initially made me sick again, and I got sick the first time the bus stopped. I just curled up and conked out for most of the ride, though, so I was mostly ok. It has never felt so nice to be home.

Snow is coming down hard in Amsterdam. They rarely get any at all, let alone scads in late March. It makes me a little homesick, and it's pretty funny to see all the cylists continue their rush hour as usual - stillettos, cell phones, and all.

Accidents Will Happen

2008-03-19T22:35:00.001+01:00

SANY1279
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

Today, I made frites for dinner! Not for real because they were not deep fried, but they looked a lot like what you see on that plate thurrr. And I ate them with mayonnaise. I am never going back to ketchup.

So, other things. I am really Dutch now. Meaning, I hit a pedestrian with my bike. It wasn't so bad, although he was very angry and I am very bruised, and Lupe definitely needs another tune-up. When I am riding and the front wheel is straight, my handlebars slant distinctly to the left. In this way I can trick people into always thinking I'm turning. Today I also wiped out behind Funen because they are doing some kind of weird construction and I got confused.

Also, I ate winter vegetable soup at Greenwoods and it was amazing. It tasted like home. Also, I'm going to Luxembourg again for the weekend.

Leanin', Checkin' Out the Scene

2008-03-17T11:00:00.003+01:00

This weekend was wonderful - exploring and finding things in this city that I want to be a part of. I think that we tapped into a more laid back, more creative, more optimistic scene. I am going to Laser 3.14's opening in April - he's the "guerilla poet" whose words you see on the plywood above. Friday was spent blissfully wandering the Jordaan and around Leidsestraat. At night we went out to de Duivel, which is a hip-hop bar near Rembrandtplein. Everyone there was both hip and happy, and the tiny dance floor filled up fast. Saturday was spent blissfully wandering again, this time around Dam Square and the outskirts of the Red Light District - de Warmoestraat, Zeedijk. It is really nifty that your standard fast food joint here sells noodles, chocolate-covered waffles, shoarma, falafel, frites, and sometimes pizza. You basically have the full gamut of fast food options available to you in one place. The snackbar phenomenon could really take off in America, I feel. Some of them have silly themes, like the Sphinx which is just down the street from where I live, or one that we passed a few days ago in the center city. It sold all of the above, plus I think spaghetti and ice cream, and it was called "Good Luck" and had a shamrock logo. Oh, happy St. Patty's! A surprising number of people in Amsterdam (I think 95% of them tourists) are all drunk and decked out for the holiday. I thought this was odd until I realized that they congregate around British sports bars and hotels.

Anyway after all the wandering and eating we hit up Crimejazz, which is a monthly event that has spoken word (some of it in Dutch) and different unsigned jazz and funk and hip-hop and soul musicians - here I fell in love with a man by the name of Steve Hartley, who sadly has a very minimal internet presence. He did, however, break out some wicked funky jams, and he had two bassists and a bongo player. Bianca Rose was also cool - cheerful and British, and endlessly optimistic. Oh oh oh, and a WGSS plug for those of you interested in queer of color theory and progressive gender practice! Hanifah Walidah was also there, all the way from Brooklyn - she's a queer black spoken word poet and the leader of a band called the Brooklyn Funk Essentials, and she has a documentary (U-People) which is all about the making of a music video which has the first all queer women of color cast ever.

They cleared out the tables, after the cabaret, and brought in a DJ and played all hip hop from the late eighties and early nineties - the event was called Live at the BBQ and we didn't know beforehand what we were getting into, but I'm so glad we stayed. It was such good music and everyone was so hip and happy, again. It was cool to see all the performers from the first half breaking it down on the dance floor. Also, the DJ booth was improvised out of plywood and chicken wire and there was a smiley man with the most beautiful dreads I have ever seen bouncing up and down with a mic next to the DJ. His role was just to be happy and to periodically yell things like "OWWWWW! THIS THE OLD REAL SHIT! WE BRINGIN' IT BACK!" and then he would do this really masterful trill thing with his tongue that could perhaps be best transcribed as "RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAA!" He made me so happy, as did seeing so many people of different nationalities and age groups and races and repping different styles all just groovin and being happy together. This is the creative Amsterdam I want to get to know better.

A little bit of the kind of reflection that's been pouring over me the past two weeks or so, and especially the past few days - I have been listening to this song "Ovaconfident" by a really on point rapper of the mid-nineties, and the word has been ringing in my ears. With security comes concern. Recklessness was never really a possibility before, so I never had to worry about it, and now I am afraid that it might be - that I will wake up one morning and find myself having been too cavalier with too much, and whether met or zonder regret, without much left in my life that has enough substance and value to sustain me. This is, I just realized, pretty cryptic. It's because it's such an abstract fear to have, not because I'm trying to hide anthing. Don't worry. I haven't and do not intend on doing anything actually stupid - I think I have a pretty good head on my shoulders. But bravery is a new territory for me, and one that encompasses every minute arena of my world - the 99% of things that could be said to belong to the Big Bad Unknown are now better qualified as the Big Bad Discoverable. Aiiiie. What comes next?

In any case, later today I have an appointment at AMOC, which is a social work program that provides aid to drug addicts who have tenuous immigration status in the Netherlands, including an entire unit devoted to the aid of male prostitutes. I'm hoping that speaking with an organization will lead me to other organizations, and thus deeper into my project. I also have my Dutch final, and an entire paper to write, and Kabir is coming tonight. AIIIIIIIIEEE!

Day of Happy Wanders

2008-03-14T18:04:00.002+01:00

SANY1236
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

Today I brought my camera out with me for the first time in a long time. It was overwhelmingly gorgeous outside, and Christy and I had really good koffie and broodjes ("little breads", akin to sandwiches but more delicious) and then a meeting with Letje. I spent another long while in an amazing postcard store buying amazing postcards (why are there so many here?). I will not disclose how many I bought or how much I spent, because it's pretty obscene. I will just say that they gave me a "bulk discount." Then we wandered the Jordaan for a while with the intention of gallery hopping, but we really only hopped to one - an exhibit called "Guide to Ruined Buildings in the Netherlands XIX-XXI Century." It was all striking photos of odd abandoned or ruined architecture. Some of the photos looked like they were in Greece, some in the Everglades, some here - but they were all Dutch.

Words can't really express how happy I am right now. I don't ever want to leave this city.

Take Me To the Bordello, -ello, -ello

2008-03-12T00:21:00.004+01:00

It’s been a gender-plentiful few days.

Exhibit A, my Saturday afternoon visit to the only remaining boy’s club in Amsterdam. This was valuable for a bunch of reasons.

First of all because this project is becoming more and more spatially oriented the longer I spend on it, so it was really interesting to be in what is probably the most formalized space for male sex work in this city. Similarly to the window and working room we visited with the PIC, it was cozy – a tiny bar, a tiny room with (subversive, radical gender and BDSM) books lining the walls, big comfortable leather chairs, flattering lighting. The staircase up to the door is discreet and you have to ring a bell to be let in.

The man I talked to could have been more helpful, but there were a few things standing between us. First, I was sort of testing the waters of my research manner and seeing how much informality would be helpful. Now I know that it’s good to have a list of questions ready in case you get one -word answers. Second, while he spoke excellent English, there was definitely a conceptual barrier between us that prevented him from elaborating very much on my secondary, more complex questions. This is also something I’ve noticed with my professors from time to time. There may be such a thing as a “Western” school of thought, but there’s also a distinctly “American” school of thought that seems to exist just beyond a “European” one that is different enough to cause some misunderstandings when dealing in abstractions. Third, I think he was thrown off by the fact that I’m a young woman who is exploring a subculture and profession dominated by gay men and men of ambiguous sexuality.

So while things didn’t click as much as I would have liked, it was really good to talk to him for the time that we had – he told me some things that reaffirmed my suspicions about the practical difficulties of conducting this study – that the majority of male sex work takes place informally, in the back dark rooms of gay bars, that the men who participate are often difficult to track, categorize, or regulate, that I will be point-blank denied access to many of the more organized spaces in which male sex work occurs because they are men-only bars and parties.

The positive thing is that all of these walls will be valuable to reflect about in and of themselves. And at some point, sitting behind the bar and talking to this bartender with years of experience in the sex industry and the gay scene, I had one of those out-of-body revelation moments – that there I was, timid little me, doing something professional and radical that required many levels of bravery, and being pretty blasé about the whole thing. When I was visiting Andrew in Barcelona we had a conversation and he threw in some comment about “growing into one’s competence.” I think that, more than anything, is what’s been happening to me here at Lightning Speed – academically and personally and logistically, to name a few of the ways. Part of growing into your competence is realizing that pretending to be brave produces bravery. Part of it is realizing that you will inevitably do and say stupid things, and that’s acceptable. I’m a little worried that all this revelation, such a long time coming in any visible material way, will lead to some kind of oppressive personal mediocrity, but that’s just my inner perfectionist. In shoving her aside perhaps I will come closer to the equilibrium I seek.

