I'm back in NL. London was awesome...it's one of those cities that you don't fall in love with immediately, but grow to like more and more each day until leaving becomes a serious drag. Bath was incredibly beautiful. I wish I'd gotten to spend a bit more time there.
A brief rundown: I got to see three plays, gorged myself on free museums, roamed churches and ruins, wandered for ages, laughed until I cried with good friends. I don't know if it's just the warm fuzzy feeling I got by being surrounded by English for the first time since January, but life just felt so much easier there, so much more civilized, more beautiful and less practical. I am so ready to go home. So, so, so, SO ready.
P.S. As for the title: so apparently I have some quality that screams OH MY GOD PAT HER DOWN SEVERAL TIMES AND QUESTION HER ABOUT HER MOTIVES BECAUSE SHE'S AN EVIL VICIOUS TERRORIST. This has happened at least once every time I've flown in Europe. So I'm standing in the Stansted airport at five this morning, having just completed 24 hours without sleep, and I make the bleary-eyed mistake of telling said security officer that oh no, I don't have any special plans in traveling, I'm just heading home to the Netherlands.
Oh WAIT. HOME?! Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.
She raises an eyebrow. "You don't SEEM like you're from the Netherlands." Long shifty glare. "Can you step to the side for a moment?"
So, just to throw this out there: I'm not a terrorist. Seriously. The rumors are false.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
London calling...
Leaving bright and early (GAH!) for London tomorrow. Should be fabulous, despite predictions that it'll rain every minute of every day that I'm there. Be back on Tuesday.
But that wasn't the main reason I updated. This entry is a shout-out to Alexandra (Poisson du Monde) Fisher.
Yes, I took this with my webcam without you knowing. MWAHAHAHA.
And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
But that wasn't the main reason I updated. This entry is a shout-out to Alexandra (Poisson du Monde) Fisher.
Yes, I took this with my webcam without you knowing. MWAHAHAHA.
And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Tulips, canals, sand, and general adorableness
The same crew who went to Italy in March (I swear, every time I think about that trip I have to pause, sigh, and look longingly out the window) decided on Saturday night to take a marathon train trip to northern Holland.
Northern Holland, it bears mentioning, is not near where I live. What? you say. Don't you live a little north of center in the Netherlands? True. But using Holland and the Netherlands interchangably to describe the same country is a common mistake. In fact, calling somebody a Hollander if they don't necessarily live in those provinces is a little derogatory, like calling them a hick or something. I live in the province of Gelderland. Noord- and Zuid-Holland are two other provinces west of Amsterdam.
Lesson over. Let's get to the pictures.
We started off in Haarlem, which is, um, vastly unlike Harlem as we understand it. Lots of canals and houseboats and pretty, pretty flowers. We had a cup of coffee and some tostis (traditional Dutch grilled cheese-like thing) in the sunny town square as the bells tolled in the Grote Kerk, then made our way through the winding cobblestone streets.
And there was a windmill! True, we have one in Nijmegen, but this one was older and cuter. (Cute will be an oft-used adjective today. Get used to it.)
Houseboat living isn't too weird in the Netherlands because there's so. much. water. We saw some particularly lovely ones in Haarlem. This one, for instance, had a hot tub. YUM.
Next, we jumped on a 20-minute train to Zandvoort-aan-Zee, which is a resort town on the North Sea. It was surprisingly warm, and we went wading.
...then Jaclyn and Dahl went swimming.
After a brief sunning session to wring some of the water out of said jeans (ahem), we took a train to Alkmaar, another town known worldwide for its cheese market and countrywide for its football team. (Quick note: I think I really live here now because when somebody talks about football, I don't immediately think about quarterbacks...I think about what Americans like to call 'soccer'.)
Another windmill! It was surrounded by this lovely leafy park and pretty houses and canals, and just as we were leaving to head to the train station, a puppy came galumphing over and jumped in my purse. YESSSSS.
I can't believe how different Holland is from the rest of the Netherlands. Even Amsterdam doesn't compare in cuteness, and Amsterdam is a frighteningly cute city once you get past the whole OH MY GOD THERE IS A SHOP SELLING MARIJUANA TWO FEET AWAY thing. True, we visited on a Sunday so there's the whole natural slowdown of everything being closed, but everything just seems more pleasant and livable and humane, really.
