Semester in Holland

One last hoorah

2008-03-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

So, I've made this blog sporadic to the point that I'm not sure anyone's even checking it anymore, but for the purposes of those whom I can specifically direct here, I thought I'd post a link to my very random photo album with pictures of the following things:
- the inside of my apartment, including my room, the living room, the kitchen
- bowls of various foods that have been made in my kitchen :)
- a few of my friends at my apartment (including Sunday brunches that I tend to host in small numbers at my place)
- the schizophrenic weather patterns of northern ohio
- Kal Penn (Kumar from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and Eric Balfour (think: Six Feet Under, 24, The OC, Buffy, etc.) who came to Oberlin to rep Obama

[Click on this sentence to see the album!]

Unfortunately, the idea of keeping this blog during the school year, however noble the effort, is pretty unrealistic. I am swamped with stuff to do here from the moment I wake to the moment I sleep. Suffice it to say, however, that life this year is amazing. Being abroad for a semester changed me more than I realized, and probably more than I understand even now; I feel so much older and calmer and more confident and more passionate about things than I did before I left, and I have a newfound appreciation for the education I'm getting here. I only have another semester and a half, but I have decided to spend the summer here as well, working half-time at an internship with Field Magazine and half-time at Dick's Sporting Goods in a nearby town :) where I recently picked up a parttime job that I already love immensely for the exposure it gives me to the "real world" outside the private liberal arts college bubble.

I'm busier than ever, but I wake up excited to take on everything that each day offers - typically, this includes: drinking coffee, breakfast with Seyeon, a 5-7 mile on the treadmill, working out in the weights room, awesome classes with inspiring professors, afternoon tea or conversation with someone or other, reading a couple novels a week, churning out new fiction each week for my creative writing class, doing lots of work for the creative writing department, continuing to give campus tours for admissions, cooking dinner or baking some banana bread or something, meeting up with friends at the library in the evenings to do homework, chilling with my delightful housemates at night, getting a good night's sleep, then getting up the following morning to do it all over again :)

Weekends offer a little changeup of that routine - you know, I swim instead of run...eat brunch instead of breakfast...haha, seriously though - this last weekend, I went to see an incredible DJ/emcee performance at our school's bar/club/music venue from a group out of Seattle called the Blue Scholars; it was a firstrate dance party, really awesome chance to unwind from the week. Sunday evening, I went on a mini-road trip with one of my creative writing professors to get delicious Indian food and discuss plans for the department. It's cool this year, I feel that I am really bonding with a lot of my professors...this is what's supposed to happen at small liberal arts colleges, but somehow, I've never felt it in action the way it feels this semester; I really feel like I could be friends with all of them, and that's so exciting to me. The presence of adults and mentors in my life the first couple years at Oberlin was a real bummer, and I didn't realize until Amsterdam how much I need older people in my day-to-day life to keep sane.

Thanks for reading :) Get in touch with me if you want to stay posted on the goings-on of my life!

The college life

2008-02-10T18:13:00.000-08:00

Life at Oberlin continues to be good, albeit quite hectic and stressful already. Fortunately, I actually like most of the things I am reading and doing for classes, so I don't mind the 1000+ pages of reading per week (no exaggeration)...also, in addition to the five previously mentioned courses, I've tacked on one more for the sake of my future ability to function practically in the world: Personal Finance and Investment! I am auditing it (taking it for no credit) so I can reap the benefits (hopefully) without adding too much to my stress levels.

We have a new president at Oberlin, whom I heard speak last spring and with whom I felt very impressed. Whether the following changes have anything to do with him or not, I don't know, but Oberlin's campus has undergone some nice revamping since I was here last, including: a cafe inside the walls of our main library, as well as a totally renovated "academic commons" on the first floor that is much more homely and conducive to studying than before...also, our gym has acquired a few new cardio machines, including some fancy schmancy ellipticals that I've been psyched to use. Living down the street from the gym is fantastic, because it's so much easier to get motivated to go when it's so close by.

I am no longer part of the vegetarian/vegan food co-op I was last spring, mostly because it was a 4-5 hour/week time commitment I just don't think I could make this year. The dining halls' food is way inferior, but it is nice to be on my own time schedule in terms of meals, and also have a little more freedom to cook for myself now that I have my own kitchen in the apartment! My housemates are nice folks...they even made me a pretty nametag for my bedroom door with a teapot on it :) Speaking of which, check out my awesome new teapot; thank you, Ebay:

The last weekend was pretty great...I caught up with a few friends I had yet to see since returning from Amsterdam, drank a lot of tea, went bowling with old friends, shot some pool, spent many hours in the library (sometimes reading, sometimes napping), went for a run in a blizzard in negative-10-degree-Farenheit-with-wind-chill weather, went to a few parties (mostly mediocre ones, as Oberlin parties almost always are), trumped around campus a lot in entirely too much snow, went to an incredible Japanese Taiko drumming performance, and saw OCircus, which deserves a paragraph of its own to describe its awesomeness.

So! OCircus is Oberlin students' annual circus-like performance: it is written, directed, and performed by Oberlin students; the soundtrack (always incredible) is composed by Oberlin conservatory composition majors, the soundtrack played by conservatory performance majors, and put on for free for the entire town of Oberlin. We have a surprising amount of mind-boggling talent in our modest student body, this year's performance including a girl who could play a violin while riding a unicycle while wearing a dragon suit...two guys who could link arms and collaboratively play an accordion (using one hand each) and collaboratively juggle bowling pins (each using their remaining hand)...people who could play electric guitar and do the tango while on five-foot stilts...incredible tumblers and gymnastics-folks and jugglers and hula-hooping talents beyond your wildest imagination...it was awesome.

And, as promised, a few pictures...of my neighborhood!

Here's my street! (Suburbs, much?)

My house!

My "backyard", i.e. the view from my bedroom window:

(Indoors shots of the apartment itself to follow, once I get my proper decorations up.)

The saga continues...

2008-02-06T13:49:00.000-08:00

After some thought on the matter, I've decided to continue posting here on my blog throughout the coming semester, even though I am no longer abroad (thus the web address is a bit of a misnomer from here on out, sorry!) and my entries will probably be both more sporadic and less adventuresome, since I am, after all, in rural Ohio, not, say, Athens. I will, however, be writing occasional updates on how college life is, on general readjustment-to-America feelings, about my classes, my friends, my writing, my life, and, ya know, growing up!

(Yes, that's me being silly in the back. Oh dear.)

With that disclaimer out of the way...Oberlin's been great so far. I am living in a lovely apartment with three other girls (none of whom I knew prior to last weekend when I moved in) and taking five classes, the majority of which (finally!) are within my major (creative writing):
The Graphic Narrative (yes, comics...and graphic novels...we're reading 20 over the course of the semester, and starting work on one of our own)
300-level Fiction Workshop (with my favorite professor in the department!)
Reading for Writing (I compile a reading list, read all the books on it, and keep a journal of my reactions)
Introduction to Comparative Literature (with one of Oberlin's best professors)
Introduction to Economics (my test run for this crazy idea I have to go to business school later in life)

There's much more to say, but the first week back is always crazy hectic, so it will have to wait a couple more days...soon, though: more words, more images (including ones of my apartment!), etc. Thanks for reading :)

Reflections of a Globetrotter

2008-01-30T21:48:00.000-08:00

I have always wanted to be a morning person. Unfortunately, I am a diehard night owl. Jetlag seems to be my only hope, as this last week, I have gotten tired at 9 p.m. and woken up effortlessly at 6 or 7 a.m. every day. It's been wonderful. But now it's midnight, I'm still awake, and my brief, glorious stint as an early riser is, I believe, over. Sad indeed, but at least now I've got that late-night-inspiration-to-write thing going on again, so here goes the long-awaited reflective entry on lessons I learned - about the world, about people, about myself - while abroad.

* Boy, are we English-speakers a privileged species. I don't think I ever understood how lucky I was to be born in an English-speaking country until I realized that traveling abroad would be damn near impossible without knowledge of English.

* I also have a lot more sympathy for non-English speakers living in the U.S., and a lot less sympathy for the Americans who are assholes to them. Learning a new language is tough, and it is already incredibly alienating to be in a country where you often can't understand what's going on around you, without the added trouble of people being jerks about it.

* The best way to judge people and situations is on your own intuition; if it has served you well in the past, trust it. It often makes better decisions than straight, objective logic, and will definitely lead you to many more, diverse experiences and people.

* Physical health and good hospitals should never, never, NEVER be taken for granted.

* Being vegetarian abroad, while traveling, is a nightmare for one's physical health. I do not recommend it.

* I have developed a theory, upon observing the children of various cultures, that generally, the amount of discipline kids get corresponds with their level of maturity. There is probably a law of diminishing returns there, in that I certainly don't advocate tyranical parenting...but there is definitely something to be said for discipline. European kids are some of the most unruly, awful-to-be-around people I've ever come across, beginning with the teenage girls at our hostel during orientation back in August that sat down next to Ellen and me and began chanting taunts at us in Dutch for no apparent reason. Perhaps it's arrogant to say so, but I do feel like American kids are somewhat better (and conversations with Dutch folks often backed up this theory) because American parents just don't let their kids get away with the kind of stuff I saw happen all the time in Holland...and oi, when we went to Turkey, I met 12-year-olds with more maturity than the vast majority of twenty-somethings I go to school with, including myself!

* Age is pretty irrelevant when it comes to making connections with people. The five people in the Netherlands (other than my fellow American program-goers) I bonded with most were all in their thirties or older, and yet I felt hardly even aware at all of the age difference when we were actually hanging out.

* I think it's official - I am a type A personality, or at least I want so desperately to be one that I think I get an honorary membership card to the Type A Personality Club. I definitely thrive on being busy, and I'm the happiest when I have lots and lots to do from the moment I awake to the moment I sleep.

* The rest of the world doesn't hate Americans as much as I thought, but there is a general sense of loathing for the following aspects of our country:
- George W. Bush
- the fact that we don't really learn any other languages or extensive histories of other countries in school
- the hyperbole of our social habits (especially the tendency toward overfriendliness, emotional sentimentalism, etc.)

* With that said, upon further reflection, I've realized that the "overfriendliness" I had pegged as a facet of American culture is more specifically a facet of Midwestern American culture. This occurred to me as I tried desperately to make conversation with strangers upon my initial return to New York and found it surprisingly difficult. An enthusiastic "Hi, how are you?!!" to the airport personnel at JFK examining my boarding pass was met with silence and suspicious eyes. Contrastingly, once I got back to Kansan soil, I've struck up conversation with a zillion strangers, all of whom were beaming at me before I even opened my mouth, just as eager as me to forge connections and get to know the other people with whom they share their world. I've realized how ingrained that breed of Midwestern friendliness is in me, how much I miss it when I am away...it does make me question whether I'll be able to make it happily living on a coast, in a city...perhaps someday I will eat all my words about wanting to get out of Kansas and come back to the land of ad astra per aspera and settle down for a nice, homegrown Midwestern lifestyle :)

* With that said, I guess the ultimate lesson was this: You can never truly know yourself completely. Part of this is because we're all constantly changing, being affected by our experiences, adapting, learning, growing...especially at the age I am at now. But for all the things about myself and about my future that I felt so sure of before I went abroad...almost all were shaken up pretty well by these past five months. Some things may have been confirmed, but mostly, I learned that there is always more to be learned. And there's nothing like a foreign environment to get the gears of those lessons cranking.

* I guess I am more American than I realized. What a bummer, huh? I've spent so much of my adolescent angst developing the fine art of anti-American sentiment, rebelling against the grotesque massiveness of everything in this country, against the lens of arrogant superiority and partonization through which we seem to see the rest of the world...I still have problems with those things, of course, but it's no longer so simple. I can't chuck my own culture just because Europeans are better environmentalists, better eaters, better exercisers, better liberals than "my people" back here in America. The truth is, I feel home here in a way I'm not sure I wouldn't ever, living longterm anywhere else. I have all the more respect and sense of awe for my mother for having lived so much of her life out of her native comfort zone.

* It may not reflect on me all that well to admit the first two, but the three things whose absence dealt the roughest blows to my happiness while abroad were: prevalence of the English language, steady internet access, and, of course, the people I love. I must admit to intense relief upon recovering all three upon my return to the states. What can I conclude from this? The common thread between them, I'd say, is "human connection" - and if I didn't know it before, I know now - it's the single most important thing to me in life...feeling connected to others.

* Yes, everything in America is, on average, at least five times the size of things in other countries - whether it's our cars, our roads, our houses, our supermarkets, our food portions, our waistlines, our (mega)churches, our egos, our disregard for the environment, our national debt, our pricetags on higher education, the shortcomings of our healthcare system, there's no doubt about it. Despite the fact that this place is my home, and in many ways, I am relieved to be back on familiar turf, amongst a people with whom I can share genuine, mutual understanding...damn could we stand to learn a lot from the rest of the world! It's a shame it's so easy for us to stay inside our safe little American bubble of SUV's, Wal-Mart, and All-you-can-eat-buffets :/

* But okay, it's good to be back.

* However: once the novelty of being around other English speakers all the time wears off, I will undoubtedly realize just how deep the travel bug's teeth have sunk into my skin :) It's there, I can feel it already, and the list of places I now want to go is already miles long...

* The world is smaller than we think!

Around Eastern Europe in 15 Days

2008-01-23T09:24:00.000-08:00

In the interest of your computer not crashing, I've tried to condense each city (after London and Berlin, which I already posted some pictures from) into just three (or fewer) key images...the rest will be in either my scrapbook or Ruth's (or, you know, on Facebook), so just ask!

Praha

In front of the Prague castle:

Memorial to those who lost their lives to communism:

Bratislava (!!)
Train refugees...

Budapest
Parliament:

The Széchenyi Baths, thermal waters, where we spent an entire day:

Our middle-aged buddies:

Αθήνα/Athina

In front of the Temple of Zeus (notably, in a t-shirt):

In front of the 1896 Olympic Stadium, with our friends Andrew, Anthony, and Kayla:

Genève
The Jet d’eau and Alps in the background:

Strolling through adorable Swiss villages:

Hiking the gorgeous countryside:

Europa, I miss thee already...

Coincidences Come in Threes

2008-01-22T16:50:00.000-08:00

The final leg of our backpacking adventures in Europe was completely delightful, and also perhaps the most exhausting yet. I suppose that’s the best way to end a globetrotting journey, on a note of I-never-want-to-see-the-inside-of-a-plane-or-train-again, because it cushions the blow of an amazing trip coming to an end. Drama aside, though, I would be lying to say it’s not good to be “home” again. (I put that word in quotes, because the whole concept of “home” gets so much fuzzier and more diffused as you grow up, I guess...and, in many ways, I think of Amsterdam as a sort of home, too, just as I do Oberlin as well, and hopefully in the not-too-distant future, Seattle.) Amidst a myriad of other changes that this trip has wrought in me (which I’ll undoubtedly make another blog post about in the next few days), the last 24 hours have made me one of those ungodly extroverted people bent on making conversation with every human being who comes within speaking distance of me, because I am so excited to be amidst my own language again that I take up every opportunity to forge conversational connections with strangers.

ANYWAY. So, after Athens, Ruth and I embarked on the longest straight period of travel in our whole trip, beginning with a 6 a.m. alarm clock in our hostel (after I went to sleep around 2 a.m. with a “See ya in four hours!” to the guy working reception), a few hours of trains to Patras, Greece, where we boarded for our 23 hours on a ship across the Adriatic Sea...it was actually an incredible, 10-deck cruise ship, extremely luxurious and almost all to ourselves, though we did not spring for our own cabin, so we slept “on the deck”, which I was relieved to learn does not mean you sleep outside on the literal deck of the ship...we did, however, have to sleep on chairs that left my body sore and atrophied after our sleep marathon that made the whole ride seem unbelievably short.

Docking in Ancona, Italy, we then hiked to the train station from the port, and caught a morning train to Milan, and from there, an evening train to Switzerland that put us into our ultimate destination of Geneva at midnight two days after leaving Athens, for a total of 41 hours straight travel time. Geneva, however, made for the perfect relaxation – we stayed with the family of a friend of Ruth’s in their stunning house on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by rolling green fields, gorgeous farmlands, Swiss vineyards, and beautiful snow-capped mountains. The weather was surprisingly warm and sunny, and we spent most of our time there taking long walks, wandering the city a bit (small, quaint, calm, high international population, absolutely lovely), eating Swiss chocolate, and catching up on sleep. (Oh, and going over to France for an hour or so to drive around!)

We left on a night train out of Basil back to Amsterdam, where I spent my last day in Europe repacking everything, catching up with my mom (and having Maoz falafel and Indonesian food, both of which are amazing, and cuisines I will miss dearly about A’dam), walking all over the city and Vondelpark together, having tea with Cinta and Tanja, and catching a few winks before my morning flight to New York. Cinta and my mom dropped me off at the airport in the morning, which made for very teary goodbyes, and I sobbed pretty much the whole flight to Paris, but...so it goes. I guess that even though some Dutch cultural things rubbed off on me this semester, the fact that many of the Dutch people I met scoff a bit at American sentimentalism and extravagant displays of emotion just didn’t. I’m still capable of being my weepy, prematurely nostalgic self :)

So, the flight to New York constitutes Oberlin Students Running Into Each Other Abroad, Part III! Indeed, there was yet another girl from my dorm freshman year who was on my flight (though it was only the middle leg in her journey from South Africa back home to Colorado, after doing an SIT program in Madagascar!), and we had a wonderful talk about our respective experiences abroad. My good friend, Shari (also Ruth’s roommate at Oberlin), came to JFK to meet me when I arrived in New York, and keep me company until Ruth’s mom got there, and then the three of us had coffee and chatted it up until Ruth’s flight got in, and the four of us went out for a lovely dinner in Brooklyn – despite the fact that I was jetlagged beyond belief at that point from having been awake since 5 a.m. European time, and I was slightly delirious at the dinner table. Then this morning, Ruth and Shari saw me off to JFK again for my final flight(s) home...the total travel time being seven hours or so, during which I made at least a dozen new “friends” on various planes and parts of the Atlanta airport. So, ya know, life is good. I’m a lucky girl, I know, and don’t think I’m being flippant at all about the wealth of experiences I’ve been fortunate enough to have in the past five months...but a little more time to process is probably necessary before I reflect fully, so...

Further reflections on the whole semester, and imagery, to come soon!

!!!

2008-01-21T20:12:00.000-08:00

Aaand...five months later...I'm finally back in the states. (NY tonight, KS tomorrow.)

!

It's 5:20 a.m. European time now, I'm jetlagged and delirious, hallucinating a little, I think, so off to bed with me. But many multifarious blog updates to ensue soon, including: leaving Greece, Switzerland, final time in Amsterdam, the flight home, readjustment here in New York, and finally, some long overdue photo updates.

Thanks for sticking this out with me, blog readers, I love thee :)

Belated Words on Greece!

2008-01-18T02:36:00.000-08:00

So, Athens! What an adventure...beginning, I’d say, as we stepped off our plane onto the tarmac in Greece, the sun setting brilliantly behind the silhouettes of Grecian mountains, I took a deep breath, and I said to Ruth, “Mmm, the air is so...fresh!” And she corrected me with, “No, Yitka, it’s just actually warm here.” Indeed, Athens was a welcome respite from the icy temperatures and snow-laden cities that have made up the rest of our travels, and soon I can post the t-shirted photos of ourselves to prove it :)

On the Metro to our hostel, we made quick friends with another pair of backpackers who had been on our flight out of Vienna, two brothers in their early twenties, Andrew and Anthony. They are traveling the entire world (hitting up six different continents, stopping for a month at a time in certain places to do service work) for a year, and before we left the Metro, they’d invited us out for their weekly tradition of Pizza Sunday, which involves (as you might imagine) finding a pizza place in whatever country they are on Sundays. Pizza night was great, as was the accompanying wine and our fantastically hilarious Greek waitress, as was the magical evening of Athens-by-night exploration that ensued afterward...we wandered up to the Acropolis, Athens’ most famous collection of archaeological sites (conveniently within walking distance of our hostel) and explored that a bit, tasted intensely under-ripe oranges growing on the trees in front of our hostel (Ruth likened their taste to that of sour lemon warheads), and eventually found a massive boulder atop a hill that overlooked all of Athens, where we sat in general peace and quiet, staring out over the city, feeling good vibes about our upcoming days in Greece.

The following day, Ruth and I made quick friends yet again, this time with a girl in our room at the hostel, Kayla, who was traveling alone, and the three of us really stuck together for the rest of the visit. The majority of our time was spent wandering around various ruins, particularly around the Acropolis, which is up on a hill and surrounded by woodsy expanses, rocky outcroppings, lush greenery, stunning outlooks of the city, and even a few caves with engravings that date back to the third century A.D. (which my inner child insisted on climbing up inside, of course.) The rest of Athens is admittedly fairly polluted, gray, and populated with unimpressive architecture, but the ancient sites themselves are incredible. There were a lot of opportunities for hiking and exploring, with the added bonus of it being the off season for tourism, so I could entertain some serious fantasies about “discovering” the civilizations of ancient times. Words honestly can’t do justice to what it feels like to stand in front of these massive structures...