Exhibit B in ImpromptuGenderWeekend 08 was Saturday night, which was the International Women’s Day celebration at the Paradiso. There was another bike-related fiasco which led me to chain Lupe to the guardrail at a Texaco and tram it to Leidseplein in frustration. And then there was Women in Paradise. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to be a woman in the company of other women, to be honest. There was jazzy smoky-voiced playful grrrrrl band after grrrrrl band, there was dress after dress and manner after manner that I wished were mine, there was extensive dancing with more COOL WOMEN than I have ever seen in one place to tunes dropped by She-J’s, there was a keyboard and a mermaid dress, there was jazzitude, there were fake tattoos and long cigarette holders and lots of smiling and laughing. It was so so glam in such a comfortable genderful colorful musical European way. I felt like I was in Weetzie Bat, some kind of modern fairytale. Everything was gezellig and noisy and pink-lit and everyone loved each other. And on the way home we got fries and were accosted at the fry stand by drunk Dutch men who wanted to talk to us about Obama. Europeans think McCain doesn’t have a chance “because he is friends with Mr. Bush” – I am pessimistic, but hope they’re right. Anyway, in sum: WOMEN!

Exhibit C would have been Judith, if rain and logistics and sadly misinformed library employees had not come between us. I don’t want to talk about it.

And Exhibit D, well, Exhibit D was Moving Manhood today – highlights included my T.A.’s observations and ruminations on an XXX All-Men Leather Party that he attended grâce à Drag Queen Bingo, clad in sportswear; my (aging gay hippie) professor’s familiarity with both the boy’s club I visited and the man I spoke to there; and my successful recommendation of Methodology of the Oppressed to lots of people who I think need to read it (including aforesaid professor, TA, and classmates).

All this Gender and Sexuality In Yo’ Face is making me really miss Scott, Christine, my Mac WGSS classes and buddies, and that glorious film of films Shortbus (disclaimer: this is my favorite movie ever, but it is not for the easily shocked).

Apart from these things, there’s not much to comment on over the last few days. As Angie put it when I prompted her to talk to me about Cape Town, “it’s life in a different place.” I have done lots of homework and reading, been grumpy and/or stalwart in the persistent rain and wind, broken a needle in half trying to sew buttons back onto my coat, sat in cafés, and done more bummin’ than I’ve yet allowed myself to do in this fine city. Love to all.

On Adjusting To Cycling

2008-03-08T16:50:00.003+01:00

Let's start at the beginning. You know I can't go very long without slapping a nickname on most people or objects. Thus Lupe was born (she's mah bike!) We'll have a photoshoot soon so everyone can see.

Lupe and I took our first major spin out to the Melkweg the other night for a dance party called Poptrash. Here three hours of my life disappeared to dance enthusiasm, ultimately resulting in a bad case of whiplash which has kept me humble and unable to dance so hard since. Woe. I also lost the key to my back wheel lock, which meant that Lupe wasn't going anywhere.

I was disheartened and concerned at the prospect of the (hour long) walk home at 4:30 am, but my compatriots decided we shouldn't give up just yet. So I hopped (sidesaddle!) onto the back of Tim's bike, very much afraid for my life but too much yearning for my bed for that to be a serious obstacle, and off we zipped down the Sarphatistraat. We were successful! Props to Tim for being such a gracious and unconcerned bike host, and for pullin' my weight all the way back from Leidseplein. Victory number one in the realm of emulating the Dutch in our cycling habits. When we can ride through traffic while talking at length on a cell phone, that's when we'll really know we've made it.

I spent the night doing more worrying about how I was ever going to free Lupe if the Melkweg didn't find the key than sleeping. My roommate's boyfriend suggested that I call in the aid of his Eastern European Bike Thief Friends if it came down to it. But wonder of wonders,victory number two was the next day, when I called the Melkweg and they had the key. This says something, I think, about the primacy of the bicycle in this culture. No one throws away a bike key. Unfortunately the place where I had parked Lupe is part of a construction zone by day, so I had to contend with angry construction workers in order to retrieve her. A situation which mere months ago would have left me shaky and in tears, but I'm used to being a blissful idiot in Nederland, so a few scoldings and glares from angry strangers ain't gonna phase me. Content that my carelessness had not ended in catastrophe, I pedaled my butt back home (by myself! in traffic! without incident!).

Some key observations: I was especially worried about intersections, because I tend to have trouble getting going again quickly. It turns out that that's only an issue if one doesn't go through intersections. This was a quick and easy and immediately noticeable adjustment, and makes me very proud every time I think about it. The relative ease with which I can navigate those, though, is made up for in spades by the fact that I am such a weakling that the 10 minute ride home from the ISHSS leaves me sweating and panting and my thighs screaming at me. Yikes. The "hill" I blame for this would more accurately be described as a "mild incline." When I'm with other people, my general chagrin makes me soldier through. But when I'm alone, I don't make it very far before I get off and start walking. We'll see how the saga continues.

Things of Import

2008-03-05T21:49:00.004+01:00

Today I bought a bike, finally. It is purple and yellow and the right size for me and has hand brakes. Sometimes I get flustered at intersections and get off and walk it across because the pedals are in the wrong place, but that will change. It's so nice to have one. I am going to try and figure out if there's a way to bring the lock home with me - it is so heavy duty. No one in America would ever steal a bike with a lock this extreme. It's a huge, thick chain more or less. Today was also the day of the first writing meeting of Tim and Nick and Bri and I, and it was super cool. I am always happy when I have writers in my life. And the fact that we have weekly deadlines means that I'll push myself to keep churning out work that I want to be working on. We met at Greenwoods which I still love with all my heart. The waiter was very concerned about us being cold. And he refilled our teapot free of charge.

Then there was Letje which is always a treat, and today was extra special because we took a walking tour of the Red Light District, led by Mariska Majoor, a former window girl who's been the head of the Prostitution Information Center for the last fourteen years. I have so many things to say about the hour and a half we spent together, but I'll try to keep it concise. Everyone should explore the PIC website - it gives a really comprehensive background of the project and a lot of the issues that sex workers face, in Amsterdam and the world over. It also addresses the particular ways in which sex tourism functions in Amsterdam. Don't be intimidated by the fact that it's in Dutch - just click on the little British flag and you'll get everything you need to know in English.

The PIC is located right in the heart of the Red Light District, on a square in the center of which sits a church, and a bunch of 14th century buildings. Mariska's organization erected a pretty little statue called "Bella" in front of the church sometime last year, inscribed with a message to respect sex workers all over the world. First of all, the shop is small and very gezellig, with a big group of women chatting and laughing around a table behind the counter, a lot of kitschy touristy things (e.g. shirts that say "Good Girls Go To Heaven, Bad Girls Go To Amsterdam") and local Red Light District based artwork and lots of literature on sex work. I got so happy when I noticed that it sells Global Sex Workers and Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered, both excellent books which Scott Morgensen introduced me to in the context of his Transnational Sexual Politics class, and both of which have been key literature in the Transnational Sex Worker's Rights Movement formulating over the past ten years. Mariska and her organization have their hands thoroughly entrenched in this movement. And it's no wonder - women from all over the world work in the RLD.

The legalization of prostitution here means that street prostitution is frowned upon in Amsterdam - window prostitution is much more common. The way it works is that women go to the office of a landlord who owns buildings with windows, register, and show their passports. They are given a window and can pay rent for an 8 or 12 hour shift - night shifts are generally a little more expensive than day shifts. Because you have to show your passport in order to register with a landlord, illegal immigrants can't work in the neighborhood. Because you pay rent for a window, the space is yours to use as you choose, for the time that you rent it. Pimping is illegal, and the system is set up for independent contract work, which is why Amsterdam is a very good and safe place for women to practice sex work, compared to most places in the world. Each window is attached to a working room, and each working room has an alarm system. In a dangerous situation, the woman working can press a button and the alarm will sound, and either her colleagues or the landlord or the police, or all three, will be able to quickly come to her aid. Another measure of control offered by this system is the fact that the women working behind the windows can pick and choose their clientele - you sit and watch the people walk past on the street, and make eye contact with people that seem safe or intriguing to you. Mariska described this as using the same instincts that anyone in a customer service position has about customers - you can tell from body language, from eye contact, who is aggressive or who is sweet or who is shy or who is reckless or who is scared or who has something to prove, and from these hints you can decide who you are willing to take a chance on.

That said, coercion does happen - the system is set up to prevent pimping or human trafficking, but some landlords turn a blind eye to these practices, and allow sex slavery organizations or pimps to install unwilling women in their windows for a few weeks at a time. Mariska estimated that about 10 to 15 percent of the women working in the RLD at any given time are in a coercive situation. If she hears a story like this, she tries to provide both comfort and legal counsel to the woman in question. Unfortunately 9 times out of 10 these women are too scared to press charges - and the problem with a system of legalization is that it's dependent on the law for recourse, so if they refuse to press charges there isn't much that can be done to actually nab the pimps or the crime organizations. Mariska's organization and others like it attempt to form safe spaces for coerced women to come to. That's just a brief sketch of the situation here. The website of The Red Thread is also a good source of information on prostitution in Nederland.

Right now, there's a huge debate going on about the "oversexualization of the Netherlands," which means that the government is buying up window brothels and trying to forcibly change the face of the Red Light District. This is both complicated and contentious, and Mariska got worked up about it several times during the course of the tour. You see former windows which have been bought by the government and offered up to young Amsterdam designers as display spaces, full of bejeweled hate couture manikins. They're sponsored by the tourist administration and say "Red Light Fashion" across the front, and they poke fun at the poses and working positions of the actual women they're in the midst of. There have been a lot of protests mounted against this. Mariska said that she told them that if they do that to the windows around the PIC, she'll be the first to smash in their displays. There are also antagonistic protest posters up all around the Red Light District.

