Ten Days in Holland

After traveling what seems like every weekend for the last few months, I've had the blessing that is ten straight days in Holland. Ten sunrises (of which I've seen a few), ten sunsets. Classes started again, which helps add some regularity to my schedule. My History of Economic Thought class will no doubt be interesting, as indicated by the first lecture. The professor is a very sarcastic, but laid back German. He allows for a little too much tangency in the class discussion, which gives one particular know-it-all many opportunities to inform the class of how well read he is, and argue some minute details related to a meaningless example. When we were discussing the reasons war occurs, from an economic/political vantage point. The Belgian girl sitting next to me, who had been scribbling a flower on her notebook for the length of the lecture, blurted out why she thought there was war. To paraphrase, some people in America want to kill some people, and steal their oil and diamonds. Being one of two Americans in the class, I felt obligated to remind her the largest diamond cartel in the world is controlled by Belgians, and if she would only check her notes she'd remember that. Oh wait, her notes look like a big flower.
My gym membership is coming to an end, so I've been trying to get there as often as I can, and I managed a few times this week. Early in the week I just spent a lot of time relaxing and reading. I'm doing my best to finish Catch 22 so I can start on Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway's bullfighting dissertation, before I go to Seville. I also checked out the Aboriginal Art Museum in Utrecht, which is very cool, and I plan to go back sometime.
The weather has been amazing here lately, and if I didn't know what month it is I'd think it's summer. So Thursday a few of us decided to head out to the water reservoir, which is just outside of Utrecht. It was about an hour bike ride, but very scenic, and flat. The ride followed a canal running north out of the city, and we passed the famous floating hookers of Utrecht. The floating hookers are a massive collection of houseboats on the canal near the city edge, probably about a kilometer long. Outside many houses stands your typical Dutch hooker. Think the Red Light District on water. We rode past around 1pm, and there were a surprising amount of cars circling the area. Once we arrived at the reservoir, we quickly discovered it was a clothing optional area, and sometimes that's not nearly as appealing as you think. We spent the afternoon swimming and kicking around a football, and headed back around six, as Barry and I were being treated to a Swedish dinner. On the ride back, I was involved in my first bike accident, caused by a scooter, a means of transportation that I've grown to loathe. Anyway, the scooter basically ran a few of us off the road, and I came out of it with some bumps and bruises, as well as giving up some significant skin and nail from my foot. Overall, everyone was a little beat up but ok. I of course believe in forgiveness, but that didn't stop me from wishing that moped takes a dip in the canal in the near future. After a nice Swedish dinner we enjoyed a few, and headed out to Tivoli, one of the local clubs.
A large part of Friday was spent sleeping due to Tivoli's 5am close, and Friday night I was pretty worn out, but the South Africans were leaving, so I went out for a bit to see them off. Saturday I went to Amsterdam to pick up a few things and visit the Rijks and the Stedelijk. It was a gorgeous day, and the place was already crazy in anticipation of Queen's Day/Night. That night we took the trek to Lombok, the turkish neighborhood, for a party some friends were throwing. The Swedes had some visitors, as did a few others, and the party was fun, apart from its resemblance to a giant sauna.
Sunday was Koninginnenacht, or Queen's Night, in Holland. It's a nation-wide party in honor of the Queen, held on the former Queen's birthday. It's also the 48 hours practically everything in the country shuts down (unless it serves beer), and the Dutch put on their orange garb and fill the streets. There's plenty of live music, most of which you probably don't want to hear. During the day their is a massive flea market in the four big cities. Utrecht was packed Sunday night, and I saw more than a few people fall into canals due to the over-crowding. We stayed out pretty late, but knew it was time to call it quits when the sun was peaking over the horizon.
But the party wasn't over yet. Monday was Queen's Day, and the place to be for that is Amsterdam. The city was absolutely crazy, and every street was filled with people toting Grolsch and Heineken, and wearing some pretty creative orange outfits. There was plenty of Dutch food, and live music at all of the major squares or places in the city. If I ever come back for this holiday, I'm renting a boat, because that looked like the way to do it. It was a long day and we headed back to Utrecht to have dinner, and soon after crashed, with a long week ahead.
