Meeting the Ambassador-in-Training, Stew, and Kayaking in Holland

Hello, dear readers!

This has been a hectic week, the result of which is that on Friday, I was shocked that the week was coming to a close. Such is life. I've now been in Holland for almost three and a half weeks. I am so Dutch, I have wooden shoes flooding from my pores. That's actually an egregious lie. For one, the Dutch don't even wear wooden shoes anymore, and for another, I may live in Holland and strive valiantly to speak Dutch, but I am a far sight from actually being Dutch. Which I'm okay with. Being an American in Holland is a good thing too.


On Monday of this past week, as I was biking home, I realized I didn't have anything really pressing that I needed to get home for, and so I turned off the main road, and biked down this gorgeous tree-lined path:

Which turns, at the end, onto this sheep and pony-pasture lined path, which leads to a forest, where I took the video in my last post, and which ends at Theehuis Rijnauwen, the best place ever.


Tuesday I spent wandering around, buying my best friend Rachel a birthday present at the neatest store - I live, as I have mentioned, right around the corner from the Turkish/Moroccan neighborhood, where there are a bunch of little stores chock full of everything from colanders to hand-made clay bowls from Africa. The one I went to was called Bazaar Salaam, and it was stocked, floor to ceiling, with the most wonderful gifts and pieces of art, and, well, chochkes.

I bought Rachel some of the aforementioned gift-items, went to the post office (which I am apparently lucky to have - apparently post offices are a rare commodity in Holland nowadays...), figured out how to package the gift, and had a delightful conversation with the postman, in mixed Dutch and English, about sending the gift to the US. He told me my Dutch was quite good, actually, which was a nice compliment, and he told me that everyone he met in America told him he should play basketball, and when I asked why, he stood up, and it was insane. He must have been about seven feet tall. I would have told him he should play basketball too.


Wednesday was a VERY exciting day. Mary, Melissa (the other Fulbright girl who lives in my house now) and I all went to the train station (after I remembered that I had left my invitation at the house and had to go back and get it...) and took a train to Den Haag, the "political capitol" of Holland, to have a day filled with discussions of Dutch government, Dutch people, and delicious Dutch fried food. The Dutch love fried food. I think I've discussed this before. They all rides bikes everywhere. So they're all fit. Hell. I would probably love fried food too if I was super fit and could eat whatever I liked all the time. Oh, the Dutch.

In any case, the day started with us getting to talk to some people who work in the parliament of Holland, and some people who work for the US government in Holland. The first person, a woman, told us about how the Dutch political system works, and what the current political landscape is like...it would take a long time to explain it here, but I'm going to try and summarize what she said:

Basically, the Dutch have a constitutional monarchy, with a House of Representatives and a Senate, like ours, but instead of a bipartisan hot mess that fights for seats in the House and Senate, they have a giant, multi-party hot mess (their words) that fights for seats just in the House. Apparently all the Senate members are appointed, as are almost all local officials (judges, police chiefs, mayors, etc.). Also rather iffy is the role of the Queen in all policy and decision-making - she apparently has a lot of sway, but, being the queen, is never recorded, or broadcast, and everything that she discusses with, say, the head of the House, is completely confidential. So no one knows, really, what her exact political leanings are. Isn't that bizarre and fascinating? I want to be a Queen. Everyone loves her, apparently. And they think that over the years, she's become quite clever, and foxy with her political intrigues. Less highly praised are the members of the House. Basically, when voting happens here, all the votes for people count towards that candidate's party. Then, at the end of the day, the percentage that the party won overall in the election is the percentage of seats they get in the house. So, let's say ten parties win more than 1%. Party 1 wins 20% and gets 30 seats in the 150-seat House. Party 2 wins 30% and gets 45 seats, etc. Some parties (like the animal rights party - yes, it exists) only have like, two seats in the House.

So there's all these parties in the House. The biggest ones (the ones that won the most seats) get together and form what's called a "Coalition" which makes up a majority in the House (so, all told, enough parties join the Coalition to let the coalition have 76 members (more than half the 150-seat House). The Coalition then works together to put forth laws, yadda yadda.

So, there's this guy. His last name is Wilders. He's in the Coalition, as a member of one of these bigger parties. And he's totally. freaking. nuts. So we talked a lot about him, and how much trouble he's causing (I apologize to people who like Glenn Beck, but Wilders is kind of like Glenn Beck, in my opinion). Wilders is vehemently nationalistic, and as somewhat a result of that, vehemently anti-immigration, and anti-Muslim. For instance, Wilders insists that the Dutch, in establishing New York City (which, as we all know, used to be called "New Amsterdam," from that song, "Istanbul was Constantinople!") were intrinsic to the entire modern existence of America. Now, I mean, perhaps he has a point. But intrinsic? As in America wouldn't exist as it currently does if we weren't all infused with the Dutch mentality? I don't know that anyone has ever suggested that to me before.

Okay, so Wilders is a bit nuts. He wants to eject all the Muslims from this country, and "purify" the land - he uses a lot of Nazi-esque language. And he has a huge support base with people who are very afraid of the influx of Muslim immigrants. I mean, hey. I don't think anyone has a right to take over your country. But kicking them all out? Exiling them? I feel like we've tried to learn from past mistakes in that area...

Onto happier topics, perhaps. Wilders aside, we also talked a lot about the differences between Dutch culture and American culture. There were so many interesting points, I don't think I can discuss them all here. Let's leave it by saying we used the following words to sum up the Dutch:

• Egalitarian
• Tolerant
• Utilitarian
• Privacy-minded

After our long, in-depth conversation about the Dutch, we went to the ambassador's house (Oh, was it nice) and had many little fried delicious nibblets of Dutch food, and got to talk to many more important government-related people, and Fulbright alumni, and well, the ambassador-in-training himself. I had a lovely conversation with a man named Hans about our earlier political discoveries, and he invited me to come to the embassy for a giant Thanksgiving feast held for American diplomats. Isn't that great! He invited all the Fulbright kids (we're actually really not kids, but, there you go. I used to have students who were a good twenty years older than me who I still called "my kids") and so now we all have somewhere to go for Thanksgiving!