So the most interesting part of the tour was when we got to go into a real window space and working room that the PIC has temporary access to while the landlord straightens out some licensing troubles. Every window has a red light (duh) and a blue light, to make the skin glow and emphasize white lingerie. The windows and rooms are surprisingly cozy, and Mariska had us sit on the stools for a minute to see how it felt. And I have to say, it was really interesting - I'm still processing it. Even though there were 6 of us, men and women of different generations, and we were all wearing coats and backpacks, people were still looking in the window curiously as they walked past. It's clear that you could discover a lot about human nature sitting in a window - some people were clearly cruising, some looked curious but inhibited, some walked fast with heads down as if scared to look, some walked aggressively with fists bunched up as if about to hit. It was so strange to watch.

Also, I was really fascinated because male prostitutes are so visibly absent from this world - it's a very different and much less accessible scene, mostly linked to gay bars and organizations. I'm going to go back to the PIC in the next few days and try to pick Mariska's brain about this disparity. It will be interesting to see what someone so embroiled in the politics of regulation and sex work advocacy will have to say about that. Hopefully she'll be able to give me some ideas for contacts, as well.

What Happens When Your TA Casually Announces That Judith Butler is Speaking on Monday

2008-03-04T14:12:00.003+01:00

You make a snap decision to skip Dutch that day.
Girl 1: Who is that?
Girl 2: WHAT? SHE'S A GENDER SUPERSTAR!
Boy 1: Laughs and pumps fist.
Boy 2: Nudges you and says "Fuck, I'm getting goosebumps."

Words cannot express how. excited. i am.

Luxembourg

2008-03-02T21:12:00.002+01:00

SANY1010
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

If I could think of one word to sum up Luxembourg, it would be "XTREME." You think I'm joking, but I'm not. Just wait.

Off Hallie and Tim and I set with our very American backpacks and very American accents, into the great unknown that is the third part of Benelux - booked it through Brussel-Nord, and made it in t-minus 6 hours to a delightfully picturesque little country (one of the smallest in the world, although I don't know the exact statistic, and am too lazy to look it up). The weather could best be described as "grey" and "abysmal" or in the terminology of my beloved parentals "43 and dank," but we nonetheless spent some happy hours wandering the capital (which is also called Luxembourg). And you can bet we felt Xtreme, battling the weather to enjoy beautiful scenery. I got to practice my (very rusty) French on a few occasions, which was super cool. The city has a lot of hills and greenery and topiary and bridges and squares - it's not in the mountains (I think they would qualify as "very tall hills"), but in pictures it almost looks like it could be. The whole place feels like a miniature out of a fairytale. And, shockingly enough, every touristy store in the nation has a preponderance of light-up dragon statues in 8 different shades of glitter and similar whatnot - they're not shy, in Luxembourg, about their fairytale heritage.
After having wandered for about two hours and taking an obscene number of pictures, we looked at a tourist map only to find that we had stumbled upon about 95% of all the remarkable places in Luxembourg Stad. This is one of the beauties of a small country.

We spent a long time looking for affordable dinner, only to discover that such a thing is not really possible in the home of the World Bank - and so, embarrassingly but happily, ended up in a Chi- Chi's off the main square (yeah, that's what you think it is). It was really nice to eat Mexican food after not having found any in Amsterdam for so long. And it was really nice to be indoors, where it was not 43 and dank. The funny thing about roaming when we were roaming is that the ghosts of beautiful summers were everywhere. I half expected to see Grace Kelly stepping out of a lit up terasse and strolling down the majestic bridges to a cozy villa overlooking the city, arm in arm with a debonair Prince Renier. I know they lived in Monaco, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there are a lot of similarities between the countries. And Luxembourg looks surprisingly Mediterranean - this is because the Moors conquered it once, long ago. I am really curious now, having been there, about how such a teensy-weensy Grand Duchy managed to be conquered so many times by so many imperial superpowers and somehow always regain independence.

I won't tell you when we went to bed, 'cause it's not very Xtreme. But I will say that our hostel was really nice. HI all the way.

We had read that Saturday was sposed to yield high winds and heavy rain, and woke to something akin to that - but it stopped, thankfully, before we were done with breakfast, the sun peeked out, and the day turned balmy (relatively speaking, anyway). I bought an ice cream cone from a vending machine for 1.5 euro and was delighted to discover that it was even called "Extreme" (except with a circumflex over that second "e," because it was in French). We did a scenic walk up and down hillsides by crumbling castles and a rushing (if a little brown) river, and then headed out to Xtreme Destination #2, Vianden.

Vianden is Xtreme because a) Victor Hugo lived there for three months while he was in exile b) There is an Xtreme number of religious figurines tucked away in the surrounding forest c) it is Xtremely close to Germany (we actually walked to Germany, which I only know because my cell phone sent me a "Welkom in Duitsland" message) d) there is an Xtreme castle there. The castle was seriously wonderful, and the town was seriously charming. I was pretty entranced the whole time we were there. Pictures are up on Flickr. The castle was inhabited by William of Orange at one point. It is one of the best curated sites I've ever been to - most of it was open to the public, and there was lots of information in every room. They didn't babysit you through it at all though, which I appreciated. There was a room with pictures of everyone who's made official visits there - including but not limited to Patrick Swayze circa George and the Dragon, and Salvador Allende's wife the year after his assassination (one might wonder what she was doing in Luxembourg at that juncture). We spent a solid hour and a half, and I think we moved through it pretty quickly. You could easily spend hours (and I think even picnic) in the summer when it is warm and beautiful. There's not much to say about what we did in Vianden, except that we wandered very happily and I think we all preferred it to the capital. We were very Xtreme in that our hostel didn't open til 5, so we spent the whole afternoon lugging around all of our belongings. That includes Castle Tour, Town Walk, and Forest Walk To Germany. Once the hostel did open, we discovered that the sole employee did not speak or understand English or French. This barrier meant, ultimately, that we left 7 dollars more than we owed and split without saying goodbye (or officially checking out) in the morning. Before morning, though, was night, and some of the best (wood-oven) pizza and (elaborate) ice cream (sundae) I've ever had - not what I expected from a teeny pub in a teeny town in teeny Luxembourg, but very welcome.

Today was all train and bus, all day, and I'm glad to be back - I think I'm coming down with a little cold, and have a lot of work to do. But I was very taken with the Lux, amassed some pretty hilarious postcards of the royal family to send to friends and loved ones (these are cheesily posed and ubiquitous), and, if I can work out a way to have the money, am going to try to go back for a hiking weekend sometime when it is a little warmer.

On Wednesdays

2008-02-27T21:56:00.001+01:00

SANY0933
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

Wednesdays are the days when I invariably begin to think about the possibility of permanent expatriation. Wednesdays are also the days of Greenwoods With Christy, the social appetizer for Fun Hour With Letje. Today there were people doing capoeira in Dam Square and it made me so happy/envious. Also I bought some pretty things for pretty people in my life. I came home and rocked out to Basement Jaxx whilst cooking potatoes, apples, carrots, garlic (I have been doing lots of experiments in the frying pan as of late, and almost all of them have turned out well - this is a good sign, I think, that I might be becoming a more intuitive cook). I had lots to say when FHWL ended, but I am not focused right now, so I'll just mention that I'm going to Luxembourg for the weekend and I am pretty amped for that. Also in Fun Hour WIth Letje we did another exercise that I took to - we had to write down five directed questions that we want to explore in our projects. I am so excited for all of them - Christy is doing hers on alternative art spaces and Drew is doing his on his family's history in the Netherlands/the colonies, and Marc is doing his on water management here. So they are all very different, and all equally fascinating for a reflector such as myself. Anyway, for those of you who are curious about my project, which I have mostly been pretty vague about, here were my questions:
1) How are the spaces in which male prostitution occurs formal and informal, organized and disorganized, regulated and free?
2) How do grassroots organizations that work with male sex workers interact with government regulation?
3) Does the government perceive these organizations as troublesome, or as an added bonus?
4)How directly do grassroots organizations and government regulatory bodies access and shape spaces in which male prostitution occurs?
5) Are there frequent intersections of research and sex work advocacy in these organizations?

I am so so so so so so excited! And tomorrow I am buying a bike fo realz.

Late

2008-02-26T16:51:00.001+01:00

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.