Today I have a bit of class, and quite a bit of reading to catch up on before leaving for Seville on Thursday night. With any luck the toe will be healed up enough by then to enjoy the sandy beaches barefoot, and I'll be far enough into Death in the Afternoon to understand what's going on at the bullfight.

Back in Deutschland

I just returned from my third short-trip to Germany, and it seems every time I go there I'm more impressed with the country. Berlin is short of two decades out of a communist state, and has more life and culture than I've seen in any European city. Heidelberg is a gorgeous city that operates as more than the Bruges of Germany. And Cologne and Dusseldorf offered something for everyone. The four day trip to Cologne was not unlike my past weekend trips in that I saw some amazing sights, visited a few museums, and had a small taste of the local culture. That being said, it was filled with the kind of stories I can't bring myself to put down in type. You know, those ones you need to save for a night out with a few friends over a pitcher of domestic. So if this seems to lack a little color, it's because I'm holding back a little bit.
Eurolines was again the transportation method of choice for the four hour ride east to Cologne. Mike, Barry, and I stayed at the Station Hostel, conveniently located quite near the Hbf, or central station. For the first two nights, we had a room to ourselves, and it almost felt like a cheap motel where you have to bring your own towel. The first night in town we picked up some groceries at the closest thing I've seen to an American supermarket here. We picked up a crate of the local variety, Reissdorf Kolsch, which is a yeasty, light beer. Dinner was what the Turkish-Germans do best: Doner Kebabs. We spent most of the night relaxing in the lounge, playing a little fooseball, and planning the next few days.
Thursday morning we took advantage of our hostel's free map, complete with a variety of city tours. We chose one which led us to the banks of the Rhine, where the heart of the Aldstadt, Cologne's old city, is located. The city's landmark is its massive Dom Cathedral, the biggest in Germany and a gothic masterpiece. One needs a few hours to enjoy it, so we took a few photos and moved on. Our first stop was the Museum Ludwig, a modern art museum boasting a huge Picasso collection, as well as a refreshing pop art exhibit, with Warhol and Lichtenstein leading the pack. Photos were unfortunately not allowed, as we were soon informed. The place was a good contrast to the classic masterpieces typical of European art museums, and well worth the ticket price. The prints were pricey, so I passed. The rest of our tour brought us past a few more churches, including the Gross St. Martin, which is a huge Roman church with four turrets. Back in the day, Cologne was a Roman province, and a huge trade center, due to the location of the Rhine. As a result, much of the old city wall, complete with Roman guard towers, remains. They're scattered throughout the city. As you know, many German cities were fire-bombed heavily in the war, and it's fortunate anything remains. Though I guess that's what you get for being a Nazi. Later on the walk, we stopped in the largest record/CD store in the world, the Saturn House. It was Europe's tallest building in 1925, all 13 stories of it. Pretty cool record store now. For lunch, we picked up various wurst from a traditional stand. I enjoyed a bratwurst, a little taste of home, and my personal favorite, currywurst. We relaxed for the early part of the evening, which was fine with me, because by then my achilles was screaming for some reason, and is finally cooling down a bit today. We went out to a traditional beer hall for dinner. These places are massive, lined with tables, and you sit wherever there's room for you. Without saying anything very German-looking waiters bring out a glass of their establishments brew for you, carried two dozen at a time, and ready to drink. And as soon as you look like you're about to finish one, another is there. They keep track by making charcoal marks on a coaster on the table. The beers keep coming until you put your coaster on top of your glass, signifying you've had enough, or are out of money. The meal was excellent. The menu was German, so there was guessing involved. In the end, I had some potatoes, a salad, and a large amount of bacon with some scrambled eggs. Barry had schnitzel, and Mike enjoyed 3/4 meter of bratwurst. Bloated and buzzed, we walked down to the river bank to find the live jazz we were promised is actually a jukebox-like music machine with some jazz available. You win some, we lost that one.