After much hob-nobbing (a term I had to later explain to my Dutch friends) and being served caviar by nice men in tuxes, we departed, and walked to a very sweet little Irish pub, where we ate a real dinner (Sorry, Ambassador. Finger food is delicious, but not quite dinner). We then had a very painful (on my part, due to the heels) walk back to the central station in Den Haag, where we hopped on a train and came back to Utrecht. It was a long, long day. And there was this guy at dinner. And he introduced himself, and within three sentences, he was like, "Hi, my name is so-and-so, and *coughcoughhack* I've been like, really sick ever since I got here! Like, I literally stepped off the plane and had a UTI!" after which he proceeded to tell me about how he used to have a diagnosis of ADHD. Which, if you think about it, is perfect, and hilarious. Except for the part where I woke up on Thursday morning sick too, thanks to his lovely explosive introduction. Bless his heart. He was nice, despite his getting me sick.

Thursday was a perfectly normal day in every way, and on Friday, I hosted a dinner party! It was a wonderful dinner party. It included the following incredible food-things:

• Jool's Favorite Stew, by Jamie Oliver
• Brown Butter Vanilla Bean Rice Krispie Treats by Beyond the Box

I'm very pleased to say that the food turned out excellently. I had extra veggies left over from the stew, so I also made a baked gouda and root veggie flaky pastry, basically, that was also delicious. A big salad, two bottles of wine later, and all my dinner guests and I were super pleased. There a bunch of pictures I'll be putting up later but here is one from before the dinner:

Pretty! On the board is rosemary, garlic, and lemon zest, for the stew. It gave it a really interesting, tangy taste. It was..interesting. I liked the stew without the topping too, though.

In any case, the dinner was a huge hit! We wandered out after the dinner, and went downtown - there was a HUGE party going on around the Dom Cathedral tower (yes, around, on, and under the cathedral was a giant disco dance party). They had huge laser lights playing all over the cathedral (Mary got some excellent pics I'll put up later). It was totally bizarre, to see this 800+ year old cathedral get lit up like the inside of the hippest dance club in Europe, and to see thousands of people streaming, dancing, running, screaming, smoking and drinking around it, while really, really heavy techno music plays. It was a bit overstimulating, actually. Ha! They also have these things here that are basically outdoor urinals - they must cut down on public urination, which, actually, is good, but still. Dudes are just turned into these little plastic booths (with no doors) and, man. I do NOT want to see that. Mary agrees. We generally avoid these things, yet have a morbid fascination with their existence...

Today, I had a delightfully slow morning, full of toast with sprinkles (Oh, how the Dutch love their toast sprinkles) and Harry Potter. Around noon, I left the house, intending to visit the giant Saturday market we have here, and to go to a town-wide booksale I saw advertised for the nearby town of Zeist.

Instead, as soon as I left my door, I was immediately caught up in a giant street market.

They had candy.

Big, big PILES of candy. So, naturally, I bought a giant bag. And munched it as I walked down the street with my bike.

And saw this disturbing sign:

Now, upon further inspection, these mats did not appear to be made of actual seal skin. I think that's just the brand name. But what a stupid freaking brand name!!

What I could not take a picture of (it was just way too awkward) but wanted to, were the swarms of Muslim women buying lingerie. All these completely covered women, with headscarves, holding up lacy underwear and bras, gabbing happily about which one they were going to get. It. was. so. weird.

Eventually, I extricated myself from the masses, and made my way towards the city center, where I did eventually go to the giant Saturday market.

They had olives. And apricots. And walnuts. It was so, so delicious-looking:

Next Saturday I won't eat lunch, and I'll just go to this thing and get olives, and sausage, and freshly baked bread, and have myself a picnic. Oh, yes.

Then, as aforementioned, I intended to go to the book sale in Zeist. Here is where I ended up instead:

Oh, yes. That's right. Today, I rented a kayak, and spent three wonderful hours paddling up and down the canals of Utrecht.

And finally, made it to Theehuis Rijnauwen!! That wonderful and magical place, that can be reached by bike or kayak. Well, now I've done both. And they were both on my life's bucket list. So, yeah. Feeling pretty accomplished today, let me tell you what.

Something you won't see in the US while kayaking - this is an outpost of a fortress (Fort Rijnauwen) from WWII, I believe. It's kind of hidden, but it's there!!

At the end of my wonderful kayaking adventure.

So, I stopped at the Theehuis, had a cappuccino, and went back to the rental place - three hours in a kayak, for 8 euro. It was so great.

I biked back home (I've gotten the workout of my life today), and had a long, hilarious conversation with my nice neighbor (he just kept re-pouring my wine glass) about Dutch politics, and the nasty other neighbor (nice neighbor doesn't like mean neighbor, whose name, by the way, is Fokka (pronounced, you guessed it, like, "Fucka," which is hilarious, in a mean, hilarious way)) and after quite a few glasses of wine, he gave me several large books, and told me I had to read all of them (I'll try), and he told me it was a pleasure to live next to such a sweet young lady. He's married to a nice Irish woman, who loves to bake, and they have two sweet little red-headed girls. He said his wife could give me some baking lessons. I might try it out!
 