La Belgique

2008-02-24T12:55:00.004+01:00

To be honest, I already forget a lot of what I thought and wanted to say about Brussels - that's what happens when you wait a day. Brussels is very stately and beautiful and left me not at all surprised that the EU is headquartered there. The weather was sort of crappy in a windy-and-cloudy way, and we took a hop-on hop-off bus around to all the major sites. This was a good idea that I do not regret, but the fact remains that all my pictures are gray and/or blurry due to the sky and the maniac driving of our bus guy - he was not into staying still so that tourists could snap pictures. Also a problem with sitting in the top of a double decker bus is that power lines get in the way of all your coolest pictures. Lame. We decided to embrace the fat that we were not in Amsterdam and act realll touristy - complete with moving in herds, excessive camera snappage, unabashedly speaking English to clerks*, purchasing things that say "Belgium" on them. Once I was in the tourist mindset, I felt compelled to buy things, which was dangerousss. Y'all are going to get some pretty sweet Belgian souvenirs - if you are lucky, some of the copious amounts of chocolates that I purchased (fun fact: I spent more on chocolate in Belgium than I spent on taking the bus to and from Belgium). We established a tradition of jumping in front of pretty things that we see - hence the photo above. There were lots of statues wearing face masks, I think in some sort of statement about pollution. See an example of this in the photos I posted on Flickr. There was some graffiti I loved, true to form, and a square where I was entranced by steeples and bright lights, and a street performer who contorted his body like whoa and had an awesome band (complete with French horn!) with him, and I spent close to an hour spying on and trying to videotape on my dinky camera the hijinks of some break dancers in the Gare Noord. The best thing about them, possibly, was that they were doing their thang to jazzy funk music and Sniper. I wish I had been brave and just gone up and asked them if I could tape them - that I was not means that all my stupid little videos have people walking fast in the forefront and fuzzy dancers in the far background. It's all very low rent and voyeuristic, but it's Brussels Captured, which is what I was going for. The Gare Noord is in sort of immigrant suburbia, I think, and it smells very strongly of urine and does not seem to have trash cans. All train stations are underwhelming after being in the vicinity of Amsterdam Centraal multiple times a day - not only is it majestic and beautiful, it is also clean and otherwise pretty pristine. It was cool hearing French spoken around me and being able to eavesdrop other things besides numbers (which is all I can eavesdrop in Dutch). I attempted to ask a guard for a map in French but started with the wrong construction, blushed, blanked, said "sorry" and rapidly got switched to English, much to my chagrin/relief. We saw the Mannekin Pis, which is tiny but ubiquitous. Dinner was the best 4 euros I have spent on a meal since I have been in Europe, I'm pretty sure - "Pitta Grecque," which is fries doner meat tzatziki tomato cucumber wrapped up in a pita. God, I am still thinking about that sandwich.

Anyway, yeah, I went to Belgium for the day - that is so surreal. Yesterday I spent hours buying cool postcards and walking and eating with Alex and Christy. I also mourned Heath Ledger and had what may be the best grilled cheese sandwich of my life. It set off Hallie and Christy's fire alarm and I felt bad, but it was sooooo worth it. At night cooked a good dinner representative of at least 4 food groups, downed some traditional Dutch dessert that I remain skeptical about (vla - it is kinda like flavorless watery pudding), had some good times chatting into the wee hours with friends + compatriots. Now come Sunday and Monday of Xtreme Homework - I have so so much to do.

*Sidenote - curiously, I heard more English in Brussels than I do in Amsterdam. Bizzare.

Perfect Day

2008-02-20T23:39:00.002+01:00

SANY0786
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

Disclaimer : This entry is going to be epic. Today was amazing. Not only was it amazing, but my perceptive and contemplative faculties have been in overdrive.

The best way to start a perfect day is a perfect night before. Christy and I wanted to go out but no one else did. Hallie was gracious enough to let me borrow her bike and so the city became our playground. We went to a bar/coffeeshop in Leidseplein that I had also visited with Whitney. A brief note on Dutch entertainment terminology for current and future reference. if something is called a coffeshop, it may or may not serve coffee, but definitely serves marijuana. A very few of these also have liquor licenses - it's hard for an establishment to get both a hash and a liquor license. If something is called a "cafe," it is what we Americans might consider a coffeeshop by day, and what we might consider a tiny bar by night. This place is called De Rokerij and is very small and gezellig, with couches and footstools and votive candles in bright holders, expensive beer in giant steins, hash lovers of all ages and races, a doorman who won't allow you to walk in with yo hood up (did he think I was part of a gang?), friendly bartenders, threadbare Tibetan tapestries on the wall. I was skeptical about biking, but figured nighttime, with no traffic, was a good time to take this most crucial baby step towards being a true Amsterdam resident. So off we went, and it was pretty great. We got to Leidseplein without traffic or incident, locked up our bikes, and sat on footstools amongst potheads for two hours, nursing our expensive beer and chatting. One of my favorite things about coffeeshops here is that you can be in them and be smoking or not, and be completely comfortable either way. I cried a little inside when I realized that we could have bought 3 bottles of Albert Heijn wine for the price of our two beers. It was lovely, though. We got Frites Special (fries with curry ketchup, mayo, and onion) at the Febo (a low-rent fried food automat - you look at food in tiny windows, put in some change, and take it out - but fancy Febos also have counters, which is where we nabbed the fries). Biking, coffeeshop, frites is pretty much the most stereotypically Amsterdam Tuesday night one can have. On the way back I ran into some difficulty - namely that the brakes were the backpedal sort and while they were good for stopping, they were not so good for starting again. I am skeptical about my ability to deal with this in traffic, seeing how faltering I was in its absence. Learning by doing, I guess.

And now, for the perfect day. The perfect day starts with the discovery of a coffee machine in the canteen of the ISHSS (the school building where I am most frequently to be found). This is no normal coffee machine. It sells approximately 16 types of coffee, tea, and hot chocolate, all of them delectable, in tiny plastic cups. It sets you back 50 eurocent a pop, which is not bad at all. I had two cups of hot chocolate "de lux" for good measure. All my Euro coins will be going to this dispenser, from now on. Next was the finalizing of our plans to take the bus to Brussels for the day on Friday (less grand a Belgian Journey than we had initially planned, but ultimately more economical and probably just as much fun). Plus I have learned by eavesdropping that everyone and their brother is going to Belgium this weekend. En serio, many many many foreign students will be running around Belgique.

There was a lecture on plagiarism and academic integrity, which was not in itself amazing. My mind wandered, though, to the European academic system, where it stayed happily for some time. School is taken so seriously here - there is not this culture of going to college to find yourself, or to play, or to figure out what you want to do, that I am so used to being in the midst of, even at my baby liberal arts college. Foibles are allowed in European higher education, but basically only to refine your already-formed plans for the future. What I have been throwing myself into full-force for the past two years qualifies as an "academic career" here - something to be proud of and revered, and also something terrible to risk (by plagiarizing). The institutionally sustained possibilities for specialization within a field in this country are mind-blowing for me. For example, the TA in my Masculinity and Migration class is getting his Masters in what boils down to a study of Intersex Political Movements - one of my specific interests within the very broad field of WGSS, Feminist and Queer Studies, and one of the most understudied at that. There are also things that I find off-putting about the way academia works over here - a certain self-importance that can't really be shaken at 400 year old institutions, what I find to be an overly empirical and professional approach to fields best addressed by intersections of activism and academia. Nonetheless, I think my Masculinity class is the best gender studies experience I've had yet, and that's saying something, considering my boundless love for all things WGSS. I would seriously consider coming to Europe for grad work, a Masters or a PhD.

The next perfect thing about my day was that I worked the transport system and my feet from the ISHSS to Centraal to the Plantage to the Bushuis library to the language building WITHOUT GETTING LOST ONCE. What's more, I only had to whip out my map to confirm where I was going TWICE! At the library, I found 5 books about male prostitution, including a Masters thesis written at the UvA in 1995 about prostitution and condom use in Amsterdam - this is going to be an invaluable resource for my field work, partly because of the extensive demographic information it offers and partly because of all the ideas for organizations and people to talk to it's giving me. Pleased with my finds and navigational skills, I made my way to PC Hoofthuis and sat in the lounge eating my peanut butter and banana sandwich (sidenote: Dutch peanut butter is called Pindakaas, and it is AMAAAAZZING - I would say Once Again is the closest thing I've had to it in the US) and reading/taking notes on male prostitution BECAUSE I WANTED TO, NOT BECAUSE I HAD TO, for two hours. During this time, a Dutch person ASKED ME WHAT TIME IT WAS IN DUTCH, AND I ANSWERED THEM CORRECTLY IN DUTCH! By now the day was well on its way to perfect, and I was well on my way to giddy. Christy and I had decided to try to locate a gezellig cafe to visit regularly in the vicinity of class, and so we wandered down Spuistraat and then the Singel looking for one. What we found was Greenwood's, a tiny cafe with WONDERFUL TEA, charming wooden tables, lemon meringue pie and all day breakfast, all cheap to boot! It also had an English language weekly alternative newspaper/events calendar which we pored over in excitement, and friendly/hilarious waitstaff. It unfortunately closes at 5, and so we had to leave a little prematurely. Our waiter was very concerned about this (it is considered un-gezellig to bring a table the check before they ask for it, even if there are 8 of them and they sit in your establishment for 6 hours and do not buy anything but one bottle of water to share), and when we told him it was fine because we had to go to class anyway, he was very relieved - "Oh good!" he said, perking up, "We are not ashamed then, we are not feeling guilty..." As I stacked up Euro coins to pay the bill, he turned to his coworker and laughed - "Look Avi!" he said, "Here we have a tower!" Christy and I definitely want to become regulars at this place. Hopefully it does not always close at 5, although I have never before been so charmingly booted out, and would gladly repeat the experience.

Then came our Field Experience class, which might as well be called Making Your Dreams Reality With Letje. I literally spend all week, and certainly Mondays and Tuesdays and the beginnings of Wednesdays, being excited about this class. Not to mention my project itself. Letje is our professor and I would like to be her one day. She is quirkily high fashion, warm, tall (all Dutch women are tall), and genuinely interested in making all of our projects realities. Today we did an extremely helpful exercise where we free-wrote about different approaches we were thinking about, shared with a partner, and then had them monitor our reactions as we explained ourselves, and tell us which we were most excited about. Then we made mind maps of brainstorms of different questions/worries/ideas/logistics/hopes/fears/possibilities/expectations. This all sounds cheesy, and was, but it was also unbelieveably helpful. I am so thrilled about my project - I'll spare you the details right now, but I am going to be investigating the naissance, functions, and internal politics of grassroots organizations that work directly with male prostitutes. I am so excited that I am taking notes on everything I think and see and read, and making a more professional mind map to put on my wall, like a storyboard, so I can constantly plan and add to it and refine it. Wowza! Here I am, out in the field, studying things that I love! In a city that I am becoming more and more attached to each day.