After a tasty dinner of amazing Greek food, giant blocks of baklava, and my first taste of “ouzo” – a hard liquor vaguely reminiscent of Jagermeister, pretty identical to the supposedly traditionally Turkish hard liquor that I was given by the manager of our hotel in Istanbul – we had a chill night in the hostel. Rolling out of bed late the following morning, we returned to our explorations, basking in the sun in front of the Temple of Zeus, wandering the Ancient Agora (where we randomly ran into Andrew and Anthony again), checking out the deserted Olympic Stadium of 1896 (where we ran into Andrew and Anthony for the third time), and eventually making it to the Archaeological Museum, only to find that it closes at 3 p.m. In a city with temperatures in the seventies though, I couldn’t complain about having to spend our afternoon and evening outdoors instead.

That night, continuing in our trip’s theme of coincidental run-ins, it turned out that the Andrew we’d met in Budapest had checked into our same hostel in Athens that day...so I got together with him in the evening for a couple drinks to trade stories about Athens thus far and his night in Belgrade, and eventually wander around the streets of Athens by night with a couple of other guys from the hostel (including one from Missouri! Excitement of all excitements!) in search of a bar, and failing that, wine and baklava...which has never tasted as good as it did the three times I had it in Greece :) and staying out until 2 a.m. in my effort to sleep as little as possible before embarking on our 41 hours straight of travel (Metro + suburban rail in Greece + 22-hour ship ride across the Adriatic + train to Milan + train to Geneva, which I am on now, typing this up in order to post later.)

Summary of thoughts: traveling is crazy, Athens is amazing, and...you can never have too much baklava.

Middle-aged, Hungarian friends? Yes please!

2008-01-13T03:42:00.000-08:00

So, the train ride to Budapest…first of all, it was supposed to be a 7-hour ride, which both Ruth and I were quite excited for, because we both have really taken to the joys of train travel – the rolling European scenery, the quiet time to read and write and think and listen to music…all was well until we crossed the Czech border, not directly into Hungary, but into Slovakia, which unfortunately our Eurail passes don’t cover. So, come Bratislava, we got booted off the train, a rude awakening amidst our peaceful ride, but an adventure, to say the least! We had four hours in the Slovakian station, then, before the next train to Budapest, which we passed in a SUPER sketchy waiting room, playing scrabble, reading (I am reading “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” which has wonderful references to Prague that are so much more exciting to read when you have actually seen a place), and having a Cultural Experience in the Slovakian public restrooms, aiee…

Our delay put us into Budapest at 10:30 at night, at which time we had our first not-so-awesome moment…aside from the train station being deserted and sprinkled only with assorted sketchy characters trying to sell us things, the directions to the hostel we had booked were pretty useless, the public transportation was confusing, no one picked up the phone when we called the hostel the first time, our own cell phones cut out the minute we DID reach them, it was freezing outside the streets generally deserted, no one spoke a word of English, and this super-sketch dude with long scraggly hair, a trench coat, and major beer breath came around for the third time to harass us to stay at his hostel. This was my “Aha, I knew backpacking in Europe couldn’t go perfectly forever” moment.

And then things started looking up. Turns out Mr. Super-Sketch was actually a really decent, genuine human being, bent on helping us out…admittedly, a salesman at heart as well, just looking to fill up the beds in the hostel he worked for, but a seriously nice guy – a 44-year-old Transylvanian, in love with beer, cigarettes, and Guns ‘N Roses, going by the name of Ziggy. Trusting our intuition (though still paying close attention to our doubts and qualms), we decided to forfeit our other hostel’s reservations and follow Zig a few blocks away from the railway station. Despite a seriously creepy looking exterior to the building, we went inside to discover a stunningly cute and wonderful hostel inside, reminiscent of a little ski cottage, only a couple rooms, all extremely cozy, where we did wind up staying the following three nights. We shared a few beers with Zig the first night, already making humor out of how sketchy we thought he was, and lamenting the fact that people have to be so suspicious of strangers, thanks to the world today.

The following day, Ruth and I spent six straight hours in the thermal waters of one of Budapest’s most famous bath houses – one of the most relaxing experiences of my life, sitting in a number of thermal pools, ranging from a cool whirlpool to hot Jacuzzis, and a crazy menthol steam room. It was incredible to just sit back and relax completely, to get to talk with Ruth for hours, to not have to walk anywhere or be anywhere or do anything. Perfect.

That night, though, we made up for our decadent lethargy :) by going out for a night on the town with Zig, an American in his thirties named Andrew who was also staying in our hostel, and another older Hungarian guy – Ruth schooled Zigs in pool, and we had a mostly good time, minus Zig getting a little alcoholic-sad, evidently because he had decided in his drunken state that he was in love with me…which, of course, I wasn’t all too keen on, despite thinking him a very nice person. Later, we went back to the hostel, Ziggy passed out, and Ruth and I stayed up until the wee hours playing poker with Andrew and a charming Australian guy named Danny who moved into our six-bed room at the hostel as well that night.

The following day, Ruth and I went out in the city to see a few of the sights – Parliament’s building, the castle, the chain bridge over the river, the caves underneath the castle, etc…Budapest is a pretty gray city, overall, not nearly as beautiful as Prague, and it has a kind of universally deserted, almost surreal feel to it. I’m sure that’s partially due to the time of year, but I was none too fond of it. The people we met were really what made our few days there…

With that said, our last night in Budapest was pretty fantastic – we went out with a whole crew of older guys this time, all in their thirties and forties, ranging from the previous night’s crew to a host of new folks, Hungarian, Canadian, basically from all over, for drinks, copious amounts of foosball, jukeboxing and a little dancing, and general good times. Still, a little sketchiness given Zig’s obsessive ardor for me that increased in direct proportion to how much alcohol he imbibed, but overall, it was a decent, fun-loving, crazy group of guys with whom to spend our time in Budapest. They all came to the train station at 10 a.m. the next day for a morning beer (I’m telling you, these Eastern Europeans observe a never-ending happy hour in their day-to-day lives) and to see Ruth and I off on our train to Vienna, accompanied by Danny, who decided to take the train with us and chill for a night in Vienna as well before going on his merry way.

Oh, life! Athens, here we come…

Oberlin students running into each other in Europe, Part II

2008-01-10T10:09:00.000-08:00

So...Prague! I am updating without pictures, which is a sad sad affair, because Prague is the most beautiful city I have ever been to in my life, but hopefully when Ruth and I can again get wireless (instead of using a public computer at our hostel here in Budapest), I will post some pictures. In the meantime, though...

We succeeded in squeezing a tremendous amount of sightseeing into our 2.5 days in Prague - fortunately, it is a very walkable city, so we could get most places on foot from our hostel. The first day, we went to the National Museum, which was mostly in Czech, but had enough in English to enjoy certain special exhibits, especially one on aerial photography as a means of archaeological research - how aerial photos can reveal the layouts and locations of ancient civilizations based on pockmarks in cropfields, etc. Fascinating stuff. Also, an exhibit on the (quite literal) footsteps of mankind, a sort of random assortment of archaeological artifacts from throughout the world and humanity's time on this Earth, themed with shoes from all different civilizations and eras.

We also saw many of the major sights: the stunning Prague Castle, the Old Town Square and world-famous Astronomical Clock, the old Jewish quarter, the old Jewish Cemetary (with graves dating back to the 1400s, I believe, with bodies buried as many as twelve deep in a single plot of land), the Kafka museum (a creepy but fascinating and thorough exhibit...very Kafkaesque, if you will :P), the Charles Bridge, the mini Eiffel tower, the Cafe Louvre (both famous and old, with a history of prominent visitors like Albert Einstein, who was a professor in Prague for awhile...who knew?!), among an assortment of stunningly-architected buildings all throughout the city.

Again, coincidences of all coincides, Ruth and I ONCE AGAIN ran into another Oberlin student, again someone we both knew remotely well...of all places, at a wonderful, small little vegetarian/vegan restaurant. We had a great chat (turns out she lived a door away from the place in an apartment, studying abroad all year in Prague) and again went our separate ways. Small, small, small world!

I spent much of my energy in the Czech Republic trying to find other Jitkas (the original Czech spelling of my name is with a J) and joking around with Ruth about every Czech girl we met potentially being named Jitka...but the only one I actually found was a "Jitka Cecile" listed in the Pinska Synagogue, a place with the names of 80,000 Czech Jews killed in the second world war...a very sobering memorial indeed. Jitka was 7 years old when she died.

Next time I update...the harrowing story of our travels to Budapest, which has, by far, been the craziest part of our journey yet.

“Ich bin ein Berliner!” + London wrap-up

2008-01-07T09:04:00.000-08:00

Well, I am in Prague now, which is snowy and beautiful so far…Ruth and I are both trying to keep separate entries for each city we visit, so this one will deal primarily with Berlin, and I’ll do the Prague update once it’s all said and done (and we go off to Budapest!...in a few more days.)

But first…the rest of London was great. To add to what I wrote in my last entry, I went to the National Gallery and saw many of the rooms devoted to Dutch painters and paintings, as well as some of the famous Michaelangelo, DaVinci, Van Gogh, etc works. Unfortunately, our time there was cut short by a workers’ strike, so we went next door to the National Portrait Gallery, which was a surprising mix of media, including paintings, photographs, sculptures, and even a spectacular diorama of J.K. Rowling. I particularly enjoyed a beautiful photo exhibit on Princess Diana. Remaining tales of London can best be summed up largely in pictures:

All five of us at the London Eye, with Big Ben in the background:

and in front of Buckingham Palace:

Trafalgar Square (notice the pervading grayness...)

...aaand us with the London police!

An amazing week, though escaping the $2.15/ £1 exchange rate has really made the rest of Europe and the exchange rate with the Euro seem blessedly cheap…a dangerous logical fallacy for my bank account, but whew is it nice to not be spending fifteen bucks a day on public transportation alone anymore.

So! On Thursday, Ruth and I hopped on a flight to Berlin,

which I slept soundly through. Lucky us, Ruth’s “au pair” (spelling?) from her toddlerhood lives in Berlin, and even after eighteen years of not seeing Ruth, she was happy to take us both into her home for a few days. She even picked us up from the airport, helped us navigate public transportation, had breakfast and coffee for us every morning, and showed us around the city a great deal. She was an amazing host, and it helped us really squeeze the most out of our two days in Berlin…short, indeed, but we left a day early to avoid getting stuck in Germany because a huge train strike is slated to begin on the 7th.

In Berlin, we visited remnants of the wall and various memorials dedicated to those who died tried to escape it before its fall in 1989, as well as the Checkpoint Charlie museum –

- an overwhelmingly huge collection of historical information, photos, stories, mementos, artwork, etc. that was totally disorganized, but nevertheless fascinating and informative. In the craziest of coincidences, Ruth (wearing an Oberlin sweatshirt) was pulled aside randomly by a girl in the museum giftshop who asked what her connection to Oberlin was…turns out four of our fellow students were in Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie that day as well, including a girl from my dorm freshman year, and another from my creative writing class last year…i.e. people we actually knew! Turns out the world of American-small-liberal-arts-college-students-backpacking-through-Europe is pretty small…we all traded stories (and bus and/or museum passes for Amsterdam and Prague) about our semesters in various cities, discussed our mixed feelings over returning to Oberlin (ranging from minor dread to exuberant enthusiasm, and all the ambivalent shades in between), and went our separate ways.

The following day was Ruth’s and my real tourism day in Berlin, despite it being well below freezing, and the streets being totally covered in a thick layer of black ice. We made it to see the famous Brandenburg Gate,

the memorial for murdered Jews in Europe (a maze-like monument you could really lose yourself in; it didn't look like much from the outside, but once you start walking in it, the pillars around you get gradually bigger and bigger until you're totally immersed...Ruth and I discussed the metaphorical significance of it...),

various other memorials for victims at the Berlin wall, several churches that had been bombed during the war and had yet to be fully repaired, and the Reichstag,

an architectural feat in and of itself with mirrors that were infinitely entertaining for Ruth and me.

We also went to the Sony Center,

a relatively new place, with lots of amusing shops and things, including the nearby Lego discovery center, where they had Einstein built out of Legos.

!!

We also went to the German Historical Museum, another overwhelmingly huge exhibit, though very well organized chronologically from 500 B.C.ish to modern day, detailing many moments in German history, including some really fascinating artifacts on the first world war, which I realize I didn't know all too much about, nor had I ever heard any version of it except that told in American history books.

In final notes: there is a delicious, delicious grapefruit-flavored beer in Germany (“Schöfferhofer” or something like that) that I cannot bear the thought of never having again, because it was hands down one of the best beverages to ever pass my lips…highly recommended to any and all who go to Deutschland. Happily, my three years of German in middle and high school paid off, because I was able to understand more of the language, and even converse a bit here and there, than I expected. (Czech, however, is a totally different story, and we don’t have the convenience of general familiarity with English here that I grew so accustomed to in Amsterdam.) It was extremely cold our whole time in Berlin, and thus we did not get to spend a whole lot of time outside – a shame in a city so full of parks, of outdoor monuments, and so reputedly green in the summer. I will just have to go back someday…

Greetings from London

2008-01-01T14:47:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, all! Because I celebrated last new year's eve in North America and this one in Europe, 2007 has officially been the shortest year of my life so far...it was a good one, with its ups and downs, but right about now feels like primetime for a new year to begin, as I really feel like this moment in time is a turning point in the greater scheme of my life...

Being in London has been great so far - less adventuresome and hectic than many of my travelling weeks this semester, but delightfully relaxing, and an admittedly nice re-entry into English-language-centered culture. I think a big part of what I've been homesick for in Holland was just my own language, and a general sense of connection and understanding with strangers. Getting on the London Underground ("the tube") out of Heathrow for the two-hour train commute to Ruth's grandfather's flat, where we are staying, was a somewhat surreal experience - all the announcements and advertisements and conversations available to eavesdrop in, all in English! I made small talk with a number of people on the tube, and felt a great deal more outgoing than usual, mostly - I think - because being back in my social and linguistic comfort zone came as a bigger relief than I expected.

Anyway, I navigated public transportation on my own quite well (with the assistance of Ruth's spectacular directions) and met up with Ruth. Her mom was in London at that point, too, so we went out for dinner and ale at a true English pub. Later in the night, Ruth and I met up with her girlfriend Rachel, and Rachel's older brother Daniel (who is in grad school at Cambridge right now) to wander around by Leicester (pronounced "Lester") Square and eventually go to another pub for more ale and conversation. The next day, Ruth, her friend from camp, Wendy, Wendy's boyfriend Alex, Rachel, and I all joined up, Ruth's mom flew back to America, and the five of us have had a grand old time together bumming around London.

Two nights ago, we went out for a delicious Indian dinner at Brick Lane...and last night, obviously, was New Year's Eve, which we celebrated in good spirits - including good drinks, good homecooked minestrone, and a great game called Guggenheim that we've adopted as our prime source of entertainment on the endless tube rides - which are always long, because London is HUGE - overwhelmingly so! (And I have to admit, the COMPLETE lack of sun is a definite downside...) After staying up until 5 or so in the morning (midnight in North America, after all!), we slept in long and then eventually made it out of the flat to ride the London Eye, the giant ferris wheel on the river that was the biggest in the world when it was built a few years ago - an impressive ride, albeit a dark one, given that the sun sets at 4 p.m. this time of year here. Afterward, we walked to Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Picadilly Circus, and eventually back to Leicester Square...all in all, a good day to see a bit more of London than we had.

Can't post pictures yet, because I'm working on dial-up internet, but hopefully sometime in the coming week, once Ruth and I get to Berlin (in two days!), I can put up some images to show for all the stories :)

Holidays with the Wiggers

2007-12-27T03:00:00.000-08:00

It's been quite awhile! And it's apt to be quite awhile longer before my next update, and likely another month before I can update with photos, because I leave my laptop in Amsterdam during my backpacking...

But in the meantime, a last, thorough update of my life in Holland, post-A'dam! Last weekend, I took a train out to Utrecht to hang out with a few of my cousins, some of whom I had not seen since 1995. We had a nice evening with kaasfondue and wine and exchanging stories. Hanneke, who's 27, had spent a semester abroad in Utah, and she had some funny stories about the culture shock she experienced being around Americans - amusingly parallel to much of the culture shock I think I've had being in Holland :) Here she is with Claartje:

My cousin Marjolein brought her 6-month-old daughter, Lonneke, along for the family festivities:

Here is me with Lonneke! (who is wearing a jacket my mom knit for her)

At the end of the night, Claartje and I took a train to her house in Delft,

which is a smaller Dutch city (and yes, the home of "Delft blue") - it closely resembles Amsterdam in architecture and canals and such, but on a much smaller scale. It's so funny, because when Dutch people ask me why I love Amsterdam so much, part of my answer is always, "Because it's such a small, manageable city!" and they are downright horrified, because in comparison with the rest of Holland, Amsterdam is seen as a HUGE city; many Dutch people aren't too keen on it, because it's simply too overwhelming in size. Ahh, everything is relative :)

The frost in Delft the next day was stunning...

There, Claartje and I got a private tour of one of the two remaining Delftware pottery factories that still does everything by hand - we got to see the clay, the molds, the kilns, and the painters' studios, all of which were very cool. Afterward, we went into city square, where we explored, took a few pictures, and eventually crawled into a cute local cafe for hot chocolate and tasty appeltart. The square was all decked out for Kerstmis, complete with tacky Delftware ornaments on the tree :)

Claartje and I climbed several hundred tiny, winding stairs in the tower of the church and clock tower in the main square to have this view...

And by the time we got down, the sun was on it way over the horizon, the ducks skating on the partially frozen canals, the townspeople biking around to squeeze in their last Christmas shoppings.

Claartje and I went back to her place for dinner, tea, and a last bit of hanging out before I got on a train back to Nijverdal. I had another relaxing couple days with my mom at home - we went for another Nordic walk/run in the woods, though unfortunately, I pulled a muscle, so that's not so fun :( but we enjoyed our time, then packed up again for a small road trip with her twin brother, Baruch, for Christmas at my aunt Gabrielle's in Maurik, another Dutch town about an hour and a half away.

Kerstmis is actually two days long in Holland - both the 25th and the 26th - even though it's a mellower holiday than in America, because most of the present-exchanging is done on Sinter Klaas. It was certainly different than Christmas in America, but we had a tree, and a lovely gift exchange (my little cousin, Lise, gave me "Chicken Run" in Dutch - we watched it on tweede Kerstdag and I was pleasantly surprised that I could understand almost all of it! and my mom gave me a "vla-scraper", which takes more explaining than I can do here, but suffice to say that it was an absolutely perfect gift), delicious meals ala Gabrielle's cooking, and copious amounts of tea all weekend. We finished with a fantastic conversation about the adventures my mom and her sister had when they were still recklessly young and hitchhiking across Europe and meeting all kinds of crazy people...times have certainly changed, because I could never imagine myself hitchhiking with random men in Portugal at this point, but it was great to hear their stories, and vicariously relive their adventures.

And now...onward to 2008!

Wandelen in the woods on a snowy evening...

2007-12-21T00:41:00.000-08:00

Being with my mom has been thoroughly wonderful, whimsical, and wintery.

Admittedly, a large part of my time here has been spent on my computer, trying to make up for lost time on the internet. The fact that I didn't have steady access all semester is something that everyone keeps telling me was a good thing, it let me live more fully in the moment, I didn't waste so many hours online, so on and so forth...and maybe there's some truth to that, but I can't even begin to describe the relief I get from feeling connected to the world and my friends back home again. It's been stressful not being able to be in touch with the people I love so much :/ but also a fantastic feeling now to have that again. The amount of energy I've devoted to missing people back home, perhaps, will make going home a little easier when the time comes.

Outside of internet catch-up though, it's been all-around great to be with my mom. Even though it's below freezing here in Nijverdal, we've ventured outside to the nearby national forest every single day since I arrived. Nordic walking has become a big part of her daily life, and we've now gone a couple times together...

Yesterday was the most amazing, because we discovered a stunningly gorgeous 7km loop that winds through both forest and heather fields - obviously, the heather is not in full bloom now, but there was, instead, the most perfect layer of frost in the forest that I've ever seen. It was indescribably magical; neither of us could stop gasping and pointing out things we wanted the other to look at. The photos don't look anything like the experience in real life, but I'll post some anyway:

Each individual crystal looked so perfectly constructed, as though someone had dropped hot glass over the entire forest and let it cool and crystallize into this:

Talk about a winter wonderland!

On Wednesday, she walked with her Nordic poles, and I took off for an invigorating cross-country run through a mountain-y forest - by canyons, through channels of evergreens, up and down hills, over tree roots, under a frosty sky...it was amazing. Then we sat in her car afterward with blankets and a giant thermos of hot tea, and warmed back up!

We've also taken turns cooking here - it was nice to have an evening to show off the new cooking skills I've been gradually cultivating over the last year or so :) Also, two nights ago, we stayed in and watched Chocolat, while (of course) eating copious amounts of chocolate. Entirely lovely. Above all, we have been getting to talk for hours and hours! Today, after another hour walk/run in the woods, I am packing up for a short weekend trip to Utrecht and Delft to see some of my cousins here whom I haven't seen in four and a half years (and two of them, even longer...) which I am excited for, although also not particularly wanting to leave my mom's just yet. I'll be back for a few days afterward, though.