We agreed that Nijmegen needs some canals. Perhaps we'll start digging a moat around Hoogeveldt today.
Sara from Italy is cooking up a whole lot of tiramisu tonight for her birthday and for the rest of the week, I'm consumed with preparations for London. It's surprisingly cold out. I mean, come on, Netherlands...it's gonna be June in a couple weeks. Get your act together.
Northern Holland, it bears mentioning, is not near where I live. What? you say. Don't you live a little north of center in the Netherlands? True. But using Holland and the Netherlands interchangably to describe the same country is a common mistake. In fact, calling somebody a Hollander if they don't necessarily live in those provinces is a little derogatory, like calling them a hick or something. I live in the province of Gelderland. Noord- and Zuid-Holland are two other provinces west of Amsterdam.
Lesson over. Let's get to the pictures.
We started off in Haarlem, which is, um, vastly unlike Harlem as we understand it. Lots of canals and houseboats and pretty, pretty flowers. We had a cup of coffee and some tostis (traditional Dutch grilled cheese-like thing) in the sunny town square as the bells tolled in the Grote Kerk, then made our way through the winding cobblestone streets.
And there was a windmill! True, we have one in Nijmegen, but this one was older and cuter. (Cute will be an oft-used adjective today. Get used to it.)
Houseboat living isn't too weird in the Netherlands because there's so. much. water. We saw some particularly lovely ones in Haarlem. This one, for instance, had a hot tub. YUM.
Next, we jumped on a 20-minute train to Zandvoort-aan-Zee, which is a resort town on the North Sea. It was surprisingly warm, and we went wading.
...then Jaclyn and Dahl went swimming.
After a brief sunning session to wring some of the water out of said jeans (ahem), we took a train to Alkmaar, another town known worldwide for its cheese market and countrywide for its football team. (Quick note: I think I really live here now because when somebody talks about football, I don't immediately think about quarterbacks...I think about what Americans like to call 'soccer'.)
Another windmill! It was surrounded by this lovely leafy park and pretty houses and canals, and just as we were leaving to head to the train station, a puppy came galumphing over and jumped in my purse. YESSSSS.
I can't believe how different Holland is from the rest of the Netherlands. Even Amsterdam doesn't compare in cuteness, and Amsterdam is a frighteningly cute city once you get past the whole OH MY GOD THERE IS A SHOP SELLING MARIJUANA TWO FEET AWAY thing. True, we visited on a Sunday so there's the whole natural slowdown of everything being closed, but everything just seems more pleasant and livable and humane, really.
We agreed that Nijmegen needs some canals. Perhaps we'll start digging a moat around Hoogeveldt today.
Sara from Italy is cooking up a whole lot of tiramisu tonight for her birthday and for the rest of the week, I'm consumed with preparations for London. It's surprisingly cold out. I mean, come on, Netherlands...it's gonna be June in a couple weeks. Get your act together.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Kraków: the SparkNotes edition.
So I'm sure you've seen most of my pictures on Picasa (once again: picasaweb.google.com/margaretaislinncarr), which mostly come with explanations, so I'll keep it fairly short and sweet. Excerpts from my travel journal (ooh! SCANDALOUS).
"First impressions of Poland: Dry. Stuffy. Depressing. This is probably mostly attributable to the four hours that Rebecca and I spent touching our neighbors' knees in a 2nd-class smoking car from Bydgoszcz to Warsaw. I just kept seeing these halfhearted houses and these thrown-together train platforms in the middle of absolutely NOWHERE that look more like rusted 1970s playground equipment than an actual place where people board trains--thank you, recent communism--and tired looking flowering brush, and I was like, is this it?"
"A textbook Eastern European woman (tacky purple jewelry, scrunchie, orange-red lipstick) not only mediated our questions to the train conductor, but got off at Warsaw Centralna--skipping her own stop--just to make sure we got on the right connecting train. It's instances like that that make me feel like the world's not so big after all...and yet, the hassle of today makes me extraordinarily aware that Americans aren't the center of the universe."
