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)!

To Amsterdam, Disneyland, A Highway in Belgium and Back Again

Every time I start one of these posts, I always feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of information I want to share with you! So I'll take this slowly, one piece of my weekend at a time.


First off, I have been spending my time familiarizing myself with Utrecht and trying not to feel like a big, bumbling, non-Dutch-speaking fool. Fortunately, I think I've been doing okay. But let's talk about something really simple that is a good illustration of what it's like to be in a foreign country: grocery shopping.  Every time I go grocery shopping, I'm extremely anxious, because I'm terrified people will ask things of me and I just won't understand because they're speaking so quickly, but I've basically learned, whenever the cashier ever asks me anything, I should just say "Ja," or "En engels, alsjeblieft?" which means, "In English, please?"  Cashiers (and lines, and grocery stores) tend to be very busy when I have time to go (because that is when everyone else is going too, naturally) and so everything is usually just one giant nervous blur where I try to peruse and get things I find interesting, most of which I don't actually recognize, and then go to check out, use cash (we haven't gotten to the part where I'm brave enough to use my Dutch debit card yet) and just say "yes" when asked for...whatever it is they ask for. Usually it's if you want a receipt. Or a bag. Which, whatever. Yes, I would like both of those things. The other day some poor girl kept asking me if I had an Albert Hein (that's the name of one of the big grocery stores over here - they call it "Ah-pee" - nobody knows why...) advantage card that she could borrow, which I do, but poor thing, she finally just switched to English of her own accord. And I gave her my card. And felt embarrassed. It's a good thing I think well of myself, because otherwise this whole trip would be one long embarrassment. As it so happens, it has been very humbling but gratifying as well, when I can spit out one or two correct words, and feel very accomplished for doing so. When people talk to me in private (i.e. not in a bustling grocery store) they take a lot of time to enunciate, and then I can usually understand them. And attempt to speak back to them in Dutch. Most people here DO speak English, which is wonderful, and so switching back and forth between my broken Dutch and their English accomplishes almost everything I need to do. Like find out how to buy a train ticket to Amsterdam in a panic. Which also happened this weekend. But back to grocery shopping for a moment.

 Because I don't have a car, I have to bike everywhere, which for the most part is great - I absolutely love biking, as anyone will tell you - but it makes it a bit difficult to go grocery shopping, because everything has to then get placed in or around my bike. I have nice new bags on the back (thanks to Siri) that hold my groceries, but getting off the bike, taking out my keys, unlocking my bike lock, taking off my bike bags, relocking my bike lock, hefting my bike bags into the store, buying things, packing my bike bags, putting my bags back on the bike, unlocking it, and finally leaving - it's all rather a hassle, really. People in Holland have two kinds of locks for their bikes (who would ever have known that bikes are so complex?). One kind of lock is circular and wraps around the back wheel and in between the spokes, basically acting as a "bike boot" like what they put on your car when you've done something terribly naughty, like park somewhere for one minute longer than the time you paid for to park there... In any case, these are more convenient for just leaving the bike for a wee bit to do some shopping, whereas the more extreme lock is a thick (and we're talking THICK) chain in a nylon sleeve that you can hook up to something more solid - like a bike rack. I need to get a circular lock. They're much quicker than the chain - although the chain is a better guarantee that your bike will still be there when you get back. Anyway. I digress. Bikes. They're huge here.

Last week, after my nasty encounter with Nasty-Woman-Who-Shall-Remain-Unnamed, I went out and got what is called a "kip-stick," which I have mentioned previously - it is literally the best food imaginable. "Kip-stick" literally just means "Chicken-stick" but it's a special Dutch thing (I think, anyway) that is like - I've described it as a fried egg roll-looking thick soup. Like, they took chicken soup, and made it really thick and then breaded and fried it. At the Central Station in Utrecht they have these machines where you just pop in a euro and get a freshly made kip-stick. It's making my mouth water just to think about it.

The boxes where you can get a hot kip stick.

This is my delicious kip stick.

I've looked it up, and apparently these things are called kroketten (Dutch croquettes). The article I read says that the filling is a mixture of flour, butter and milk into a paste, and then the addition of food-processed (i.e. like hamburger meat) meat with onion and spices. Mix them together, coat, and fry. Delicious.

The kroketten flour mixture.

The kroketten meat and onion and spices mixture.

Mixed together.

 

 

Delicious kipsticks/kroketten!

So! This weekend. On Thursday morning, bright and early (I think around 6:30) I got up and got ready to go to Amsterdam for my first official Fulbright meeting. I looked totally awesome and completely Dutch in my skinny black pants, t-shirt, black vest, tan jacket, scarf, and cute little black boots.