Alas, I'm paying for my day of working out, because the cold that started Thursday morning has been resurfacing all evening, and now I'm coughing and in a generally bad way. But I'm just chilling in my room, writing and reading Harry Potter. Hopefully I will be better once again in the morning. By the way, Harry Potter is just the gift that keeps on giving. I have been invited to go speak at almost ten schools now (the Fulbright center allows schools to read our bios and invite us to come speak to their English classes) and at least half of them have mentioned my love of Harry Potter as a motivating factor for their invitation. Some of my Dutch friends have started sending messages entitled, "To Miss Harry Potter" because whenever anybody asks what I'm doing, my first response (recently) is always, "Oh, reading Harry Potter!"

But next week, friends and family, Harry Potter will be put aside for one of the most momentous occasions ever - my favorite book, Abarat, will finally be getting a third installment (there's two now). I AM SO EXCITED. I have literally been waiting seven years for this book. I will tell you more next week once I've read it. :)

A Wee Update

Well!

I am happy to report, that within a day of my bike having a fantastic meltdown and breaking forever, and my subsequent purchase of a new bike, I needed to use my spare bike. So it was good I decided to always have two bikes. Mary's tire, which was fixed (for the disgustingly high price of 30 euro) went flat again on Sunday. So for the past two days (because, of course, the bike shop was closed on Sunday AND Monday) she has been using my spare bike. See? So glad I bought the second one.

Also, it must be said, my new purple bike is wonderful. Smooth, fast, sleek, and it does not make any nasty squeaky noises. Though, I suppose, if you get a bungee cord wrapped around your back wheel, because you forgot to pick the bungee cord up, maybe you shouldn't complain about squeaky wheels...

Sunday (after Mary furiously told us about her tire going flat AGAIN) Mary, Clemens and I went to dinner at a little Belgian pub. Clemens and I got beef in a beer-based stew, and it was soooo good. I washed this delightful dinner down with a beer called...wait for it...Lupulus. Yes! I know. So, naturally, I took pictures.

It was a strong, white beer. So, in other words, it was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS. Just like me! A true namesake.

I also biked to Theehuis Rhijnauwen (the pannenkoeken restaurant) today, and I will post a video of my bike trip there later. I had a bacon, apple, and cheese pancake, and it was incredible. I love mixing salty and sweet flavors like that. I sat on the outside porch, and watched sweet Dutch children run around and eat pancakes, and I saw many happy Dutch grandpas, with big white mustaches, lovingly chasing their grandchildren as they ran around and ate pancakes. It's such a wonderful, joyful place. So far, it's my favorite place in all of Utrecht. And soon to come, kayaking to this place! Because it's next to a river! And I know how to rent the kayaks now - Mary says the shop is right next to her house. So we're doing it.

Our Lovely Neighbor, "That Doesn't Sound So Good," And Eating Delicious Baked Treats

So things around here have been going absolutely swimmingly, as indicated by my lack of recent blog posts. However, "swimmingly" as this week has gone (overall) it has been marked by some very "un-swimmingly" events. If such a thing as "un-swimmingly" exists.

The first half of this week was going by without a hitch. I was biking around, cooking, and planning my work. On Sunday, I went to this delightful tea party/luncheon, hosted by the International Neighbor Group (like, an international club associated with the university), and met some really nice, friendly people, who fed me delicious fussy sandwiches. The whole thing was run by a little Irish grandma - I almost melted when she opened the door for me, and in her sweet little Irish accent, was like, "Ohhh, deareh! Come on in, now, don'tcha be catchin' no colds!"

One of the people who attended this luncheon was this absolutely uproariously funny (Swedish? Dutch?) man, who, completely seriously, told us all about how you can get rid of spiders by putting gasoline into a nasal spray bottle and then lighting it on fire as you squirted it...supposedly at the spiders. No laughing, just very earnest that this was a good idea "But, be careful, my roommate accidentally got a nose full of gasoline one day!!" I don't know that anyone else quite understood how funny this whole dialogue was, but I was laughing so hard I almost fell off my chair.

So, Wednesday rolls around. I'm in the kitchen, cooking delicious coconut curry chicken, in my nice big, stretchy black sweatpants, generally thrilled to be alive. Someone pulls on the bell chain to my front door. I go to investigate. It's a tall man, skinny, with crisp blond hair, and a starched, obviously very expensive shirt, in his mid-late 40's, looking at me like he just found something nasty on the bottom of his shoe. I mean, you've got to love interactions that start like this.

He asks me, angrily, "Do you live here?" To which I respond, kindly, "Yes, I'm a new resident," while thinking to myself, "No, I came to the door with a spatula, in my sweatpants. I'm just passing through!"

"Is this your bike?" Angrily points to a bike leaning against the fence between our houses. "No," I say. "I don't know whose bike it is."

Sneering, as if I'm obviously lying to try and save face, he quips, "If someone doesn't remove this bike from my fence within an hour, I'm going to cut it off, and file a formal complaint against your house for encroaching on my property."

At which point, I'm thinking to myself, "What in the blue blazes did I do to piss this guy so royally off? Not to mention, we SHARE the fence. It's not like it belongs to either of us. One side is his, and one side is ours."

I say, "Okay, well, I will try to find out whose bike it is so that he can move it."

Sneering Mean Neighbor nastily replies, "Well, yes, I suppose that will be good for HIM, but I could care less if he loses his bike. I'm cutting it off if it isn't moved. This isn't how we do things around here."

"This isn't how we do things around here." If this man had slapped me, I might have been less offended. As if, because I am a student, because I don't own this house, because I'm only renting it, I have no standards, no way of comprehending the magical hierarchy of this stupid, rich set of houses.

"Okay," I say. "I'll try to get it moved."