A week until London, and I'm so not ready to say goodbye...

...and miles to go before I sleep.

The final weeks in Holland...(with parentheticals) and many foto's!

2007-12-18T13:33:00.000-08:00

In the midst of everything, and particularly my excitement to blog about Barcelona, I've left out some crucial moments of my life this December...I'll work backwards in time (a bit haphazardly), beginning with the fact that I am now at my mom's huisje in Nijverdal. Although I'm crazy nostalgic already for Amsterdam, it is nice to have some time away from school and the city to really relax and more fully process a lot of my semester - not to mention spend time with my mom! (Real internet access is a nice bonus.)

The time here has already been great - the train ride yesterday allowed me to catch a stunning sunset that my camera could not even begin to do justice to.

My uncle picked me up from the train station last night and we drove to Heeten, where the choir that my mom has joined was having a Christmas concert!

It was so nice to be there, both to see my mom in a performance, and to get into the holiday spirit, after not really giving X-mas a whole lot of thought these past weeks because everything has been so hectic and crazy.

This morning, I slept until 1 p.m. to make up for not having slept for the 39 hours straight prior to last night. (Last time I got to spend in Amsterdam, why bother sleeping?) Miraculously, the sun was out when I woke up today- somewhat of a rarity in Holland this time of year - so my mom and I headed straight for the national forest on the edge of Nijverdal to go for a vigorous walk with Nordic sticks! Nordic walking is something she has gotten into in her time in Holland, and I can see why she loves it - for the same rhythmic, meditative reasons I think I love running :)

As for my final days in Amsterdam, I don't know where they went...five days seemed like so many to spend there without academics to worry about, but they flew by a complete blur, beginning with this: I went with Ruth and a bunch of her friends to see Girl Talk (Wikipedia calls him a "music producer and mashup laptop artist"...and he went to school in Ohio, so the good news is that he routinely performs at Oberlin!) at Paradiso, an amazing club I somehow never made it to all semester. It was a dance party to die for, it was so good. I was one of the first two people he pulled up on stage to start dancing there,

before another sixty or so hopped up as well, and the whole place turned into a giant, sweaty mess of people going crazy.

After that: pancakes with Becca and her boyfriend Jarod when he got into Amsterdam, a last verrukkelijk home-cooked dinner at Cinta's with Ruth and Tanja, a few final 12 to 15km solo runs in the Amsterdamse Bos, also going for a Friday night group run of 11km along the Amstel with Phanos (running club) and Cinta and a number of my interviewees, having delicious rijstafel with Ruth and her wonderful, fabulous mom (Ruth, make sure she doesn't miss this entry :P ) who arrived in A'dam on Sunday, a surprisingly fun dance party for "40s and up" (dear friends, guess how that one happened!) at the Melkweg, hanging out a lot more with CIEE people, also my first unofficial "reunion" with SIT friends (Megan, Zephyr, and Tan - the only other three still in Amsterdam at this point) at our semester's stomping ground, De Trut (memory refresher: it's an underground queer dance club on Sunday nights run out of a squat...and it's awesome), more goodbyes in a week than I care for in a lifetime, and finally, a good, long, hard cry for the first time in months, while sitting alone in Taryn's empty ex-room at Cinta's, finally coming to terms with a lot of the sadness and even fear I have about this semester being over - a sad evening, yes, but also cathartic and much-needed.

Pre-Barcelona, SIT had its official farewell party for all of us students, and the homestay hosts as well. Most everyone cried. For whatever reason, I couldn't, even though I felt every bit as emotional about the whole thing as those who were bawling their eyes out. Taryn and I made an iMovie video to commemorate the semester and screened it at the party. Cinta and Tanja presented both of us with beautiful cards (in Dutch!) and sets of photos of all of us together. Everybody exchanged hugs, and plans were hashed out for future reunions...as always, I'm a little jealous of those who actually live within a few-hundred-mile radius of anyone else :/ (Parents, why why WHY couldn't we have lived on one of the coasts?) But Becca and Taryn, at least, have promised to come visit me, on the condition that I visit them too...a tough bargain, you know, seeing as how Becca's dad works for Disney World and can get us in free, and Taryn's dad works for Southwest and can fly me out to San Jose for free.

December 5 (can't believe I still haven't written about this yet - it's been two weeks!) was Sinter Klaas, and it was an incredible day. I woke up at 5:20 a.m. to get to Central Station to catch a train to Deventer, my mom's hometown, where Sinter Klaas and his entourage of Zwarte Piet arrive by boat on the holiday itself. We had a real gezellig time together - awaiting Sint on the river Ijssel,

then watching the parade through town,
,
then getting coffee (and I gave her a presentation of my ISP/final project/thesis paper) at the place my parents' had their wedding reception,

then wandering through Deventer to see all the sights of my mom's childhood...
the house she was born in,

the house she grew up in,

the church she had her first kiss in,

the house my opa hid from the Nazis in,

and the bench on the river she used to sit with her mom on and talk about life.

This is what Deventer looks like from the ferry on the river:

and the 7th house from the right is the house of the girl, Jitka, after whom I was named! (A student in one of my mom's classes when she was a teacher.)

...and finally, we went back to Nijverdal for presents and poems!

Overall, it was just really incredible to spend the day - my favorite holiday of the entire year - with my mom in a place that holds so much history for her, and in many ways, for me, too. It had been ages since the last time I was on the river Ijssel on December 5, on the shoulders of my Opa...it was also a good way to help crystallize a lot of my experiences this semester, a real metaphor in so many ways - a place from my mom's past to which she returned, a place from MY past (both Deventer, but also Holland and Dutch culture in general) to which I returned, but both of us with very different sets of eyes than when we were here last....well, life, so it goes :)

(Sunrise, as seen from the landing strip at Schiphol, from my final morning in Amsterdam before Barcelona...)

P.S. I updated my itinerary entry in this blog from a while back with more recent dates of where I'll be on which days in the coming weeks...

The long Barcelona update!

2007-12-14T06:03:00.000-08:00

So! Finally, my update on the wonderful four days that Becca and I spent in Barcelona...

This was the first time I ever traveled abroad without an adult, where I was completely responsible for myself, my transporation, my accomodations, my meals, everything. It was downright thrilling! Getting in early the first day was nice, because we had a relaxed time navigating public transportation in the city and finding our hostel, where we then took a long nap to make up for the two hours of sleep the night before (it was an intensely emotional farewell evening with everyone from our program...more on that in another entry). Admittedly, all the planning that went into this trip, and the crazy last minute crunch of work and school and goodbyes and packing made things stressful up until the moment we reached our hostel...but after that, our time there was some of the most relaxed semester-detox I could have ever asked for.

The weather was absolutely stunning - winter in Amsterdam has not been too bad, mostly just chilly and a lot of rain...in Barcelona, the sun was out in a cloudless, blue sky every day, with the temperature in the high 60s most of the time. I walked around in a t-shirt during the day (and light jacket at night.) We hiked all over the city, through touristy districts, through residential areas, to all the sites, up mountains, down beaches, pretty much everywhere...using tourist guides at our hostel (which was fantastic), we picked out all the places we wanted to go, and made it happen: Gaudi architecture was what we had heard most about, so we made it to Casa Batllo,

Casa Mila,
,
the Sagrada Familia

and Park Guell,

all of which were really awesome. In Park Guell, Becca and I spent our only time the entire trip apart, as I decided to hike up to the top of the mountain, and she read at the bottom. Although the view wasn't all that different from what we got from other places we visited, it was nevertheless quite spectacular, and well worth the solo hike :)

We also went up to Mount Montjuic (by the Funicular Tram, what fun!) and went to the Miro museum, a surreal experience of art in a zillion different creative mediums (media?)...

After the museum, we walked over the contemporary art museum...on the steps of which we could overlook all of Barcelona

and thus began our long series of photos of the entire city, as we spent much of our time in belvedere-like overlooks, just basking in the sun (we even both managed to score a bit of sunburn in our time there...in December!) taking siestas, and talking about life. We went to the Castell our first evening, where many of the old cannons are still in place (albeit covered in graffiti) and decided to stay up there until the sun went down.

The hostel situation was interesting...we were in a four-bed room. We had two Austrian guys as roommates the first couple nights, and they were pretty nice. Although they managed to walk in on both me and Becca naked (changing after showers) on separate occasions, it was only a *little* awkward; they were very respectful and good-humored about the whole room-sharing business. Then we got a new roommate after they left, an older German guy who spoke very little English, and mostly just lay in his bed all day long, shamelessly keeping his eyes trained on us any time we were in the room. That was a *lot* awkward...

We also spent an afternoon at Poble Espanyol, a little Spanish village - it was cute,

but kind of a waste of money/time, as it was largely a money trap...five Euros to get in, but there wasn't anything to do once you were in except eat and shop. We did, however, watch a glassblower at work, crafting a little glass horse in about forty seconds flat, and that was pretty sweet.

The last day we were there, we walked the entire length of the city (from Park Guell) to the beach! We played there until the sun went down

at which point we walked over to the Picasso museum...which was really interesting, it was more of a biographical museum detailing the evolution of Picasso's work through his years as an art student, apprentice, and eventual artist - a lot of the stuff was actually pretty mediocre, but I personally found it fascinating to see how his art progressed through his years in art school, and eventually became the kind of art for which he is famous.

Above all, it was really fabulous to travel with Becca; both of us marveled over the fact that we didn't even know each other a few months ago, and there we were alone in a foreign city together, spending days on end with each other and never tiring of one another's company and conversation.

A few more reflections on the culture there...
*
The animal rights activist in me had to post about this:

Inside this box are several hundred birds, including canaries, parakeets, parrots, chickens, roosters, and turkeys. They are all crammed into tiny, tiny cages and sold as pets on the street during market hours. In off-hours, the whole box is shut up with all the animals inside. Thick as the walls of the box are, you can still hear all the screeching and chirping and cock-a-doodle-dooing inside as you walk by; it's oppressive and awful and made me want to cry inside.
*
On a more positive note, though, Barcelona was the most wheelchair-accessible city I've ever been to. It's not something I ever paid a lot of attention to before getting enlightened at Oberlin about disability rights, but I've started paying more attention to that sort of thing, and I was really, really impressed by how much Barcelona works to make their city accessible to everyone...ramps, elevators, and wheelchair-lifts everywhere we went.
*
A few of my friends that have visited Amsterdam, as well as some other backpackers I've met who've traveled to Amsterdam, have all expressed amazement that I've studied abroad here. They experienced it as a crazy, crazy city full of hookers and drug addicts...it's really amazing the different kinds of experiences you have being a tourist verses actually living somewhere. To me, Amsterdam is not that much of a party city at all; it's a relatively calm, quiet, small city, the only one I've ever been to where I feel consistently safe being out alone at night...whereas I can't imagine ever living in Barcelona, given the fact that Becca and I were cat-called, whistled at, and even occasionally grabbed at by men pretty much everywhere we went. Going there was fantastic for a few days, but it's been a huge relief, for me, to be back in my lovely, peaceful A'dam :)
*
P.S. If you're still interested, a few more photos of our adventures can be found here: http://oberlin.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027213&l=3e8f6&id=4302953

Barcelona by Numbers

2007-12-11T12:04:00.000-08:00

*This brief update brought to you from a public computer at our hostel...

9 Average number of miles walked per day
6 Gaudi Structures visited
4 days in the sun
3 art museums
2 Austrian roommates
1 siesta at Starbucks on La Rambla
1 run on the beach along the Mediterranean

Back to Amsterdam tomorrow - hopefully can get the housekey again from Cinta, where all my stuff is stored, to upload photos from the whole adventure!

Itinerary

2007-12-07T07:44:00.001-08:00

Life right now: time crunch, intense emotions, complete lack of sleep, coffee, coffee, coffee, stressss...

Thus, I can't make a nice blog post about life the past week, even though there's much to say...but, because I don't know how clear I've been about all my plans, a bit of useful information about my life in the coming months:

December 8-12: I'll be in Barcelona, travelling with Becca, likely without internet access
December 13-17: Back in Amsterdam, staying with Ruth, with internet access!
December 18 - 20: With my mom in Nijverdal, with internet!
December 21-22: In Utrecht and Delft, with cousins, no internet
December 23-24: Nijverdal again, internet
December 25-27: At my aunt's house for Christmas with the Dutch side of my family :)
December 28: One more day in Amsterdam!
December 29-Jan 4: In London, staying with Ruth, possible internet
Jan 4-Jan 20: Backpacking around Europe, pretty limited internet (what I'm willing to pay for at hostels)
January 21: Home sweet home in America! Internet! Reachable by my old cell phone! Commencement of long-winded conversations with all my friends on Verizon :)
Feb 1ish: Drive back to Oberlin for spring semester

It's been incredibly hard to stay in touch with everyone that I want to, to the extent that I'd like - between not having internet at all at my house the last few weeks, and finishing my thesis-like paper here and preparing for/doing my presentation, and packing up everything because I move out of my homestay in Amsterdam tomorrow morning... I am sorry to everyone who I've been out of touch with. I promise to make it all up when I'm home again, and oceans/long distance phone rates/lack of internet won't keep us apart!

I love you all.

The Week of Cabin Fever: Rain, Photography, and a Little Insanity

2007-12-03T02:45:00.000-08:00

With a few key exceptions, the last week has been fairly uneventful: stay at home and write, write, write. Had I had internet at my house, I would have updated earlier and said this just about summed up my life for the last week:

The highlight of my life was when a giant ship went by on the canal outside my window at like 2 in the morning – I got Taryn out of bed to watch it go by with me. These things happen, I guess, when you’re holed up for hours on end and writing long papers.
Honestly though, I’ve never enjoyed the process of writing a paper as much as I have this one. I think it has to do with being 100% passionate about my topic of choice, and also having the freedom of a little creative license with it. Plus Becca keeps me company a lot while I work, and Cinta brings me tea, and I listen to good music, and break up the workdays with episodes of Friday Night Lights and the occasional excursion.

Last Wednesday, Taryn presented her final project as a photo exhibition on the identities of queer people of color. It was held at De Peper, a sort of alternta-hippie squat/bar/co-op, a real artsy place that, complete with awesome lighting, good wine, and delicious vegan sushi, made the perfect environment for her exhibition and discussion of the art afterward.

There was an awesome turnout for it,

including some students from the University of Amsterdam who came because Ruth’s entire sexual studies class got an email from their professor advertising Taryn’s exhibition! I was crazy proud of her.

Over the weekend, I left my house a total of four times: first, on Friday, to bike through insane amounts of rain to chill at Ruth’s dorm with her and Becca. A good time, for sure, and though it took me longer than ever to bike home because the rain was so heavy and the wind so harsh, it was well worth it. This is what I looked like when I got home:

My second time out in the world was to visit the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Stedelijk Museum – a very extensive and generally awesome collection of his work. I have to say, I’m not a huge fan of most of it, particularly the films (eight hours of footage of the Empire State Building at night...really, Andy?), but the biographical stuff was fascinating. And I really loved the “Silver Clouds” installation, an interactive room full of floating mylar pillows pumped full of helium.

My third time out was yesterday morning, to run my first official 10K ever! This was undoubtedly the absolute most exciting part of my weekend, because it felt like such a culminating event of this entire semester that’s been so running-focused. It rained buckets, and I got thoroughly soaked and my poncho-pant-covered legs were coated in mud, but it was a totally invigorating and amazing run – made better by the fact that Cinta, Taryn, and Becca were all there to cheer me on

at the start, the 2K mark, the 8K mark, and the finish! – and I surprised myself by finishing in 53:45...not too shabby for my first race of that distance, I thought :)

Here is a highly unflattering photo of me right before the finish line – I’m posting it only because I think it’s downright hilarious that there are Zwarte Piet in the background...oh, Holland.

And, some better [pirated] photos:

:)

My fourth time out was to see another documentary that’s part of the IDFA – “Shake the Devil Off”, a film about the battle over St. Augustine Parish in Post-Katrina New Orleans...generally a great movie about the racial issues behind Katrina – definitely recommended.

Today, I am putting the finishing touches on my 42-page masterpiece on Dutch women marathoners, and tomorrow, I give a 40-minute presentation on it...very, very exciting!

Shari comes to Amsterdam!

2007-11-28T05:20:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess the intense I'm-going-to-stay-in-bed-all-day-with-my-laptop-and-work process didn't officially begin for me until yesterday morning, but now that it's here and I'm making good progress on my paper, it's time for a bit of blogging :) I have been color-coding my interview transcripts all morning long and I am ready for a break!

This last weekend, Shari came to visit from Scotland! Ruth and I both got to show her a glimpse of our day-to-day life and experiences here in Amsterdam, and the three of us got to wander the city,

catch up with each other, meet up with Shari's Dutch friend from camp

, eat pancakes (duh), see some street performers play with fire in the Dam Square,

visit the Amsterdam historical museum, stop by the Homomonument

go dancing at ViveLaVie, take pictures of the full moon,

and reminisce about Oberlin. We even managed to catch Anna on Skype at some point
and thus have four of our familial six at Oberlin talking to each other at once :) even though our semesters are spread out between Holland, Scotland, and Ecuador. Technology is pretty amazing sometimes.

On Sunday, I also went for a fantastic 18km run in the Amsterdamse Bos with Pepijn, one of my project interviewees and first real Dutch person (aside from my host and her girlfriend) that I hang out with on a regular basis. He's a great deal faster than me, but with him running his slowest, and me pushing myself to the brink of my running capability, we both managed to have a pretty sweet run through the woods in well under two hours (and got done just in time to go inside for tea before the rain began pouring outside.)

Also two nights ago, I went to go see a Serbian documentary called "How to Become a Hero" about this overweight guy having a midlife crisis who decides to train for and run the Belgrade marathon. It was part of IDFA, the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam, which is going on for a week and a half with hundreds of documentaries from all over the world. It was not a fantastic film, but it was interesting enough and good for some laughs...plus the director/producer/star of the documentary was in the theater and got up after the film screening to answer questions from the audience, which was pretty sweet.

Sidenote: This

is what's called "Het Fietscafe" or "the bike cafe." It's basically an excuse for tourists to be extremely obnoxious, but it still makes me laugh a little, if for no other reason that I can't imagine such a thing exists in any other city...essentially, you hop on a barstool, pedal with your feet to keep the entire fietscafe barrelling down the street, and meanwhile there's a bartender on board fixing you drinks to make you increasingly louder and more obnoxious as you make your way down the street. Good times...

Only ten days left in this beautiful city :/

Gelukkig!

2007-11-23T04:01:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was fabulous. I woke up feeling a little bummed that I was in Holland, where – obviously – it wasn’t a holiday, but things got better and better as the day went on. We had a group lunch at SIT that attempted to mimic Thanksgiving food

though it was a little short on the flavor end. The Dutch are clearly healthier eaters than Americans, and normally that’s a good thing for me this semester, but the lack of butter used in our Dutch caterers’ version of Thanksgiving dinner...aiee.

After lunch, I went to FOAM – the photography museum in Amsterdam – with Taryn, Becca, and Tan, which was pretty sweet.

It’s kind of a maze inside, but they had some really neat exhibits. After that, I went for a long run by the Nieuwe Meer, during which I nearly ran (literally) into a wild buffalo, just chilling in the middle of the “fietspad.” I also ran by a group of Dutch politie in training, doing drills in the woods. Always interesting things to look at...the sun was going down, and as always, the skies were stunning, the water peaceful, and the trails largely deserted (save the buffalo and the police, of course.) I came back on an endorphin rush that kept me awake and high on life until the sun was peeking over the horizon this morning and I finally passed out in the early a.m. hours.

But anyway, I came home from my run, took a hot shower, had tea with Cinta for awhile, talked to my mom on the phone, cooked a tasty dinner with Becs and Taryn

, during which we listened to nineties tunes and talked about how happy we were to have met each other this semester, and later, I went over to the house of one of my interviewees who’d invited me over to look at marathon photos and just hang out, and there, we put on some REM and Santana, shared a bottle of wine, and talked until two in the morning.

With all that said, here in Amsterdam, I am thankful for: the fact that I even had the opportunity to come here, my wonderful friends, the fact that Ruth is here too (here's her with a giant bucket of syrup the last time we went out for pancakes together)

, being able to bike everywhere, the canals and lakes, the fact that the sun has been out all week, pannenkoeken and stroopwafels, free wireless and free choco-espresso beans at Bagels and Beans, my beautiful house here on my beautiful canal, handwritten letters, rooibos tea, Friday Night Lights on DVD, good wine, incredible museums, stunning places to run, the Vondelpark

, opportunities to travel even more in January, Skype when it works, the drinking age, the cultural perspective on the world I am getting, and a host of other things.

