Missing Leiden

For those of you who haven’t figured out yet, I’ve left Holland. I’ve been back in the States for over a month now, and miss Leiden a lot. For those of you who live there, pick up your bike right now, bike the length of the Witte Singel and go drink a cassis at Babbels. That’s exactly what I would be doing if I were there. Enjoy the summer, and maybe I’ll start another blog on the strange oddities of America next. But for now, this is my last post. Check out the other great Dutch blogs to the right, and if you send me the links to other Dutch blogs, I’ll link to them as well. Tot ziens!

New Favorite Thing

I love getting on my bike on a summer day when the seat is warm from the sun. It's such a great feeling. I'm so attatched to my bike. It feels like an extension of my legs. My walking muscles have completely deteriorated because I bike anywhere further than a block away. I love how you really feel like you're going somewhere on a bike. When I walk I don't get a sense of motion or satisfaction the way i do on a bike. It also fits me likes a glove. Most Dutch bikes are way too tall for me since I'm about as tall as a Dutch 12 year old girl. (As a sidenote, why do the 6'2" women here still wear heels?) It's hard to believe I have to give it away on tuesday. It's my pal. We've been a lot of places together. It's nice days like this that remind me why I love this country. 

Soccer

There, now my blog is appropriately dressed for the WK. Orange is everywhere. It started in Blokker, which always seems to have a lot of orange so I didn't notice it. Then, it spread to costume shops and gag stores. Now, it's a full-fledge epidemic in V&D, C&A and countless other stores. Whole houses are dressed up in orange, and some are even wrapped. More later, finals now.

X-treme Parking

Tante Ans brought something funny to my attention. If parallel parking makes you nervous, do not ever try to parallel park alongside a canal. With no railing. Canals may be be cute and the cobbled roads are certainly picturesque, but this system unfortunately predates cars and the need to park. I feel bad for those cars: perching inches away from a watery death on one side, while trying desperately to hold onto their rear-view mirrors despite reckless bikers on the other.

The Spanish Girls

They are leaving tomorrow, on the same flight to Madrid. They are all amazing people and I am glad I got to know them this semester. The new band RaCa (Raquel and Carla) gave us splendidly horrible vocal renditions of Ave Maria at parties. The next day they'd sit around nursing their hangovers and saying "I don't know why the neighbors complain! They should be lucky they get to hear us for free. Maybe they want the CD." When Ted was here he asked me if I thought it was healthy to have that much fun. I'm not sure. They found a Christian song on the internet about a man who is in love with Laura, but he is waiting for marriage to have sex. Dinner often inexplicably devolved into clapping and singing that song. They would do the strangest things together, like go travel to a commune to look at the hippies, or go jump in a canal. When one of their friends moved into a new place, they would all go over together bringing cookies to see the new place. Carla would often be dancing at a club and suddenly go, "Hey, what happened! We need Shakira." And then she would go find the DJ to explain the problem. She is going to throw her bike in a canal tonight because she can't bear to think about someone else riding it around after she's gone. Ana's boyfriend, Will, was their pet. They all loved him but pretended not to. They all rolled their eyes at his fart jokes and mowhawks when he was here and cried when he left. I'm not looking forward to saying goodbye to them tomorrow morning.

I had dinner with Michael last night, one of my oldest friends. We were friends in third grade in Riyadh. Our international childhoods have had very different effects on us. He's addicted to travelling and I just want to settle down for once. Funny how things work out like that. I had lunch with Tante Ans today and discovered that we share a love of foreign grammar. I hope the other half-Dutch student at school, Colin, is around this summer. I'm looking forward to putting on some orange and sitting in front of a tv with some "hapjes" and watching the WK.

Because my window is open

Does anyone know the difference between "omdat" and "want?" Don't they both mean "because?" Also, there is a woman who hangs out on a patio under my window most of the time speaking something that sounds like Tagalog. Her life must be really funny because (omdat/want?) she's constantly laughing. Her laugh sounds exactly like the laugh of that garden party guest in Jaques Tati's "Mon Oncle." It's unnerving. The soundtrack of my life this week has been my own cough, her laugh, and the wind rustling the new leaves on the trees. 

Tulips

I think tulips are a very Dutch flower. Somehow, the fact that tulips grow in Holland seems very appropriate to me. Tulips are very no-nonsense flowers. They're beautiful, but they are not silly flowers. I think they're even masculine as far as flowers go. Holland is similarly an amazingly beautiful place, but it is also very to-the-point and dispenses with superfluous niceties. I know that there's about a million varieties of tulips and some of them are ridiculous, but the kinds you see growing in the fields generally have a plain, clean stalk with a single-colored bell-shaped flower. I think they're super. I also think the way they grow is very Dutch. Neat little squares in fields, properly tended, but they're so bright I can't even capture the color with my camera. They're very sensibly and logically laid out, but they're flowers! With no function other than beauty. Dutch furniture, houses, and housewares are also very geometric with bright colors. It warms my heart to see traditional Dutch farmers in wooden shoes and overalls carefully tending their crop of really good-looking flowers. Mom doesn't think that farmers who grow red tulips feel any more manly than farmers who grow white or purple tulips but I don't believe her. I think if I were a farmer with a field of intense red tulips I'd feel so superior to my neighbor farmers with their pansy little girly purple fields.

I think the word "meld" should be introduced into English. I don't think there's a translation, and it works perfectly. I told mom we didn't need to meld at the reception if we were just staying for five minutes and she knew exactly what I meant. I'm all about melding.

Things people do on bikes, part 3

A few days ago I saw a man riding a bike while carrying a very large, wicker arm chair. Today I saw a guy sitting cross-legged on a skateboard, while holding onto and being pulled by his friend's bike.

Yes.

Cafe Dub

I love how inclusive Dutch people can be. I find that generally, if you put yourself with other Dutch people and aren't entirely socially backwards, they'll make an effort to bring you into the conversation. I had dinner with my Anthropology class last night. I'm the only American in the class. Instead of just talking to each other, they ask me how my courses are going like we've known each other forever. It wasn't hard to imagine them saying "Oh, you're from another planet, cool. How is that? Holland must be pretty different." This cute girl with big eyes invited me to an anthropology student party afterwards. I've wanted to be friends with her all semester because I like her jacket. I showed up, not knowing a single person besides her. I expected it to be supremely awkward because no matter how hard I try, I can't understand Dutch at parties over the music. That problem was solved because no one was talking, just dancing. They were such enormous dorks! There was a pole in the middle of the dance floor. Instead of being inappropriate with it, they decided it would be fun to skip around it in a sort of maypole dance. They had honest to goodness can can lines going on at 4 different points in the night. I saw a goth kid (Dutch goths crack me up by the way. Especially on bikes.) with a Marilyn Manson shirt and a spiked collar absolutely dancing his heart out to "Barbie Girl." N'Sync remixes, the songs Weird Al parodies. Everyone was bouncing around like 10 year olds at a sock hop or people in a New Pornographers music video. It was super. I wonder if other departments are as dorky. I can't imagine the law students wearing rugrats shirts to parties.