Hello again!

Thanks for all the comments...I never expected to come back to so many! Hope everyone enjoys the site. I'm keeping it up for future Fulbrighters and travelers to the Netherlands. Cheers!

Back Home

Well, family and friends, as pretty much all of you know, I am safe and sound back in the states, after ten fascinating, turbulent, enlightening months in the Netherlands.

As I'm back at a new job, in a new city, etc, my posts will be much more seldom. I'd like to keep the blog up as a journal, documenting my time spent in Utrecht. Thank you all for reading and following my crazy, growth-filled journey. I was so happy to have the chance to share it with all of you.

Sara, Lizanne and I at our Goodbye Party. we are holding the very sweet streamers of letters that the people in the lab made for us.

Some photos of hanging out with friends after my return. Such joy!! All Photos credited to Tom Wagener. Sank you Tumnus.

We all went to Casa for dinner. Rachel and I were vair happeh.

Myself, Rachel, and Gina.

Wes and I, also at Casa.

I am very, very happy to be back. I do miss the biking. But as much as I miss the covenience of having a good work out built into my day, I love, love being closer to my family and my friends. And I love living in a new city, having a great new job, awesome new co-workers, a new-to-me car, and a beautiful, charming little apartment! All to myself! As the weeks scuttle on, I will try and share one or two of my new experiences and my new life with all of you.

Till then!

Being Proven Wrong

I'm at work, which is unusual, but I had an experience this morning that really merited a post.

It's raining today, which usually means I wake up, eat breakfast, and find myself in a really bad mood that lasts until I get dry again, about two hours later. I try to bike to work whenever I can, and yes, that means biking in the rain. I even have a special "rain-suit" composed of a rain jacket, rain pants (from a motorcycle rain-suit outfit) and my rain boots. Completely waterproof, except for my face, which still gets spit at as I bike. It's an uncomfortable experience, to say the least. You feel like a sausage, you're hot, and you're getting spit at.

I was about ten minutes into my sausage bike experience this morning, when I came towards the central station. If we have a nice day here, I'll try and take a video, like I always promised to do, to show you how absolutely insane it gets around the central station in Utrecht in the morning. Add a hefty bunch of construction to that mix, and you have bike crashes happening all over the place.

Now, let me preface the story about this particular bike crash by saying that I have, in the past ten months, not exactly been overwhelmed with the kindness and empathy of the Dutch. In fact, it's been quite the opposite, with me becoming increasingly uncomfortable with how rude and abrupt I percieve the Dutch to be. The Dutch call it "blunt," the Americans call it, "Rude." It's a difference in what you're used to. As an example, when I went ice-skating on the canals, in February, an old woman fell down right in front of me, and no one offered to help (I was in the middle of putting one skate on, and I was going to hurt more than help, I figured). In fact, several families with children just zoomed right on past the fallen woman. I just don't think that would happen in the U.S. Second example: I went into a pharmacy here to buy antibiotic cream, not knowing that this isn't commonly available in the Netherlands like it is in the U.S. I was treated with disdain dripping with dissaproval. At first I thought the woman didn't understand me, but as the conversation went on, she dropped all pretenses of being helpful and started saying, "Look, you ignorant American, we don't have antibiotics for sale here. And you would do well to learn from us. If you did, you wouldn't have so many horrible sickenesses that have gotten out of control." At which point, it's kind of like, look, I agree with you! Antibiotics are way over-used. But I just needed something to keep a cut clean, for christ's sake!

Basically, I have lumped these experiences, and many others like it, into my perception of the Dutch as rude, sarcastic, and slightly caustic. To me, at least. I say this, of course, understanding that just because some people are this way does not mean ALL the Dutch people are this way.

Today I experienced a very good example of how my opinion may be accurate in some circumstances, but not all. In a case similar to the woman falling on the ice, I saw a nasty bike crash this morning, where a young guy pulled out right in front of an older woman. They crashed, and both bikes got entangled with their riders. The kid got himself out and immediately began to help the woman out. Within seconds, there were at least ten people helping the woman out, taking the bike off of her, making sure it was stored safely to the side. A young woman rushed up, knelt down next to the older woman, put her arm around her to stabilize her, and started asking basic medical questions. Another young woman walked over, and just as I thought she was going to go around the accident, she went up to the young woman talking to the older woman, and held her umbrella over them while the older woman tried to sit up. I mean, it was something else, watching all of these people work together to help this poor woman. And mind you, this is while it's pouring rain, and I'm sure most of these people were on their way to catch a train, or get to work.

Here's what I think. I think the Dutch have a tendency to be much more blunt than Americans, and, unfortunately, this can lead to a really hard time for an American who is used to everyone being polite. However, I think that the Dutch, as a people, are just as motivated and kind as the rest of us, should something bad occur. Just as everyone was shocked at how much good will and companionship was generated by 9/11, so too can the Dutch come together in a crisis.