In life, I am thankful for: the amazing people I am lucky enough to know (you know who you are), the opportunities I have had, the home I know I can return to after this semester is over, that my mom is happy and thriving here in Holland, that my body works and allows me to do the things I do, the big dreams I have for myself, and happiness in general. I’ve never felt luckier :)

Lekker leven

2007-11-21T05:28:00.000-08:00

I’m growing up! Exhibit A: Last night, Taryn, Becca, and I held a dinner party for some of the people on my program that we hadn’t seen in awhile, now that we’re all holed up in our homes and libraries, slaving away on our independent projects. I made stir-fry for everybody (with spices and peanut sauce!)

and we sat around for hours, enjoying good food, drinking hot, delicious, mulled wine, and talking about life – at some point, I read an excerpt from a New York Times article to everyone about how Sesame Street has deemed its first few episodes inappropriate for today’s toddlers, and it sparked a long discussion about how different today’s kids are from ourselves at that age...about twenty minutes into this, Whit cut in and said something to the effect of, “Oh my God, you guys...this is that moment in our lives...when we’ve reached the age where we sit around a dinner table, drinking wine, lamenting the decline of society and reminiscing about the good old days.”
Is this what adulthood feels like? I love it...

Whit mulling wine at the stove:

Life is really good at the moment. I have four things in life that keep me sane, that make m inexplicably happy, that I would not be able to live without. Lucky for me, I’ve managed to pack all four of them into the last 24 hours: running, writing in my journal, good food, and the company and conversation of good people. The latter have been explained, but the first requires some further elaboration...
After my double interview on Monday, I was – as usual – highly inspired to run, so despite the rain and it being 10 p.m., I did my usual 8.5km loop in the Vondelpark. With about one mile left in my route, another runner emerged from the woods and was running next to me for a moment. He was running a great deal faster than me and began to pull away almost immediately, but I got a sudden burst of energy and decided I would stay with him for as long as possible. Something about biking every day must really have whipped my heart into shape, because to my amazement, I was able to keep pace with him (probably a 7:45ish/mile pace) for the rest of my run without even getting too winded...in fact, once I was back at my doorstep, I didn’t feel ready to be done at all, so I ran some sprints along the canal by my house until I WAS thoroughly winded.
Then I went for another 10.5km the following afternoon :), this time in the Amsterdam woods, which I had only biked in before, never run. It was almost entirely deserted because it had been overcast all day, so it was a wonderfully solitary, peaceful run along endless stretches of water and forest. The one thing that’s come up in every single one of my interviews with marathon runners here is the addictive quality of running on people who get “that stuff in the head” (there doesn’t seem to be a Dutch equivalent of “runner’s high”). I think what I’ve learned this semester is:
No kidding...

P.S. I forgot to mention, but another somewhat racially problematic element of the whole Sinter Klaas/Zwarte Piet cultural phenomenon is the costumes designed for Dutch children...

Picnics, Dance Parties, and Van Gogh

2007-11-19T06:11:00.000-08:00

I spent my weekend trying to cram in as much social time as possible to prepare myself for the long work haul that this coming week has in store for me, as I start really cracking on my paper (after tonight, I will have all 8 of my necessary interviews done...although I still have a few more pending, because I figure, the more, the better!) On Friday afternoon, my mom came to Amsterdam again - we took a long walk through Amsterdam from my house to her longtime friend Gustaaf's, where we had tea and cookies and talked awhile, before I headed off to meet up with some friends for women's night at Sappho.

The following day, I went over to Gustaaf's in the morning, where he, my mom, and I watched a TV broadcast of Sinter Klaas's arrival in a smaller city north of Amsterdam. Sinter Klaas is the Dutch version of Santa Claus, a somewhat thinner, Pope-like figure who "arrives" in Holland several weeks before December 5 by boat from Spain (where he purportedly lives the rest of the year), mounts a white horse, and parades around the city with an entourage of "Moors" (aka black-skinned, elf-like helpers) named "Zwarte Piet" - somewhat of a troublesome concept for us American students, but it's a deeply embedded cultural tradition here in Holland. If you look up the David Sedaris skit "6 to 8 Black Men" on YouTube, he does a nice job trying to explain the phenomenon :)

In the meantime, I updated my blog, using Gustaaf's wireless :)

Afterward, we went to one of the oldest, most beautiful theaters in all of Amsterdam, The Pathe Tuschinski, to watch a Dutch romantic comedy called "Alles is Liefde." Obviously, it was all in Dutch and without subtitles, so I struggled a little to understand every line, but I got the gist of most scenes (and my mom helped explain the ones I didn't), and overall it was a wonderfully sweet, well-written, well-acted, feel-good chick flick. Bonus: a version the Korgis' song "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime" was on the soundtrack, of which Beck did a cover for Eternal Sunshine's soundtrack, too.

After THAT, we went to a potluck dinner party that my Dutch teacher, Eduard, threw for everyone on the SIT program. He invited a number of friends, too, and Addie's mom happened to be in Amsterdam at the time, so she came as well, leading the party to evolve into a rockin' dance party as soon as people were done eating. It was great to reunite with Eduard (since Dutch classes ended 2 weeks ago!) and dance with a bunch of slightly-older Dutch folks. Also, I got to have some neat conversations with Addie's mom, who went to Oberlin and, like me, was a tour guide there, back in the day! I was also just very happy to have all my SIT friends get to meet my mom, and vice versa. I sure do love her!

Sunday, Becca, Taryn, and I spent the better part of our day at the Van Gogh museum, which was probably my favorite museum I've been to in Amsterdam, even though it was ridiculously crowded. It's a beautiful and extensive collection, and very well put together.

Before we even got in...this celloist was playing outside, and was AMAZING.

Speaking of street performers, these guys are playing all the time in the Vondelpark, and they make me ridiculously happy.

After the Van Gogh, we climbed atop a giant grassy expanse on the roof of the Albert Heijn (grocery store) at the Museumplein and had a picnic as the sun went down.

It got very cold. But the moon was pretty.

I played with my camera.

During which time, the sun went down, and a car happened to stall in the middle of the street.

Later in the evening, I met up with Ruth, Taryn, Ellen, Alanna, and Kellan at De Trut for an evening of dancing to crappy electronica again and good conversation with some of the people on Ruth's program, including a wonderful Seattlite named Tyler, about how wonderful (and similar, in some ways!) Amsterdam and Seattle are, and that made me happy.

As always, the beauty of this city continues to astound me. Even though I've got the rest of Europe to look forward to in a few weeks, I'm not ready to leave yet :/

Trains, transpeople, and track stars

2007-11-17T04:01:00.000-08:00

Crazy and semi-internet-less weeks lead to scarcer and longer blog updates...

Sunday, I volunteered for nearly 12 hours at Amsterdam’s first ever Transfusion Festival, a conference/celebration of transgendered people. It was a tremendous success, with hundreds and hundreds of people (of all ages, races, stages of transitioning...) that showed up – quite a feat, really, in the trans community, where so many people would rather make their transition complete and then live fully in their new gender, rather than continuing to associate themselves with the label “transgendered”. The festival included film screenings, a talk show, a play, several drag queen performances, a photo shoot, art exhibits, book sales, makeup and wig sales, information tables, and a number of rooms holding workshops throughout the day with things like self-portrait-painting, African drumming, belly dancing, etc. It’s hard to describe the vibe of the place, except that it was bursting with positive energy; the seven or eight of us from SIT that volunteered all felt incredibly welcome, and some of my friends made some really great contacts for their independent projects here. It was definitely amazing to be a part of something so historically groundbreaking in the Netherlands...and who knows, maybe in the world. (Oh, and I met a random Dutch girl who was wearing an Oberlin sweatshirt – small world!)

Monday, I took a train to Utrecht with Becca and Taryn to do research at the Rutgers Nisso Group library, which is basically a collection of materials – books, articles, journals, etc. - on gender and sexuality. We worked there for several hours before rewarding ourselves with a movie-outing to see Superbad (complete with Dutch subtitles! Amazing how much of the profanity was edited out...), which was my first time in a movie theater in Holland! Probably the oddest thing was the five-minute intermission halfway through the movie.

Tuesday...more interviews, transcribing interviews...much progress on my project. And planning out my January travels with Ruth :) which are proving to be a little complicated, but nevertheless still very, very exciting.

Wednesday, I yet again took a train, this time to Beverwijk, for one of my best interviews yet, with Plonie Scheringa, a Dutch running-celebrity who’s been running marathons for 30 years. Not only is she experienced, she’s also ridiculously talented; she WON (out of the women) the first Amsterdam marathon ever held in 1975. She won it again two years later, the same year Bill Rodgers won the Amsterdam marathon (which is only really cool if you know who Bill Rodgers is, I guess, but I was certainly blown out of the water.) Her house was packed full of trophies, photographs, newspaper clippings of her running achievements, and even a 15-karat gold crown from when she placed 8th at the World Championships in Seoul. Although she spoke very little English (her daughter helped translate), she was wonderful to speak with, and so inspiring that the first thing I did when my train got back to Amsterdam around midnight was go for a late-night run in the Vondel :)

Thursday, Taryn held a screening of her documentary “No Hetero: Disrupting the Hegemony” about homophobia on the campuses of Spelman and Morehouse (two gender-divided, historically black colleges in Atlanta, Georgia), which most of our program-mates turned out to see – it was really, really well done, and I’m hoping to get a copy of it to distribute when I go back home.

Anyway, as usual, the city has been gorgeous:

Becca, Taryn, and me, and a metaphorical photo of our friendship:

And, finally, as promised, some photos of my mom's "huisje" :)

Her spice rack, which I love. Seeing as how my mom is sitting next to me as I post this...her proposed caption for this photo: "My mom, the alcoholic."

Our sleepover party in the attic:

Words, words, words...

2007-11-10T14:36:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been another eventful weekend so far! It started on Thursday morning, really...lack of official classes makes "the weekend" a much fuzzier concept in general...(though with that said, I must say that conducting a full-on independent research study and writing more-or-less a thesis paper is a very daunting task, and I feel behind already, because interviewees are proving harder to find than I had hoped...) ANYWAY, so Thursday morning, I met up with Anne-Maria, an old friend of mine (or, the daughter of one of my mom's friends) from Amsterdam who I hadn't seen in four and a half years. We met for tea at CREA and had a really great time catching up.

Thursday evening, I had a fantastic interview with a very inspiring marathon runner from the local athletic club. I also managed to score a few more interview contacts through her, so slowly but surely, I'm plowing my way through the Dutch community of marathon-running women :)

Thursday night, most of the friends I usually hang out with went to a concert (The Fray), and other friends (Ruth) went to Austria, and I was in a great mood but home alone with no one with whom to share my happiness...and then Catharine (another girl on my program who I've gotten along with really well but never truly hung out since orientation (she's the blonde, Addie is the brunette)

) called me to hang out! She and I wound up, somehow, spending seven hours together "out on the town" - more accurately, dancing/bar-hopping/club-jumping/meeting-people in Leidseplein, which is one of the more touristy areas in Amsterdam than I am used to hanging out at...but it certainly made for a good time!

We managed to cross paths with the "Pub Crawl" (slogan: "A night you won't remember but never forget!"), something I had had not heard of before...essentially a giant group of tourists who've paid a one-time fee of 20 Euro or so to be chaperoned around all night to a series of participating bars and clubs where they imbibe cheap or free drinks and shots to their heart's content. Basically, it's a way to get really, really trashed, but trust that you won't get too lost, or get too sober, or fall into a coma somewhere and get left behind in Amsterdam. It's also a way to meet more obnoxious tourists than you could possibly imagine in one night, and generally avoid having to interact with any real Dutch people at all.

Although observation of that scene was fun for awhile (and Catharine and I did manage to score ourselves some free drinks from very intoxicated British guys), we untangled our path from that of the Pub Crawl's quickly enough and found ourselves a really sweet, local music venue called "The Watering Hole" that was a bit quieter and quite a bit more calm and chill. A fantastic folk rock band was playing, and after dancing a great deal (and us two being about the only ones in the whole place doing so), Catherine and I apparently caught the eye of a group of Dutch guys (three of whom were brothers, one a drummer that played a few songs onstage) whom we wound up talking to the rest of our night until the wee hours of the morning, when we all went our separate ways.

Despite feeling, for a while, more touristy than I have all semester, I wound up having one of the more authentic-feeling nights I have had here...because we found a scene truly populated by locals, and it was just me and Catharine so it didn't feel like this overwhelming entourage of Americans that it sometimes feels like if I go out in a big group with my program-mates, and above all, I got to exchange text messages in Dutch with our new friends by the end of the night. (Plus I got invited for "coffee and a baked egg" the following morning!)

Saturday, I again braved the Dutch rail system and took a train out to Nijverdal to spend a day with my mom. It had been, amazingly, almost two months since I was last there! We had a nice relaxing Friday afternoon/evening and Saturday together - taking walks, catching up, doing a bit of shopping, sharing tasty Dutch food, watching an American TV program with Dutch subtitles, and having a sleepover in the attic, complete with proper sleepover talk (bum-around-in-my-PJ's-time with my mom!) Pictures don't really do justice to the cuteness of my mom's new "huisje", but I will post some soon anyway...

Solo Adventures in the Woods

2007-11-07T01:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, after a disappointing run (my shin is acting up again :/ ), I decided somewhat suddenly in the afternoon to go for a solo bike ride. My house is not too far from the expansive "Amsterdamse Bos" (Amsterdam woods), so I packed up my poncho, camera, and a water bottle, and made my way there. I stayed out for several hours in the afternoon, biking, getting lost in the woods, following signs to a somewhat elusive and ultimately disappointing "geitenboerderij" (goat farm), watching runners and rowers by/on the "Bosban", putting my poncho on and taking it off again several times, watching the sun set, and taking photos the whole time...

Aside from making me really slow down and appreciate the scenery around me (something I don't often do while biking, because it's become so ingrained in me solely as a mode of transportation), the afternoon also really brought out the thrill of exploration and sense of adventure I got so often when I was a kid. It was nice to do it on my own, too, because I feel like I have gotten very dependent on the company of others to stay content; I get lonely very easily these days, it seems.
Either way, it was very nice to come home to a hot, delicious dinner with Cinta and Taryn, and get to share my pictures with them...

Me, on my bike, in motion:

Another self-portrait in motion, after realizing I'd gotten myself totally lost in the woods:

Rainbow!

The full set can be found at:
http://oberlin.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026047&l=03283&id=4302953

Some photos of recent endeavors

2007-11-05T02:43:00.000-08:00

Life is very, very good.

My newfound museum-going-with-Becca habit is coming along quite well. Here we are on the Museumplein - museum buddies!

The Rijksmuseum itself is like a castle. Unfortunately, most of it is currently under renovation, so there are only a few exhibits open...but it is nevertheless a stunning sight from the outside:

Later on that evening, most everyone on my program went out for pancakes for Martina's birthday. Seeing as how it coincides with Halloween (not a big holiday in Holland, but as with all things in Europe, thanks to globalization, it's up and coming!), some people dressed up.

Some of us just looked cute naturally :P

As an early present for Sinter Klaas, and as yet another example of why our host is amazing, Cinta presented Taryn and me with two giant chocolate letters to correspond with our names:

This past weekend, I went on another train excursion through Holland, to visit some family! Gabrielle, my mom's sister, organized the gathering at her house. My cousin, Ezra, (who I haven't seen since I was 3) was visiting Holland for the week (from England) with his wife, Vicki, and their ridiculously precocious 5-year-old son, Asher. Furthermore, I got to see Lise (Gabrielle's daughter) who I hadn't seen since she was 7 or 8. This is Gabrielle with her new vacuum cleaner,

which all Europeans apparently just refer to as a "hoover".

The vacuum cleaner box provided 95% of the entertainment on Sunday morning:

Coolest cousins ever:

Me, Asher, and the guinea pig:

And from another angle:

Three cousins - miraculously, all of the same generation, even though we are quite far apart in age - 32, 20, and 12!

Staying off the ground to avoid being "hoovered up!"

Asher:

Lise:

Lise and Asher, adorable together:

This is, surprisingly, the only photo I have of everyone (minus myself, of course) who was at the house all weekend...I like it, though - a genuine action shot :)

It was a really fabulous weekend to connect with family from which I've been quite disconnected for so many years, and to instantly bond with Ezra over our mutual connectedness to Dutch culture (and similar grasps of the language), despite his having grown up in other countries (he was born in Israel, raised in England, and yet has retained his Dutch citizenship his entire life). We talked a lot about what's it like to have such a culturally mixed upbringing, to live in one country but never quite fit in because of our subtle "Dutchness" crawling into our personalities, and to feel so at home in Holland, despite never having really lived here. It's funny, sometimes I forget that my mom's brother is a parent, too - but it came very clear within a few hours of conversation with Ezra that we had great amounts in common, owing - I think - largely to the fact that our parents are indeed twins.

Finally, an overdue mail call: a very belated thanks to Renee, and a more current note of appreciation to both Daniel and Shari!

Leven

2007-10-31T00:38:00.001-07:00

On Amsterdam:
Went to the Tropenmuseum over the weekend with Becca – an anthropological museum on the cultures of a lot of the countries throughout Africa and the rest of the world that the Dutch have colonized – although some of the sociopolitical implications of the museum were a bit hard to stomach, it was a beautifully constructed museum with stunning dioramas and short films and art exhibitions and life-size wax figurines...a bit overwhelming in sheer breadth of information and visual stimulation, but definitely a fascinating experience.
Went to the Rijksmuseum today as well, and although much of it is currently under renovation, it was really incredible to see all the original Vermeers and Rembrandts!

On Time Spent with Friends:
As usual, biked a lot.

Had yummy, yummy Thai food with Ruth, Rachel (visiting from Oberlin!), Taryn, and Becca. Went to an amusing Halloween party at Ruth’s dorm on Saturday night. Hammered out all my travel plans to Barcelona with Becca. Got pancakes (what else?!) with Martina to discuss our practicum. Got fake tattoos with Becca, courtesy of our delightful Dutch teacher, Eduard. Had wonderful bum-around-in-PJ’s time with Ruth on Sunday evening. Had equally wonderful bum-around-in-PJ’s time on Monday with Taryn, whose hair – I pointed out last week – has officially reached ‘fro-territory.

On my Program of Study:
Finished my article on Bosnian war rapes for Sister Namibia magazine; it’s written in deliberately simple, accessible language, but I’m pretty satisfied with the way it turned out.
Had a WONDERFUL lecture on Afro-Surinamese female identity and “maki work”this morning from Gloria Wekker, the Gender studies program director at Utrecht University, who – I learned today – taught at Oberlin 15 years ago! She spoke a lot about the construction of language, and how it shapes our conceptions of identity...also about the fluidity of sexuality within the Afro-Surinamese diaspora, in stark contrast with Western conceptions of sex – VERY interesting stuff.
Did my first interview for my independent study project with Cinta, and it was wonderfully successful! We talked for over an hour, and I feel much better having my first interview under my belt – at least seven more to go!
Dutch final tomorrow!

On Running as a Deliciously Cheesy Metaphor for Life:
Went for a tremendous, wonderful tempo run of eight miles in the Vondelpark yesterday. I kept up a really steady, comfortably hard pace the whole time, and felt very strong and powerful because of it. Part of my motivation to keep running hard (to my great amazement, really; I had no idea I was capable of maintaining the pace I did) was that a very fit-looking guy a few years older than me fell into place about 10 yards behind me on my second loop, and seemed to be using me to pace himself. I felt like he was clearly in better shape than me, but I was determined not to have him pass me, so I really pushed myself hard – probably harder than necessary, in fact.
I was listening to my Ipod, but keeping an eye on him because his shadow would eclipse my own at some point after each streetlamp we ran by in the park. At some point, though, after we’d been keeping pace with each other for over 40 minutes, we entered a dark stretch of the park with no lights – thus, no more shadows with which to keep an eye on him – I just cranked up my Ipod, pushed hard, and kept forward. When I finally emerged from the dark stretch, I glanced back and to my surprise, found that he was no longer with me. It wasn’t that I outran him; I guess he just turned off from the path and left the park at some point. Nevertheless, I was getting exhausted by that point (about an hour into my run) and felt somewhat disappointed that I had been running so hard for nothing...but then – as tends to happen inside my head while I’m running – the giant metaphor of it all suddenly made so much sense, and I felt all the more strong for having pushed myself so hard, even when it was only under the illusion of needing to.

Moral of the Story:
Sometimes, people or experiences you encounter in life push you way the hell out of your comfort zone, and it hurts, but you keep going anyway, and when you finally let yourself breathe and reflect, you realize you maybe endured more than was necessary, but it doesn’t matter; you’re stronger because of it, and thank God you’re capable of triumphing :)

On running, the Vondelpark, the Olympic Stadium, and my enduring euphoria

2007-10-27T02:51:00.000-07:00

I have never felt more grateful for a healthy body as I do now. I can’t even begin to describe the simple joy of existing in a living, breathing, functioning vessel that, for the first time in two months, isn’t plagued with some problem or another. Count your blessings, all ye’ healthy folks! Health is not to be taken for granted...

It’s been incredible to get back into running. I am so grateful not to have lost all my running abilities, and that I’ve been able to dive right back into at least vaguely comparable mileage to what I could run over the summer when I was training for my marathon. My shin maladies, which were ultimately the reason I had to give up (temporarily) on my own marathon, appear to be completely gone, as I have run approximately 32km (20 miles!) over the last few days, and my body has never felt better.