This love for Amsterdam hit me as I was walking back from my Perfect Day up the Damrak (the most tourist-ridden strip in the city) - past Francophone tourists having their picture taken in front of a KFC housed in a 17th century building, past a Rasta with beautiful dreads down to his waist blowing into the largest digeridoo I've ever seen, past a mother teaching her small daughter how to ride in the bike lane.
Everyone should come here and see this place. I never want to leave.

J'Sais

2008-02-18T17:59:00.003+01:00

I know, I know, it's been a while. Not much of import has happened. Well, that's not entirely true. This weekend I went to see a castle!

It was pretty small as far as castles go, and the tour was in Dutch so we didn't understand anything. It was very picturesque though - note, also, the moon in the corner of this photo. Muiden is what you would expect if you were expecting a quaint Dutch village - windy streets, locals at cafes with children and dogs, tiny bikes locked next to canals. Castles!

My Dutch is getting better though. I know how to piece together half phrases that come in handy in cafes, bars, and supermarkets. For example, today Freek (my professor) asked me
"Wat eet je bij de ontbijt?" (what did you eat for breakfast?) and I responded with something that translates to
"I eat a loaf with the Nutella."
"With the Nutella? What do you drink?"
"Um...I drink the milk."
"Cold milk or warm milk?"
"Old milk?"(the words for "cold" and "old" also rhyme in Nederlands)
"Old milk?"
"Um...cold milk."
"Do you eat fruit?"
"Apple!"

It's a slow process, but today I was excited because I was able to eavesdrop on people riding the bus - only people who were talking about time, though.

Wednesday I am buying a bike so we don't have to improvise when we go out anymore.

On Pretending to be Dutch

2008-02-13T16:26:00.001+01:00

Steps in this direction include:
-saying thank you in Dutch
-ordering beer in Dutch (this is the only thing I know how to order, thanks a lot Freek Bakker!)
-wearing leather and walking fast

Things that still need some work:
-riding a bike
-riding sidesaddle on the back of someone else's bike

#1 will have to wait until march 5th, when my 38 euro bus pass runs out.
#2 will have to wait until we all have a little more practice - as it stands right now, i can engage in this activity for approximately 15 seconds, before tumbling slowly into oncoming traffic. sometimes it is mindboggling to me that this is a helmet-free culture. you see dutch people whizzing around two or three to a bike all the time, in their stylish designer boots, like it's no problem.

Goedenmiddag!

2008-02-10T20:37:00.001+01:00

SANY0752
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

I was in Vondelpark to see Twelve Angry Men at the Filmmuseum for one of my classes. The Filmmuseum is this beautiful old building with a huge collection of old movies that they play in rotation - right now they are also playing Adam's Rib, and I don't know what else. You have to wander through the park for awhile to get there, including a circle of highly accomplished rollerbladers doing tricks and blasting reggae, and then (if it is a beautiful day like it was today, and maybe even if it is not) you see this old marble structure covered in people sitting and laughing and eating and drinking and smoking and talking. I gave myself an extra hour to get there because I was taking a new tram route (this is why I am chronically early, in case anyone was wondering), and so I had a solid forty minutes of sitting and writing in the park and watching all the Amsterdammers playing in the sun before I headed to the movie. At some point this group of young Dutch people walked past me with a soccer ball and this girl was looking at me intently and smiling, and then I looked over my shoulder and noticed this guy crouching there reading what I was writing! And I looked pretty shocked, I bet, and he flashed a big smile at me and gave a thumbs up and said "Good!" and then he ran away. Bullshit, Dutch people aren't friendly. He was lying to me, though, what I was writing wasn't good at all. It was no more and no less than a ramble about what I was seeing, which was mostly bikes and dogs.

The morning I spent in the ultra-modern, ultra-hip Bibliotheek (the new public library) on Oosterdokskade, writing a reflection about "crossing the first threshold" on my "hero's journey" as a study abroad student, eating chic cafe food in the chic rooftop cafe with Hallie and Christy, tricking the cashier into thinking I spoke Dutch (this is the first success I have had in such a venture) and failing to access the wireless. In theory, I am sort of opposed to hypermodern minimalist libraries (mostly just because I associate age and wood and dust with books). In reality, I would like to live in (this) one. Check it out at http://www.oba.nl.

Bird Attack

2008-02-09T15:52:00.001+01:00

SANY0739
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

Whitney came to visit and we walked everywhere - home from school, down to Leidseplein (a popular nightlife area in the south center of the city), back from Leidseplein, to Waterlooplein (a flea market where I bought some really cool, really comfortable boots that I can wear everywhere!), to the Bloemenmarket (flower market), to the UvA library, to the Red Light District, through the Jordaan (where we hung out by the Homo Monument and got Indonesian 2 Go, and where I had the best milkshake of my life in a coffeeshop). I have eaten more sprinkles/butter/chocolate on bread in the last two days than anyone should ever eat in their life, probably. It was so good to see Whitney though, even so briefly.

So, let me tell you the story of this bird. It was our dream to eat Indonesian food, and another dream to eat on a bench by a canal. We found an Indonesian 2 Go restaurant and so packed off to the nearest bench on Prinsengracht with our food. First, we noticed a bird like this (a heron? birdwatchers among the audience, please share your wisdom) sitting on a car across the canal from us, and had a conversation about how we thought it was so cool that it was so brave in the midst of all the human activity. Then it looked at us, and flew over. Then it spent a long time looking at our food. Then four more swooped down. Some of them fought with each other, and I stood up and huddled with my food in a corner, while Whitney sat frozen in fear to the bench. Then an old guy showed up and started tossing what looked like dead baby ducks at them, for them to eat. That took the focus off of us for long enough that we could get away unscathed. And probably, what happened was just that this guy always feeds the birds there and we happened to choose his turf to eat our Indonesian food. In any case it was a big ruckus, and a little scary. I have seen The Birds. I am wary.

We were also part of a few other ruckuses during Whitney's stay: the first night, we witnessed a high speed chase! (man on foot, police in car). Yesterday morning, we were swarmed by rowdy schoolchildren on the tram! And yesterday afternoon, the birds! We also contrived to be part of a perceived ruckus at a bar/disco called "Pirates" (see Flickr for the garish sign), but in reality that ruckus was just the sound of a poor DJ interspersing girly Latin techno with the sweet sounds of Will Smith circa 1995 and JOHN DENVER circa 1971. Not the way to get the club hoppin'. So just three ruckuses, ultimately, for us.

How Many Licks Does It Take To Get To the Center of Your Universe?

2008-02-07T15:27:00.000+01:00

Listening to American hip hop and getting lost among old European streets and canals, I felt my first ever serious pang for Saint Paul (as a city), which, fascinatingly enough, coincided exactly with my first ever joyful pang of wandering this city. I was pleasantly roaming city center for about two hours - I had no idea where I was or where I was going, but that wound up being OK. Suddenly the Night Watch came out of nowhere, and then I was on Rokin and Centraal Station was looming in the distance. I feel safe being lost here, if that makes sense. Something about the small, and the fact that I carry a map everywhere, and the fact that Dutch people are without exception helpful when they see me whipping it out. Dutch people are kinda great. They're very blunt but very hilarious, and kind. These are all stereotypes, that have thus far been supported by my week here.

I bought some apple/pear/rasberry nectar and some of that cumin cheese that we all love (I can't figure out what it's called). And I understood what the cashier said when she said twaalf euro! And I did my Dutch homework in an austere computer lab with seven locked doors and one (hidden) open door.
Today is the kind of day where music hits me hard.
Whitney tonight - stepping back into the friend comfort bubble, whatever that is - the ability to talk about important things with ease and sometimes be silent? The ability to wander without worrying? Whatever it is, I'm glad.

Prins Hendrikkade, Centraal, Damrak, Kalverstraat, Spui

2008-02-05T19:07:00.000+01:00

So, today I had two more classes - one on Masculinity and Migration which I am SUPER EXCITED for, and one on Regulating Religious and Cultural Diversity in the Netherlands which I am slightly less super excited for, just because it's not my field - but I am still pretty amped. It is nice to have classes with non-IES kids (although there are also boatloads of IES kids in my classes, and that is nice too). But today I met an Australian boy and a French girl and some other interesting people who are not from the Netherlands or America. My masculinity professor is kinda hilarious - he spent a while talking to us about how he was "very taken with lady hats." Intellectually, too, I'm really pumped to take a class in masculinity studies. We are supposed to do and incorporate 1300-1600 pages of independent academic reading in addition to the two books on the syllabus, and so I am hoping that I'll get to do a lot of reading that I can connect back to my independent study and my general academic background. Matthias will also be a good contact, I think, for my independent project - he was very interested in the little bit I explained during our introductions today, and he's spent a lot of time working as a parliamentary assistant in sexual policy here. Maybe I can interview him. I'm just not sure if it's done here or not, to use professors as connections. I will try to feel that out.