He looks like he's about to leave, and then he comes back. "And, whose idea was it to leave garbage like this (points to the garbage bag sitting next to the compost bin) out in the open, all week, for everyone to see?"

I'm so ready to be done with this awkward, mean conversation. "Well," I say, "We have more than one bag of trash a week, so I've been setting the extra one outside."

He laughs to himself. "You've been setting the extra bag outside? It's disgusting. This is really rude that you would leave it for everyone to see like that. Around here, we have standards. I understand that Anne and Robert (the landlords who own the house) have decided to turn their house into a hotel, but that doesn't mean that you can just live however you like."

"Okay, fine! Noted. I will keep the trash in the back hallway from now on."

He doesn't seem mollified, but he does seem to feel that the conversation is over, and he turns and leaves. I close the door, fuming. I call upstairs, and the person who left his bike against the fence comes down and moves it, having heard the entirety of this lovely conversation. I wander away, muttering a lot of nasty curse words I really wish I could have unleashed during our very unpleasant conversation. So, we've moved the extra bag of trash to the back hallway, where it doesn't offend anyone, and the bike is now kept in the backyard, where it isn't err, leaning against any questionable barriers.

Honestly, I've seen things like this happen in TV shows, where Homeowner's Associations get really upset when your grass is just a quarter of an inch too long, but I NEVER thought it would happen to me in real life. The odd thing is, this man's attitude, that they have "standards," that I will "never understand," is so bizarrely at odds with the situation of our neighborhood. He's saying, in effect, that he is wealthy, and we, of course, are not, and therefore we don't belong here, and never will, and he's incredibly pissed off that he has to live next to a bunch of un-classed cockroach-resembling students. And yet, we live in Lombok, the multi-cultural, immigrant-filled, poorer corner of the city, where right down the road from us (literally three or four houses from this man's front door) is a homeless shelter. We are surrounded by people of lesser means, who probably have no idea what the "standards" of this man are. It's like he's that guy in the ocean, desperately flailing, refusing to acknowledge the boat or the plane that comes to help him, insisting there's "something better on the way." My neighbor clings to his standards, and continually hopes for "something better," because acknowledging that he might have to settle for anything different from what he expects would just kill him. Such is the limited life of people who insist on living within a selfish bubble. Sorry mate, I think my life is more fulfilling. But that's just me.

In any case, the issue has been resolved, and I have not seen hide nor hair of this man since.

Wednesday evening, I went out for drinks with Mary, one of the other girls in Utrecht on a Fulbright, and I had en excellent time regaling everyone at our table of this tale. Everyone was appropriately shocked and offended for me, and we all agreed that we should return the favor in some way, perhaps by tying a delicious cake to the fence, and seeing if he's as offended by THAT.

We all agreed to meet on Friday for pizza, which was equally as fun as having drinks and building coaster-scrap towers. We have now established a goodly-sized friend group. Myself, Mary, a fellow named Ben, from England, a fellow named Daniel, from Germany (who is the spitting image of the young Mr. Incredible from the Incredibles movie. Honestly, the man's jawline could be the basis for every Prince Charming in existence) and a fellow named Clemens, from L.A. A motley and excellent group. Here is our delightful tower of drink coaster-scraps (obviously, we're all budding geniuses to create such a work of art):

Friday afternoon, as I was biking home, thinking about how nice it had been to get pizza with everyone, I stopped to get some things at a store which basically amounts to the home furnishings section of a Target. When I got back on my bike to go home, I accidentally left a bungee cord (that I use to attach my book bag to the back rack that goes out over my back tire) hanging down from said rack. And I got about three feet, before all of a sudden, I heard this nasty whirring noise, and then a crunch, and then my bike wouldn't move forward. Completely horrified that I had done irreparable damage to my bike, I got off, and saw immediately that the bungee cord had gotten stuck in the gear shift of my bike, and had gotten completely wrapped around my back tire. Pulling, and huffing, and getting mean looks from everyone who had to go around me on the sidewalk, I managed to get the bungee cord out. But the metal structure of the rack over the back of my bike was completely messed up. The two metal struts that held up the rack were bent in towards the tire, and the back covering over the tire was bent. Basically, the bike still wasn't moving, even though the worst problem was over. So, squeaking and straining, I managed to push it home. When I finally got home, I got out some tools, and used some elbow grease to move the metal pieces back to (roughly) where they were supposed to be. I tried the bike out, and low and behold, it seemed to work okay. I was so thrilled. And relieved. I really didn't want to have to take it to a store and try to explain, in my poor, broken Dutch, how I got a bungee cord wrapped around the tire. I mean, I don't even know how to say "wrapped!" Or "bungee cord!"

Friday night, I biked over to Mary's apartment, to have a glass of wine, and hang out, and maybe go to the city center and go dancing. Her bike tire was flat, so I offered to let her ride with me to the city center. In Holland, this happens all the time. People just sit on the back racks, like riding a motorcycle side-saddle. I should have known better. Well, she got on, and it was completely fine. And then we went over this bump, and my bike made the most horrible, shrieking, breaking, whirring noise, and then it was just completely dead. You could move the wheels, but the back tire was no longer moving with the chain. So, we wheeled my bike back to her apartment, I stayed with her overnight, and agreed to wake up early and walk both our bikes (since she had to get her flat fixed anyway) to the city center to get fixed.

Saturday morning rolls around, and we take our bikes to the repair shop. Mary brings hers in, and leaves it to get a new tube. We ask them to come outside and look at mine. He looks at it for a second, I kind of roughly explain what happened, he wiggles the tire a bit, and he just says, "Your bike has reached the end of its life." And I'm like, "Noooo! No! Oh, God, no! So, there's no way to fix it?!" And I'm kicking myself, inside. One stupid mistake, and the bike is completely done. It turns out, it would have cost over 60 euro to fix the bike, and since I only paid 50 for it, I felt like that wasn't a solid investment. So I took the bike to the bike graveyard (yes, they have one), and filled out some paperwork, and bought a new bike for 55 euro, because I figured I would have bought a second one sooner or later anyway.