In one short week, I’ve both fallen in love and developed a rather intense addiction to running in my beloved Vondelpark; I sit in class and dream about being able to run in the evening, as the sun goes down and its rays slide through the trees, light up the lakes and ponds, glisten on the feathers of the ducks.

Furthermore, a list of practical reasons that the Vondel is pretty much the best place ever to run:
- It has a zillion little paths winding through woods, across meadows, by creeks and ponds, over bridges, under the sweeping branches of willow trees...I take different routes each time and never fail to get lost and run until I am found again!
- All the paths are dirt, so they’re very kind to my knees and shins.
- There are water fountains throughout the park, with Amsterdam tap water, which is some of the best water in the world.
- It’s totally flat (I guess this is sort of a downside, too, because ultimately it limits my training, but I definitely appreciate it now).
- The weather is incredible – no humidity whatsoever, very little wind, cool but not freezing (yet) – I can actually run any time of the day for once – no more waking up at 6 a.m. like in Kansas over the summer to beat summer heat and humidity!
- There are always people around, and it’s well policed, so I can run alone, with headphones, and never feel in the least bit unsafe.
- There are always people around, and interesting people at that, so there are always infinitely interesting things to look at while I’m running.
- There are several major loops, all of which have marked mileage (3.6km for the outermost dirt path), so there’s plenty of varied scenery, but I am never too far from home in case something starts hurting, or I get a blister, or I need more water, etc etc...
- It’s a 20-second jog from my front door.

Friday night, I went with Cinta to train at the Olympic Stadium with her athletic club. It was really incredible being in the stadium late at night when it’s lit up but almost totally deserted...especially compared with the chaos and commotion of the crowds at the marathon just a few days ago! There were only about ten people who showed up to work out, and we split up evenly between the two trainers there – one of whom was in the Olympics in 1972, and held the Dutch track and field record for the high jump for twenty years! We did a fabulous workout, culminating in a dozen self-regulated 400m repeats, that left me feeling dizzy with exertion, high on life, and also totally taxed physically, in the best of ways. My runs in the Vondel have been pretty relaxed, so it was a nice changeup for my body to really be pushed hard. (Seyeon, I’m serious, I can’t wait to get back to Oberlin, and eventually, Seattle, and train hard with you.) Afterward, we all sat inside and shared tea and little almond biscuits to warm up, relax, and celebrate the start of what’s hopefully going to be a great weekend.

Addendum: Well, Saturday has sucked so far. No more internet in my house. My phone ate up the rest of my phone card sending blank text messages from the depths of my backpack to the first contact in my phonebook. I shelled out too much money for a crappy cappucino at a place that usually has free internet, so I could send off my homework that was due last night, but their wireless has been down all week. Ugh. Time to go for another run...

On Sexual Reassignment Surgery in the Netherlands

2007-10-24T09:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday our group visited the Gender Clinic of Amsterdam, a sex-reassignment-surgery center, for an informative lecture from one of the center's directors, as well as the stories of two transgender clients who have undergone treatment and full surgery at the center. We were all really excited for this trip in particular, because Holland has a really unusual policy for transgendered people - basically, full financial coverage for surgery through the Gender Clinic - unlike America, where the money for surgeries generally comes directly out of the pockets of patients. Superficially, this seemed incredibly progressive and ideal...but our visit there proved otherwise.

Essentially, Holland's Ministry of Health's policy is that people should be either man or woman, and that absolutely nothing inbetween is acceptable. The clinic exists only to help people make a complete transition from one to the other, but there is absolutely no personal agency or say in how clients want specifically their bodies to be dealt with, and no patience for those who aren't ready to make a complete transition. Aside from the fact that transgenderism is highly medicalized (an official diagnosis of "gender dysphoria" and a year of psychotherapy is necessary to precede with anything at the clinic), it also is seen mostly a problem of society that is capable only by altering the body.

At the Gender Clinic, you can't qualify for top surgery unless you fully plan on undergoing bottom surgery as well - an interesting contrast from the states, where people frequently undergo top surgery (e.g. a double mastectomy for FTM's (female-to-male)) but not bottom surgery. This is sometimes due to financial reasons, but also many times, it is because bottom surgeries are pretty flawed procedures with often highly problematic outcomes - loss of reproductive capabilities and sometimes even loss of sexual sensation and ability to orgasm. (We asked about fertility options for FTM's, and the director flat out LIED about science to us - he said "It's impossible to freeze eggs", which just isn't true, especially given that many people in our group have trans friends back home who have done just that.)

Also, a full phalloplasty requires huge skin grafts to be taken from other parts of the body (usually the forearm or upper thigh), a bloody operation (of which we saw many stomach-wrenching photographs) that leaves tremendous scarring. Without the skin graft, the best that can be done is to make what is officially called a "micropenis", which looks about like it sounds - needless to say, hardly ideal. In both cases, erection is impossible without the assistance of an additional erectile prosthesis. Furthermore, (although I believe this is true throughout the world), you cannot legally have your sex changed on your passport unless you give up all your reproductive organs...eugenics, anyone?

Overall, it was a fascinating experience which I'm glad to have had, though it definitely got us all thinking critically about trans issues, a field of gender and sexuality studies that definitely needs more attention! With all that said, however, Holland's still doing better than my home sweet home Kansas, which still isn't even recognizing transgendered people as human beings. Way to go, Heart of America...

The Amsterdam Marathon!

2007-10-22T05:39:00.000-07:00

Eventful weekend...

Friday night I hung out with Ruth and CIEE people, because it was her friend Scott's birthday. We chilled at his apartment for a while before going to a mixed queer club I hadn't been to yet, called You II. The DJ was great; most clubs in Amsterdam play exclusively crappy techno/electronic music (I specify "crappy" because, as many of you know, I do actually have a fondness in my heart for electronica...but the stuff that is typically played here is ungodly dull and repetitive), but the DJ played a great mix of pop, rock, hip-hop, R&B...and mediocre techno. Dancing was fun, albeit very very hot and somewhat claustrophobic. We stayed until 3 a.m. before going back to Scott's for a while longer, then back to Ruth's to sleep in her newly-gargantuan bed (thanks to a furniture-pilfering mission she and her dormmates went on in the room of her mysterious neighbor "G4" who may or may not have been apprehended by the Dutch police...good times.)

Saturday, Taryn, Rebecca, and I went to the Anne Frank Huis, which was an emotionally intense but very worthwhile experience. I went four years ago, but the same experience can carry such different meanings at different points in a lifetime...and four years is a long time. I definitely felt like I was seeing the house with new eyes...especially given that's down the street from my school, and so there was a certain eery (as silly as it sounds to say) "close-to-home" factor that didn't quite sink in last time. Afterward, we spent the rest of the evening making soup, baking brownies, drinking tea, talking, and having a sleepover party. Mom, here's my picture of the tail end of the stunning sunset that night:

Sunday, the entire course of the rest of my semester here changed. I woke up early to bike to Amsterdam's Olympic stadium with Cinta to volunteer at the finish line of the Amsterdam Marathon.

It was ideal running weather - cool, dry, little sun, little wind. I felt a slight wave of disappointment that I wasn't able to run my first marathon this past summer, and jealousy at all the runners who made it yesterday, but those feelings were soon overcome by a much bigger wave of inspiration to start running regularly again, and train better/smarter so I can still make my long-standing dream happen for myself.

We chopped up hundreds of oranges.

We filled thousands of dixie cups with water. And we collected all the timing chips...look how close I was to being able to mess with the official results of the 32nd ING Amsterdam marathon!

It was fun, too, because the runners were so international. Several times, I had runners study me for a few seconds, then ask very slowly, "Do you speak English ?" because they assumed I was Dutch...very exciting! I also had one runner in a British jersey say to me with a huge, proud smile and atrocious pronunciation, "Lekker!" ("Tasty!" in Dutch) after eating an orange, and I cheerfully exclaimed "Ja hoor! En gefeleciteerd!" ("Yes! And congratulations!" in Dutch), which was met by an uncertain, somewhat blank smile before he moved on to the banana table...I have to say, it was thoroughly exhilarating to pass as a Dutch person...which I really can't do with the Dutch themselves :)

One of Cinta's colleagues ran the entire marathon in a giraffe costume, as part of a charity effort, using a Dutch storybook character called Dakkertje Dap (Mom, spelling?) to make public his efforts. It was pretty awesome - even with a 3-foot stuffed giraffe neck on top of his head, he finished in a little over four hours.

Cinta was wearing a t-shirt in support of the same charity, of which she was quite proud. Check out how totally adorable my host is:

I love her so much. Both of us got major butterflies in our stomachs when the starting gun went off in the stadium (where the marathon both starts and ends)

and got them again as we watched the national TV coverage of the marathon (with motorcycle and helicopter footage of the runners along the entire course, which wound all through my newfound stomping ground in Amsterdam, including by my house, through my beloved Vondelpark, and along my route to school, the Stadhouderskade!) on a big screen in the stadium,

and then our eyes started welling up as the first runners came dashing back into the stadium two hours later, where the crowd went wild and thundered with cheers and applause. This was the best I could do to take a picture of Emmanuel Mutai as he entered the stadium for his last 200m, and whose finishing time of 2:06:29 was 9 seconds off the course record.

In America, marathoners get wrapped in space blankets at the finish line to contain body heat. Here, they get ponchos. Oh Holland...

I didn't get a poncho, but I did get this sweet jacket.

And a running shirt. And tasty Dutch snacks. And a copy of Runner's World in Dutch. The first thing I did when I got home was put on my gear and go for a nice run along a stretch of the marathon course itself, during which I finally felt that everything I've been confused about in the last few weeks suddenly made sense. In the midst of my laziness these last weeks, I have missed running so much more than I realized...

I saw my mom, Zoe, Ani Difranco, and I almost died last night...Leven is heel erg spannend!

2007-10-19T02:14:00.000-07:00

Well, it's certainly been an eventful week since returning.

Due to my cornucopia of medical problems and shortly after the trauma of my visit to a Croatian hospital, I got myself five minutes on a computer with internet at our hostel in Zagreb to email my mom and beg her to be in Amsterdam on Monday. I didn't have time to explain much of what was actually wrong with me, except that I really wanted her to accompany me to a doctor so I could finally see one without a troubling language barrier...I'm tired of just getting put on antibiotics over and over again with no explanation of what's actually been happening with my body. I had no internet after that time, my cell phone was dead, and it was not until we were back in the Amsterdam airport that I could plug my phone in and call her. Lucky for me, she was already on a train, and thirty minutes later, we met up at Central Station. The doctors' appointment went well, and I felt infinitely better with her there. Plus I got to spend the day with my mom, which was great :)

She went home in the evening, but my day of visitors was not yet over, for my friend Zoe was in town for a couple days as well. I met up with her and her friend Mindy late Monday night and we had a nice evening playing around the city and catching up with each other about our respective experiences abroad.

Tuesday, our program took a day trip to The Hague (where the Dutch parliament is, as well as the international crimes tribunal) for a talk from a man who works for the LGBT chapter of Hivos, an international group that does social work in developing countries. It was a really inspiring lecture, one of the better ones SIT has provided for us.

Wednesday, I had lots and lots of class, and then in the evening, went to an incredible concert - Ani Difranco! I went with Ruth, Taryn, and Ellen, though my host Cinta and her girlfriend were also there, as well as half the people on my program. It was the first time I'd ever seen Ani in concert, and she played such an amazing show...so much energy, so much talent...I feel so lucky to have been there.

Thursday, I had to turn in my Dutch journal about my time in Croatia. In the spirit of my Aunt Jennifer's words of wisdom about everything being either a good time or a good story, Becca and I wrote the exact same sentence about our trip to the Croatian hospital: "De doktor was helemaal niet leuk!" Good story, indeed. And it's exciting that our Dutch is improving!

Last night, Ellen, Taryn, and I went to a carnival that's been set up in the Dam Square for a couple weeks now.

It was very small-scale, but the couple thrill rides there were completely out of this world. The three of us decided to shell out the 6 Euro each for what turned out to be, hands down, the scariest and also most awe-inspiring ride ("Booster Maxxx") I've ever been on in my life. There truly aren't words to describe what riding it was like, but I'll say this: I used to be OBSESSED with roller coasters and thrill rides, because my entire system would flood with adrenaline, my stomach would drop to my toes, and I'd be totally high. At some point, my body must have adjusted, because thrill rides just don't have the same effect on me anymore. But this...being thrown in 250-foot loops at 4.3G force, 125 km/hour, over and over again, sometimes upright, sometimes upside down, diving toward the carnival square below and then soaring back up into the night clouds above the entirety of Amsterdam, strapped in by nothing more than a shoulder harness....I physically could not have kept myself from screaming if I'd wanted to. I was shaking so hard when I got off the ride, but also feeling a tidal wave of endorphins, pure bliss, and a shaky sigh of relief that the ride didn't malfunction, and therefore, I am still alive to enjoy the rest of my semester abroad. I wish I could capture the moment in which we first were taken way, way above all the tops of the buildings, then tipped backward, and the entire lit-up skyline of Amsterdam, upside down, dropped into my line of vision...and then we went plunging down to the ground below. Absolutely stunning. Here is a video (low bandwidth makes it hard to do so) of the ride from the ground that does not even BEGIN to do justice to what happened, but at least it gives an idea...(note that this video is of the ride before it came close to reaching full speed.)
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riuoOnDZ-Do )

Me and Ellen with her gargantuan tree of Dutch cotton candy:

Lastly...mail call!
I had two great letters awaiting me when I got back to Amsterdam, from Erika and Daniel (whose came with a fantastic composition in Japanese!) Thank you, both :)

Yitka Winn
c/o SIT Study Abroad
138 Lauriergracht bg
1016 RT Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Croatia Fotos

2007-10-19T01:13:00.000-07:00

Some general shots of Zagreb, exemplifying its beauty, tendency toward yellow architecture, flowers and greenery everywhere...

Shots from atop the belvedere on our last day:

It's very hilly. People leave their trash out on curbs everywhere. See:

Graffiti is pretty much a staple of life in Zagreb. It's absolutely everywhere. But sometimes it's really pretty:

This is the oldest street in Zagreb:

The morning of the Zagreb marathon...Becca and I cheered for some runners, but they didn't seem to appreciate it much...different culture?

Becca, Zephyr, and I out for Italian food for the eleven billionth time:

Most extravagant gelato ever...good thing I'm not vegan anymore:

Rockin out at the only gay club in all of Croatia...notice the fact that everyone in this photo is an SIT student, and otherwise, the place was pretty much empty:

Botanical gardens:

Our trip to the zoo: The first notable thing about the Zagreb zoo was that barely any of the animals were familiar. You'd start to think you'd recognize something, and then realize it wasn't at all the animal you thought it was. These are some creatures Becca and I swore were beavers, until we noticed their tails:

Tapir...

The second notable thing about the zoo was how close you could get to the animals:

If I had wanted to feed the lion my finger, it would have been totally doable:

Seyeon, this one's for you...

The third notable thing was that, evidently, it is totally acceptable in Croatia to feed zoo animals. Not so awesome. In fact, the visitors' general treatment of the animals (feeding them salami sandwiches, pounding on glass, etc.) was pretty atrocious, and the animal rights activist in me was crying on the inside, but it definitely also made for an intriguing cultural experience. Here are some baby bears fishing for Cheetos.

Me being a dork in front of the statue of Nikola Tesla. The Prestige, anyone?

Unlucky trips are always redeemed by good photos...

Hrvatska

2007-10-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

Well, Croatia was a bit of a bummer...but I’ll start with good things.

Zagreb is a beautiful city – there are trees and greenery EVERYWHERE, the architecture is great, and Croatians are a stunningly attractive breed of people (but in that down-to-Earth, natural-beauty, non-super-model-ish type way.) It’s a small, manageable, quaint city, right next to small, manageable mountain ranges...although it’s eerily Westernized. It felt as though I was visiting a city in California, not eastern Europe. Aside from the fact that most everyone speaks English, it’s also highly Christianized and commercialized.

The highlights of my visit included: the exchange rate, really great bonding conversations with Becca and Ellen and Taryn, a great group dinner out with all 16 of us for Addie’s 22nd birthday, some powerful lectures and engaging discussions organized through SIT, gelato, a trip to the zoo, and climbing to the top of a belvedere with Becca and staying up there for the entire afternoon, looking out over all of Zagreb and into Serbia, basking in the sun, reading books, writing in journals, and talking.

The low points included: the first real tension and drama among our group (all 16 of us in 4 tiny hostel rooms, it was bound to happen), lack of healthy or substantial food (at least for a vegetarian), not a whole lot to do in the city, disappointing botanical gardens, organizational incompetence once again, and a pretty awful attempt in vain to get medical help at a Croatian hospital for the new array of problems that have cropped up on my body (my immune system has proven itself to be completely broken.)

Mostly, I think I got frustrated and eager to leave because I panicked about everything going wrong with my body, and also because there was no opportunity for alone time, ever. The hostel walls were paper thin, and being woken up a half dozen times throughout each night was no fun at all. Those factors made the day-to-day experience in Zagreb kind of grating...although in retrospect, of course, I am so grateful for the experience. Already, the cultural reflections have proven to be so interesting.

Croatians are about 95% Catholic, and that determines a lot of their culture. It is a pretty intensely homophobic place – Zagreb has had five Gay Pride parades now, and after every one, many people have been severely beaten (though we watched film footage of some beatings after the Pride parades in Belgrade, and those were the most violent and awful of all.) We went to the one gay club in all of Croatia – which is being shut down this December anyway – and it was such a culture shock from the gay and lesbian clubs I have been to in America and Holland. It was small, shady, unmarked, and you had to ring a doorbell to be let in. Evidently, too, a number of beatings have happened outside there as well. One of our lectures was given by a guy our age who is really active in the LGBT movement in Croatia; he, too, had been beaten up a few weeks ago outside a soccer game. I think the violent reality there was jarring to many of our senses of white American invincibility regarding our own identities, especially for those who grew up in fairly liberal cities (not me, but we’ve got our share of New Yorkers and Seattlites and San Franciscoans.)

Much of the academic portion of our excursion, in fact, was focused on darker sides to humanity. We also had an emotionally wrenching lecture about war rapes and gender violence from a psychologist who’s worked with women refugees and rape victims after the Bosnian war. Although I’ve always felt moved by horror stories from past wars and the Holocaust, there was something infinitely more horrifying given the immediacy of the war...the fact that it was during my lifetime...that I remember seeing the TIME magazine covers about the war and not really understanding what was happening...being reminded, too, that these crimes against humanity are still going on in the world today. There is still so much work to be done...

Pictures soon.

Off to Croatia

2007-10-08T22:17:00.000-07:00

My few days back in Amsterdam have flown by in a whiz, mostly consisting of riding bikes, eating pancakes, relaxing with friends, drinking tea, playing Scrabble, and brushing up on my Dutch skills. I also finally made it to a couple of museums, including the Verzetsmuseum (about postwar Dutch liberation) and the Jewish Historical Museum, both of which were really interesting. I have a list of museums that I have yet to explore that goes on forever. So many of us in the program have talked about being terrified that we’re going to spend four months in Amsterdam and not take full advantage of all the rich cultural history this city has to offer...so we’re all making a much more active effort to visit the crucial spots.

The weather was stunning all weekend long - to my friends at Oberlin, you know those days when the sun comes out and the entire campus evacuates their dorms to lie in the grass and bask in the sun and listen to reggae and toss around a frisbee? Amsterdam has days like that every couple weeks or so, too, and they’re amazing.

My biking skills have improved tenfold. For a little background on my skills in the past...in third grade, we had a bike rodeo at school where we all had to perform small challenges on our bikes in order to earn a play “driver’s license” – I think I was the only one in my whole grade who didn’t earn mine, because I couldn’t make small figure eights on my bike. (I still remember the moment I fell over on my bike and got laughed at – it’s such a shame the way those flashbulb moments stick with us, sometimes for our whole lives :/ hmm...) Anyway, I clearly have a long-standing vendetta with the two-wheeled monster, and it’s felt quite liberating to finally master the art of biking. I already feel so comfortable biking in Amsterdam traffic. Not only that, but I am now also totally capable of biking for long stretches of time with NO HANDS. Yes, I am proud :)

Finally, in addition to becoming an arrogant no-hands biker, I have also become an arrogant Amsterdam “local” in that I cannot STAND how uninformed all Amsterdam tourists are about biking laws and rules...the times I have almost been killed by Americans stepping absent-mindedly into bike lanes...it’s terrifying. I thought the cars going 70 mph a foot away from me on my bike were going to be the biggest risk, but no, they’re experienced locals who understand the laws; it’s the uninformed pedestrians who pose the real threat. Also, if one more chuckling tourist thinks himself to be hilarious by PRETENDING to step into or throw obstructions into the lane in front of me as I am approaching on my bike (oh the joys of passing all the major tourist hotels on my commute to school), I might explode. It’s kind of like every time someone new I meet makes a “Ohh, you’re not in Kansas anymore, are you, Dorothy? *Wink wink*” joke...it was only vaguely funny the first time around, let alone the eleventh...
Anyway, I miss the Turks. They were nice.

On that escapist note, I’m hopping on a plane to Croatia this morning. Once again, no idea whether I’ll have internet access; if not...tot Maandag!