It was good to be proven wrong.

Of Monumental Beauty

I'm not entirely sure how to begin to write about going to Switzerland. Among other things, the trip was life-changing. Who knew?

I didn't go to Switzerland with the intention of meditating on some grating problem. I didn't go with the idea that I would become enlightened, finding solace in God's giant green earth, in the number-less cascading waterfalls. If you had asked me, before this trip, what my idea of paradise would be, I suppose I would have said something tropical-feeling. Wasn't the Garden of Eden just bursting with life? That sort of thing. Green growth, hot-house, lots of flowers. Someone on the trip described Gimmelwald as Paradise. It took me aback, and made me sort through my personal set of images of what "Paradise" is supposed to look like. As I sifted through all of these thoughts of tropical magnificence, I realized that for me, and who I am, Gimmelwald, and the alps in general, are the real Paradise. A place where everywhere you look, there is something even more astounding to fix your eye on. A place where waterfalls tumble down from cliffs that reach higher than clouds. A place where people live in and on the cliffs, where every day is spent breathing fresh air, drinking ice-cold fresh water, and walking on the paths that a million feet have trod into the sides of the mountain. There is something gloriously simple and beautiful in these things. And to me, that is Paradise. Natural, abundant beauty, the ability to use your human body to it's physical capacity, and the simple, pure joy of feeling 100% who you are. I felt more alive in that weekend in Gimmelwald than I have felt...almost ever. I would say it is comparable to waking up to a sunrise at Montana de Luz, the orphanage I worked at in Honduras.It is an invading sense of peace and clear-mindedness that is enthralling and humbling all at the same time.

Naturally, I'm going back in three weeks.

Yes, almost as soon as I got home, I decided to go again. Originally, the idea was to go with Mary, because she wanted to go, especially after seeing the pictures, and I wanted to go back, especially after taking the pictures. Unfortunately, Mary's parents are coming the weekend I decided to go, so she will not be joining me on my return journey. Maybe it will be a trip for the future for the two of us.

As I did in the previous post about Keukenhof and Volendam, I will try and tell this story with photos. Honestly, there isn't much to the story. I spent a lot of time (almost 15 hours over two days, to be exact) hiking over, through, and around the alps. By the end of the two days, I literally had trouble standing. It was wonderful. I met some excellent people in a completely random pattern of events, who you will see in some of the pictures of the first day's hike.

So, with no further ado, I present to you: Gimmelwald, Sunny and Glorious.

We start our journey with...a journey! In a night train. That means I went to bed looking pretty:

Pretty!

And woke up in Basel looking like something had nested in my hair. Luckily, that's what they invented bathrooms for. Or, well. Something like that.

Lady Gaga promotion-people were giving out free croissants and orange juice. Free breakfast? Yes, thank you, weird Lady Gaga man.

Then I took a train from Basel (which is in Switzerland, by the way), to Interlaken, the nearest "big town" to Gimmelwald and the mountain villages of the Lauterbrunnen Valley.

I arrived at Interlaken, enthused, but slightly tired.

They had a big (read: Normal American-sized) grocery store, which to me, is a big deal, always. Naturally, I went in. And found these, which I thought was ironic, considering I am on Weight Watchers, and did not expect to ever find Weight Watchers things in Europe, and least of all in Switzerland, where I wasn't worrying about it anyway because I knew I was going to be hiking roughly 10 hours a day.

A train from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen followed the grocery store visit. A tasty roasted tomato foccacia roll also followed the grocery store trip. Weird how that happens, huh?!

So happy to be in SWITZERLAND. I was really super thrilled. I just couldn't get over how beautiful everything was. I even took a video:

And these were just pictures from the window of the train.

Once I arrived in Lauterbrunnen, I decided I had to find a way to take a picture of myself looking...like a backpacker.

There are a lot of these all over the mountain villages (and in the valley). They carry runoff from the mountain waterfalls, into the river. Exciting!

This is the Stechelberg Waterfall, if I'm not mistaken. Quite a sight, the minute you step off the train!

Some pictures in and around Lauterbrunnen.

Because it was an absolutely breath-taking day, I decided to walk from Lauterbrunnen to Stechelberg, where the cable car to Gimmelwald was.

This photo, right here, captures a monumental moment in my life, where I fulfilled a life-long desire to walk through a field of flowers in the shadow of a mountain. It was amazing.

Happiness as a result of field-of-flowers-ing.

There were a lot of paragliders and base jumpers swooping all over the place. It was pretty cool! Paragliding has gone on my list of things to do before I die. Here's a clip of one guy landing:

 

Once in Stechelberg, it was a cable car up the mountain to Gimmelwald.

The cable car was (is) a bit nerve-wracking for me. It's just a lot of empty space underneath a metal box, hanging from a wire...thousands and thousands of feet in the air...