The new bike is purple, and actually nicer than the old one (that died), so I'm satisfied, even though it really sucks to have to shell out money (like you have to do with a car) that you could have used on food, or a trip to Switzerland. You know? You know.

The new bike! In all its glory.

To comfort ourselves about the untimely death of my bike, Mary and I had breakfast (mine was an incredible sandwich with mozzarella, avocado, tomato, and cream cheese), and then bought delicious baked treats. Here is what the delicious treats looked like:

A "Hazelnoot" cream pie-thing (Mary's)

A Caramel delicious cream-puff thing (Mine).

Now, I'm back home, and I've just sort of been cooking, and reading Harry Potter. The other Utrecht Fulbright girl, Melissa, moved in yesterday, which is great! It's really, really wonderful to have two very nice, very awesome women living in the same city as me. It makes things a lot easier. Today, I may, if I feel so inclined, wander out to the really awesome pancake place I love, and get some for dinner. If I do, I will, of course, let you know. Because Dutch pannenkoeken deserve to be written about, that's how good (and bizarre) they are. Till then!

Rotterdam, Rave-Ready Churches, and Succulent Sundays

So!

Traveling to Rotterdam was great fun. One of the other Fulbright girls, Mary, is at Utrecht University as well, and so we took the train together to meet a third Fulbright girl, Jessica, in Rotterdam. On the train, Mary and I were, to be perfectly honest, loudly discussing how she had bought a pizza called "Pizza alle Tunei," or something, and how it looked so good, and sounded like cool and Tuscan, and then she made it, and she realized what she thought was chicken was actually little tuna flecks. And, in her words, she "HATES tuna" and was totally shocked and disgusted. And about halfway through our lamentations over pizza with tuna on it, she kind of stopped speaking for a second, looked over at the woman across from us, and then got out her cell phone, and on it, typed, "Kelli, that woman is totally recording our stupid American conversation about tuna pizza." And I just looked at it, and burst out laughing, and then to cover ourselves, I was like, "Oh, man, that's a really funny picture, thanks for showing it to me!" Shortly after this exchange, the ticket woman came by and had a delightful conversation with us that went something like this:

"Are you American?"

Us: "Yes, yes we are!"

"So you speak English?"

"Yes, yes we do."

"So how can you not read the sign here that says that this is a silent train car?"

Mary, God bless her, was much nicer than I would have been (because I would have pointed out the fact that EVERYONE ELSE was also talking, but hey), and said, "Oh, we're so sorry ma'am, we must have completely missed it, we'll move to a different car." And so we did, and continued talking about tuna pizza, minus Miss Snoops-a-Lot-McGee with her silly iPhone, video-taping us. Ha!

At the art festival itself, the first sight I was greeted with was a giant metal sculpture of a tee-pee that was made of construction materials - like hazard signs, and road block tape, and little orange cones. And it was HUGE. So huge, in fact, that it needed a giant crane to hold it all up.

We ate a delicious lunch at this really nifty Middle Eastern restuarant. I got the "Grand Bazaar" breakfast, which looked like this:

It was very tasty. It included a hard boiled egg, apricot jam, cream, a half of a fluffy pancake-thing, a fruit bowl with Greek yogurt, feta with basil and olive oil, bread, and garlic butter, It was...very good. Like, very, very good. The perfect lunch.


At the art festival itself, once we got walking, I will admit, I did not see any toilets. I did, however, see some really bizarre art. Including this weird video of a chick writhing (to music? that we couldn't hear?) while bouncing one of those paddle-board-ball things.

Yes. It was as bizarre as it looks.

We also saw a wonderful art exhibit in a church that was done by an artist who makes the most beautiful, complex dresses, inspired by artwork he has seen. So the piece of artwork would be behind the dress, and then the dress would be displayed. They were beautiful, made with silk, and felt. Not meant to be worn, just meant to evoke the feminine image within them, I think.

This was one of my favorites. The dress features many of the faces, colors, and themes shown in the three paintings behind it.

The church where all these dresses were displayed (interestingly enough) also, apparently, midnights as a dance club/concert venue. Jessica (the other Fulbrighter) said that she had come on Friday night, and the church was full of loud music, and people dancing, and drinking. But then, when we asked, they said it's a completely normal, Catholic church come Sunday morning. I mean, this church must be over 300 years old. It has an old-fashioned pulpit (with windy stairs), and it's just so bizarre to me that they also allow (even if just for the festival) dance parties, and drinking in the sanctuary.

Anyway, meandering further down the art fest, we found some nice French lads who had built a nifty boat that partners with its other "brother" boats to clean up oil spills in a "swarm-like" fashion. That's pretty nifty, right? And we also found this friendly Dutch ice cream man who enthusiastically offered us "Bitterkokje" ice cream (Bitter cookie ice cream). So, since I ate the ice cream, and it was delicious, let's take a moment to discuss bitterkokjes. Bitterkokjen are some of the most delicious, wonderful cookies in existence. They are small, and chewy, and they look like ginger snaps. They are WONDERFUL. As the name implies, they aren't overly sweet, but yes, slightly bitter. It's the amazing chewy factor that I love. It's like nibbling on...a freshly baked, chewy cookie. Every time.

So, that is bitterkokjes. I will be bringing some home to share with some really lucky people. I may even try and learn how to make them like I learned how to make kroketten.