The Last Night in Istanbul

2007-10-05T07:03:00.000-07:00

(Run-on sentences about a metaphorically infinite night...)

...in which Ellen and me

and Reis and Umid (the bartender at Reis’s bar, who didn’t speak a word of English) and Olivia and Alex drank Raki at the bar and danced together and Ellen and I helped sweep the floor

before we all left to wander the city until 3 or 4 in the morning, drinking tea and sitting by the water and overlooking the skyline

and talking and making each other laugh and eating freshly baked sesame bread hot out of the oven...at some point, Umid said something to Reis in Turkish, which I asked him later to translate, and he told me that Umid had said to him, “Out of the three American girls here, you are with the most beautiful one.”

After finally going our separate ways from the guys and leaving Olivia, Ellen and I sat outside our hotel and talked for hours – I began crying all the sudden, because I felt so overwhelmed with the emotional intensity of the entire trip and of that night specifically, and then the man at the front desk (who I had talked a lot with before) let us up on the roof of the hotel to look at the city all lit up at night, and we wound up staying awake until 5:30 a.m. when we ran through the deserted streets of Istanbul to the sounds of the morning mosque prayers to an isolated spot on the water where we could see the entire skyline of Istanbul, and we huddled together for an hour and a half to watch a stunning, hazy sunrise,

before getting breakfast and catching an hour and a half of dream-hazed sleep. I woke up early to pack and meet up with Reis by the hotel to say goodbye. He took me to a nearby cafe for a last cup of tea, and completely caught me by surprise with some beautiful jewelry,

saying that I deserved it because I’d made him feel like he was in paradise all week long, because I was special, and specifically because I had been pretty adamant all week about NOT being willing to go home with him at night, and that that made me different from “all the other girls that come to Istanbul.” We thanked each other for a wonderful week and wished each other well in our future lives, to find someone to love and find honest people to know and to have the best of fortune.

With all that said, here are some other random pictures:

skyline:

my wonderful roommates, tan and ellen, with me in our hotel room in istanbul:

we got closer as the trip went on:

me and my posse on the ferry to bursa and kulaca:

reis:

beautiful mosques:

tourists, etc:

me and the guy who offered to pay my father five camels and two lambs for me:

dancing the first night:

arm-wrestling with tony:

taryn, becca, and me before our turkish bath:

extravagant turkish desserts:

3 important things to note in this photo...(1)the turquoise ring, a self-indulgent gift for myself - i fell in love with this ring, (2)the silver ring on my pinky was a gift from a woman in the village who had recently made a pilgrimage to mecca, and brought rings back to share as gifts, and (3) i have fingernails! this is a first in my life! don't know what it is about europe, but my nails don't break, and i don't bite them here, it's amazing.

Reflections on Turkey

2007-10-05T03:07:00.000-07:00

On Asia
Who knew that half of Istanbul is in Asia? Not me! Here is me and Taryn and Asia in the background.

(We did eventually make it to the other side.) And yes, there is an official “Welcome to Asia” sign along the highway.

Delightful.

On Cats
What squirrels are to most places in America, cats are to Istanbul. They run stray and rampant all over the city. It’s kind of depressing, actually, because they’re all undersized and malnourished and sickly...and pretty consistently, roadkill. Nevertheless, some people befriended them.

The only one I touched was the one in the first hookah bar we went to...so cute :)

On Bathrooms, Water, and General Hygiene
Tap water is not drinkable in Istanbul. Thus, we traveled with jugs of bottled water.

Toilets are a rare commodity. Much more common are holes in the ground, surrounded by urine-pooled ceramic, and entirely devoid of toilet paper. Another interesting stretch of my comfort zone, but I’m not going to lie, I’m happy to have access to toilets and TP again.

On Turkish Hospitality
There definitely aren’t words to describe this wholly. I’ve never felt so overwhelmed by love and appreciation and care from total strangers (families we worked for in New Orleans when I was gutting houses last January was the closest I’d ever come to that before...) I feel like Americans can be great hosts, but it’s often done with at least some element of obligation, of doing it for the sake of being SEEN as a good host, rather than from a genuine empathy within one’s soul. The last night, Becca’s host mother called both Becca and I her American daughters, and she gave us both gifts from her own daughter’s DOWERY. They fed us incredibly well, had utmost respect for all our own identities and beliefs, told us we were welcome any time in their homes, and cried when we left to go back to Istanbul.

On Gender Roles (mostly relevant in the village)
The first thing that was really surprising to me about gender roles in Turkey is how separated the social spheres are for men and women. In Kulaca, the men were only around for meals; the rest of the time, they gathered in the town square together and smoked cigarettes and read newspapers. The women, meanwhile, spent their free time going from house to house, drinking tea and talking with other women. The spheres RARELY overlapped. Many of the older teenage girls in the village confessed to us about their secret boyfriends – dating was pretty nonexistent, unless it was done in total secret, because otherwise, it just wasn’t really culturally appropriate for girls and boys to mingle.

On Head Scarves
Head scarves are an interesting phenomenon in Turkey. Many, many women still wear them, despite Turkey’s desperate measures to secularize - one of which includes explicit prohibition of head scarves in universities – though many Muslim girls have found the loophole in the system by wearing wigs or hats OVER their head scarves so they can stay loyal to their faith and tradition and also have an education. Some girls still wear them because their parents force them to, but many wear them because they want to, to the general disdain of the Turkish government, which is surprisingly desperate to Westernize the entire country and erase its image as a third-world Muslim country. (Switching over from an Arabic alphabet was one of the first major changes instated to help bring about that modernization.)

On Turkish Tea and for Love of Sugar

I’ve never met people who love sugar so much. All tea in Turkey is poured into these tiny tulip-shaped glasses and mixed with water that’s been boiled with copious amounts of sugar...and then usually a few teaspoons of extra sugar are dumped into the 2-3 ounces of tea as well. My host father dumped so much sugar into my tea that I practically choked on it, and he was still shocked that I didn’t let him put any MORE sugar into it.

Conversations with Umran

Umran was probably the most amazing person I met in all of Turkey. She was Becca’s host sister (the picture is of them together) – eighteen years old, a truly beautiful soul if I ever met one, and one of very, very few English speakers in the village. Even so, her English was pretty broken, and she was fairly self-conscious about it...nevertheless, we managed to have a number of incredible conversations about her life in the village, her religion, Ramadan, etc. Becca was asking her if people ever got hungry while fasting for an entire month, and Umran shook her head and said something to the effect of, “No, because we all experience the hunger together. It’s about solidarity; it makes me feel closer to my fellow Muslims. And any time I feel hungry, I just think about all the poor people, and I feel a rush of gratefulness.” After going to the mosque, Becca asked her if she ever got bored during prayers. Umran looked totally bewildered, shook her head, smiled from ear to ear, and said, “Prayers are the happiest moments of my entire life. I imagine...” (pause to flip through the English-Turkish dictionary) “...Paradise.” Becca asked her what her paradise (heaven) looked like, and she said, “It is full of all good things, and it flows with rivers of milk and honey.”

On the Men

Due to the general segregation of the sexes, there is a surprising amount of physical affection that’s considered socially acceptable among men. Unlike in American culture, where men get called fags for so much as standing too close to another man, Turkish men hug extensively, kiss cheeks, hold hands, put their arms around each other, etc. It was kind of refreshing, actually. Furthermore, with the exception of the salesmen in the Grand Bazaar, I found most stereotypes about the aggression of Turkish men pretty unfounded. The ones we met were admittedly much more forward in their pursuit of women than I was used to, but it was generally done respectfully, and often with good humor – not in a creepy or aggressive or degrading way at all. Really, kind of flattering, actually, to feel so appreciated as a woman. I’ve never had so many compliments on my eyes in one week, or so many guys stop me on the street to tell me that I was beautiful, or just even so many genuine smiles in passing. Honestly, coming back to Western culture was sort of like walking into a blast of frigid air – everyone averting their eyes because it’s rude to stare, refusal to exchange a smile for fear of seeming creepy or presumptuous, people forever wrapped up on their cell phones and palm pilots, too obsessed with verbal communication to value the potential for meaningful connection in nonverbal dance with a stranger, the power of a simple smile, a warmth in the eyes...

Conversations with Tony, and Closing Thoughts on American Tourists

Tony was Reis’s second cousin, who worked at a cafe/restaurant several blocks from our hotel. We met him independent of Reis, as he offered a bunch of us free apple tea the first night as we were leaving a hookah bar. We went back several times more for tea and food, and wound up really bonding with Tony. We kept him company after the post-sundown rush, we arm-wrestled him, we danced with him in the streets, we talked to him about life in Istanbul...and on our last day, he almost got teary-eyed telling us that in all ten years he’d been working at the cafe (since he was ten years old), he had never met a group of people who were so wonderful and friendly. At first, I took the comments at face value and felt pretty happy about it all. But shortly after the words had left his mouth, I started paying attention to the way that most of the tourist passersby treated Tony as he tried to invite people to sit in his cafe, and it was heartbreaking. Most ignored him completely, some were rude enough to tell him harshly to shut up or leave them alone. Many of them were Americans. I thought back to a Turkish tourist guidebook that Tan had bought before the trip, and a passage I’d read that advised all tourists (and especially women) to act in just that manner – to avoid eye contact with any Turkish men, to never acknowledge any of them with words or smiles or anything, because they all just want either to sell you something or to have sex with you, and they’re basically clumsy, primitive humans incapable of anything deeper or more meaningful than those two intentions. Realizing how many tourists probably read these books, or at least are familiar with the stereotypes and thoroughly ingrained with the “rules” of dealing with Turkish men, and thus are incredibly unfriendly to all of them, was really depressing. I think about how much I would have missed out on this past week if I hadn’t been open to the possibility of actual human connection with many of the men I met and was willing to hold a conversation with and get to know.

When in a Turkish Village in the middle of nowhere...

2007-10-05T02:14:00.001-07:00

Going to Kulaca

was, for most of us on the program, single-handedly the best part of the entire excursion to Turkey. Ironically, it was also the part we were all dreading the most. We got comfortable in Istanbul pretty quickly – learned the scene, made friends, figured out the best places for good food or cheap beer or quality shisha – and were reluctant to get budged any further out of our comfort zone than we already had. (Being totally naked with each other for an hour in the bathhouse was already pushing it.) Stereotypes about traditional Turkish culture had led many of us to believe that all the Jews and queer people on our program would need to deliberately lie about their identities in order to be safe in the village. My friend, Tan – Vietnamese and pretty flamboyantly gay – was practically shaking in his skin on the bus ride there.

Upon arrival, however, it quickly became clear that most all of our expectations were going to be dashed to pieces. We sat down in the town square to await meeting our two-night homestay families. Very soon, we were surrounded by the village’s kids, who stood and looked on with rapt curiosity.

A few boys of about 9 or 10 began a juggling circle with a soccer ball, which I happily joined in on. After about half an hour of passing the ball around, a boy named Sahmet pointed to me and said, “Beckham!” – a nickname that stuck for the weekend and earned me a bit of futbol-fame among the younger village population.
That's my leg in the lower left hand corner:

The first night with my homestay was admittedly a little awkward. Neither of my homestay parents spoke a word of English, and I, clearly, did not speak a word of Turkish. Of my two “sisters”, one knew perhaps a dozen English words, but really, there was no verbal communication whatsoever. It was a good exercise for me in patience, humility, and the power of a eye contact, a smile, a laugh...

The following day, we went on a tour of the village and saw the cooperative where many of the women work picking hot peppers and preparing them for packaging or to be turned into hot sauce.

They also grow a number of exotic fruits, many of which I got to sample. We also saw the elementary school, where we spent several hours playing with the village kids and exchanging language lessons, where we picked up a surprising amount of Turkish words. Within two days, some of us could actually string together broken sentences in Turkish – to say hello (“merhaba!”) or goodbye (“gule gule!”) or say thank you (“tashikuur” (spelling is NOT accurate)) or express hunger or point out objects in a classroom or identify some colors and animals.

Because we visited during Ramadan, and the village was entirely Muslim, many of us decided to observe the holiday with them. Around 4 a.m. every morning, a designated man marches through the village and beats on a drum to wake everyone up for a last meal before the sun comes up. Groggy-eyed, I got out of bed and sat around a giant tray of amazing food with my family, ate generously, drank down a liter of water, and went back to bed for a few hours.

Then, until sundown, we refrained from eating, drinking (even water!), swearing, or smoking. Around 7, we sat down to a wonderful feast of a dinner, and from then until we went to bed, the food didn’t really stop. After dinner, we had a “snack” (bowls of sunflower seeds), then later a dessert (a bowl of apples), then copious amounts of tea and Turkish coffee, then plates of cookies and crackers and baklava, then offers of another meal, which most of us were too stuffed to accept.

After dinner, many of us decided to go to Mosque as well. My host sisters helped dress me properly for it (head scarf and all!) and also wash myself (three water rinses of many crucial parts – face, nose, ears, arms, hair, feet, etc.) in preparation for entering the mosque. Once there, all the women had to sit behind a thick canvas curtain separated from the men and the Imam – we also entered before them, and left last. (I can't look at this picture without laughing...)

The prayers themselves went on for about an hour, and were some of the most intense exercise I got during my entire week in Turkey – my abs and quads are still sore from rising and kneeling 66 times in a row. We also prayed with beads, 99 to a string, one for each name for God. (During our tour of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, we had it explained to us that on human palms, the Arabic numerals for 1 and 8 exist in the lines of each palm, creating an “18” on one palm and an “81” on the other – together, they add up to 99.) Because 99 names are too many to remember, however, there are only three phrases you actually repeat while praying with the beads, each 33 times, each affirming the power and one-ness of Allah – it’s interesting, because many of the Jews on our program pointed out how similar Muslim affirmations are to Jewish ones. And likewise with Christianity. If only we could all figure out we aren’t so different from one another after all...

Mail Call!

2007-10-03T16:45:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning, I hope, I'm going to Bagels and Beans for a giant cappucino and free internet, and I'm going to post some monstrous updates about Turkey.

First, though, I must give shoutouts to those whose letters were awaiting me in my mailbox upon my return to Amsterdam...
Thank you to Daniel for a beautifully written letter, to my mom for an adorable card with elephants on it, and to Renee for wonderfully whimsical musings on her life...who, by the way, is winning the most-letters-written-to-Yitka contest at this point...for the record, I write everyone back within a week of receiving letters, so if you haven't hopped on the letter writing bandwagon yet, do so soon! They make me happy beyond belief!

Irony

2007-10-03T00:43:00.000-07:00

So, I went to Turkey this week. Istanbul for five days, a tiny village called Kulaca for two. As I’m sitting here dumbfounded about how I can possibly articulate any of the ways this week has changed my life, I think I need to begin with some musings about language.

For anyone who knows me, language is pretty much my favorite thing ever. My entire life has revolved around putting experiences into words, about human communication, about journaling, about long-winded conversations into the wee hours of the night. For all my love of words, however, this week really opened my eyes to the ways in which words can specifically skew, limit, and even inhibit experience. By labeling an experience “amazing”, for example, you automatically limit it to your own conception of the word “amazing”, rather than allowing it to exist in your memory as it may actually have happened. Granted, it is incredibly hard to separate the creation of memories from the articulation of them with language, but I think that in the future, I want to remember this, and to not always stress so much about the articulation of life, but focus on living in the now and appreciating a moment for all it’s worth.

How did this happen? Ironically, I’m still going to try and articulate as much of it as I can...it just may take me a few days to process it all further and get it on here with pictures. But, in short, it was connecting with the village boys through playing futbol, it was bonding with the girls through teaching each other words, it was using a smile and laughter to bridge the language gap between me and my homestay family in Kulaca, it was the triumph of the smallest moments of nonverbal communication, it was the overwhelming hospitality of the villagers, it was the indescribable sense of love and connection with people we only knew for a few days, it was the inevitable flood at the end pouring forth from the unlikeliest of tear ducts. What a week...

Love and Istanbul

2007-09-28T23:21:00.000-07:00

WOW.

Yesterday was quite possibly one of the absolute best days of my life. I had pretty much the most prototypical Turkish tourist day possible, but definitely with a non-tourist edge, because most all of it was determined by locals. I will write now (still from my internet cafe on the difficult Turkish keyboard) about some of my experiences, which have been thoroughly enlightening and life-altering, and save some of the more in-depth musings on Turkey for when I am back in Amsterdam on Tuesday.

I will say, however, that I feel so, so lucky to be having this experience. Being at the age where I can finally travel on my own (or with friends my age) rather than relying on my parents to take care of everything, has opened me up for so many new kinds of experiences that are genuinely changing the way I look at the world, changing my understanding of it. What a blessing to be exposed to such a wealth of culture that is so drastically different from my own experience!

So yesterday morning, we all woke up early for an all-day walking tour of Istanbul with a local. She was kind of rude, and the tour was not thought out well at all, so even though we got to see the insides of a few beautiful mosques and palaces and other tourist hotspots in the city, I think most of us were frustrated that we could not experience them at our own pace. In the afternoon, though, we were set loose. The first thing we did was spend a few hours meandering around the Grand Bazaar, which was actually a pretty awful experience. Pickpockets are rampant, the men are sooo incredibly aggressive - both in their salesmanship and in their sexual advances (both Martina and I got marriage proposals) - and I HATE haggling, which is all you do there, because there are no set prices...for better or worse. I got tired of that fairly quickly - the men, the total claustrophobia of the place, the expensive goods, the monotony of the goods - the same tourist stuff for mile after mile within the bazaar - etc.

Fortunately, we had a plan to unwind! After shopping, we (pretty much everyone on my program) went to one of Istanbul's most famous public baths and shelled out the money for a really nice pampering - and what an experience! We were immediately separated by sex, and then all us girls basically got completely naked and were herded into a big, beautiful room with a few dozen other naked women. Talk about early group bonding for us Americans, who clearly were not as used to being naked around friends as the Turks. The temperature inside the room had to be hovering around 100 degrees F - it was like a sauna. We all sat around naked together, sweating bullets, and got called one by one by various Turkish women working there for dry massages, foamed soap massages, bubble massages, massages with giant brushes evidently made from tree root fibers, a THOROUGH washing in all cracks and crevices while lying on a communal marble slab, a mind-blowingly enjoyable shampoo and head massage with aloe vera, and basically the best hour of my entire life.

After going to the baths, we went out for a very traditionally Turkish meal that was very, very tasty. During the course of the meal, it was discovered that our waiter, Tony (who had been so gracious as to give us free apple tea the night before) was the cousin of a guy, Reis, who works down the street at a bar we have already become regulars at. There is a lot more to say about Reis, as I have now hung out with him all three days that I have been in Istanbul, I have talked more to him than anyone else here, and he is absolutely unlike pretty much every single other Turkish man I have met...but those details wıll have to wait, too, for my return to Amsterdam. Upon realizing that I was this girl that Reis had raved to his cousin about, Tony said my entire dınner was on the house. !

After that, a few of us went to a hookah bar and smoked some amazing shisha. There, I got yet another marriage proposal (Dad, he specifically asked for your address so he could inquire about how many camels he would have to pay for me - we joked around about this a lot - I told him a hundred, and his response was, "To me, you are worth THOUSANDS, but I am poor, so...how about five? And maybe two lambs?") and then a group of men got us all up and taught us some traditional Turkish dance moves.

Reis met us there and then took us all to another shisha place across the water, where we drank copious amounts of Turkish tea (much, much sweeter than any other kind of tea) and sat under the beautiful full moon and talked about life and love and cultural differences. When I finally got back to the hotel around 2 a.m., the hotel manager ALSO became quite friendly with me. He offered me a glass of Raki, a traditional Turkish liquor that is ridiculously expensive (70-80 Lyra a bottle), which I could not pass up trying. It was surprisingly smooth and delicious, and we had a really nice talk about life, too, until I retreated to my room and had crazy sleepover-talky time with Ellen and Tan in our crazy small hotel room.

Life is way good. In about fifteen minutes, we are getting on a bus to a tiny village outside Bursa (five hours away) where we will be living with individual families for the weekend - should be very, very interesting, too! Can't waıt to update...with pictures!

Chaos in Istanbul

2007-09-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, I was wrong - we have an internet cafe in our hotel in Istanbul, and I was already itching to post about my adventures thus far in Turkey, which have been bountiful. Unfortunately, I am trying to type on a Turkish keyboard, which is a bit of a challenge, plus this internet time is costing me money, so this may be short-lived.

SO. As usual with SIT, everything was completely disorganized and a total mess. I may have downplayed this perpetual shortcoming of the program in the past, but there is no denying it this time. We landed in Turkey and started to get off the plane, until Kevin started yelling that we were not in Istanbul yet. It was 3:15 in the morning, and because Kevin frequently makes jokes like this that are not funny, no one believed him. But we actually were just in Ankara, so we all went back to our seats, except Megan, who somehow got sidelined by a male flight attendant in the back of the plane trying to seduce her. Nice. The plane ride felt like the most surreal experience ever - a red-eye through Turkey with almost nobody on board except the people on our program and the skeevy flight attendants.

