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

Sick sick sick

I still feel very sick, and am going crazy in my apartment waiting to get out and do any of the things I have been waiting to do here. My days are short because I do not sleep well and have to sleep extra for it. But, I have mastered lentil curry soup. And I have watched three movies- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (one day after finishing the book), The Notebook, and Frida. I loved Frida. The images were so beautiful.

I went to the doctor on Monday morning. I called the doctor as soon as I woke up to make an appointment, and they told me they had nothing for me until they heard my cough, then they told me to come in right away. However, in the spirit of Dutch individualism I had to bike there, and then bike to the pharmacy to get my syrup, and then home again, so I felt pretty awful after that. The cough syrup tastes like licorice, and I can't figure out the dose because it is in Dutch. However, no hallucinations yet. I also lost the little medicine cup, but found it today in my boot. An example of how I have kind of let the room go in my illness.

I have also had two classes in the past two days. Luckily they have been just across the courtyard from my flat, so I am able to hobble over with my tissues and my tea. One was beginner dutch language, which I am not registered for yet but I think I might very much like to take. And the other is a history/ political science course on Latin America. The professor seems very interesting and expects a lot, which I didn't expect but is nice. I guess.

I also went to my apartment barbecue on Sunday night, which was funny because it was bring your own meat, and I didn't bring any meat, so I couldn't eat. But it was nice to sit out in the sun and get some air. And I did laundry last night for the first time. The machines are in Dutch so I was a bit anxious about it. And the cycles are much longer here than you would expect from the states. Maybe 1 1/2 to 2 hours. My clothes are then, the cleanest they have ever been.

I need to recover but I am very, very restless here!! At least I am a good blogger.

Under the weather

I have been feeling a little under the weather the past few days, but am hoping that some apple tea and rest will bring me back in time for classes on Tuesday. I did not purchase the five euro (!!) cough drops but I have stocked up on curry soup packets which are delicious and don't have that much sodium like in the states. I finished the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and had a good time discussing Stieg Larsson conspiracy theories with some Swedish students at the weekly international student borrel. I also tried to watch that silly movie American Pie on a Spanish website (the US websites don't stream to Europe). However, as simple as that movie's plot may be, it was still too much of a challenge to make sense of it in Spanish with no subtitles, so I went to sleep again.

Last night I went out with some friends to a neighborhood called de pijp. We enjoyed some afternoon sun and then as it became chilly huddled under an outdoor heater- the Dutch will not take anything close to good weather for granted! And tonight everyone from my international group came over to my place. I cooked a big dinner which was a bit more difficult than at home because I had no oven or microwave! I made stuffed mushrooms, chicken with chorizo, brown rice and a big salad with green apples which is my new favorite after Sonora. It was also my first time buying white wine to cook with! We had a very nice time even in my small flat with ten or more visitors!!

Sending lots of love. If you leave some comments (family cough cough) I will especially be motivated with these blogs!!

Rainy days

On Sunday it rained so much. I can't believe there is any rain left in the sky. I had a bit of a crisis relating to not being able to use the bank and running out of phone minutes, but felt better in the afternoon after warming up. That night I went to my friend Esther's house and she cooked us dinner using ingredients she brought with her from her home town, just outside Barcelona. It was an incredible meal- chorizo, potatoes, filled eggs, and a feta tomato cucumber salad. I brought dessert, and since I couldn't read the package it turned out to be marzipan, which I discovered that I like. So, this was the start of my theory that it is better, maybe, that I can't read here.

This idea continued the next day at the grocery store. After the fright of having no money and only tomatoes in the fridge, I decided to stock the flat with a few days worth of vegetables, muesli and sandwich materials. I spent almost one whole hour wandering around looking for familiar items and then finally leaving with quite a few unfamiliar items, including a very crusty bread. I also bought a basil plant, which, if it survives, is a good investment I think. That plant and a new tablecloth are brightening up my room. CIEE has been running safety and academic orientations for us the past two days. They have also taken us to an Indonesian restaurant and an abandoned wharf which has become an artist's workshop. You have to take a ferry there but it is free and just north of the city.

Last night we reunited with our international friends at the weekly borrel. It was so good to see everyone, and we had all almost recovered from last week's festivities. Tonight we are going out dancing again, I think. In the past few days I have also skyped with a few home and school friends which has been so nice. If we haven't skyped yet I'm on all the time so just check!! Much love, Julie