Calvinism

I was hesitant to write this post because I when I look back on my abroad experience, I don’t want to remember the petty frustrations.  That said, I think this is an interesting part of Dutch culture.  In many ways, the Calvinist philosophy makes sense to me: I also tend to be frugal, not take more than I need, etc.  At the same time, I like to be comfortable.  My bed is so hard I barely dent it when I sit on it.  My armchair is so charmingly uncomfortable that I’ve been meaning to take a picture of it since I met it.  Our common room has long benches, but no couches.  But the really amazing thing is that our bathroom has 4 stalls, with two rolls of toilet paper in each.  That’s 8 rolls for a hall of 20.  They get replaced every week on Monday.  (One on the dispenser, one on the special hook designed for this purpose.  Leave it to the Dutch to invent a place for everything needed, but nothing extra.)  Unfortunately, 8 rolls is not enough for 20 people for a week.  I don’t know why.  But the fact remains that we have no toilet paper from Friday until Monday every week in any stall.  Things like this are actually really foreign to me.  I sometimes get the urge to stop Dutch people on the street and ask them “Who told you it was a sin to be comfortable?  Those box-toed stiff loafers can’t actually feel good.”

Things people do on bikes: carry umbrellas, talk on cell phones, eat sandwiches, read maps, fix their hair, carry enormous cardboard boxes, and extra points for doing more than one of those at the same time.  My personal favorite to date: a couple holding hands while riding their bikes next to each other.

People

The Italians crack me up. I don’t know how much of it is their senses of humor and how much is the language barrier, but I’ve started to appreciate them for something other than their cooking. At dinner the other night, Emanuele tried to explain to me that he was the “pear punisher” as he took a bite of his pear. Will and I almost died laughing and I don’t really think Emanuele understood why. Yesterday Claudio told us to wait for him because he needed to get his “sheep.” We all stood around confused for a minute until he emerged with his absurdly wooly Italian coat.

I’m starting to make some friends. I sometimes hang out with a Belgian girl who prefers Emily Bronte to Charlotte because Charlotte Bronte snubbed Jane Austen. There’s a Norwegian girl on my hall who is perpetually torn between watching episodes of Arrested Development and doing her reading. (she’s almost through the season, so her reading should pick up soon) She lives next door to the Belgian boy who listens to very loud euro-techno and laughs at everything everyone says. The Spanish girls continue to be wonderful and sent me a postcard from a trip they took to Berlin signed “lots of kisses, Carla, Ana, Raquel, and Estelle.”

I don’t think I fully appreciated Leiden’s international social scene until Valerie told me about her boyfriend’s experience in Ireland. They make no effort to integrate the foreign students at his university, and he is left with no one to hang out with other than his roommates. Here, they have countless parties, outings, museum visits, etc. set up for us. I don’t quite understand the system, but I feel vaguely like an imposter since these activities are organized by the Erasmus Student Network and I’m one of the few students not enrolled in the Erasmus system. No one’s caught on yet. I am not any happier with the International Office, but the Leiden student government is looking out for us socially, if not academically. I’m much younger than many of the International students. The masters students and bachelors students get put together and there are a lot of Masters students, so most people here are a few years older (23-25). I was having dinner with some 27 year olds the other night and they thought it was hilarious that I was in elementary school when Bill Clinton was president.

Swana, my cousin, came to visit yesterday. It was so much fun. She’s good and Dutch. She wears an orange jacket with a red/white/blue purse, and can carry me on the bike of a bike while still carrying on a conversation. She never ceases to amaze me. She gets stellar grades, rows competitively, and is amazingly well-adjusted. When I think about how awkward I was at 17 (bijna 18, Katy!) …. better not to think about it.

Wooden Shoes

I saw an old man riding a bike and wearing a pair today. I wonder if real, old-fashioned Dutch farmers buy their wooden shoes from the factory or from touristy gift stores? I had a funny mental image of a grumpy Dutch farmer telling the gift store clerk he’d wear the shoes out of the store. Maybe the hardcore ones make their own and let their grandkids paint them. And maybe they have bad dreams about termites.

I asked the Spanish girls if the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. They didn’t know.

The Spanish girls cooked dinner for our floor a few nights ago. Someone should make a TV show about 4 spanish girls who have superpowers, enabling them to cook a dinner of paella, tortilla (Spanish omelettes with potato) and sangria (with apple slices in it) for 30+ people. They are amazing people. They decided our floor should get to know each other, so they singlehandedly threw a dinner party so fun that no one left until 1am. When they get bored they rent a car, split the cost, and drive to Berlin. One time I walked in on them painting planters for potted plants. They have more fun than the rest of our floor put together and they’re better looking as well.