Friday morning we spent a little more time on breakfast and treated ourselves to some ham and eggs. The Dom Cathedral opened at 10 and we arrived shortly thereafter. On the inside, the cathedral has soaring walls, most of which contain impressive stained glass portrayals of the adoration of the magi, the life of the virgin, and so on. The church also contains the Shrine of the Magi, which is believed to contain the remains of the the nativity story's three wise men. Regardless of contents, the shrine is an impressive container, mostly gold. We were also fortunate enough to be around for an abbreviated service, in German, complete with some haunting organ music. Once out, we enjoyed a coffee back at the hostel before heading out to the north end of the city. We visited the city's sculpture park. Sculpture parks are always enjoyable, but rarely do I come away with any insight to the artists' work. There's a cable car that crosses the Rhine and offers a spectacular panoramic view for only 4 euro, so we took advantage. It was as advertised. On the other side, we relaxed in the Rhine park for a while, and explored the beaches on the east bank. Mike was feeling a bit under the weather, and there's a chance it had to do with a peanut allergy, so we had a little scare, but all was well by seven and we were back at the hostel to relax and tuck in early.
Cologne has a chocolate museum that they operate in cooperation with a Swiss chocolate company. We headed there Saturday morning. The museum has plenty of opportunities to purchase the goods, a very interesting history of chocolate, and a decent explanation of its preparation. I also had my second experience with a chocolate fountain, except this one didn't spray the chocolate all over the room, which was cool. The place even had a greenhouse to replicate the conditions for growing cocoa. Barry made a large purchase, then we headed to the train station to buy a ticket to Dusseldorf. We were at the Schloss Benrath, an old German castlegrounds, by 2. The place has an enormous garden that used to serve as the royal hunting grounds. We took the train the rest of the way to the city centre and saw a few sights in the city, mostly churches and parks. It was obvious were all a little tired of sight-seeing. So we picked up a few half-litres and some gourmet pizza and relaxed with the locals on the west bank of the Rhine, and watch the sun go down. Dusseldorf was pretty hopping, and full of bachelorette parties, a few of which we would later encounter. The night went quickly, and after an extended chat with some Canadians, we were on a train back to Cologne. There was a frightening, in retrospect creepy, event that took place in the early morning (one of those things I need to leave out), and our bus was a little late in the morning, but we all made it back to Utrecht safely. When we stopped on the ride back, I watched as the gas station attendant was handed a ten for a pack of cigs. And she asked if the customer had anything smaller. That's when I knew we were back in Holland. Class starts again tomorrow, and Queen's Day is this weekend. I plan to use these next ten days in Holland to relax, reload, and get organized. I'll probably ride a bike.

Belgium made good choices.

I have about 12 hours to relax/sleep before I leave for Cologne tomorrow. Today was marked with a 3 hour written final for my Cultural Studies class. Then the Americans had a nice relaxation session before heading out to the Oude Muntkelder, a pancake place on the Oudegracht. All you can eat, which for me means three, of your choice of sweet and savory pancackes. None of us have been in Holland enough lately, so there were communication problems galore with our waitress. The important part is, we ate a lot of pancakes. Now I have just enough time to reflect on Belgium and prepare for Deutschland.
Barry, Mike and I took the Eurolines bus down to Brussels on Thursday; a three hour ride that had us in the city by 19:00. We stayed at the Van Gogh Youth hostel, a nice place just south of the Noord Station and near the Jardin Boutique. The place had a nice bar, an outdoor terrace, and a spacious kitchen and dining hall. We were settled in and ready to hit the town by 8ish. It was a 15 minute walk down to the Grand Place, the centre of Brussels. The tempature was a balmy 75 most of the weekend, and didn't drop much at night. Our first stop was just off Grand Place, a street line with kebabs. We washed one down with a Hoegaarden and stopped off to see the famous Manneken Pis statue. For those of you who aren't familiar, Manneken Pis is a foot high statue of a naked toddler pissing. Its image is on most Brussels souveniers. A few pictures later, we were at Delirium Cafe, a place I had briefly visited with my family. This time I stayed for quite a bit longer. There was a live jam, and for the most part it was quite good. The highlights include Roxanne, and a French guitarist trying to sing Sweet Home Alabama. Just sing that with a French accent. Hilarious, right? We only had five beers at the Delirium, but you have to understand, Belgian beer doesn't work like American domestics. Every beer has a bare minimum alcohol content of 6%. And we were sampling stuff in the teens. We made it back to the hostel safely, though a wee bit later than scheduled.