We also saw a very sweet little barbershop quartet at the art fest, which would normally be sweet, but this was just downright adorable - all these little old men, in their adorable little suits, with their cute Dutch accents, singing American oldies. It was great.

By the end of the day, my feet were super sore, and I had had an excellent day. Mary and I took the train home (and sat in the right car the first time and didn't have any McSnoopers).

I spent most of Sunday morning baking, hence the Succulent Sundays title. It was wonderful. I woke up early and kneaded dough for pull-apart cinnamon sugar bread, and sliced apples for making apple butter...By the time everything got going, the kitchen smelled out of this world. Like fall. In the best possible way imaginable. The apple butter came out splendidly, as did the bread. Here's some pics:

Apple Butter! Fresh from the pot, hot and tasty.

Pull-Apart Cinnamon Sugar Bread

I also went to an interesting tea luncheon on Sunday, but I think I will save that for another time. All the recipes for my food are under the links page, so if seeing that bread makes you drool (like it does for me), just go look it up and make some!!

Making a (Mostly) Passable Attempt at Being Dutch

Well, I would first and foremost like to say that my one year anniversary of dating my very handsome and rogue-ish boyfriend, Jonathan, is this Monday, and being in a foreign country and having weird time schedules (he doesn't get home from class till 5 - which is 11 my time - making it kind of tricky to talk) is not making me the happiest camper at the moment. However! Such is the nature of separation across oceans. The good news is, we're a strong couple, and there is a lot to distract a young traveler such as myself in the meantime. Currently, I am eating dried apricots with nutella, which is really, really good, and I am getting ready to go to Rotterdam, which is sort of in the southwest of Holland (from me, anyway). You can check out my "Links, Winks, and Hijinks" page for info on the art festival I'm going to - it's contemporary art (like, look at this toilet, sitting in this courtyard, doesn't it just totally represent the decay of humanity in the vast void of the world?), so I'm not sure I will like it, but I'm going with a bunch of the other Fulbright girls, so that will be fun.

In other news, the past few days have been interesting. On Thursday, I went to this giant, old building next to the famous Utrecht Cathedral (Dom Tower) to watch as one of my lab mates, Bram, gave his thesis defense. It was really interesting - in Holland, the whole proceeding is very formal - people kept comparing it to a wedding. The person giving the defense chooses two basically "best men," (though in this case they were both female) who are colleagues, or friends, or relatives, and then those two plan, like, the invitations to the defense, and the invitations/arrangements for the reception after the defense, and then later that night, a dinner party at a local restaurant for the family and friends of the person who gave the defense...Isn't that so much more complex than American defenses? The defense itself was all in Dutch, which was almost completely lost on me, unfortunately, but Bram became a doctor at the end, and it was quite relaxed, really, and I was very proud of him, even though I've only known him for about a week. I might have even cried a little when he received his red doctor scroll thing, but, as anyone who knows me well will tell you, I cry when commercials come on with sad, emotional music. It's funny, because I can kick someone's butt if need be, I can deal with almost any crisis involving injury, and I can be a real hard ass when it comes to planning things, but every time a commercial comes on, with like, a dad spreading Jiff on a peace of toast with his son, I just can't help but get a little choked up.

So, after Bram's defense, we all had cookies, and coffee, and went on our merry ways. Friday, I took a nice long train ride out to a city called Rijswijk, which is located in B.F., Holland, if you ask me, and went to the Immigration Department to officially register as someone staying in the Netherlands longer than three months. And was asked, AGAIN, with an incredulous smirk, "So, you had the (insert name of special sticker here) waiting for you in D.C., and you didn't go get it??" And when I respond, "No, no one told me to go get (incredibly frustrating and stupid, STUPID sticker) in D.C. That's a really long trip. It should have been made more clear to me that it was necessary for me to go," I get the same look that says, "Ha, yeah, right, trying to cover your ass for forgetting, most likely." Which is not FREAKING true. Agh. So, anyway, I went to Rijswijk really early in the morning and didn't leave in the best mood. I mean, everything is resolved, paper-wise. I now have a very pretty and complicated NEW sticker in my passport, and I have to wait three weeks for a letter saying I can "officially" work. I'm just pissed at the constant assumption that I'm lying. Whatever. For now, it's the grind at home, I suppose.

After my delightful appointment with the immigration people, I went to the city hall in Utrecht, where I received my "burgerservicenummer," which is basically a Dutch social security number, which makes me partly Dutch for life. Hence the title of this post, because while I'm still not allowed to work until I get that letter, I am now endowed with a piece of Dutchery (namely, a social security number) for life.

After leaving the Gemeente (Town Hall), I went back to my district (Lombok) and bought all the ingredients to make the dishes you can find on my "Links" page. I just started piling all this produce on the counter, and I was like, thinking in my head, okay, I hope this isn't too much money (I put up there, like, four pounds of apples, an onion, some peppers, a bundle of cilantro, some limes and lemons, and some garlic), and he just started ringing it up, and when he was done, he was just like, "3 euro, alsjeblieft (please)." And I was totally shell shocked. And I just reached into my wallet and pulled out three euro, and went on my way, my bike bags bulging with produce. I love living in this neighborhood. All of these little shops are owned by Muslim families (and while we can talk later about how sometimes I don't exactly get the most pleasant looks from the shop owners, being white, American, and without a head-covering), the prices are really good, and business is business. All of the shops have produce outside, and inside, a huge selection of tahini, olives, feta, mozzarella, couscous, dried fruit, etc. Basically, all of the kinds of food I love, displayed deliciously around the stores. This little area (Kanaalstraat/Lombok) also has a nifty plant/flower store, where I bought a beautiful ivy plant for 3 euro. They love flowers here. They sell them everywhere. Flowers and shoes. Which is funny, because, what do people think of when they imagine Holland? Tulips and wooden shoes. Well, in this, the Holland of Today, there are tons of shoe stores and a plethora of flower stalls, shops and stands. So, there you go. Same idea, different manifestation.