I wandered around in the rain for a long time, looking for a black sweatshirt and reasonably priced rainboots, and finding neither - I was in the touristy commercial center, though, so I'm sure reasonable prices can be found elsewhere. I also got my Dutch book at a store called Athenaeum - it's a student bookshop, but it made me homesick for Talking Leaves. There were lots of levels with staircases between them and little nooks full of books and students everywhere browsing and reading. A man approached me on the Spui as I left. "Excuse me," he said, "and started to walk with me with an ease that took me aback, "I have a proposition for you. My name is Matthew and I will recite a poem for you. I am a wanderer. If you like this poem, perhaps you can give me a small donation because this is Amsterdam and - are you a poet?" (I nod yes)- "I thought so - we poets, it is good to expand our consciousness, if you give me this donation I will go to a coffeeshop to enjoy myself and write more poems to recite to you. And if you don't like the poem, it's free and you don't have to give me anything. Do you agree to this attempt?" I considered and nodded. Then he recited a pretty decent poem - mostly, though, I was impressed with his cadence. He had a very light Dutch or South African lilt and a very good grasp of dynamics. I don't remember any of it except something about tripping in Switzerland. So there we were, walking in the rain, and he finished and stood expectantly. "Very nice," I said. "Was it worth a small donation? Perhaps ten cents?" Certainly, I said, and rummaged around - but the only coin I had was a 2 euro, which is quite a lot to be giving away. But, in the spirit of supporting a fellow poet - "Here," I said, and pressed it into his palm. He looked at it and shook his head in wonder. "This, miss," he said, "this is amazing," and he pulled off his hood. "Look at my face - if you are again walking these streets and see the man with this face, know that he will recite for you always for free." And then he went on his merry way, and I went back to my apartment to eat potatoes and dry my shoes and pants.

This is Amsterdam

2008-02-04T21:19:00.001+01:00

SANY0706
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

A lot has happened over the past few days. I've been pretty overwhelmed, to be honest - my flight in was the roughest I've ever had, I was late for orientation, it is bitterly cold and windy and rainy here, and I had to endure the 48 hours of forced togetherness with 45 other people that is orientation.

But things are settling more now. I haven't been taking nearly as many pictures as I should be, but that will change soon - I'm getting into the groove now. This photo was taken out the top of a canal boat that the whole group went on on Friday afternoon - it was really gorgeous, as you might imagine. I didn't have a picture of Amsterdam in my head before coming here, but it's a cross between how I imagine Vienna and how I imagine Venice. That is, lots of ornate old buildings set close together around cobblestone streets and canals.

I'm living, by contrast, in an ultramodern, Ikea styled and furnished high rise in a quiet part of town east of the center city. It's close to everything, though. I have a ten minute bus ride to Centraal Station, which is right at the top of the city in the very center, and it only takes about 45 minutes to walk from end to end. It is nice to be in such a compact place. The apartment is just one room plus a bathroom, but it's incredibly spacious. I'm living with a girl from Miami.

Today I had my first class of the semester, which is Dutch. I learned how to say "Goedenmiddag! Mijn voornam is Sarah." I also learned how to say "I am from the United States." and "I live in Amsterdam," but I have forgotten how to say those things already. I really like language classes. This is going to be intense, but I am really excited to not be a total idiot when people try to speak to me in Dutch. I have been having a hard time overcoming my American guilt, here, because I have to speak English everywhere I go (because I don't know enough Dutch to avoid it). The next few days are more class and getting things sorted with immigration, and then Whitney is going to be here on Thursday and Friday nights, so I'm excited to see her!

Orientation has been crazy, and I'm exhausted. But I am starting to make some friends, and settle in more, and soon I will have more stories and more pictures. French fries here ARE amazing (with mayonnaise). There are these caramel-wafer cookies called stroepwaffels that I am addicted to. The city, when you first glance at a map, looks nothing short of unnavigable - but it's an illusion.
Love to everyone.

Brizzle

2008-02-04T20:45:00.001+01:00

SANY0629
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

Bristol was a very different kind of visit from my previous two. First, because Hayley and I had two years of our lives to catch up on. Second, because Hayley has been living in Bristol for a long time now. Third, because there aren't a lot of wondrous things in Bristol - I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. It reminded me of Buffalo in ways - it's a smaller city, lots of class divisions.

It was wonderful to see Hayley. I stepped off the bus exhausted, dirty, and surprisingly famished (my appetite disappeared entirely in Dublin and Barcelona - since Bristol, where I was force-fed delicious things at every moment, it has been raging), and she gave me a big hug and took me home, put me in the shower, lent me slippers, took me out to dinner, made me hot chocolate, made me go to bed early. We did a lot of walking and talking, as one might expect. More than that, even, a lot of sitting in our pajamas and talking. I sat in on one of her lectures (Thomas Wyatt, what what!), and bought a beautiful pair of dark teal boots. We ate toasted tea cakes and I drank more hot chocolate than I've ever had in a four day period, ever. And ultimately, because of all this, and because Hayley is so wonderful, I will forever associate Britain with comfort.

The tragedy of this trip was mainly that I lost all of my beautiful pictures of the cathedral and downtown Bristol with a mis-press of a button. I have never been inside a cathedral before, and Bristol's was built by Henry VIII. It's not the Sagrada Familia, but it made my jaw drop in its own very old, very traditional way. When we went to see the Sagrada, late in the night on my last night in Barcelona, Andrew said "Now this, THIS is for Jesus." Bristol Cathedral made me feel that way too. It's amazing, the things that people produce for God.

Despite the loss of those photos, I did manage to take a lot of surrealistic night vision shots in the clubs we went to - the first for the birthday of a friend of Hayley's, and the second to get some time to ourselves out of the house (and to dance). I am fascinated with the effect that my camera has in dark spaces - maybe this is just the hipster in me, liking the fact that I can make reality seem abstract. Ha. In any case, they were good nights. I discovered, to my great interest, that I can dance better than the majority of British people. Or at least, better than the majority of Bristol club-goers. In America I am just an OK dancer, but in Bristol I am queen of the dance floor.

The second night we went out to a club with a much older, much more mellow crowd, and had something approximating a dance-off and then a lesson with the most talented dancer in the club, who spotted Hayley and I moving with a little more rhythm than the majority and took us under his wing. I was excited and proud that he wanted to trade moves with us - it reminded me of Rize and other clips I've seen from the communal street dance life. (See Rize, if you haven't - it's incredible.) I love this stuff - dancing, certainly, absolutely, more and more the more that I do it and the better I get at it. Loud music, certainly. Blurry night vision shots, certainly. There is something about these temporary communities built around a love of music and an exploration of what bodies are capable of, alone and in concert with other bodies, that is so satisfying to me.

Another thing that I noticed was that there are a lot of people who look like me in Britain. I wonder why that would be? (That is a mock question - I know why. But still, it was really trippy to be amongst the people who could most closely be approximated as "my people" for a few days.)

Deu, Guapo!

2008-02-04T19:25:00.001+01:00

SANY0566
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

So, I've dropped the blog ball in the chaos of the past while, but I'm picking it back up. Thus begins a stream of catch-up entries.

A little more about Barcelona before I lose my memories of those mild, sunny days to the bitter Northern European winds.

Anyone who knows me knows how easily I get emotionally tied to places and spaces - either immediately, or begrudgingly. Being in Barcelona was an instant arrow to the heart, probably exacerbated by the fact that Andrew is a kindred spirit in this sense - we are always waxing poetic about our home cities, and other cities. He fell in love with Barcelona, and it follows that wandering with such a smitten guide I would fall under its spell as well.

Since I started this journey, I've talked to a lot of people who don't like Barcelona or have heard bad things about it - people who think it's dirty and vice-driven, people who hate Catalan, people who are overwhelmed by the nightlife.

All of these complaints have their places. Remember, those of you who were with me then, how I got coated in a thin layer of grime when we were in Montreal? That happened in Barcelona too, and without sunscreen to blame. It took at least four days after I left and three scrub-intensive showers to return to my normal shade of not-grey. I think maybe that's why so many people wear black there (besides the fact that it's incredibly stylish). I also felt totally at a loss not speaking any Spanish or Catalan, and like an idiot for relying on Andrew to act as interlocutor between me and the man in the falafel shop, me and the man at the bus station, me and anyone else. I don't do well with that kind of dependency.

And as for the nightlife, well, it's something else. This photo was taken on Las Ramblas at around 2:30 am - Catalunyans go out late (midnight) and come home late (or early in the morning, depending on how you'd rather think about it). There are tiny stylish bars everywhere you wander, especially in the Barri Gothica. Walking down Las Ramblas at night you have to dodge crowds of merrymakers, prostitutes who will grab your genitalia if you're a man alone or with other men (Andrew and Ben didn't get hassled when I was walking with them, but do usually), and, about every fifty feet, a man selling 1 euro street beer and whatever else he has - they mutter as you walk past, "cervesa-hash-coke?" It's not a city for the easily shocked.

That said, I loved all of it - there is so much of the human comedy to observe every way you spin. Visiting, and, I imagine, living there, is something like constantly being in the midst of a "choose-your-own-ending" novel. This is one of the most undeniably alive places I've ever been to, New York and Chicago and Austin during SXSW being the only cities that even come close in terms of their respective heart-rates.