Friday morning we boarded a train to Bruges, a nice city an hour NW of Brussels. We spent all of six hours there, but it was a packed six hours. On our way to Marktplaats we saw Minnewater Park, Madonna and Child, and the Begijnof. After having some lunch on the steps of the Belfry, we stopped in a Salvador Dali exhibit. It was actually really cool, and contained about 120 original Dali's, including his illustrated Bible. Wild stuff. Before leaving we trekked out to the outskirting windmills and turrents, then climbed the Belfry for a nice view. Then we got lost trying to get back to the station. There are worse places to get lost. We were packed like the proverbial sardines on the train from Bruges to Ghent, which dropped us south of the city. It was already dusk, so we saw what we could in our time there, which included a quintessential castle in the middle of town, a really cool alley covered with perpetually changing grafitti, and a genuine Cafe Leffe, where we enjoyed a few cold ones. We caught the last train back to Brussels and were back by one.
The first full day in Brussels started with a nice breakfast and a cash withdrawl. We picked up a welcome pass that covered museums and transport for 24 hours, so we went to the ends of the city and caught as many museums as possible. We took the metro out to the Atomium, which is the strange result of hosting the 1958 World Exhibition. We skipped Mini-Europe, because hell, we're in real Europe. We then took multiple public transports out to see the Royal Museum for Central Africa. This place housed some great artifacts from the Congo region, which Belgium used to control. Back in the 19th century, the king gathered up a bunch of cultural items, animals, and people, for his exhibition on the region. In front of the museum was a huge garden, with a nice reflecting pool. After a quick lunch we checked out the brewery museum on the Grand Place, which was basically worth the cold beer. Then it was off to the Museum of Musical Instruments. This place had a great audio system. As you stepped in front of each instrument, your headphones would play a nice tune featuring the drum, sitar, etc. The 6th floor also had a great view down to the city centre. With some goods from the local grocer, we cooked up a huge chicken and pasta dinner, washed down with 75cL of Jupiler, the Busch Light of Belgium. Then we went out for a few beers at O'Riley's, the Grand Place, and lastly Delirium. We were fortunate enough to score a barrel-table near the bar, and the place was packed. We perused the giant menu, and chose some pretty distinct beers. La Fin du Monde, a Quebec brew, was the highlight. We capped off the night with some great frites at the creatively named Friteland.
Sunday morning started with Mike having two pieces of toast stolen from right in front of him by a quiet Spanish girl. He's going to need to make up for that embarassment at some point. We headed out to the Royal Museum for the Arts, where the ticket-person finally filled in our card, so we had an extra 24 hours to play with. The museum had some great Flemish artists, included Reubens, and most of the stuff was biblically themed, and well done. We spent a good two hours there before checking out the City Museum, home to all 200+ costumes ever worn by Manneken Pis. My favorites are Elvis, Texas Cowboy, and Delirum Cafe. After lunch at the hostel we headed out to the EU district and took naps in two consecutive parks, much earned. We also checked out Antoine's for the country's best frites. We then headed towards Zuid Station to find a nouveau theatre that was closed. We dined at Chez Leon on le Rue des Bouchers, a place famous for its mussels, and enjoyed their Lambic beer, which is brewed with bacteria from Brussels' underground river/sewer. Back at the hostel, we enjoyed a beer out on the terrace before crashing.
Monday was our last day in town, and we started at the AutoWorld, a 400+ car showroom near the Jubelpark. It was a pretty cool building, an old palace, and a lot of the cars were pre-1950. But I'm not much of a car guy. Speaking of which, if anyone is looking to practically give one away, I'm in the market. Ask my folks, my standards are low. We had pretty much seen all the sights, so we headed back to the centre to check out a tea place, a vintage postcard store, and a secondhand-store before having a great bowl of soup at a place in Chinatown. Then we listened to the city band practice at Parc de Bruxelles for a while before gathering our things and catching the bus back to Utrecht.