I'm off to take the train to Rotterdam, and try and enjoy the...art festival (I'm sure I'll probably end up loving it), I'll post pictures later. If there is a toilet...Well, let's just say I will be greatly amused.

Photo Shoot Photos

Delightful. These pictures are really excellent (well, most of them, but it was a rainy day, so I'll take what I can get!). I also just realized - some of these pictures literally show me, on a bench, in Holland! Appropriate for my blog x 50. :D

Disneyland, What Happened in Belgium, and Being Assisted by Drunk Dutchmen

So!

Thursday evening-ish, after Remco picked me up in Amsterdam, we had another whirlwind adventure driving through the streets of Amsterdam to get out onto the highway - I swear, every time Siri or Remco picks me up or something, we get led by the GPS through the sketchiest, scariest parts of either Utrecht or Amsterdam (also known as A'dam, in case you were wondering). We always make it out alive, though...

Thursday night, Siri, Remco and I went to the grocery store and bought everything I needed to make chicken paprikash, which I made, and which was summarily consumed with gusto. I love chicken parikash. My number one comfort food. I was up really late on Thursday, just talking to Jonathan, and getting settled in my pretty princess bed (yes, the guest bedroom is set up for Siri's little sister, and therefore features a large number of princess things, including Ariel stickers. Which I loved. So, I got to bed on Thursday around 12:30. We all woke up at about 4:15 on Friday (yes, I know, BRIGHT and early), and headed out around 5 to pick up Siri's mom and little sister. Once we were all in the car (along with necessary snacks and drinks) we started making our way through Holland, and Belgium, and France, until finally, around 10, we arrived with great aplomb at Disneyland. Hooray! A lot of the following photos, it must be mentioned, are here thanks to Remco, who is an excellent photographer (as it turns out). It was amazing to be in Disneyland this weekend, by the way. It was sunny, and 28-30 (degrees Celsius, that is, so like, in the 80's).

Disneyland Castle!

Welcome to Disneyland!

Noah and I celebrating being in Disneyland. We were about equally as excited.

Because we were with Noah, we did a lot of things I haven't actually done before (having only been to DisneyWorld once), like go on all the storybook rides. I got to see (in real, lifelike detail) Snow White, a Haunted House, the It's a Small World Ride (wow, was that terrifying), Sleeping Beauty, and I think Ariel? I can't remember which ones we did! You know, those rides are kind of short, but they're actually really fun, because everything is life-sized, and if you, like me, enjoy the Disney classics, seeing the characters all around you is actually really fun. Like you're in the movie. Heh. I kept thinking to myself, "Ahh, it feels like I'm back working in the Disney Store." Which is an excellent feeling to have, because I loved working in the Disney Store. It was like being Santa Clause. Every Christmas, little children would come in with these amazed expressions at all the life-sized, porcelain characters on the rim around the ceiling, and would gaze in wonder at all the toys, and the huge movie we always had playing in the background, and at the giant mountain of stuffed animals at the back of the store. And if we didn't have something out that a kid wanted, we would just pop on back to the giant warehouse in the back of the store to scramble up a ladder to go get it. It was basically the best job ever. And people brought in home-baked goods all the time to share with the other employees. What could be more awesome than that?

Anyway, that's how Disneyland felt. Like you're surrounded by happiness and joy. And while that may seem nauseating to some (and yeah, okay, happiness and joy, like on the "It's a Small World" ride can be caustic and suffocating, but the overall Disneyland happiness and joy was so much better than that), I loved it.

One of the rides we went on was this little boat tour of miniatures from classic Disney movies. They were so cool. I loved them. They were intricately detailed little towns - from Fantasia, and Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast.

Me on aforementioned ride.

From Fantasia.

The Beauty and The Beast miniature. Belle is on the fountain. Singing. Because that's what you do when your dad is a wee bit mad and your best friends are sheep.

Belle with sheepsies.

And then Remco and I sort of broke off from the group and went to Tomorrowland and rode the Space Mountain ride. Which was awesome. And terrifying, as you're going, like, 60 mph in the dark.

Tomorrowland! And, as I explained to Remco, oddly full of Steampunk imagery.

The rocket-launcher part of Space Mountain.

Space Mountain! And Random Dude.

Going on Space Mountain was awesome. It's weird, because on all the rides, you could bring your bags on the coaster with you. Even the upside down ones. So different from Cedar Point, eh, where we have to pay $2 to shove our bags into a locker for the Millennium Force or the Top Thrill Dragster!!

Friday afternoon, we left the park around 6, went to the condo where we were staying (about 15 minutes away from the park), went grocery shopping really quick, ate dinner, and kind of chilled for a bit until about 10, when we went back to the park and watched the nighttime parade (I cried), and the fireworks (I cried again). It was just so...joyful. All the little kids were laughing and singing and dancing with the princesses and characters and stuff, and they were playing music from Tangled, and it was so great, like being five again. I really missed my family, and boyfriend, and friends in that moment though! Things that like are meant to be shared with those you love!

