Ghent and Bruges

Another weekend and another trip!! This time to our neighboring country, Belgium, which to be honest just really wants to be the Netherlands. Don't tell anyone Belgian I said that, of course. The weekend was arranged by my American program, CIEE, and was only overnight, at maximum four hours by car from center city Amsterdam. But, it was a lovely, lovely trip with so much to do and to see. We spent the first day in Bruges, a tiny city with a medieval castle, a 400 year old bar, a meat market with cured hanging hams, a beautiful cathedral, and the most romantic looking weeping willows trees. We ate a meal at a hilarious restaurant, where we drank with the bus driver and had unlimited veggie burger platters. This was a very strange thing to have unlimited, in my opinion. For the night we went out on the town, finally ending up in an empty bar, which we took over as our own American student bar (we rarely do this) and danced until very, very late.

As a result we woke up very, very tired in our little hostel, so appreciative of the free breakfast (and unlimited coffee!!). Everyone got back on the bus and we took a short drive to the city of Ghent, which was quite a bit larger but just as charming as Bruges. The bus ride was just long enough to take care of our tradition of making ridiculous puns about the places we visit. For example, from my roommate Kristen, "We are looking for Ghent-lemen." Or, from my friend Drew, "You are just cruising for a Bruges-ing." When we arrived, we had two back to back tours, one of chocolate-related sites and one of a brewery. The chocolate tour told us that there are 51 chocolate shops in Ghent- which is so many considering that it is a very small city!! There was one chocolate shop at least for everyone on my program! I tried a Belgian waffle and some chocolates, but they were actually a bit too gourmet for my taste. Some were fried onion flavored or wasabi flavored. Yikes! I came home not wanting any more chocolate for a while, but of course that soon went away!!

Recovering from trips is the best and the worst. Of course, I have just seen something incredible and am refreshed for the coming week, but also there is so much to take care of and so many people to catch up with. Which is why I spent last weekend, my birthday weekend, in Amsterdam. On Friday we made a small party at my friend Alberto's house, and they baked me a spice cake which was very delicious. We never made it out out, but that was good because the next night I attended the Amsterdam Dance Event at a club called Panama. We stayed from eleven until five in the morning dancing to the different sets from all of the DJs. There were light shows and air guns and it was just ridiculous, but I had a very good time. I LOVED all of the birthday cards and boxes from the States. It felt so, so good to receive something I knew had been found in a familiar shop and packaged by familiar hands. And, now I am twenty. Which means not much except that I am no longer a teenager. I guess I have to stop being so childish! Ja ja ja. That is how Spanish people type laughter (see the next blog post).

PS- for anyone who is disoriented with my blogging progress- I am as well. And I apologize, but I figure getting it down is the important thing, not so much consistency or chronology.

Sending lots of love. Julie

Madrid con mi madre.

I have gotten into the bad habit it seems of blogging only after weekend trips, if even that frequently. I will try to improve. But in the meantime, these are very important things to recall!

This weekend I took an early flight out of Amsterdam (some of my friends were just getting home from the clubs!) to meet Mom in Madrid, Spain!! And I know I say this a lot, but it was the most lovely weekend. We went to the Prado and Reina Sofia museums, where we saw the most incredible collections of paintings by Goya, Picasso, Rembrandt, Miro, Dali, Velasquez, Bosch and so many others. At times we were very lost because signs in Madrid suggest the general direction you will be heading in, but apparently do not mark turns! Navigating the city, though, was much easier than this. Me and mom actually have very good senses of direction we think! We always made it back to the hotel, sometimes after asking a few times for landmarks and orientation. These were good opportunities to practice our Spanish.

On Sunday we went shopping at the famous El Rastro market, where Mom bought for me my two new favorite articles of clothing: a jacket and a little rose print dress. I love them. Together they look very, very Spanish. They told us the market often has 2000 visitors on a given weekend, tourists and residents alike. We also walked through the Salamanca neighborhood, the Plaza Mayor and Puerta del Sol, the Huertas streets near our hotel, the Atocha station area, and the beautiful El Retiro park with a lake full of rowboats and people sunbathing on the steps. It was such a bright, festive atmosphere in the park- everyone was out rollerblading and kissing and watching puppet shows. On Sunday night we went out to a flamenco dance, even though we knew it was a tourist-like thing to do. I very much enjoyed the performance, especially the flamboyant male dancer with the shiny suit.

The food in Spain I could write about for quite some time, and we only had a handful of meals. Thanks to Betsy and Alberto's recommendations, we went to two of the best restaurants I have ever been to. The first was a dinner of endless surprises, including two small rose plants at the end! They just kept bringing us things. And there were a lot of celebrities in the restaurant but we had no idea who they were! The second meal was a lunch of incredible, incredible flavors. Some of the things we tried were: smoked broad beans soup, morcillas (iberian blood pudding), paella, lamb cubes stuffed with vegetables, jamon tapas, olives, spinach empanadas, good good wine, after dinner sorbet drink, and other things I can't even think of. I did miss trying the notorious Callos, but I came home very full and very happy. It was just so nice to eat good food and sleep in a comfy bed and most of all be in the absolute best company.