We got to Istanbul at 4:15 a.m. and got on a bus to our hotel, but the bus driver got lost on the way. Awesome. When we finally got there, we all headed straight for bed, but just as I was falling asleep, the morning prayers at mosque began blaring out from the city loudspeakers (we are here during Ramadan.) We then had two and a half hours to sleep before waking up for breakfast (bread, tomato, cucumber, and feta cheese) and a bus ride our first lecture, from a journalist working for Milliyet, a Turkish newspaper. Two of my program-mates got left behind ın the hotel and apparently had a frantic morning trying to get a hold of our program director and catch a taxi to the Milliyet building. What a mess. Afterward, we were set loose in the city to find lunch on our own. It is BLAZING hot here! We were all drenched in sweat from walking around. Istanbul is HUGE and mostly beautiful, though I miss the quiet and manageableness (if there were such a word) of Amsterdam. And also the safety that I feel there, which I certainly do not feel in Turkey.

Which leads me to my musings on Turkish men. Wow - what a complete difference of culture, especially from Dutch men, who have got to be some of the shyest people on the planet. Turkish men are very much in your face, all the time, flirting and trying to sell you things on the street. (Rebecca got roped into buying a 5 Lyra ice cream cone that she definitely did not want.) At dinner tonight, one of the men working at the restaurant we went to came up to me toward the end of our meal and, giving me a smoldering look, said, You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. (I cannot find the quotes keys on this keyboard...nor the apostrophe, hence the lack of contractions.) Despite heckling from my friends to use this to my advantage to get us free food, I heeded my father's (ha, I found the apostrophe key after all) sage pre-departure advice and not pay him much further attention beyond some polite appreciation for his kind words. Relentless, though, he passed me a note later that said 'Your eyes bewitch me!' and when we finally got up to leave, he shook my hand, kissed my cheek and said 'I will see you later tonight' and waved me off. Interesting, indeed. I feel confident about my own abilities to be safe, so I did not feel worried by any of this, just very curious about the cultural differences.

In the afternoon today, we also spent several hours in the muggy top floor room of Lamda Istanbul to talk about gay rights movements in Turkey, which was an incredibly fascinating discussion, but one that I will wait to explain more fully when I have spent some more time in this country (a few more days in Istanbul, then we are taking a 5 hour bus ride to a very conservative Turkish village to live two days with families) and also when I am back to typing on an American keyboard.

Until then...

çöşğü€ı - all the cool characters I can type on my Turkish keyboard :)

Off to Istanbul

2007-09-25T06:20:00.000-07:00

In a few hours, I'll be hopping on a tram to Central Station, a bus from there to Schiphol, and then a plane from there to Istanbul. I can't believe I'm actually going to Turkey! Because our program is not always particularly well organized, and because we are their total guinea pigs for excursions to Eastern Europe (in the past, SIT has just taken students to Madrid and Berlin), I really have no idea what to expect. Good things, hopefully!

I will almost certainly be without internet for the next week, but there were be plenty to tell when I return...

The Most Amazing Day Ever

2007-09-24T03:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was fabulous. It entirely made up for the fact that I spent all of Saturday inside, stressed out, working on a paper. Nothing like a long, exhausting day to make you appreciate a long, wonderfully fun one!

I woke up early to go see Cinta off on the Dam tot Damloop run, which was an awesome event to witness, though it made me very rueful about my bronchitis and the fact that I couldn't run it. The world seems to have something against me running any races longer than 5K's :/

The next biking adventure of the day was an excursion to the Amsterdamste Bos (Amsterdam Woods) to one of the most famous pannenkoeken houses in all of Holland, the Boerderij Meerzicht. Ruth, Alanna, Taryn, Martina, Rebecca, and I all met up and went for one of the most scenic bike rides I've ever been on, through trees and right alongside the coast of a huge, beautiful lake.

As we were biking, miraculously, I noticed a random wild ox (or bison? I'm not even sure...) just chilling a few meters off the bike path. I came to a screeching halt and started yelling, "Buffalo, buffalo!" because that was the only word that could come to mind in the midst of my surprise.

To get across the lake to our pannenkoeken huis, we had to take a ferry. It was pretty sweet.

The pancakes themselves were tremendous. The restaurant was tucked away in the woods, and was very much family-oriented.

They had a small petting zoo with little deer that Martina went crazy over. The pancakes did not fail to impress; they were huge and delicious and left us all feeling happy and quite full in our tummies.

(the one one top is not, in fact, stacked with egg yolks. those are apricots.)

The bike home was nice, too, though we took a shorter, less scenic route back. There was, however, one particularly exciting piece of scenery - and as my biking skills continue to improve, I managed to complete yet another impressive feat of one-handed biking: taking out my camera from my purse while biking, turning it on, and taking this money shot. A little obscene, perhaps, yes, but hey, it's Amsterdam.

The next leg of our adventure involved going to a piercing parlor to get Ruth's eyebrow pierced! The guy who did it was pretty awesome. Let me tell you, though, it is twenty times scarier to watch something be pierced than to get something done yourself! When I got my own eyebrow pierced a couple years ago, it was not a scary process at all. But this was downright terrifying. I'm glad Ruth was holding my hand.

The final leg of our day involved going to a club that runs out of a squat every Sunday night, called "Trut." It's an exclusively queer space, and populated mostly by people in their young twenties. A lot of people from both SIT (my program) and CIEE (Ruth's program) were there, as well as a plethora of other attractive young people. We wound up spending four or five hours there, dancing, talking, mingling, people-watching, and generally having a fabulous time. It's staffed all by volunteers, so it's quite cheap (1,50 Euro cover), but you have to get there early enough to wait in line to be let in, because it's hugely popular, but entry gets capped once they hit a certain critical mass. I didn't take the camera along for this part, so my only documentation of the night is a photo of my battle wound received during it...thank you, Alanna's cigarette :)

If only every day could be so fun...

Exciting Encounters with the Politie!

2007-09-22T05:32:00.000-07:00

Last night, our program held a project gallery/presentation of all our solo excursion photo essays at SIT. Many of our homestay hosts showed up, and I invited Ruth, too, for drinks, snacks, chattiness, and photo-admiring. After several wine-laden hours, Taryn, Ellen, Ruth, and I met up with CIEE people again for a night of bar-hopping, dancing, and a disproportionate amount of run-ins with the Dutch police. The first came while I managed a feat of which I am actually quite proud (Mom, Dad, don't judge me, hehe) - carrying an open bottle of beer while biking. This has more to do with the fact that Dutch bikes have foot-pedal brakes (rather than hand brakes) than any excess of talent on my part, but nonetheless...I was pleased. Biking over, several people we passed yelled jolly variations on "Hey, watch out for your beer!" to me. Upon arrival at the Rembrandt Plein, a police officer immediately accosted me and asked with a wide grin, "Still thirsty?" To which I smoothly replied (in English), "No, it's empty now, I just didn't want to litter." It made him smile.

We went to a bar called Viva La Vie (sp?) and wound up making quick friends with a table of South African women next to us - more accurately, Ruth's friend Alanna made quick friends with them, and somehow, we wound up spending the entire rest of our night (until almost 4 a.m.) with them! They were a jolly bunch of middle-aged women who were visiting Amsterdam for the weekend (from Den Haag) - they spoke Afrikaans, which is almost identical to Dutch, but grammatically simpler, and comes across to Dutch nationals as sounding the way that little kids sound when they speak Dutch. Later, we all went to Sappho and danced and danced and danced until they closed and we all got hungry for falafel.

As we were sitting outside at Viva La Vie, though, a bunch of Dutch police officers began loitering at the corner and accosting every person who walked by to be patted down - for what, we weren't sure, but it was INTENSE patting down. Surprisingly, though, unlike most Americans I know, no one seemed to be in the least bit bothered by this totally unwarranted invasion of permanent space. In fact, many of them - upon learning that they were to be patted down - would exclaim, "Oh, wat leuk!" which roughly translates to "Oh, what fun!" One of the South African women we were with was having particular fun watching the whole ordeal and commenting on how attractive the female police officer was - finally, she yelled out to her, "Hey, come pat me down!" which was rewarded with a smiling shake of the head.

At some point, a long line of dozens and dozens of people had assembled themselves to file past the politie all at once, so there was no way that the five or six officers could search every passing person. It was a small, harmless protest, done not so much out of anger, but out of amused playfulness, and it seemed to be taken with good humor by all, including the police themselves. It's definitely an interesting dynamic here - the police are not the same intimidating, humorless force they are in America, but more like very good-natured citizens in uniform, looking out for the well-being of the city...kind of like the friendly RA next door at college :)

Dutch food musings, and other things

2007-09-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

Generally, I really enjoy food in Holland. For the most part, I feel like my eating habits are healthier here - I snack less, eat more square meals, overeat less since portion sizes are often smaller, and I like how fresh everything is that I eat - the bread straight out of the oven at bakeries, the fruit and vegetables from fresh daily markets, etc. Cinta really likes fresh things, too, so the house is always stocked well with healthy options.

Here is a yummy tofu and vegetable soup that Taryn and I concocted several nights ago. It was delicious.

Also, amazingly enough, I'm losing a bit of my taste for ice cream - dessert here typically consists of fresh vanilla yogurt (or vla or kwark) with pieces of fruit, and I love it. Plus, biking everywhere helps me not to ever feel overstuffed or bloated or whatnot...everything starts to get worked off pretty much the minute I get up from the dinner table.

With all that said, here are two exceptions:
Gargantuan portion sizes at a pannenkoeken huis. A-mazing.

Me bent over two of the best snacks Holland has to offer, stroopwafels and stroopwafelijs (ice cream). I look pretty happy, right? I am. (Though, honestly, more often that not, I choose yogurt over ice cream for my "toetje" (dessert).) Cinta introduced me to the glory of stroopwafelijs.

In other news, I have bronchitis, which is a real bummer. I'm on antibiotics again, and can only pray that I will start feeling better very soon! I went to the doctor's office this morning and spent my thirty minutes in the waiting room rehearsing "Ik ben student uit Amerika, ik kan alleen een beetje Nederlands spreken" and was so ready to spout it out when the doctor came to get me...but he said cheerfully "Goedemorgen!" and all I could sputter was, "I mostly speak English." I hate that even though I've managed to get quite a grasp on the language in just one month, I get so anxious about actually using my Dutch in practice!

On another note, here is my beautiful, beautiful Ani Difranco ticket:

Aaand an awesome photo of everyone on my program:

Finally, special shoutouts for people who've sent me snail-mail...
I got a fabulous letter from Erika today with superhero stamps! It made me smile so.
And, this is a way belated note, but before I even had internet access at all in Holland, I got my first official piece of snail-mail from Renee! It was incredibly exciting, and gave me a real appreciation for how amazing the postal service really must have been before the internet took over everything. It's still pretty amazing, though :)

Ala Cafe Ruth

2007-09-19T13:07:00.001-07:00

The long string of updates come courtesy of Ruth's dorm, although I can only actually get online using her laptop, so sadly, it's not ideal :(

I realize there's much to read, and as always, no obligations, but if nothing else, read part III (prostitution)...please?

Twenty minutes until my fourway Skype date with Ruth and me on one end (here in Amsterdam), and Seyeon and Adam (back at Oberlin) on the other!!!

Long lost update, part IV (de vrienden)

2007-09-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

Last night, Taryn and I got together with Ruth and all her friends from CIEE and had ourselves a wonderful night. After hanging out for a bit in Ruth’s dorm, we biked to an Australian pub for a cocktail happy hour over televised rugby nationals. We stayed there a long time, getting merrier and merrier, playing darts, talking lots, having nice chats with some nice British men at the pool table. It was a different part of Amsterdam than I’d really hung out before, filled with lots of (1) English-speakers, and (2)young people...two traits I just haven’t been around much yet on this trip, outside my program, because my hosts have mostly just exposed me and Taryn to the authentic middle-aged Dutch lesbian scene...interesting as that’s been, I’ll admit, it was nice to be around so many awesome international students within my age range. After happy hour, we all biked to Cafe Sappho, which was having an open mic night, and hung out there until it closed, and Taryn and I set out for the long trek home.

Today, our Dutch class all went out for lunch together with our teacher and program directors, and as long as we all ordered our food exclusively using Dutch, we ate for free! (Well, “free”, given the cost of the program, but still, a nice incentive...) It was a great exercise, and I had a “verrukkelijk” (!!) fresh mozzarella/pesto/tomato “broodje” and a yummy appeltaart.

After lunch, Taryn and I hosted friends at our new house for the first time - Ruth, Martina, and Rebecca all biked over for afternoon tea. It was very exciting to show off our new place, especially because Cinta is so enthusiastic to share the house and meet our friends and be involved with the program. She’s gone a lot for her work, and for marathon training, and she’s been out most days and evenings this week...but when she is home, she is so, so sweet about everything. I feel really lucky to be living with someone who is so warm, inspiring, well-traveled, wise about the world, happy, enthusiastic, interested in our program, amazing at cooking, and eager to help us learn Dutch.

Long lost update, part III (prostitution)

2007-09-19T13:04:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, our class had a guest lecture from a former sex worker. Her name was Petra, and the two hours that she talked with us were some of the most enlightening I’ve experienced in a long time. People (myself included) have so many stereotypes, I think, about what prostitutes are like – drug-addicted, STD-ridden, low-class, uneducated, unsophisticated VICTIMS. Even in strolling through the Red Light District (where, for those who have never been to Amsterdam, prostitutes sit in red-lit windows, usually just in bra and underwear, sometimes less, so that potential customers – mostly men – can literally “window-shop” to their heart’s desire), where things do actually feel surprisingly clean and classy and normal (whatever that means), it’s hard to shake those stereotypes. The first week we were here, a few of us on the SIT program stumbled into the district and were remarking on how tragic and degrading it must be for all these women to do this kind of work... Hearing Petra actually speak about her personal experiences, as well as the history of sex work and the fight for sex workers’ rights, blew away ALL my preconceived notions.

(Pardon me if any of my reflections here seem naive.)

First of all, she was very educated, articulate, and completely down-to-Earth. She was also very straightforward in talking about the sorts of sex work she tended to engage in – most often, BDSM play, with men, women, and transpeople, charging about 300 Euros an hour – though, most often, sessions only last 15 minutes. Prostitutes pay about 70-80 Euros rent to sit in a window (with a room with a bed in the back) for a day, and generally go for anywhere from 2-30 sessions a day, depending. Futbol season is apparently a crazy time for business in the Red Light District.

Petra also talked about many physically handicapped clients she worked with – Dutch welfare will actually pay for some disabled citizens to go to prostitutes as a way of relieving their sexual needs...a seemingly progressive move, but clearly one that’s loaded with complexities and fine lines, and what is being said about the physically handicapped. She brought up a number of other fascinating issues that plague sex workers – including the fact that many men are willing to offer upwards of 1000 Euros an hour to be able to have unprotected sex – even though all sex in the Red Light District is, by law, supposed to be protected, there is evidently a black market for unsafe sex – what kind of position is a woman put in if she wants to be safe, but also is working to raise enough money to support her family, and is given such an offer?

Unfortunately, she was initially working somewhat illegally, and once new laws were introduced in 2000, enforcement of standards became a great deal more rigid, and she was forced out of her job. She said she would go back to it in a heartbeat, though. Above all, I think she wanted to eradicate the feminist notion that all prostitution is bad, that all women sex workers are complete victims of the system and of the men they serve. Rather, many of the female sex workers in Amsterdam choose their work not out of a classist desperation, but because they genuinely enjoy the work they do, and because they’re talented at it! Sex workers practice more consistent safe sex than most people do in their personal lives, they have incredibly low to non-existent rates of STD’s, and above all, they are good at what they do – so in many ways, it can actually exist as a space in which people can explore their sexuality without the often complicating factors of an emotional relationship.

Granted, it’s not Utopia, and not acknowledging problems in the system is definitely naive. It’s not that I’ve taken up a staunch pro-legalized-prostitution stance, but I DO feel that Petra’s talk opened my eyes a lot. It’s neat to go to a school as left-wing, out-there liberal as Oberlin (that so consistently makes me rethink my world view), and yet still be able to have my conceptions blown apart even further by places outside of that, and people, and experiences.

Long lost update, part II (de trein)

2007-09-19T12:55:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, everyone on our program had to do a “solo excursion” to some province of Holland for two days and a night, and complete a photo essay on some aspect of Dutch culture. Some people, uncomfortable with traveling alone, wound up going with one other person from the program. Naturally, I seized the opportunity to go see my mom and her new "huisje" in Nijverdal.

The journey was simultaneously thrilling, smooth, challenging, emotional, fun, stressful, and relaxing. I packed up my backpack, walked to the nearest tram station, rode to Central Station, bought my train ticket, and things went quite smoothly.

They only got a little problematic when I got intensely yelled at in Dutch by the train conductor for evidently sitting in the wrong class on the train – I didn’t even know there were different classes! It was just a small mistake, but I immediately felt like such a dumb American, I wanted to cry.

Eventually, though, after almost two hours of riding through the Dutch countryside (sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that this is the third most densely populated country in Europe – so much of it is just beautiful expanses of the greenest fields and forests imaginable!), I made it to the train station, where my mom picked me up in her new Toyota Starlet, with a baggy of krentebols :)

We had a great weekend wandering around Nijverdal, taking pictures for my essay, drinking tea, watching “Charlotte’s Web” dubbed in Dutch (and I understood most all of it, it was so exciting!), going shopping at second-hand stores for new furniture, and biking through the national forests and heather fields on the edge of Nijverdal.

Baruch (my mom’s twin brother) was around, and Gabrielle (my mom’s youngest sister) drove in on Sunday, too, so all four of us had dinner together on Sunday.

Aside from being sick, it was a wonderful weekend – it’s really difficult to think about eventually going home and not being able to see my mom on a regular basis anymore, but right now, it’s amazing to be in the same country as her. I was proud of myself for having braved the Dutch train system on my own (and having some nice, somewhat broken chats along the way with Dutch people who spoke very little English), and nothing was more exciting than getting off that train and seeing my mom!

Long lost update, part I (het huis)

2007-09-19T00:09:00.000-07:00

Well, internet is still spotty, but I have some this morning, and I've finally managed to upload enough pictures (a long, arduous process with low bandwidth) to make a post I've wanted to for a long time...here are some images of our new homestay, which is incredible!

Our new house, built in 1898:

The view from my window:

(Part of) the view from the balcony outside Taryn's room...notice the awesome roof garden of the neighbors!

Our living room, stocked well with amazing CD's, beautiful photography, and two delightful kitties:

Cinta's prayer flags from her many trips to Nepal/Tibet, from which there are memoirs are all over the house:

Another way in which Cinta rocks:

(with my savvy Dutch skills, I can translate this to "Islam is not the enemy. Hate is not the answer. Together against racism." I really admire Cinta for this, because there is SUCH overwhelming animosity toward Muslims here, ESPECIALLY in gay/queer communities for the perceived clash of values, and the media's overzealous attention toward making Muslim anti-gay sentiment sound more prevalent than it necessarily is.)

Kitties! Their names are Tet and Banjo, and they're mischievious, playful, cuddly little creatures:

My wonderful bike, Boris:

I have to bike off to Dutch class now, but I am going to Cafe Ruth (i.e. Ruth's dorm, where there is internet access) so I should be able to make the rest of my long-lost updates (concerning my train trip to Nijverdal, musings on legalized prostitution, and adventures on the town with Ruth and Taryn and friends!)

Difficulties

2007-09-16T02:46:00.000-07:00

Oi. It's going to be a while before I can bring this baby all up to date on my adventures in Amsterdam. Everything about the new homestay is wonderful, except that internet is incredibly spotty and generally non-existent...so I'm going to need to figure out a new way to get regular access.

My laptop is way backed up with photos I want to put up here, as well as stories from the past week that need to be told!

But I'm even short on time now. Soon, though, there will be some monstrous udpates...

A new life

2007-09-11T14:48:00.000-07:00

Ruth and I went on a tremendous bike adventure across the city today in an attempt to go to my new favorite restaurant, a pannenkoeken huis called "Pancakes!" (someday soon, I will devote an entry blog entry to pannenkoeken, complete with pictures, for full appreciation of this Dutch delicacy.) Sadly, "Pancakes!" had a big "gesloten" sign on its door; apparently it's closed on Tuesdays. Very sad indeed. But we found a yummy cafe anyway and had a good time before both taking off for class. It still sort of blows my mind that Ruth and I can just call each other up and hang out pretty much anytime we want. (Except tonight, apparently - we had plans to go play Drag Bingo in the Red Light District, but dinner with Taryn and me and our new host dragged looong (though enjoyably!) into the night.)

On that note...(!!!) today Taryn and I officially moved into our new, permanent homestay! It was a bittersweet occasion - we've grown very attached to the familiarity of our old neighborhood, as well as to our little traditions with Yo, Andi, and Jessie...and yet, of course, it's very exciting - and a bit of a relief - to be in a more permanent place, with a wonderful vegetarian, marathon-running woman named Cinta. Taryn and I finally get our own rooms - actually, our own entire floor - no longer will we have to go up and down two flights of stairs every time we have to use the bathroom! We have our very own toilet, a fully supplied kitchen, a balcony on one side, windows overlooking a canal on the other, multiple closets and bookshelves and chairs and space to hang out. Pictures will be up soon :)

Other bonuses of our new place:
+ Two adorable kitties, Tet and Banjo ("bon-yo")
+ Incredible photography all over her walls
+ It's directly across the street from the most beautiful, huge park in all of Amsterdam
+ We have a washing machine, finally!
+ Cinta is an amazing cook, and dinner tonight was really delicious
+ She has a fabulous collection of music
+ Cinta fed us stroopwafels for dessert tonight - I'm sold.