I didn't actually remember to take any pics of the hostel, so I stole this from their Facebook page. The hostel is hundreds of years old!!

I dropped off my stuff in the girl's room (turns out I was the only girl staying on Friday night), and headed up the mountain to the next village up, Murren, to go grocery shopping. It was a bit steep. As indicated by this photo.

Avalanche prevention. To break up the snow.

I came back to the hostel around 2:30, dropped off my groceries, and was promptly swept into a hike. I had no idea where we were going. I just figured "Well, I came here to hike."

It turns out we were hiking up a mountain, to a peak called Bryndli. This is early on. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

There were some beautiful waterfalls.

We walked down some rickety stairs (everything was rickety and slightly unsafe. It was thrilling, in a dangerous, 'I-could-die-at-any-moment way.) to get to one of these waterfalls.

You could walk behind (and, theoretically, underneath), the waterfall. I didn't want to be pummeled to death, so I opted for the behind route.

Behind the waterfall with our excellent guide, Nigel.

We hiked up to this lovely grassy-covered knoll area

 Then we hiked some more, and quickly got to a point in the path, on the side of a very steep hill, where the snow hadn't quite melted yet. That was where the hike got reeeaaally interesting, really fast.

This is a picture of what we had to do to get over the patch of snow on the path. Go off-road, crab crawling up this (very steep) hill, with the wild hope of reaching "the top" so that we could find our way back to the path.

This is what I was looking back at (had I had the balls to look back down at any point while crab-crawling up that hill). Not exactly, like, a short fall.

Upon arriving at the top of the hill, we were thrilled to be alive. Also proud to have made it up the hill. There was an alternative way back down, so we didn't (thankfully) have to crab crawl back down the hill.

We continued onward, pumped on nervous adrenaline, and got to the last jaunt of the hike up to the peak - this rocky, narrow path, with a few metal bars for support. Mind you, this is 7,000 feet off the ground.

But we made it. We were very proud. I was a bit shakey from the nerves, if I'm perfectly honest. I'm going to try it again when I go back and see if I don't feel a bit better about it the second time.

We got to sign the special book.

And then we took some epic pictures.

The group I hiked with. The other girls in the group were from Oklahoma, and this hike was only their SECOND HIKE IN THEIR ENTIRE LIVES. We all survived. Which is amazing.

Then we made the equally steep climb back down.

And across several shale-slides where the trail was simply gone.

And some snow. In shorts and tennis shoes.

Then there was this Lord of the Rings thing that we ran along. It's appropriate, because Nigel is Canadian (like Sean Astin, who plays Samwise), and he kind of looks and talks like Samwise. So really, we were in LotR. Totally.

At several points along the trail they have these - fresh mountain steam faucets. Also at one point, I just filled my water bottle from a stream. That was one of the greatest moments on the hike, drinking clean stream water.

Then we clambered over this mudslide.

Naturally, it was also quite steep, and dangerous.

At one point, Brynne decided to start cursing the mountain, which in return caused her to slip into the giant mudslide, coming out like this.

Jordan was a victim as well.

I thought this was cool. The stream made a little tunnel in the snow (shows just how much snow they got, eh?!)

We passed some more waterfalls on the way back.

That peak is the one we climbed. I KNOW, RIGHT?

Back at the hostel, we were all very dirty. And hungry.

Naturally, I ordered fondue and a giant mug of beer. It was delicious.

Watching the sun set on the mountains. Full, exhausted, and completely satisfied. Beautiful.

On Sunday, I woke, had breakfast, and decided to take it easy.

So I went on a much less rigorous hike. For six hours.

When I got back, Helmut and I had a photo shoot around the hostel, as this is tradition. Helmut is my stuffed animal horseshoe crab. He's quite nice, once you get to know him.

A few more pictures of the peak we climbed.

A wee bit closer up. See the little white bit on the upper left hand side? That's where we had to go off-road.

Some meaningful graffiti in the girl's room.

That evening, I had some drinks with some of the hostel folks.

Including the owner, Walter, who adamantly avoids photos.

Gotcha.

Helmut apparently wanted to join in the festivities.

So did the Dutch men and the Candian couple with their nice bottle of wodka. The Dutch men and I had a delightful time speaking Dutch to one another without anyone else (even the Germans) understanding.

On Monday, I sadly (it was almost tragic, to be honest), left Gimmelwald, made my way back to Lauterbrunnen, and eventually back to Basel.

There was a lovely cathedral in Basel.

I took this cool, ancient ferry to get over to the cathedral (it's powered only by the current of the river).

And folks, that was about the entirety of my journey to Switzerland. I plan on going again in about three weeks, and spending Saturday, Sunday, and most of Monday in Gimmelwald. I will come back on a night train from Basel at around 10 Monday night. I'll have Tuesday to pack, and I leave Wednesday, back for the U.S. Hoi, lawdy!