I’ve discovered that even after all the problems I had with the International Office, many people have it worse off. I walked into the kitchen today to find one of the Italians eating an elaborate 3 course lunch by himself. He told me that he got here only to find out that none of his classes start until the middle of March, so he has nothing to do but cook. I told him he should start a dorm cafeteria and cook meals for people at 4EU a meal. I also talked to two girls whose classes end in March but they’ve paid their rent upfront through June. I’m lucky that my classes begin and end roughly when I thought they would.

I was lucky enough to experience a British invasion of sorts over the weekend. I had so much fun going to Amsterdam and getting out of the Leiden bubble for a day, snow notwithstanding. And I was very happy and surprised that they were curious enough about my town to want to see it! I don’t think I’ve said anything since I started this blog about how great Leiden is. It’s the perfect size for me. I love how many shops, restaurants, and friendly local bars are located within an easy 5 minute bike ride. I could easily spend a semester here and still be discovering new museums and thrift stores in my last week. I’ve found about 3 bakeries so I’m going to eat fresh bread and rolls until I’m in a happy, carb-saturated stupor. It’s about the same size as Brunswick I think, but with a much higher population density and with easily four times as many cute, locally-owned stores. I think the UCL crowd liked Leiden. I’m already plotting when I can go visit them. Ted did a really great thing when he introduced me to his sister, Elly. One of the other great things that came out of my trip to Amsterdam was realizing how easy it is to get around Holland from Leiden. In half an hour I can get to Amsterdam, with a 13EU round-trip ticket, not to mention Utrecht, the Hague, etc. I really think that whenever I am bored or stir-crazy i should just pick a random Dutch city and visit it. Or I could take the Italian course of action and cook absurdly fancy meals for myself.

My Google is now in Dutch

I had a the following conversation with a French MALE student today. Imagine this in a cartoonish, Monty-Python worthy French accent. It went something like this:

“Ah, it is so cold. When I was very young, 6 or 7 perhaps, my fazzer told me that if i was feeling cold i should tell myself “oh, I’m so hot, it’s too hot!” and then I would not feel so cold, yes? And so, it seemed to work, so I wanted to have a baby, yes? So I thought to myself “I am not pregnant, I am not pregnant” and it dizen’t work!”

Meeting someone else on the International program is a lot like playing Go Fish. After meeting someone (“Hi, I’m Karinafromamerica,” “Hi, nice to meet you, I’m Mariekefrombelgium”) it’s pretty common to throw out all the languages you speak and hope there’s some overlap. “Um, ok, i’ve got a 2 of clubs, English, Dutch and Portuguese, you?” If you’re lucky you’ll share a language. Maybe even bits of two. I only really run into trouble when I meet someone from eastern europe with barely any English and no Dutch. But the accents are still fun. I spoke Dutch with someone from Iran the other day. English with someone from Guataloupe was almost as interesting. I even tried Portuguese with a Dutch student. It forces me to be a lot more patient with ESL students now that I realize that I sound even sillier in Dutch.

Een Nederlandse Amerikaan, die zie je al van verre staan

Well here I am, sitting in a very teal-colored Dutch dorm room. I do actually have it to myself and it is actually bigger than my Bowdoin single. I spent most of the flight being irrated by my sierra leone seat partner who actually woke me up to tell me that oxford has a very good university. I think we were flying over it? Flying over England at night was beautiful. It was very foggy but the city lights were still visible through the fog, making the towns looks like glowing, living organisms that pulsed as the clouds blew over. Everyone’s been extremely nice to me. I’ve noticed that no one has tried speaking english with me yet, even after they find out that i’m American and it is painfully obvious that my dutch is worse than their english. Time will tell whether that is helpful or annoying. As I was coming from the airport this morning we ran into rush hour traffic, on bikes. Moms were taking their kids to school, and it wasn’t uncommon to see a mom happily carting two kids off to become educated, one in front and one on the back. I can barely keep my one person upright on a bicycle. This transition was amazingly easy with Oma taking care of stuff. She scooped me up, took me to her apartment where she fed me and let me shower, and then took me to Leiden where we did about a million things and drank absurd amounts of tea in between to keep me awake. Which I clearly am. My dorm room has been set up with all the newest technologies. One of the nastier ones is that I need my key to activate my heat and electricity, which means that as soon as I leave my room the heat shuts off. I get to look forward to a very cold first 15 minutes home. Today made me really appreciate the summer I spent on my own. Paying rent and cooking are completely undaunting after dealing with the Codman company and that gross stove. Pretty much the last two things I feel like doing are being social and eating, but my stomach is growling and those spanish girls down the hall seem awfully friendly. Maybe I’ll try and find some bright colored socks or something, anything in my suitcase to pin on the wall to offset this terrible teal.