Belgium really made some good choices when it came time to decide what to be good at. Beer, chocolate, frites, and mussels. I do believe that list pleases everyone.

Wait. I have finals twice!?!?

There's nothing important nor interesting to report today. To be quite honest I just need a break from studying. It's finals time here in Utrecht. Seems early right? Well it appears I finally found the downside of breaking the semester into two parts. I have to take two sets of finals. This morning, I woke up bright and early to do some touch-up work on a powerpoint for my econ class. Early this afternoon, my two colleagues and I had the opportunity to present the empirical research we've gathered over the past month to the Minister of Economic Affairs in the Netherlands. That alone makes me a little nervous. Tell me that our research results indicate the Ministry's infant innovation voucher program is being horribly mismanaged, and that we have to tell them that, and I get a little uncomfortable. If you can follow the trend, you've already guessed what portion of the presentation I was responsible for. I'm proud to say I stood my ground pretty well, and I wore a light color, so he couldn't see the huge sweat stains gathering under my arms. The important thing is, my responsibilities for that class are completed, and I just need to await my final mark.
I wish the same could be said for my other course, Cultural Studies. For this course, I had to compose a cultural autobiography, then conduct an analysis of a classmate's autobiography. Part one was pretty easy; just an exercise in narrative. Part two, on the other hand, was brutal. I had the pleasure of struggling through some serious broken English detailing my classmate's six months spent as a management trainee at Unilever. Fascinating stuff. I wrote it, but I can't say I'm horribly proud of it. Fortunately, my professor is a cool guy, and understands this is the case in many of the autobiographies written. I haven't written much about class since I've been here; if I had, I would've mentioned this professor. This guy is a Bob Dylan fanatic. He refers to Dylan as "His Bobness". He also required us to read much of his autobiography. No complaints here. Almost every time we hold class, he shows some video that has been banned from the public domain, but he somehow has a copy of. He only shows them to international students because "who are you gonna tell?" Anyway, the combination of said analysis and a final exam next week make my mark in that course, so I'm hoping my strong command of my native language will play to my advantage.
Which brings up a good point. Over the last two months, my vocabulary has seen some serious atrophy. I spend a lot of time talking to people for whom English is a second, third, fourth, etc. language. So I find myself searching for the most direct and simple way to get my point across. This apparently and unfortunately is not a switch one can turn on and off. And I'm not alone in this. Last night, Barry, Mike and I were planning our Belgium trip, and we're all Americans. Yet there were numerous times when we'd have to pause and search for words that we used to use everyday. It's a little scary. I feel like when I get back my cumulative language skills will actually be worse. "Yeah, I learned quite a bit of Dutch. But now my English is back to a 7th grade level." Well, maybe not that serious, but annoying, nonetheless.
And sometimes, English isn't an option at all, like earlier this afternoon. As you may know, the Golden Stallion has been out of commission since the Tim incident. After a run today, I walked past where it was locked up in front of my building. The back tire is horribly mangled, as it was for the last week. But now there's a sticker-note from the City of Utrecht on it. And the note basically says, "Get your broke-ass bike out of sight, or we'll cut the lock and throw it away." So I was carrying it back into the bike shed behind our building, when I ran into the groundskeeper, who held the door for me. He started saying something to me in French. I know about three words of French. He knows only Dutch and French, and his Dutch might as well by Fretch, some indecipherable mix of French and Dutch. Anyhow, through a combination of hand signals and mutual knowledge of Dutch words, I figured out that he was offering to fix my bike. Which is awesome. So instead of dragging the ride across town, the groundskeeper is going to fix it, for a price that will be negotiated at a later date. So with any luck, the Golden Stallion will be back on two wheels by the time I return from Germany, just in time for Queen's Day. I cannot wait.
Well, I suppose I should get back to memorizing the origins of cultural theory. Although to be quite honest, I don't know how well I'm going to retain it over a long weekend of Belgian beer, and strictly Belgian beer. If you've ever had a such a weekend, you are now jealous. It's ok, I have to bag my own groceries here, and often pay to use the bathroom. So we're even.