Really it was a dream weekend (thank you thank you thank you!!) and way too short. But I am happy in Amsterdam and am looking forward to this week of classes and catching up with friends. The next entry will be more about daily life, I promise!!

Love love love Julie

Koselig (cozy) with Emma in Norway

Last weekend I took a trip to Oslo, Norway to visit Emma! She is studying at the University of Oslo and living in the "student village" there, so I went for the weekend to catch up with a close friend and visit Scandinavia for the first time ever. In fact, I have never been farther north than this city! Oslo is such an interesting city. Emma told me that a lot of the architecture was razed to replace with more Utilitarian, almost Soviet, structures, so there is quite a mix. The harbor on the fjord was so beautiful, and we stumbled upon a food festival right by the water, where we tried some smoked Norwegian salmon, moose and reindeer burgers, wheat soup, and delicious lefse pancakes with berry sauce and cream.

In general the weekend was full of relaxing and lovely trips. We visited the Edward Munch museum as well as the National Gallery art museum. Both were full of incredible work- one of my favorite artists being Harald Sohlberg, who paints cluttered rooms (are we surprised this is my aesthetic?). We also went to the top of the mountain near the famous ski jump to have a hot chocolate and see the view, although it was so foggy it almost looked like we were in the middle of the sky. And we saw the movie "Eat, Pray, Love" in English with Norwegian subtitles while eating lots of Norwegian chocolate. I really enjoyed the film because she is a youngish woman traveling and being alone, so I could identify quite a lot with her sentiments.

I tried to speak Norwegian some, but it actually turns out I have managed to pick up a Dutch accent, at least when speaking Norwegian. Although many of the words are similar, my pronunciation was a constant struggle. Emma was so patient with my experimentation with reading street signs and advertisements. We also went to Emma's Norwegian friend's house for dinner one night. She made a thai salmon soup with lemongrass and vegetables- it was so, so good. And we watched another film about drag queens in the Australian desert!! It was very strange but hilarious. Other than that we just explored the city, did a bit of shopping (not buying much of anything because of the exchange rate!), had a lot of coffee, baked a peach cobbler with a crust mix that made no sense at all, and were generally so happy to be together again since the summer. It was the most wonderful weekend. It also proved to me how easy traveling is (knock on wood). Now, work to catch up with and sleep time. Good night everyone. Oxo Julie

One month already

I can't believe that one month of my stay in Amsterdam has passed already! Of course, I am fully assimilated into Dutch practices by now. And I definitely did not fall off my bicycle yesterday and do a face plant in front of an upscale Mediterranean restaurant (I only bruised my elbow and hip- nothing at all serious!!). No, actually, in the past week I've been thinking a lot that the more I learn about this city and this country the more I realize all of the subtleties and specifics that I need to also learn to move from being a guest and a tourist to being a resident. I hope some measure of this is possible in four months.

This weekend was lovely. On Thursday after class I used my newly purchased colored pencils to make a cactus drawing while I skyped with the family. Later I added a self portrait into it. I've decided to do a series of drawings in the style of Frida Kahlo, but much less bloody and sad. My colour theory class actually required the colored pencils and a sketch notebook. And everyone knows how much I hate buying art supplies, just like Dad, so it was a real pain to have to do that!! In Amsterdam!!

I had my documentary class on Friday morning, and then I met up with my friends Esther, Lauren and Tim to shop for a birthday present in the Kalverstraat, the big tourist filled shopping street. It was our other friend Judith's birthday on Friday night, so we chose a nice plant and some chocolates for her, which we later presented at her apartment in the Amstel. The trip to the Amstel was when I fell off my bicycle. It was somewhat comical because Lauren, who I was traveling with, also fell off of her bicycle. When we arrived we seemed as though we had been through quite a lot!! It was a really nice party, though, with many of my international friends and I got to try German meatballs.

Today I woke up very early to take a field trip with the CIEE American program. It was the most incredible program of events. We first went to Gouda to take a tour of a small family cheese farm. We got to go through all of the rooms where the various steps are performed, and to hold a 17 kilo wheel of cheese, which is very, very heavy. The building smelled quite horrible inside but the cheese was so fresh and delicious. We tried pepper, mustard, herb, aged, medium, and young cheeses! We also met cows and a toddler named Debbie, who I suppose is heiress of the family farm!