One downfall...
- No steady internet access...aghh!! I have to rely on neighbors' spotty wireless. This is bad. I need to talk to Seyeon on Skype SOON! And many others. Basically, I just have to sit on the floor of Taryn's room, and it seems to work...so far...

Also, it's beyond exciting to me that Cinta runs as much as she does - which is every day. She has a huge wreath downstairs from when she placed first in a marathon in Norway (with a very, very respectable time of 3:15!) and tons of medals and race bibs and certificates all over her house that are so inspiring. She is chairperson of a gay/lesbian sports club in the area, and she's already invited me to come train there, which I'm really excited about. I also hope to start running regularly every day in the Vondelpark. And finally, I may actually rope myself into doing a 16 km (approx. 10 mile) race with her in a week and a half - it's a famous race in Holland called the "Dam tot Damloop". I doubt I'm in proper shape to handle it at this point, but being around Cinta has already revved me up so much again about running that I can't help jumping the gun a bit :)

8 pictures are worth 8,000 words

2007-09-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

The view from our attic window:

Here are two of my new sweaters, the first of which I bought at the Albert Cuyp Markt, the second of which is from the Waterlooplein:

This is Yo with her bike and the dog, Jessie. Cute! Also, notice the rockin' Hanson t-shirt:

Dinner at Andi's, one of the 3 times so far that Taryn and I have been fed since we got here. Yes, I realize my head looks like it is part of the dinner, seeing that it is floating on top of the table...

Me, happy with my Amstel, outside Ruth's dorm, in a little skirt and jeans get-up I'd never tried before:

Me and Ruth with the best food in the world - fresh, hot stroopwafels: (I stole this picture from Ruth...)

Clearly, as evidenced by my uncharacteristic attention to clothing in this entry, I have entered a new experimental phase in my life. I'm trying to break out of the t-shirt-and-jeans routine I've been stuck in for about three years now. It's going well so far.

Good times, Reflections

2007-09-09T03:42:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been wonderful.

Friday evening, our group went out for dinner at a squat (which are legalized in Amsterdam) called "De Peper" that serves all organic, vegan food. It was Olivia's 21st birthday (a little anticlimactic to celebrate in Europe, since 21 is nothing special here), so we had a grand time celebrating. The food took a long time to come out - I'm talking almost two hours - so our program director, Kevin, not-so-wisely advised us all to pass the time by saying, "Just order another drink!" This is Martina and me at the squat - aren't we cute?

After dinner, most of us biked to a wonderful cafe hangout where we made some friends

and spent several hours chilling out before Amsterdam nightlife began waking up. Then we took a long collective bike ride across the city, which wore me out.

We then went to Exit, a gay club - even at 1 a.m., it was a little dead, so we mostly made our own party there. We hit the dance floor in full force and had ourselves a splendid time until well into the night before biking home.

Saturday morning, my mom took a train into Amsterdam to visit me! (Most of you reading this already know this, but she moved to Holland this summer - she is a few hours east of Amsterdam by train - thanks to my host's stringent rules about everything, though, it's been somewhat difficult to get in touch with my mom since I've gotten here.) I met her at the Central Station in the morning, and we spent the day taking long walks all over the city, having long-winded conversations about life, practicing my Dutch, shopping at the Waterlooplein (where I got a BEAUTIFUL new sweater/jacket - pictures of it will be posted soon!), eating apple and banana pancakes, and drinking fresh mint tea at a gorgeous little theehuis (teahouse) in the Vondelpark.

In addition to a culture-shock workshop our group did on Friday morning, talking with my mom really made me reflect a lot more on my experiences here...and especially on how Dutch culture and American culture differ. I feel like there are both things I love and appreciate, and things I really dislike, about both. The superficial summary of these things is as follows...

Dutch Culture Pro's
+ city built for walkers and bikers, not cars
+ limits on amount of personal trash that will be picked up (+ environmental conscience!)
+ liberal attitudes toward sexuality
+ much more highly effective drug laws, healthcare system, and sex ed system
+ amazing outdoor markets everywhere, all the time
+ cheap, quality clothing widely available
+ scenic canals, beautiful historical architecture, very very green
+ drinking tea all the time
+ biking everywhere, so exercise is worked into daily life
+ spreading chocolate on bread is a perfectly acceptable form of sandwich
+ stroopwafels :)
+ smaller cars - no SUV phenomenon here!
+ Dutch honesty and bluntness - no fake American politeness
+ because space is at a premium, privacy is not a fact of life the way it is in America - which, in many ways, leads to a much less alienated existence day-to-day
+ the weather (no humidity, cool)

Dutch Culture Con's
- the weather (it's overcast a LOT)
- cigarettes EVERYWHERE, including all restaurants - I reek of smoke all the time
- kind of a false sense of tolerance in many sociopolitical realms
- way too much cheese and sugary things at every meal
- not enough protein in general
- tap water is rarely available in restaurants
- petting other people's dogs isn't very socially acceptable
- no one wears bicycle helmets = dumb
- having to pay 30-50 Euro cents to use a public bathroom, but only if you're female
- I miss my gym and working out on a daily basis, even though I work up a sweat every time I bike anywhere

A long update

2007-09-06T09:11:00.000-07:00

I've been a little frustrated this week, because I don't feel grounded at all. It's been incredibly hectic with classes beginning - which generally run from about 10 a.m. to 4 or 5 p.m. every day, with a few hours here and there to get food, relax, etc...but rarely long enough to warrant the hassle of biking anywhere too far away, including my home. Rush hour traffic on bikes is also terrifying - every time I make it where I'm going, I feel like getting on my knees and singing hymns of gratitude to my guardian angel for getting me across Amsterdam without harm. (I did get my shoulder bumped already by the sideview mirror of a van that was roaring past me on a small canal-side street, but oh well.)

I also have learned something about myself, that may already be obvious to people in my life, but it seems like a revelation to me: I am most productive when I'm alone. Living in the same room as someone else and being around people literally 24 hours a day is definitely taking its toll on my sense of capability and accomplishment - I definitely *enjoy* being around people, and I've felt fairly content all week, and definitely still loving getting to know people, but I feel behind on my own life. It doesn't help that SIT's been somewhat poorly organized, so I feel like a lot of my time is being waste biking aimlessly around Amsterdam, running unsuccessful errands, etc. Finally though, today, I managed to get a hold of my mom on the phone (she's coming to visit me on Saturday!), get caught up on homework, exchange my dollars for Euros (very depressing exchange rate) and organize a successful get-together between SIT people and CIEE people with Ruth at the Oosterpark.

My classes are wonderfully engaging. Both our regular professors and the guest lecturers we've had so far have been fabulous. I'm getting really fired up about a lot of the issues within our program of study - for example, the crazy fact that Dutch racist and previously homophobic right-wingers have started embracing the gay community as a way of "scaring off" Muslim immigrants, because of the clash between Muslim traditional values and the Dutch attitude of sexual liberation. Intolerance for intolerance - a complicated concept. Also, I find it interesting that because gays and lesbians have been granted marriage rights, many ignore the fact that homophobia still exists in Amsterdam, but in subtler, often more insidious, manifestations.

As part of the program, I am doing a few things that are incredibly exciting to me at this point: one, I'm going to be doing a practicum through Sister Namibia, a feminist magazine, for whom I will be writing - perhaps an article on gender violence in Turkey, after my excursion to Istanbul in less than a month. Two, next weekend, I am going on our assigned "solo excursion" to another province of Holland, where we are compiling a photo essay of some town - I'm hopping on a train to Overijssel to visit my mom and do my project there. Three, for my ISP (independent study project - the 40+ page culmination of a semester with SIT), I think I'm going to do something about the culture of female endurance athletes in the Netherlands, and how those individual sports can serve to empower women and negotiate their identities.

Finally, last night, I went running for the first time since I've been here, which helped me de-stress a lot. It was one of the most scenic routes I've ever been able to run, and miraculously, still feel totally safe at 10 p.m.! I ran by the Rijksmuseum, the Heineken brewery, through the Vondelpark (which is huge, green, full of sculptures and fountains and streams and trees and flowers), and even by the house of one of my mom's really good friends from college when she was studying in Amsterdam. Five miles felt suprisingly easy, given that I haven't been running consistently in almost two months now.

Life is hectic, but definitely good...

Geen fotos van vandaag...(I'm practicing my Dutch)...

2007-09-03T14:40:00.000-07:00

No pictures from today, though it's been (mostly) lovely.

Went to the Noordmarkt with Taryn, Yo, and Andi this morning - we got tea and apple pie at a little cafe on the canal (breakfast of champions!), then shopped for hours - the market is every Monday morning, and is blocks and blocks of outdoor tents filled with beautiful (and cheap! 1-10 Euro, ish) clothing, fabrics, books, shoes, bags, jewelry, music, useful things, pretty much everything you could ever dream of. I bought a gorgeous pair of earrings for only 3 Euro, which I am very happy about. Apparently, it is Yo and Andi's Monday tradition to always get tea, apple pie, and shop at the market - although this is our only week living with Yo, Taryn and I have already decided we want to keep up the Monday tradition with her and Andi to keep in touch.

Yo is kind of crazy in a lot of ways, but I do already feel quite affectionate toward her. She's incredibly quirky...and crazy, yes, definitely crazy. We got our bikes today from SIT, and the first thing Yo did when we got home was lead us on an insane bike ride through the city, which was actually kind of awful. (As if biking around Amsterdam wasn't scary already enough, what with cars and trams and mopeds and other bikers and pedestrians and tram tracks and no bike helmets anywhere...) She literally biked right into oncoming traffic several times and was inches from getting hit by cars on multiple occasions. She also biked insanely fast, and Taryn and I had to work incredibly hard to both keep up with her and also manage to not get ourselves killed. A little aggravating, actually. Apparently, last year, Yo did the same thing with the girl she was hosting in her house, and actually managed to LOSE the girl completely in the city because she biked ahead too fast.

We had dinner over at Andi's place, which was absolutely lovely. She made a delectable meal, and we had a great time talking about cultural differences between America and the Netherlands - Taryn and I both found ourselves ranting quite a lot about American society. We topped the meal off with two bottles of red wine between the four of us. Cozily tipsy, Yo and I discovered in each other a mutual love for yoga, and we began doing various poses in Andi's living room. Eventually, we lamented the fact that we needed to go do homework, to which Yo responded quite seriously, "Nee, don't bother with it. If you don't feel like it, why do it? You should always trust what your body or intuition wants."

Now I know which side of my family the hedonist in me comes from :)

Tomorrow we have our day of our Gender and Sexuality Seminar class, beginning with a lecture from Gert Hekma, a GLBT studies professor at the UvA (University of Amsterdam) - exciting! The readings for class have been fabulous so far. And even better, my Dutch is returning/improving much more quickly than I expected! Before long, my blog entries may be a Engli-Dutch mishmash of words (though I still can't spell in Dutch for my life.)

P.S. One more that makes me smile:

2007-09-02T15:32:00.001-07:00

airport friends, originally uploaded by nocturnal_morning.

From the airport at Schiphol - those of us who didn't get stuck in Paris. Top row, from left: Whit, Mike, Me, Olivia. Bottom row: Rebecca, Allison, Catharine.
Love these people...

Everything is more whimsical in Europe

2007-09-02T14:02:00.000-07:00

Today's been a real adventure. I got locked in Yo's (like me, I've learned, she spells her name with a Y) entrance hall, with access only to the bathroom and kitchen, after taking my morning shower. I was stuck for two hours, staying calm by doing yoga sun salutations on her kitchen floor, listening to the neighbors' lovely music drifting in through the window, basking in the morning sunlight, and finally restorting to journal entries written on paper towels, until Taryn woke up, found me, and let me out.

Shortly after, I managed to connect with Ruth (my friend from Oberlin who is also studying in Amsterdam this semester, though on a different program) online, and we picked out an Assyrian cafe by the Sarphati Park to meet up at...miraculously, Taryn and I made it there within minutes of when Ruth did, and we had a delicious falafel lunch together. Afterward, we trekked back to Ruth's dorm - which has a beautiful view of a gorgeous canal tucked away in a more residential district of Amsterdam. We hung out there for a few hours and listened to copious amounts of Iron and Wine.

After deciding to head back, Taryn and I had frites met oorlog sauce (literally, "war" sauce - a surprisingly delicious mix of peanut-sate sauce and mayonaisse) in the park by a huge pond and fountain. The walk back was long, but I am still in amazement that everything is within walking distance in Amsterdam, and because it is a city built for foot or bike traffic - NOT cars - it is extremely easy to navigate. Perhaps unrealistically so, I feel very safe in all the neighborhoods of Amsterdam that I have explored, even at night. The walk was wonderful. Once back, we shared cups of tea and sandwiches with fresh banana and Nutella up in our little attic room, and watched I Love Lucy. It began raining outside, so Taryn announced that we had to turn off the lights and go sit by our window and just listen for awhile, which we did, and it was amazing. Anyone who demands to listen to the rain is my kind of person. It's been a wonderfully peaceful evening overall...

More pictures from the last few days:

From left - Tan, me, Rebecca, Martina, and Megan:

emo graffiti (on that note, though, I really do like the graffiti in Amsterdam - it feels a lot more artistic and, often, tasteful, than what I'm used to seeing in other cities):

Me, Martina, and Taryn taking pictures of ourselves in the mirrored ceiling at the CREA Theater:

The group!

Out to lunch:

Me and Martina:

Rebecca, Taryn, Martina, and me:

Zephyr, Olivia, and Taryn in a beautiful, beautiful place:

Ellen, Zephyr, Catharine, Tan, Olivia, and Martina at a cafe on our walking tour of A'dam:

Packing into the "party van" with our temporary homestay host, Yo (in black), and her girlfriend, Andi (in red), and their dog Jessie:

Yo playing with my camera on the drive home - very artistic indeed, haha...

Taryn and I on the beach outside Strand West:

Clubbing with our homestay host!

Life is beautiful here...

Holland Love

2007-09-01T17:58:00.000-07:00

My next real update comes from the attic room of a beautiful place in Amsterdam, where I am living with a temporary homestay host (Jo – pronounced “Yo”) until my actual host (Cinta) comes back from vacation. Another girl from the program, Taryn, and I are living together all semester. For now, we’re sharing a room, which is absolutely fine by me, because she’s a down-to-Earth, fun-loving, brilliant-minded girl, and we’ve had an incredible time together already so far.

So much has happened in the last few days, it’s difficult to know where to begin. The final day in Egmond, Rebecca and Megan and I took a long walk (on which we saw many animals, including really cute goats in someone's backyard ), eventually to the beach, where we did nothing but sit and talk and play in the sand for hours.

We got dinner , watched the sunset, , got gelato, strolled around an outdoor market, and came back to the hostel.

Since arriving in Amsterdam, our group stayed at a lovely hostel on the edge of the Vondelpark in the city – it was a wonderful location, well within walking distance of any kind of fun we might have liked to indulge in. The first day, Kevin (program director) organized a huge scavenger hunt for us to do in the city, and then he let us loose in teams of four for an entire afternoon. My team consisted of Taryn, Martina, and Rebecca – we had a blast figuring out the tram system, discovering what oorlog saus is, visiting a gay/lesbian bookstore, buying snacks for the group at an Asian grocery store, going to CREA, exploring the University of Amsterdam computer lab, stumbling into the red light district, and getting tea at a delightful Theehuis on the Vondelpark. It really helped orient us all, and also get us out of our comfort zone by forcing us to talk to a lot of strangers to get help on various scavenger assignments.

Today, after a wonderful walking tour of the city, we had a yummy reception for our homestay hosts and families, who then took us home. Taryn and I met Jo and her girlfriend Andi, and their dog Jessie (who’s a Jack Russell Terrier...very cute), who conveniently had a car to pack our luggage into and drive us to their home in. We called it the party van!

Our homestay orientation has been quite an adventure, beginning with the drive back in the party van. Jo and Andi are a lot of fun together – I love being able to hear them speak in Dutch. They took us out for dinner to a lesbian restaurant/bar/club on a beach, where we ate, drank wine, and danced a lot. We met many of their friends, who were all delightfully friendly toward us. Taryn and I also sat out on giant pillows by the beach for about an hour and talked on our own, before getting on the dance floor. At the end of the night, we packed back into the party van, drove home, took a short walk with the dog, and sat with Jo for awhile in her living room for tea.

I love tea. I love Holland. I love the Vondelpark. I love the weather here. I love how the city is built for bikes and pedestrians, not cars. I love how much I’ve walked in the past few days. I love our little attic room. I love the cafes. I love the outdoor markets. I love the Dutch language. I feel so full of love I’m going to explode. I need to start doing homework soon and tame this tigress of enthusiasm roaring inside of me :)

Pictures from Egmond

2007-09-01T17:25:00.000-07:00

on the bus to Egmond:

jonathan getting excited about the WC (toilet) on our bus to Egmond:

walking to Egmond an Zee from our hostel (Rebecca at the forefront):

the beautiful sky at Egmond an Zee:

ellen, catharine, and martina walking in Egmond:

me, catharine, and addie on the first night:

tan, jonathan, taryn, and her amazing camera (looking at pictures she took of the full moon):

taryn and tam being awesome:

Greeting from the NL!

2007-08-28T17:35:00.000-07:00

My first update is coming from a youth hostel in Egmond along the coast of the North Sea. I am staying here with my 15 fellow SIT students and our program director, Kevin, for a few days as part of our semester orientation. We have to pay a lot for very little internet access, so this has been a good exercise for me already in detoxing my life from email, Facebook, etc. Since none of us have working cell phones either, we’ve spent pretty much all our time getting to know each other, which has been incredible.

Our bonding began at the JFK airport, where 13 of us met up for a group flight to Amsterdam – an eventful adventure on Air France, during which half our group got left behind in Paris – eventually though, we all made it to Schiphol. There, I ordered some frites (french fries) and was able to converse entirely in Dutch with the cashier, which was pretty thrilling. We then took a bus to Egmond, where our group took a long walk to the beach and had a delicious dinner on the sea.

Today, the group went biking through sand dunes, although sadly I have been feeling pretty awful all day (sore throat that I’m praying isn’t strep, head-splitting migraine, generally dehydrated and jet-lagged), so I missed out on biking and instead took a six hour nap. Woke up feeling somewhat better, had dinner with the group, then we all ordered drinks at the hostel bar and had a long, relaxed evening of wine, Heinekens, and wonderful conversation.

I can honestly say I love every person in my program. Granted, there’s still plenty of time for things to get cliquey, but as of right now, it’s like we’re all a big family. Martina is our Mom-Away-From-Home...she made me tea this evening with homeopathic remedies infused into it. I’ve already gotten to talk and bond with many of the people both one-on-one and in the group as a whole – we are definitely a very diverse bunch coming from completely different backgrounds and sets of experiences, but we’re all really, really friendly, we’re all already looking out for each other, and we’re all hoping to get a lot of this coming semester.

On a more personal level, being in Holland again after four years of being away is amazing. Even though I’ve obviously never lived here, this country – the language, the people, the food, the culture – feels like home to me. There are so many acute reminders of my childhood. In some ways, it almost feels wrong to be experiencing it without my mom, but with a group of tourists...on the other hand, everyone in the group is very excited about the fact that I already know some Dutch and can help decode menus and such. It’s also pretty exciting to see so many people in the group get excited over how small and cute and quaint everything in Holland is – the houses, the postage stamp gardens, the fences, the meal portions...everyone raved about our breakfast of broodjes, kaas, hagelslaag :)

Well, it’s nearly 3 a.m. here, and we’ve got our first Dutch language class in six hours, so I’m off to bed.

P.S. The bandwidth isn't high enough at the hostel to be able to upload pictures just yet...but there will be pictures soon!

Dear friends and family,

2007-08-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my study abroad online journal!

I've set this up as a way to chronicle my coming semester, during which I will be in Europe for nearly five months - living in a homestay in Amsterdam, taking classes, working on an independent study project, traveling quite a bit (with my program, on my own, with my friend Ruth and potentially a few others from Oberlin, etc.), relearning Dutch, and generally (hopefully) having an amazing time.

Although I'm going to make every effort to keep in good touch with everyone, I know it will be difficult with time differences, busy semesters, conflicting schedules, cross-atlantic phone rates, etc...if at any time, you'd like to send me an email, I would love it (nocturnal_morning@yahoo.com) or, even better, a snail-mail letter (email me first for my mailing address in the NL)! Outside of that, however, I will be doing my best to keep up this journal with general entries about my experiences, as well as photos documenting it all!

I know that sometimes, nothing can be more tedious than feeling obligated to keep up on someone else's adventures, but I'm putting it out there for those who are interested. Either way, thanks for reading this, and I hope to have some interesting things to post in the coming weeks!

Love,
Yitka