Neglect

SHUT UP DUCKS!!! SERIOUSLY, THEY NEVER SHUT UP!

Wow, have I neglected to post in the past few days...

Not a ton has happened--I have been getting more and more acquainted with the city and am absolutely in awe of its beauty in every respect.  The weather has been pretty bad--cold, windy and rainy/snow every day. Some days, the grossness lasts the entire day and others it comes in waves. It does not make it pleasant getting around the city by bike and yet I try and avoid the trams because biking gives a completely unique perspective of the city one cannot get sitting and staring out a window. 

My knees are finally healing, but that could signal another fall off my bike is going to happen soon. 

Friday (2/12), my hall had a potluck dinner.  I officially suck at cooking.  Anoop brought an Indian chicken dish,  Creamy (English name) from China made a noodle dish with ketchup and mini hot dogs, A girl from France who lived here last semester and happened to be visiting made the most incredible chocolate mousse, The Romanian girls brought another chicken dish with garlic, oil and a ketchup chili flavoring, and Ola from Poland brought vodka.  Hahaha…seriously.  And, I clearly wasn’t going to make cheeseburgers or deep-dish pizza so I made some sautéed vegetables, pretty much the easiest thing to make.  It was wonderful tasting a little bit of each hall mate’s culture.  We also had great conversation again on Obama, studying abroad, Amsterdam among other topics.  A few of us ended up going out for a little afterwards.

 

Saturday (2/13), I took a day trip with my program around Amsterdam to places that we wouldn't normally go on our daily routines. We got up pretty early--especially after a night of partying--to bike across town to the architecture museum on the northwestern side of the city.  Here, we were given a tour of a neighborhood that represented the larger city's construction--a constant battle between Protestants and Catholics. This was represented in building and home styles.  Pretty fascinating that even religions and politics can determine architecture styles.  The social housing buildings are insanely nice looking compared to what was/is built in the US.  And, these federally funded units are in a nice area so the people living there don’t feel like outcastes and probably are living among people who are relatively wealthy or at least part of the middle class.  It’s essentially a functioning mixed-income housing development/program.  Another interesting feature of the tour is that the building the starting point of the walking tour is in, was an old post office designed by a famous architect who was a literalist—he created the building with purpose in design such as the ceiling made to look like a stamp and the “employees only” sign in the shape of a police baton among other cool features.  

After we were done touring the various sites, the group had lunch at the museum’s restaurant.  It was delicious! Great juice, fruit, soup, sandwiches and a sweet bread that is part of Dutch cuisine. A good meal for a cold day. 

The next part of the day, the group went on a ferry to the north side of Amsterdam, located across a much larger canal.  The Noord Amsterdam Island is home to an artist colony.  David and I had to get back to do some work and catch up on sleep so we left after lunch. We grabbed a quick cup of coffee on Haarlemmerstraat—a swanky area near Jordaan (another young and posh area)--and talked with a local man who wanted to improve his English. I offered my tutoring skills, but in the end he just wanted to speak enough English to get a girl he met in Dallas to date him. J

On Wednesday I gave a presentation to my Religious Diversity in the Netherlands Class on France’s probable ban of the burqa and theoretically what that means/might mean if the bill passes as well as comparing that to the Swiss’ ban of minaret building among other conflicts between church (more mosque than church) and state. 

After class I met up with some friends for a bit of wandering around Spui and Spuistraat—a cool area with lots of restaurants, bars, and fun stores.  We ended up popping into an aboriginal art and instruments store, which was LOADS of fun.  The woman who worked at the store let us bang on drums and blow into a range of digideroos, which were so much fun to play. Lies (pronounced like Lisa without the ‘a’) is a world famous digideroo player who worked with DJ Tiesto and played in front of 30,000 people. She has some cool stories as well.

There, we met a squatter who, while playing with us, discussed squatting.  He comes to the shop to play every day and sweeps the floor in return for the entertainment.  He said that many squatters are people from other countries who came to Amsterdam in search of something, there are many fistfights at the homes. The squatter also noted how the squatters basically take over $1 million + euro homes to crash at.  I will write a longer entry about squatting as it is something that I am fascinated by and hopefully I will have more conversations with the man at the art and instrument store.  After the fun store, we went to De Beerkoning, “The Beer King” store where they import SO many kinds of beer from all over the world. You can buy a single bottle to try or an entire case.  My friends and I are having a competition to see how many kinds from the “good” shelf (the shelf suggested to us by the owner of the store) we can try and by the end we will each by a glass with our favorite’s logo on it (which they also have an entire wall of glasses from random beer companies).  After purchasing a select few, we rode our bikes back to our dorm while watching the sun set over the canals. 

Little Tid-Bits

Travel plans- This weekend I will be in Copenhagen, next weekend taking a day trip to a college town in the Netherlands called Groningen, and the following weekend I will be in Geneva and possibly Zurich Switzerland.  I am looking forward to exploring the world, except it is way more expensive than I anticipated. Sure there are cheapy intra Europe flights, but they are only at inconvenient times and in random places (like 2 hours south of Amsterdam to catch the flight). Planning in advance is essential otherwise a $200 ticket is not uncommon.

Netherlands is ranked as the #2 happiest country in the world and I believe it.  The number 1 and other number 2s are Iceland, Sweden and Denmark.  I completely believe that these countries have the happiest people.  They seriously have fewer issues than people in the US have and can live on less material things and yet have greater intangible sensations (happiness).  There are very few things to worry about here, that could be that I am a student living abroad with very few things to worry about, but just talking to people and hearing their stories (which I LOVE, by the way) has been most refreshing to not listen to complaints but rather adoration for their country. We may be home of the brave and a land of the free, but somehow the US, in all its free glory dragged a bunch of crap into the mix. I am not bashing the US by any means—one is critical of what he or she loves as the saying I think goes—and the Netherlands sure has its problems too, like religious issues. Ill post more about this another time…

Burgermeester might have the best salmon burger I have ever eaten.

Amsterdam’s famous brown bars are incredible.  The scene is exactly how you imagine. Dark stained walls (probably aided by tobacco smoke from long ago) people sitting within close proximity of each other and enjoying everyone’s presence and the cold great beer and munchies. The hole in the wall place one dreams about when wanting to have an intense philosophical conversation about the meaning of life. Awesome. 

Presentations in class- Each professor requires individual presentations…I think that’s a Dutch thing, how important it is to present information well in a public domain.  Next week I have a debate (more like a presentation) on whether the political system in America can change—that’s for my Obama class.  The professor, for this class, by the way, ended our heated discussion this past week on personal interests (like why Obama wrote The Audacity of Hope and such) by saying that there were no personal political interests and then said “class dismissed” and stormed out. It was quite funny, as he intended it to be.  He’s an old guy with a young heart who just LOVES the US.  I also have a presentation on colonialism, militarism and prostitution with an emphasis on ethnicity for my class on prostitution. 

There is a joke in Amsterdam that clogs are obsolete, Crocs are the clogs of the 21^st century.  I thought it was pretty funny, considering that nobody here wears clogs and that perceptions of the Dutch are slightly skewed in that regard.  

"Can't wait for Copenhagen"/ "I am running to catch my flight" Love,

Syd