Kobenhavn, Kroners, and Logistics Issues.

I just returned from watching my first European football game. My home team, FC Utrecht, stomped Willem II 3-0 in a late-season Dutch Eredivisie game in Utrecht. There was a good crowd; extremely loud and there was no question about who was in favor of which colors. The game was pretty fast-paced and more than a little dirty. We sat three rows up and just shy west of midfield. If I wasn't going to be in Belgium, I'd definitely try to land tickets for next week's match against PSV Eindhoven, Holland's Champion's League rep. Just youtube that team. People hate them.
Earlier this morning, around 5am to be exact, I returned via bus from a few days in Copenhagen with Tim, whose visit comes to an end early tomorrow morning. Tim was not on the bus with me, as he misplaced his return ticket at some point. He fortunately found a flight and will be back in Holland later tonight.
The trek to Copenhagen started out a little shaky. Riding with us on the bus was a good example of a complete asshole. This guy claimed to have two wives and two sets of kids, in Amsterdam and Hamburg. He also got piss drunk before and during the bus ride, called Tim a redneck because he's from the States, and physically threatened a few other people. He capped it off by lighting up a cig on the bus and telling some girl that is she didn't like she could take it up with driver. It was kind of nice to see that personality exists in most cultures.
It was a thirteen hour drive to Copenhagen, which included a late night ferry from Germany to Denmark. We arrived around 5:30 and found the central station. After enjoying some breakfast and changing some euros for danish kroners, we found our bearings and headed toward our hostel. We eventually found the place around 7:30. It's a nice hostel, located in the diverse neighborhood of Norrebro. Nearby there's an old graveyard/park called Assistens Kirkegard. We had to sneak in where some fence was pulled back (not sure why) and found HC Andersen's grave among others.
We then headed back to the inner city for a self-led, walking tour. The architecture in Copenhagen is amazing, mostly because the Nazis never bombed the shit out of it. Along the way we saw the City Hall, the Rundetaarn, the Cathedral of Copenhagen, Rosenborg Castle, the King's Gardens, to name a few. We extended the tour out to see the oft-hailed Little Mermaid statue, which was pretty difficult to get to, as it was on the harbour edge and canals crossed the path toward it. By the time we got back to the City Hall we were famished, and enjoyed the house specialty at the Shawarma Grill House. I caught a 2nd wind, and Tim headed back to the hostel for a nap. I checked out the Danish National Museum, which housed some ancient Rune Stones, artefacts detailing Danish history, an Egyptian exhibit, and a Tycho Brahe exhibit. On the walk back I picked up the fixings for dinner at Aldi and crashed for two hours. Our hostel served up half-litre Carlsberg at a reasonable 25 kroners, which comes out to slightly less than $5 American. Yeah, Scandnavia is pricy. After a few of those we headed out to the city's favorite blues bar, Mojo. There was no cover, and a packed house. We sipped Tulborg and enjoyed about two hours of some great blues before stopping next door for a nightcap at the Southern Cross, an Aussie pub.
The next morning we had breakfast at the hostel and hit the road by 10:30. Our first stop was the Danish National Gallery, also called Statens Museum for Kunst. It featured some great international art, including some Picasso and Rembrandt. There was also a slightly disturbing sculpture exhibit. Next, we shuffled and stepped to the top of the Rundetaarn, which offered a magnificent view of the city. You could even see the bridge to Sweden. After another bagged lunch aided by the neighborhood 7-11 we took a walk through the city hall courtyard, than caught a cheap canal tour. The tour was a great value at an hour in length, and we got to see much of the harbour close-up. Christianshavn and the Freetown of Christiana were next on the list. Christianshavn is a beautiful, quiet area of the city with cheap shopping and eats. Christiana is a social experiment started in the 70's that lives up to its name. It basically looks like a carnival slum that lines either side of a calm river. The residents govern themselves, but there is a Danish military presence due to a history of hash and hard drug use. During the day it was quite harmless and very interesting. I would've like to spend more time there but it was around this time that Tim realized he didn't have his return bus ticket and I made it clear that was not a good thing.