We then took our bus to the Delft pottery center, where original Delftware is hand-painted by Delftware master artists. We got to see the pieces as they came out of the mold, and watch the masters paint them. Each one is identical with the design canon, otherwise it can't have the Delft seal! Real Delftware is so expensive- oh my goodness! Then we took a kick scooter tour of the city of Delft. I would not recommend this because only tourists ever use scooters also they are inefficient. I think we could have walked faster. However, Delft was incredibly charming and full of history- home of William of Orange, origin of Vermeer, and site of major trade activity in the Golden Age!! We saw a beautiful church, went to the Vermeer center, and looked around in the market a bit.

Tonight my roommate and I went out for a girls' night with some friends, but had a series of unfortunate encounters, including our coats being involuntarily coat checked without numbers at a club and being demanded to speak in Dutch by a man with french fry gravy on his face. And then he threw his pizza crust on my plate. But the owners of the restaurant intervened. In general Amsterdam just seemed rowdier tonight than usual- maybe there was a soccer loss! Anyway, tomorrow I plan to buckle down and do a lot of homework, so look for me on the skype as well. Much, much love, Julie

PS- Mom and I are officially going to Madrid next, next weekend!! I really couldn't be more excited. The tapas will be good, but the company will be better!

Terrible neglect

I have been terribly neglectful of this blog over the past week and for that I am sorry. Given the assignment about sacred blue Egyptian baboons hanging over my head I am just going to list the things that have happened recently, and then fill in more later. In the past week I have visited the Van Gogh museum, the Rijksmuseum, the Allard Pierson Egyptology museum, been to a 44th birthday party for my two 22 year old friends, gone to a funk club, had a drink with a toasted marshmallow in it that I toasted on a bar, shopped at the Albert Cuyp market, gone to the Heineken museum, read 80 + pages about the mollusks that produce purple dye, read 80 + pages about Philip the Good of Burgundy who consolidated the low countries, biked with a bouquet of flowers to my friend Esther's house for dinner, bought a ticket to Istanbul for November 5-8, fixed my ticket for Oslo for October 1-4, watched a very good movie called City Island, received the MOST AMAZING package from my Grammy and Papa, AND had a visit from Joe Willens which was so, so nice. Anyway, this sort of blogging is very silly and I will not do it in the future. And I will tell stories about some of these things as soon as I make it out of the part of my week when I do homework. Which is not so much. Love always, Julie

I'm back?

It is Sunday night and Dad just left for Switzerland. We had the nicest visit, and I am feeling quite a bit better for the good company and delivery of good American medicines.

Yesterday I met Dad at his hotel, which was right near the University actually, and we walked all the way across the city to the Noordrmarkt to try apple pie from a famous bakery called the Winkel Cafe. We walked around the open air produce market and heard traditional accordian and string harp music outside the local church, then fell asleep for a bit on a bench near the canal. Everyone was out enjoying the very atypical eighty degree weather and sun.

We made our way up to the Westerpark, passing lots of lovely residential sidestreets and boat houses, and then back down to the Prinsengracht area for a very traditional Dutch dinner at the Bistro Bij Ons. We had a stamppot and a chickenschnizel. But unfortunately they were out of "Flipped Bitches" for dessert. There were two bachelor parties going on in the restaurant, so we witnessed quite a sing along later in the night.

Today Dad and I went out for pancakes, and then explored the southeast of the city, from the floating flower markets to the Russian Hermitage Museum and the area near the Hortus Botanicus and the zoo. We also stopped into the University book shop and had soup near my house- it was incredible, one of my favorite meals so far. We ended the day with a long walk across the river to central station. We stopped by the beautiful Amsterdam public library, which I studied in later in the night with my roommate. It is like a library from the future and so so beautiful. It was hard to say goodbye but I am so happy that Dad got to visit. It made me even more excited for the big family visit in November!!

Anyway, rest assured that at least now I am sleeping well and on my way to full recovery. I miss you all so much and I love you lots. Thank you so much Mom for the medicine and the moral support over the skype. It really kept me going.

Dad visits tomorrow!

It is Friday evening and I am still very sick, but Dad is coming to visit tomorrow and for that I am happy!!

This week all I have really done is roll out of bed, go to class, try not to cough while the lecturer is speaking, come home and drink lots of chocomel, which is the Dutch hot cocoa drink that comes in a juice box and you heat over the stove. I feel very sorry for myself because I am cooped up in my flat but many other students are sick I think.

My classes seem very good actually with interesting reading and paper topics. I am going to study in the beautiful public library on the water which has a cafe on the top floor! I bought my books in the Athaneum book shop and started making a schedule of my exams and my travel! My first trip will be Oslo on October 1st, and then I think I am going to Istanbul a short time after.

For all the time spent in my room I should be writing a longer entry, but there is really not much to report I guess! I just finished the movie Volver with Penelope Cruz which I liked very much. And I am going to get an early night tonight to be at Dad's hotel by noon or a bit before. I have a lot of plans for our day.

Sending much love.
Julie