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.
27 February 2008
26 February 2008
Late
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.
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.
24 February 2008
La Belgique
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.
20 February 2008
Perfect Day
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.
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.
18 February 2008
J'Sais
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.
13 February 2008
On Pretending to be Dutch
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.
-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.
10 February 2008
Goedenmiddag!
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.
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.
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