Saturday morning we kind of slept in (we were so beat from the whole Friday morning leaving at 5 AM thing), and went to the park kind of late. We stayed for a good long while, and went on the Tower of Terror, the Aerosmith rollercoaster, and the Finding Nemo roller coaster (which was freaking awesome. The coaster is a four-seater round shell-shaped thing, and while you're going upside down and stuff, it SPINS. How COOL is that??). Around 8 or so, we decided we were all pretty beat, so we started to head back towards the entrance, stopping first to see the dragon that lives underneath the castle:

Poor Noah. She insisted on going to see this dragon both Friday and Saturday, but both times, as soon as she got inside, near the dragon, she refused to go any closer. It was really sweet actually. Like, on the first day, she even took my hand before we went in and was like, "Don't worry, okay?" And then as soon as we got inside, she was like, backing up, terrified to get too close. The dragon is actually really neat - this castle is Sleeping Beauty's castle (Cinderella's is at Disneyworld) and so this dragon is the Sleeping Beauty dragon - and it moves, and makes scary noises, and growls, and it even looks like it's freaking breathing. I mean, if I was a little kid, I would be scared too. As it so happened, I was just fascinated and in awe. I mean, it's right under the castle. It's like being IN a story. Awesome.

After seeing the dragon for the second day in a row (it's a tradition) we went shopping a bit.

Krista, if I could have bought you this teapot, I totally would have.

Siri and I both chose really cool, fashionable hats.

Siri's was even cooler.

Then, as we were shopping, total chaos broke out because it started pouring outside while everybody was watching the parade. Parents and children just started running, pell-mell, into the stores, hauling crying children, and giant strollers, and frazzled teenagers, out of the rain. One French mom just completely lost it in front of me, screaming at her teenage son in rapid French. We ended up just sitting down in a hallway for a while to wait out the madness. Eventually, we made it out of the shops and into the car, a little bit damp, but not too worse for wear. And without the screaming that accompanied almost everyone else's departures to their cars...We left the park around 8 or 9. We started driving, and just snacked, most of us falling asleep around midnight. It just kept raining. We had to drive slow, because it was such a downpour. It was scary, but I think I was just so tired, I just didn't care at that point... I woke up to get some McDonald's around 2, I think. The whole drive is a bit fuzzy for me because I was so out of it, and I kept falling asleep and waking back up again, so the times when I was awake I remember in that odd, dream-like sense...

Anyway, after our 2 AM dinner (somewhere just outside of Antwerp, Belgium), we hit the road again, only to come to a complete halt on the highway around 2:30 or so. We waited for a while, the car idling, until we realized there just wasn't going to be any movement any time soon. So we turned the car off, and waited, wondering why there were so many cars stopped. We could see ambulances and police flying back and forth on the other side of the highway, so we assumed it was some kind of accident, but it literally just shut down the entire highway. By this time, the rain had stopped, so we opened the windows, and Rem took some pictures, and a strange old dude in the car next to us came up and kept making strange conversation with Siri (who was very displeased).

The giant line of cars. And those were the people BEHIND us.

Siri read about the accident the next day, and apparently, the line of cars ended up being something like 7 km long. Luckily, we were near the front (or not so luckily, seeing as that means it could have been us...) and got to go fairly quickly after the got the cars off the road. The rain had caused four cars to massively smash into one another, so badly for one of the cars that they had to use the jaws of life to rip the entire top of the car off to get to the people. Hence why it took so long. No one died, though, and everyone is in the hospital doing okay. When we drove past it though...I'll be honest, it was the worst accident I've ever seen. What a bizarre way to end a weekend of sunshine and fun. Anyway, because of the accident, we didn't make it back into Holland until, like, 5 AM. It was VERY late. And when we got back, it was all I could do to just drop into the bed and position the pillow under my head. I slept till approximately 12:30 the next day, which was glorious. And then Remco drove me home, and I spent a nice, calm Sunday afternoon around the house. On Sundays in Holland, pretty much everything is closed (it's actually the law...). So, no grocery shopping, or shoe shopping, or buying new bike locks... All of which I did this afternoon. I now have paper towels, more juice, salad, beer, a U-lock for the back of my bike, a little green bell (it's so adorable), and a new pair of totally rad brown leather boots (Well, faux leather. I don't have LOADS of money). I also spent this afternoon doing a photo shoot around Utrecht which was VERY fun, with a lovely young woman named Amelie, who is, yes, from France. It rained. We drank lots of cappuccino. We took some pictures. I looked windswept but nicely European and world-traveler-esque. Hooray! I will post them later when I get them from her. She was quite lovely. She's a professional rock-climber and photographer. How cool is that??

I miss Ohio. I'm looking forward to fall here, but they don't really celebrate Halloween like we do, or anything, and I LOVE Halloween. Maybe I can find some American people who will have a costume party with me...Otherwise, I may just dress up and give candy to kids (I live in a place where they will probably do that), and make tons of cute decorations and food and stuff. Just for me. Little Homemaker Lupas.

Also today: while trying to install aforementioned U-lock, I was totally lost. The damn thing didn't come with directions, but it did come with a whole bunch of random nuts, bolts, screws, metal plates, and rubber strips, all of which I had no idea how to use. So, here I am, struggling, and this random Dutch dude just like, comes over to the fence and is like, "Can I help you? Eh?" And I was like, whatever, sure. So he came in, and he smells strongly of alcohol, which, whatever, the dude was having a beer after work (we hope, right? Right?). And he tries to figure out how it all goes together. And he can't. So then we're on to using rubber bands to attach it. Then he uses a bungee cord I had strapped to the bike to hold stuff (just in case for big things), and now it's on there like a champ. So, actually, he ended up being really nice, despite being slightly intoxicated. He kept asking me out for drinks. And I kept insisting I have a boyfriend, and it would be odd for me to go out alone with a guy. And he kept saying, "No, no, we just drink. We won't like, do anything! Right??" Maybe with a good friend, buddy. Not with a slightly tipsy Dutchman who just wandered into my yard to help me with my bike lock. God bless him, though, because my lock is on and working, and he is wholly responsible for that.

Anyway, here's to an excellent rest of my week! Welterusten (goodnight)!