"I've tried to start this explanation several times and I feel like I just can't. It was the only remaining gas chamber, the other (and larger) two at Birkenau having been dynamited in an attempt to cover up the genocide. The air was thick with poison and thousands of ghosts. The mildewed ceiling dripped death. The silence reeked of last screams and lungs closing against one's will. I stumbled through, dazed. I had stood where they had stood, and yet, I was alive. Not by virtue of inner strength or perseverance, but just by the mere chance of chronology. I walked through the valley of death and emerged dizzy and utterly empty and completely unharmed. I find this staggeringly unfair."
"People talk about Auschwitz like a giant cosmic ink blob on the annals of history, and it most emphatically is not. Some god did not drop the ink. It wasn't a mistake. We wrote it, and we are responsible--not as Germans, not as Americans, not as old, not as young, as human beings--for not mopping it up in time."
"I looked out at the fairly new houses built around Birkenau and Auschwitz, the residents of which have to look out at the reminder of that horror each day. How does a nation bounce back from being the main symbol of barbarism in the history of the modern world? I can't imagine."
"The main square is enormous and kind of quirky: illegal street vendors selling remote-control cars and foam dogs, hundreds of people eating lunch under yellow umbrellas, teenage hip-hoppers (is every city in the world required to have a mediocre dance team? I think so), turrets and arches and flags atop candy-colored buildings of indeterminate age. St. Mary's Church (pictured) is obviously ancient on the outside, but kind of unassuming as European churches go--all brick and tarnished brass, asymmetrical towers--but filled with kaleidoscopic color on the inside. Almost cartoonish and absolutely breathtaking."
"Wawel, the castle, is astounding but not quite elegant--a veritable hodgepodge of design elements (the retaining wall, for instance, was constructed in the 1920s), mostly brick and stucco, with the Wawel Cathedral (JPII's old hangout) ornamented with brass domes both aged and polished...soaring iron gates, ivy-covered towers, and a great view of sailboats on the Vistula. The gardens were in bloom and the sun was blazing."
"We were let into the Remuh Synagogue's incredibly old cemetery by two gruff guardsmen ("You pay!" "Cover your arms!"). It was silent. The whole Kazimierz quarter, in fact, was silent (it being the Sabbath and all).
"I think I've perfected the art of people-watching. Later in the day, we watched the sun set over the city from a shady bench in the Planty (park that surrounds the Old City) by the Florianska Gate, and I was completely absorbed by meditating on the fine line between dressing up and looking like a hooker in Eastern Europe, cooing at the audacious children and puppies that walked right up to me and stared before being summoned by their slightly embarrassed parents/owners, elderly couples all dressed up for a Sunday-evening stroll (men in sport coats and ties, women in skirt suits and heels, some shuffling painfully), the father and mother on Rollerblades, pushing a wheelchair-bound son and a baby in a stroller while a daughter, also on Rollerblades, tagged along, couples swapping hands in the back pockets of jeans...the real spirit of cities, I've found, seeks you out."
Life in Nijmegen right now can best be summed up by what I'm consuming: a raincoat, Top-Siders, a stack of UK Glamour, and a lot of Wilco. Yes, folks, the rain is back. Priscilla (my bike) is dying a long, slow, painful death, which makes me sad. Class is starting again today after almost two weeks of vacation, which is a welcome change. This break has mainly consisted of a lot of sleeping and dealing with the remnants of a nasty, nasty cold that developed right before Poland. I understand now why I get sick so rarely at school--my body simply doesn't have time to do it.
Freaky things: a mere 8 weeks until the land of red meat and freedom, technically being a senior...IN COLLEGE. How did I get so old?
"First impressions of Poland: Dry. Stuffy. Depressing. This is probably mostly attributable to the four hours that Rebecca and I spent touching our neighbors' knees in a 2nd-class smoking car from Bydgoszcz to Warsaw. I just kept seeing these halfhearted houses and these thrown-together train platforms in the middle of absolutely NOWHERE that look more like rusted 1970s playground equipment than an actual place where people board trains--thank you, recent communism--and tired looking flowering brush, and I was like, is this it?"