I got out the door just a little bit late and missed the bus - it was literally pulling away as I ran up to it - and had to take a later one that got me to the Central Station just a tad too late to catch the early train to Amsterdam, which I was upset about. So, there I was, rushing and freaking out about how to get a ticket to Amsterdam, and then I asked, and was told I didn't NEED a ticket, I just had to scan my "OV-Chipkaart" onto the scanners at the station I get on, and the station I get off at. The "OV-Chipkaart" by the way, is like a credit-card bus pass that you can put money on to use for bus fare, train fare, etc. They're awesome. I think I've mentioned this before. So anyway, rushing around Utrecht central station. Well, then it turns out you can't buy a train pass with less than 20 euro on your OV-Chipkaart, and to put more money on it, you have to wait in this huge long line. So I did that, for about fifteen minutes. Missed another train. Slightly hyperventilating at this point, with my giant backpack on, I finally managed to get on a train headed to Amsterdam. The good news is, the trains here are wickedly fast (They're called, "Sprinters") and so I got to Amsterdam from Utrecht (about a 45 minute drive? Without traffic?) in about 20 minutes. I got off in Amsterdam at about 9 AM, and had to hoof it to find the right bus and busstop that would take me to the bank where I was supposed to set up an account at 10. Miraculously, I found the right bus, got off at the right stop (for which I allowed myself a happy dance), and found the bank, so that I ended up getting to the bank about 30 minutes early. Which is much better than being late. I felt terrible though, because upon entering the bank, the nice lady offered me some coffee, which I promptly (in my shaky anxious-state) knocked over their entire desk area. Oof. She was really nice and insisted upon cleaning it up for me AND she made me a new espresso. So nice. Setting up my bank account went absolutely swimmingly. The man was really nice and kept jokingly asking me if I thought he had ADHD. He didn't, but it was still cute of him to joke with me in my poor, broken Dutch/English. Dinglish.

Here are some things I saw on my walk after the bank appointment, including (lol), the exact canal view featured in my blog's header. Which I then had to take a picture in front of.

Amsterdam! Land of Canals and such.

That's right. Lots of Cheese. "Kaasland" literally means, "Cheese Country."

In front of aforementioned canal.

The canal!

A very sweet river boat covered in plants.

After wandering around for a bit, I did end up finding the Fulbright center - about an hour early - so for a while I just sat across from that river boat up there and read my book on my Kindle. I love my Kindle. I'm so, so, so, so glad I bought it. It's made being here a lot easier, I just know. Because I can read books and just do what I do when I'm stressed out for anything - disappear for a little while into someone else's story. Since I got here, I've read like, four books! And I've only been here for a week and a half! It was weird, this day, waiting to go into the Fulbright center, because my book was about this nasty dystopic future in which love is a disease, and the "cure" is a neural procedure everyone undergoes at 18. And in the book, the people who don't agree with this system, who don't think love is the bane of society, get thrown into this horrible jail called "The Crypt," and as the book was describing this looming building, I, who was surrounded by looming buildings, was getting increasingly freaked out, and then it got really cold, and cloudy, and I decided I couldn't finish that part of the book until I was somewhere else! That somewhere else ended up being Disneyland, so, I mean, what's a better way to fight off a scary/sad part of a book than to be full of the joy and wonder of Disneyland? But more on that later (as in, another blog post, because baby, I am le pooped).

The Fulbright meeting itself was wonderful. All of the Fulbrighters are like...like my best friends at the HTC. Not the annoying HTC people. The really nice ones, who are actually socially adept (look, if you're reading this, then you're one of these people, okay?) and who care about others, and who love what they do, and are excited to learn about new things. It was great. The people who run the Fulbright center in Amsterdam - Linda and Marcel, are also wonderful. Linda is English, and Marcel is Dutch, but they were both so kind and understanding and funny. They seemed really laid back - in a good, organized, "this is a once-in-a-lifetime-cultural-experience-not-a-race-to-get-an-article-published," kind of way. They talked to us for several hours about what to expect in Holland, health insurance, what they expect of us, etc. It was also really excellent to get to talk to the other Fulbright people for a good long while (we had lots of drinks and snacks after the "official" meeting). After the meeting, Remco (Siri's boyfriend) picked me up, and well, the rest is for another night. I have a photo shoot tomorrow (I know, I am so faaaabbbulous) for promotional photos for the fundraising campaign for OU (for the HTC's fundraising part, specifically), so, erm, wish me luck with looking extremely excellent and, err, like you would want to pay a lot of money to become someone like me, I guess, since my photos are going in a brochure meant to generate support for the HTC!

A photo shoot. What have I become? I was even told by the lady who is doing the photos to bring several outfits to the shoot. We're meeting in downtown Utrecht to take pictures by the canal and such. At least it will yield some nice pictures, eh! Till tomorrow, and the re-telling of my Disneyland adventure in all its glorious detail.