How could you not love a city where there is something beautiful to look at everywhere you turn? Tiny parks, dazzling mosaic Modernist fish, the man with the accordion in the corner of the Metro, the mountain to your back and the sea to your front, the crumbling castle that you drink under in the Barri Gothica, the fashion-plate black-leather black-sunglasses dark-haired punky women and dreadlocked men who will surely be aloof and pushing past you on the street, lying on the grass with a guitar and a book and a bottle of beer in the Parc de la Ciutadella, stumbling home singing songs in the Metro. In Barcelona, there is art (in the broadest, most inclusive, most abstract sense of the word) everywhere and anywhere you seek to find it - I've never gotten such a rush from the aesthetic of a place before. I wonder if people who live there feel like they need to step up their look a notch in order to match their gorgeous surroundings? I felt like that, while I was there. Although apparently people on the subway were talking about me and "how British people dress," so I wasn't up to the challenge. In transit, I often play the game of who-would-I-like-to-know, who-can-I-imagine-in-my-life - in Barcelona, 85% of the people I saw fit this bill.

I got called "guapa" by a sweet old Jehovah's witness who cornered me in a park and tried to convert me through and despite the language barrier. I could understand her but couldn't answer back. I found myself trying to speak French.

She asked me where I was from - "Je suis de New York." "Do you know Brooklyn?" "Oui, oui." "Our big church is there - have you seen it?" "Oui." Maybe it's because they're romance languages, maybe it's because the part of me that is "Other," foreigner, struggler, idiot, lost, is by default French. A friend walking a dog approached her and asked what she was doing. "I'm trying to tell her about Jehovah." "She doesn't understand much, though." "No, no, she doesn't understand much, but Jehovah loves us all. Here, I'll walk with you.It's a beautiful afternoon." "Gracia, guapa." "Guapa" or "guapo" translates to something akin to "hot stuff," but here it's friendly, not an innuendo.

In Barcelona, you can order something called "spaghetti" that is actually noodles, doner meat, and hot sauce at the "American Snack Bar" (run by Pakistanis). In Barcelona, you can climb an escalator in broad daylight. In Barcelona, you can take a cable car above the harbor and up the mountain USING YOUR METROCARD. I could go on and on and on, but I won't, because we've got other fish to fry - suffice it to say, I'll be back, I hope for much longer, I hope with some Spanish under my belt, I hope with some more money in my pocket.

Catalunya

2008-01-29T14:25:00.001+01:00

SANY0512
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

No time to really write right now, but I have a lot to say about Barcelona. For now, I will just say this - it is by far the most beautiful place I have ever been. This is one of many views from Parc Guell, which Gaudi designed and lived in - Andrew and I spent a few hours wandering around this place and becoming increasingly awed by the variety of beauty that is tucked away in different corners of the park. He goes to school basically around the corner but had never explored before. One day, when my education has failed me and I decide to become a starving artist, I would like nothing better than to be scraping by in this amazing city. Maybe being a bum in this amazing park. More details later. Love you all.
xxx

Look Left, Look Right

2008-01-23T13:24:00.000+01:00

All the intersections here have that written on the appropriate side of the street. Curiously, even though it is in big letters right in front of my face, I have to frantically look both ways every time because I am confused about other-side-of-the-road driving.

Dublin is small and friendly. The first day I was here we went to a co-op with some of Whitney's friends, and walked everywhere and went grocery shopping (there are a lot of things to be fascinated with in foreign supermarkets). The Irish, bless them, have a plastic bag tax, and most people bring their own bags out shopping. I keep forgetting and thus have been caught almost every day wandering Dublin with something ridiculous in my arms - yesterday coconut biscuits and laughing cow "cheez dippers," the day before "coffee milk" and chutney flavored "crisps." Man, does this country know how to do potato chips. And pastries. Yesterday we had something called "flapjacks" which are sort of like very peanut-buttery and delicious chunks of granola bar. I've also had a few notable jam donuts.

Sunday and Monday we spent parts of the day wandering Dublin and parts of the day on the train and in parts of the countryside - Sunday we went to Howth, which is a very charming seaside town. We did a cliff hike, it was beautiful and muddy, and I'll post pictures of everything on my Flickr once I locate my camera cord, which I seem to have misplaced (hopefully in my disorganized luggage, and not in Saint Paul). I ate fish and chips and had a pint of Guinness in a pub as it rained and we chatted and watched people walk along harbor wall hand in hand twirling their umbrellas. We bought fudge and saw a seal and then came back to Dublin and walked some more. My rain jacket has served me well. I can't get over how warm it is here. The sky doesn't look that extraordinary most of the time, to the naked eye, but it has been coming out wild and sassy in my photos, without exception. I'm not complaining - a crazy sky can make an otherwise banal picture incredible.

Monday we went to Newgrange, which required hopping a commuter train to Drogheda, an outer-ring suburb, and then a bus to the Visitor Center and then another bus to the monument. It was sort of an inhospitable day (cold and windy) to be roaming the countryside, and it took us a bazillion hours and euros to get there, but it was definitely worth it. Newgrange is a Neolithic mound-style tomb, older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Giza, and the burial chamber is lit for 17 minutes on six mornings including and surrounding the winter solstice. Some of the stonework is incredible. What struck me the most was that the site has been protected since 1880, but the guides talk about visitors who made their mark on the site prior to that as "graffiti artists" and "vandals." History is conceptualized very differently over here. We would probably consider 19th century graffiti cool and historic on an American monument.

Yesterday was Phoenix Park, which is the largest urban park in the world, and beautiful and enormous, but surprisingly not particularly pedestrian friendly (meaning there was a lot of chaotic thru traffic). Irish drivers are maniacs, and don't seem to care about the repercussions of running over pedestrians. Maybe there aren't any? It seems odd that there is this constant war being waged between equally fierce drivers and walkers, when most people don't have cars in the city anyways. We tried to go to Kilmainham Gaol, which is a beautiful jail that now uses its museum as a springboard for anti-capital-punishment propaganda, but we didn't have time to take a tour, so we just poked around the museum. The Irish Museum of Modern Art, which has beautiful grounds and looks like (is?) a castle, is adjacent, but we didn't make it there either. Toured the Guinness storehouse in the afternoon, the floor dedicated to advertising was in particular fascinating. You can watch every Guinness TV spot since the 1950s. Also,I had no idea that the Guinness Book of World Records was affiliated with Guinness the drink, but there you have it. On the top floor you receive a free pint and there are floor to ceiling windows on every wall of the circular room, so you get a panoramic view of Dublin - it was amazing. I wish I could have taken a panoramic photo, but of course there were lots of people standing in front of every part of the window. I sat in on Whitney's lecture on Postcolonialism - it made me very glad that I go to a small and discussion-oriented school. Then we went back to her friend Emma's flat (all the flats here have tiny balconies that you can crawl out to through the windows), and made ratatouille and drank mint tea and I did the dishes and Emma read aloud to us from Heart of Darkness. It was all very charming and domectic and made me want very badly to settle into a house and not be traveling (even though I love traveling). This morning was full Irish breakfast (minus the black and white pudding, which is kind of integral, but I am a wimp sometimes) and now I have to lose ten pounds out of my pack and head off to Andrew, and Barcelona. I am excited for even warmer weather and perhaps some sunshine, but sad to leave Whitney. It would be nice to live here. Maybe funds will permit me to come back sometime.

Anywho, I hate travel updates, I feel like it's hard to create a meaningful narrative when everything you do is an event and a point of interest in and of itself, but maybe soon I will have some more time to spend and can insert all of my reflections as well. I've been thinking a lot about class here, which isn't unusual for me, but there are very different race and class dynamics and it's much more difficult to locate myself within them. Also I've been thinking a lot about foreignness. I'll update again in a few days. Love/miss you all.

L'Aeroporte, Day II

2008-01-18T21:25:00.000+01:00

A day of what could be stress, and has instead been mostly enjoyable. Being in hotels is strange, since I worked in Glacier. I feel a responsibility to do things a certain way because I know what is easy or hard or irritating or amusing for staff. I felt bad for checking out at noon because I knew it meant my housekeeper would have to consciously organize her route through her rooms that much more. I was careful not to muss the extra bed and to strip the one I slept in and make a separate pile for the towels I used in case they do them separately. I left a tip even though I only stayed for one night, and a note about how prettily the towels were folded. Some of this is probably a little ridiculous, but there you have it. Housekeeper empathy.

I was maybe going to go into Chicago because I have so much time, but I decided to roam O’Hare instead. The flaneur in me swells in airports. I like to be alone. I like to be in the midst of big incongruous swarms of people. I like the particular sort of acting that being in an airport invites, at least for me – the opportunity to invent a new self entirely out of mannerisms and visual cues, who you make eye contact with and how quickly you look away, how you thank the people who give you your bottled water or direct you to the nearest outlet, how you say excuse me, if you bump into people, how quickly you walk, how much you let what is happening in your headphones intrude on what is happening in other people’s ranges of hearing. These are welcome opportunities.

All I’ve ever wanted, really, is to be perceived as competent – in a weary way or a graceful way, because I have to be or because it is my nature to put others at ease – really any of these ways would do. Airports are so interesting to me because there are so many stories to be invented in them. Are you coming or going. What is a woman with ugly sweatpants like that going to do in Buenos Aires. What is a woman with a shock of pink hair like that going to do in Grand Rapids. Examining the leans and sighs and sips of water, the way of shuffling through the bag, of the people around me drives me to play this game. If I am sitting here trying to figure everyone else out, someone else must be watching me as curiously, and so we will give them a show – hold the books in one hand and the water crooked under the arm while walking, sit down in one fell swoop, cross legs. Look up and around as if the wing of the nearby plane is very interesting, once in a while. Make a ponytail without adjusting. Pretend to text message. Smile slightly from time to time as the pages of the book are turned. Curl legs underneath to show comfort with surroundings. When walking, move fast and touch shoulder strap frequently. Wend in a way that implies urgency, duck and weave. Do not say excuse me. Two days straight of airport routine have brought some new additions to the playbook. Sit on the floor even if there are seats available. When getting up to look at the monitor, leave the bag behind but take the wallet and the ipod and the passport. After ten pm, meander instead of booking it. When buying a book, take time paging through the wallet for the right change, evaluating both bills and cards.