"A textbook Eastern European woman (tacky purple jewelry, scrunchie, orange-red lipstick) not only mediated our questions to the train conductor, but got off at Warsaw Centralna--skipping her own stop--just to make sure we got on the right connecting train. It's instances like that that make me feel like the world's not so big after all...and yet, the hassle of today makes me extraordinarily aware that Americans aren't the center of the universe."
"I've tried to start this explanation several times and I feel like I just can't. It was the only remaining gas chamber, the other (and larger) two at Birkenau having been dynamited in an attempt to cover up the genocide. The air was thick with poison and thousands of ghosts. The mildewed ceiling dripped death. The silence reeked of last screams and lungs closing against one's will. I stumbled through, dazed. I had stood where they had stood, and yet, I was alive. Not by virtue of inner strength or perseverance, but just by the mere chance of chronology. I walked through the valley of death and emerged dizzy and utterly empty and completely unharmed. I find this staggeringly unfair."
"People talk about Auschwitz like a giant cosmic ink blob on the annals of history, and it most emphatically is not. Some god did not drop the ink. It wasn't a mistake. We wrote it, and we are responsible--not as Germans, not as Americans, not as old, not as young, as human beings--for not mopping it up in time.""I looked out at the fairly new houses built around Birkenau and Auschwitz, the residents of which have to look out at the reminder of that horror each day. How does a nation bounce back from being the main symbol of barbarism in the history of the modern world? I can't imagine."
"The main square is enormous and kind of quirky: illegal street vendors selling remote-control cars and foam dogs, hundreds of people eating lunch under yellow umbrellas, teenage hip-hoppers (is every city in the world required to have a mediocre dance team? I think so), turrets and arches and flags atop candy-colored buildings of indeterminate age. St. Mary's Church (pictured) is obviously ancient on the outside, but kind of unassuming as European churches go--all brick and tarnished brass, asymmetrical towers--but filled with kaleidoscopic color on the inside. Almost cartoonish and absolutely breathtaking."
"Wawel, the castle, is astounding but not quite elegant--a veritable hodgepodge of design elements (the retaining wall, for instance, was constructed in the 1920s), mostly brick and stucco, with the Wawel Cathedral (JPII's old hangout) ornamented with brass domes both aged and polished...soaring iron gates, ivy-covered towers, and a great view of sailboats on the Vistula. The gardens were in bloom and the sun was blazing."
"We were let into the Remuh Synagogue's incredibly old cemetery by two gruff guardsmen ("You pay!" "Cover your arms!"). It was silent. The whole Kazimierz quarter, in fact, was silent (it being the Sabbath and all).
"I think I've perfected the art of people-watching. Later in the day, we watched the sun set over the city from a shady bench in the Planty (park that surrounds the Old City) by the Florianska Gate, and I was completely absorbed by meditating on the fine line between dressing up and looking like a hooker in Eastern Europe, cooing at the audacious children and puppies that walked right up to me and stared before being summoned by their slightly embarrassed parents/owners, elderly couples all dressed up for a Sunday-evening stroll (men in sport coats and ties, women in skirt suits and heels, some shuffling painfully), the father and mother on Rollerblades, pushing a wheelchair-bound son and a baby in a stroller while a daughter, also on Rollerblades, tagged along, couples swapping hands in the back pockets of jeans...the real spirit of cities, I've found, seeks you out."
Life in Nijmegen right now can best be summed up by what I'm consuming: a raincoat, Top-Siders, a stack of UK Glamour, and a lot of Wilco. Yes, folks, the rain is back. Priscilla (my bike) is dying a long, slow, painful death, which makes me sad. Class is starting again today after almost two weeks of vacation, which is a welcome change. This break has mainly consisted of a lot of sleeping and dealing with the remnants of a nasty, nasty cold that developed right before Poland. I understand now why I get sick so rarely at school--my body simply doesn't have time to do it.
Freaky things: a mere 8 weeks until the land of red meat and freedom, technically being a senior...IN COLLEGE. How did I get so old?
Another brief insight
First, a disclaimer: Thus far, the Dutch I've met have been very kind, speak English graciously to appease the stupid American, and are pretty competent (with the obvious exception of the country-wide adherence to bureaucracy, even when completely contradictory to all that is good and practical).