Tim eventually bought his plane ticket back to Amsterdam, solving his self-inflicted transportation woes. I wrote a few postcards and relaxed while he straightened that out with the nearly inaudible Emily R, who happened to be at the same hostel, taking the same flight. We enjoyed a Carl's Special while a three Aussie girls sipped vodka. We walked south to Vega, a dance club. The club was trendy and slightly over-priced, but a good time and we spent about three hours there before heading back to the hostel.
After a less-than refreshing shower I packed up and checked out of the hostel. We then spent the next hour searching for a luggage storage spot that wasn't open. A long walk to the massive Carlsberg complex also brought bad news. Contrary to its posted sign, which indicated the place was only closed on Mondays and holidays, of which yesterday was neither, the doors were locked. Fortunately, it was a nice day and the walk was tolerable. We enjoyed the signature Danish hotdogs and met up with my friend Brandon, who's studying in Copenhagen. We had a few beers, one in the Norrebro area and another on the Nyhavn, before it was time for me to catch the bus back to Holland. I picked up a sixer of Tulborg's Easter brew and then almost missed my bus, which left ten minutes before my ticket indicated. Needless to say, I'm safely back in Utrecht, and looking forward to a few days of clarity and some academic finality. Barry, Mike and I leave for Brussels on Thursdays, with side trips planned to Antwerp and Ghent. Just can't get enough of that Belgian beer and chocolate.

True Taste of Dutch Youth Culture

After an exhausting 48 hours in Amsterdam, I was sure we'd be spending Saturday night relaxing and recovering. But around 11:00, I found myself enjoying a Bikse Tripel, quite possibly my favorite beer of all time, around the kitchen table with a few friends. By midnight we were sitting in Mick O'Connell's, the only pub with potential to be playing the Final Four. It wasn't. Marcus, a Dutch friend, stopped in the pub to ask if we wanted to go to a real Dutch party.
We were back at Parnassos to pick up bikes in ten minutes flat. Two minutes later, my back tire was flat, and contorted in such a way that I almost cried, thanks to Tim sitting on the back. The Golden Stallion just couldn't handle close to 400lbs, and she may now have to take a swim in a local canal.
A little re-organizing got us to the party by 2:00, and it was roaring. 7 euros at the door, all the beer in giant mugs that you can drink. 2 DJ's. Lots and lots of Dutch people. I think the average height in the place was close to 6'3". I think Tim was a little overwhelmed at first, thanks to being covered with beer almost immediately. By the end, everyone's shirts and pants were beer soaked and ashed. The low-point of the party came at 4am, when we left, and someone had left with my jacket. And my keys, phone, and key to my friends bike lock. So I carried the bike the 2 miles home, and cut my losses.
Sunday didn't start until around 1:30, by far the latest I've slept since I've been here. I spent the afternoon finishing a paper, and we took an hour or two to visit Grift Park with a frisbee and a soccer ball. Somehow we got involved in a rather intense game of "street-soccer", which featured an ex-pro player's son and some shin kicking ten-year-olds. It couldn't have helped that I was wearing deck shoes. We went out for coffee, and later a gyro at El Greco, around 9:00.
Monday both Barry and I had to go to class. Barry skipped and lazed around with Tim, while I spent five hours on campus for my cultural studies course. After a fantastic italian dinner, the three of us walked to the Oudegracht to visit Sarasani, the oldest coffeeshop in Holland. We enjoyed the free coffee and some excellent music, then got back to Parnassos in time for some chocolate cake, courtesy of the Swedes. Lately I've had the suspicion they're trying to fatten the American's up so they can make fun of us. Mike, Barry, Josephine, and I put together our spring break plans, which include four days in Germany (Cologne, Dusseldorf, Bonn), and four more in Belgium (Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp). I'm looking forward to some tamer trips.
Today should be a good time, although eventually I need to write up some empirical analysis for my econ class. Tomorrow afternoon Tim and I leave for Copenhagen, which I haven't planned much for, but I'm sure we'll land on our feet. Hopefully Tim knows some Danish.