The nice thing about these impressions is that they won’t ever lead anywhere. They’re just leaving little fingerprints on the consciousnesses of the multitudes, really. Everyone is curious in an airport, but no one is sizing anything up that will travel with them all the way to their destination, maybe not even onto the airplane. I haven’t been gathering what sort of fingerprints I am leaving, and that’s ok. That’s part of the fun of it, really. This is the same game I played as a little girl in the bookstore, wrapping myself around my father’s legs whenever he was talking to someone graying and handsome about something academic. It is the same game I slip into at bigger parties, moving often from room to room, sipping from my cup long after it is empty and holding it just so, winding my way to the back porch to be with the smokers, even though I am not a smoker. It’s the reason I walk fast and with head down on paths at school, and why I don’t cross at the light even when I need to cross both Grand and Snelling.

I wonder if everyone does this, or some version of it? When I first started, when I was very small, it was because I wanted to create visual scenes that would make good photos or stand out as seemingly random ambient memories. Later, because I wanted to create cinema, to move like Audrey Hepburn, and perhaps to someday rope in a man like William Holden with nothing but my way of reading and gripping a cup, and when he struck up a conversation, my aloofness and naivete. I don’t so much have a goal anymore. It’s just habit when I’m in the middle of a crowd, or when I’m in a place that doesn’t belong to me. I am trying to create someone who can claim the train platform, the concourse, with either her fierce traveler’s alacrity or the tired sense of having been in this spot many times before.

To simultaneously claim and have no basis for claim is a beautiful thing. I am drawn, visually, to the people who practice it. I like to think that other people are doing this too, contemplating each other’s jeans and assured ways of brushing hair out of their eyes, wondering if they are going home or visiting a friend and what it means that you are calm even though it is late, and everyone is missing their connecting flights. I like especially when I catch strangers contemplating each other. There are people who you have the urge to grab and hold so that the freneticism will leach out of them and people who make you feel tranquil, just by looking at them.

Despite the fact that I play this game, despite the fact that it is by nature a series of calculations, the calm I’ve found as I’ve settled more into myself and life and the Cities means that it’s a lot less panicky and driven than it used to be. The hyperlens I direct at other people and the hyperlens I direct at myself through other people’s eyes has subsided some, which is not to say it’s subsided to a respectable level. Right the very second the lens is turned on self as accounter of self, for example. The questions are shooting everywhere. Am I the sort of person who can ramble and introspect and people like to read it because they recognize bits of themselves in it? Am I the sort of person who rambles and introspects and people think “wow, how self absorbed?” Am I the sort of person who can ramble and introspect and people think I am crazy?

Tangentially, I bought a few books to read including “How We Are Hungry,” (even though I have already been through it) because it contains “The Only Meaning Of the Oil-Wet Water,” which is a story that has been stuck to the inside of my brain since I first read it in the summer, because it mashes together details and introspectiveness in ways that resonate with my tendency for hyperobservation. I would categorize Dave Eggers as someone who can ramble and introspect and people scream “yes!” internally because they know that he is also talking about them, and they didn’t know their condition could be captured with such gorgeous language. Dave Eggers should write poems, maybe. Maybe he does and I just don’t know it.

People have been calling me “sweetie,” which is really the only read I have on how I come off in these situations. It irks me a little, because it implies that I don’t seem competent, which is what I strive for. I have been trying less, though, to seem like an expert, and doing more moving in ways that are fluid and comfortable and weary because that is how it is economical to move. That I am not so concerned with projecting finesse perhaps means that I am perceived as more comfortable, and perhaps as more like what I am – which is young and small, hesitant, polite, slightly unsure. Apparently, the sort of person that other people are driven to offer some comfort with language. Last night a harried gate agent was doling out “my dears,” which were nice. I personally like “baby” and its derivatives, but I give that to people I have some sort of affection for, whether it be fleetingly established or built over years. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt like using endearments with a stranger, to ease their emotional or logistical load. Enough. Dublin in t-minus 12 hours, if I am not unlucky.

Eloise

2008-01-18T07:03:00.000+01:00

Here I am in a Holiday Inn somewhere near O'Hare, trying to suppress my hunger and waiting for the heat to work and playing with all the cool gadgets - like the microwave and the fridge and soap and free coffee and the TWO BEDS i get all to myself to play in and the big mirror and all the other wonders of a brand spankin' new Holiday Inn. Zoe said to me that it would be good for me to do this hopping around Europe before I got to Amsterdam because "I'd get used to everything changing all the time," and I guess if things keep going as unexpected that will be true. I am delayed a full 24 hours to Dublin, but at least my bag will be with me and I won't get there in the middle of the night, and there is a possibility that I might get to go play in Chicago for awhile tomorrow, since my flight doesn't leave until 7:20 and I've got all morning and afternoon to kill. Also, I am definitely going to check out all the nuances of this Holiday Inn, something that I never get a chance to do because we always leave hotels really early in the morning. While I was waiting to be rebooked, I saw a mouse peep out from behind the Customer Service Desk. Then I got onto five wrong shuttles before I got on the right one. I have a change of underwear and some toothpaste and deodorant, but no change of clothes. And for some reason I checked the part of my computer cord that works in American outlets, so I just have a European adapter. I haven't eaten since 2:30 and room service is closed, so I'm pretty starving. I am really excited though, and not that stressed out. I guess I am a woman of the road now. Being in this big hotel room all by myself makes me want to shout SCREW YOU at the state of Indiana for that time they wouldn't let Angie and I get a room because we were under 21. It also makes me feel a little bit like McCauley Culkin in Home Alone 2. It is really interesting (and lonely) not having a cell phone (I have my Dutch phone, but it is roaming here so I can't really talk to anyone). Anyway, I should go to bed.

Beginnings

2008-01-07T10:18:00.001+01:00

History section
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

One might wonder why I took a picture of this. It's a shoddy photo, although I think it turned out kinda cool - my hands are far from steady and I haven't gotten the hang of my shiny new camera yet.

Anyway, this is a doll sitting in front of a book entitled "The Powers That Be," one of many books in what one could call the "History Section" of my living room. I've been taking pictures around the house like crazy. Part of this is a self-imposed initiative - even in obviously casual situations, I always feel like a tourist whipping out a camera. Since I will be doing so many New and Exciting Things and exploring so many Nifty and Beautiful Places over the next few months, I am trying to shed myself of this reluctance to photograph so that I will have some memories in hand when it's all over. I learned the hard way that one has to take matters into one's own hands if one wants pictures of things in one's life when my resident photodocumentarian/best friend went abroad for the semester, and I emerged with approximately ten photos to show for six months of lived experience.

So that's what I've been doing these past few days- documenting my surroundings, from cats to doorframes to cakes to piles of yarn strewn all over my bedroom floor. It doesn't hurt that each time I come home, I become increasingly fascinated by the idiosyncracies of 523. It's an amazing house full of amazing things. Books and music in spades, certainly, but also knick-knacks. Walking from room to room in this place is like a series of reminders and history lessons. Frankly, it makes me want to never throw anything away (danger, danger)! I've lived here my whole life and I still find new things all the time. Today I spent a long while staring at the wall of buttons that has accumulated above the full-length cupboard in the backroom. I thought I had seen these buttons a million times, but I swear there are new ones! One that says "Attica Is All Of Us," which drove me to dig out the Prison Commission's Report again and read some more about the riots (which, for those of you who don't know, JW and Martha were involved in prisoner's rights work in the aftermath of). And one of Good Dog Carl which I'm pretty sure I've never seen before. What my parents have infused this space with is incredible, and I'm glad to photograph it, amateur though I am. I could just take pictures of the books for days. Books are really photogenic.

This photo craze, the creation of my Flickr and this blog, the obsessive packing and re-packing of my bag, the frantic search for clothes that are both chic and practical, are only some of the more obvious and material manifestations of my particular pre-departure brand of crazy.

When I was smaller, I spent hours upon hours planning imaginary trips. The number of coverless Lonely Planet guidebooks stacked up in my bedroom is astonishing, considering the farthest flung I've ever actually been, culturally, is Quebec. The penchant for imaginary trips has resulted in some useful things for me - most notably, a thorough grasp of Southeast Asian geography (can you find Vientiane on a map? I sure can.) and a keen eye for budget airfares. But it hasn't really sunken in that I'm going on a REAL trip now, that I have to REALLY prepare for. Or rather, it's making me antsy and giddy and all kinds of excited and doing strange things to my head. Where I would normally hesitate and retreat, I am currently hesitating and then plowing recklessly ahead. "Who cares! No consequences here! I'm leaving the country!" seems to be the name of the game. Fear not, though, reckless for me is tame for 97% of the population. Ironically, given my extensive background in Imaginary Trip Planning, the only things I have a clear idea about thus far are the people I'm seeing and the planes,trains, and buses I'm taking hither thither. I should get on that. Onward!