That said, I'm starting to think that some are straight-up retarded. (Was that terribly un-PC? Sorry. I've just been away from the States too long, I guess.)
So I've learned to read a bit of Dutch (largely some basic vocab words + an uncanny ability to pick up on context clues) and noticed the other day over a mug of tea that THERE ARE INSTRUCTIONS ON THE TEA BOX. As in HOW TO MAKE TEA. As in HEAT WATER AND POUR IT IN A MUG WITH SAID TEA BAG. Which is quickly followed by an admonition that BOILING WATER MAY BE HOT.
Anecdote number two. When I first moved into my flat, I found that the washer and dryer were completely covered in handmade signs with capital letters and lots of exclamation points. They seemed important, so I asked my flatmate Dorothea for a translation. The signs say such illustrious things as DON'T DROP WET LAUNDRY ON THE FLOOR! IT'LL GET DIRTY! and DON'T PUT YOUR BRAS IN THE DRYER! and DETERGENT GOES IN THE COMPARTMENT MARKED "DETERGENT".
These same people also managed to build a successful nation below sea level. My mind is officially boggled.
That said, I'm starting to think that some are straight-up retarded. (Was that terribly un-PC? Sorry. I've just been away from the States too long, I guess.)
So I've learned to read a bit of Dutch (largely some basic vocab words + an uncanny ability to pick up on context clues) and noticed the other day over a mug of tea that THERE ARE INSTRUCTIONS ON THE TEA BOX. As in HOW TO MAKE TEA. As in HEAT WATER AND POUR IT IN A MUG WITH SAID TEA BAG. Which is quickly followed by an admonition that BOILING WATER MAY BE HOT.
Anecdote number two. When I first moved into my flat, I found that the washer and dryer were completely covered in handmade signs with capital letters and lots of exclamation points. They seemed important, so I asked my flatmate Dorothea for a translation. The signs say such illustrious things as DON'T DROP WET LAUNDRY ON THE FLOOR! IT'LL GET DIRTY! and DON'T PUT YOUR BRAS IN THE DRYER! and DETERGENT GOES IN THE COMPARTMENT MARKED "DETERGENT".
These same people also managed to build a successful nation below sea level. My mind is officially boggled.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Koninginnedag 2009
Drew came down to the continent for Queen's Day. Always great to see a familiar face. For the uninitiated, Queen's Day (Koninginnedag in Dutch) is the birthday of the late Queen Juliana. It's basically an excuse for everyone to dress in obnoxious orange clothing and have gigantic dance parties in the streets fueled by copious amounts of beer (and cocaine, apparently?). Total. Freaking. Blast.
The best DJs--in my humble opinion--could be found at the Marie Heinekenplein in the afternoon, but we also managed to catch DJ Tiesto in the hideously crowded Museumplein later in the day:Total hooligan behavior.
On a different note: I'm sure you've seen on CNN or otherwise about the car crash that happened yesterday...to be honest, I really was pretty much oblivious to it until we saw the news online. The queen and the royal family were visiting the small city of Apeldoorn (about 30 miles from Nijmegen) when this guy crashed his car into the crowd and just narrowly missed the motorcade. He died this morning of brain injuries, but his final words were that the crash was an attack on the royal family. Four people are dead and I think the country's pretty shaken up.
It's very strange to experience a national tragedy as an expatriate. I'm not quite sure how to feel about it...I'm distanced from it simply by virtue of being an American abroad, but in some ways it hits much closer to home than simply finding it tragic because innocent people died.
More on Krakow soon. Pictures are up on Picasa (picasaweb.google.com/margaretaislinncarr) if you want to take a gander.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Krakow-ing up
Excuse the bad pun. I haven't been sleeping so well as of late.
Briefly: y'all need to be really proud of me, because I managed to pack everything I need for 4 days in Poland in my backpack. I'm bringing ONE PAIR OF SHOES.
(Collective gasp!)
(Collective applause.)
I'll be back from the homeland on Monday afternoon.
Briefly: y'all need to be really proud of me, because I managed to pack everything I need for 4 days in Poland in my backpack. I'm bringing ONE PAIR OF SHOES.
(Collective gasp!)
(Collective applause.)
I'll be back from the homeland on Monday afternoon.
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