Different Strokes

For your viewing pleasure this week: a random assortment of notes, photos and errata.  

First, I'm happy to report that we ate some seriously delicious Slovakian Forest Death Pastry and are still alive to tell about it.  

(As a side note, my new favorite thing is making small versions of desserts in two ramekins at a time.  It's far better than eating the same thing for 9 days in a row and/or throwing away half of a slaved-over dessert.)

As I mentioned last week, we came home from Slovakia in the middle of Nijmegen's Vierdaagse event, or Four Days March.  

Prior to this week, I had tried to remain reasonably receptive while our neighbors and other acquaintances raved and raved about this great annual event.  

But here's the line-up: 47,000 people sign up for four days of walking.  It's a substantial undertaking for the participants, since each day's course is 40 to 60 kilometers, depending on the age of the walker.  The walks are on a series of circular routes that start and end in Nijmegen, and at the end, everyone who finishes gets an official medal.  

(Speaking of age-related tracking, I've finally started to look for a job.  This process went from fun to grim in about 45 minutes, so I started poking around on the Albert Heijn grocery store website, just to see what my options were.  

I was horrified — horrified! — to learn that the hourly wages are on a sliding scale based on how old you are.  For example: a 16-year-old earns €4.65/hour doing the same job as a 20-year-old who earns €7.20 an hour as a 24-year-old (or anyone older) who gets €12.90/hour.  Holy Boy Would That Be Illegal In The U.S., Batman!)

For the other 953,000 people who descend upon Nijmegen for the Four Days event, there appear to be three main activities: sitting in bleachers to watch the walkers walk, attending a multitude of live bands in the streets of Nijmegen, and drinking beer.  

I'm sorry, but I just don't understand this.  Watching people walk?  For four days in a row?  

In contrast, it would take a lot of convincing to get me to attend a marathon, but at least there's some drama in a marathon.  What with people nearly killing themselves to run an inhumanly long way, and someone emerging as a winner at the end. 

To be fair, I understand that some people might feel the same way about things we love to do.  Like taking photos of insects.  Or sitting around and watching golf on T.V.   Or traveling to places that require a long list of vaccinations.  Or going out in the rain to find little snails in our neighborhood.  Or clarifying butter to make ghee. 

But seriously: watching a bunch of people walk?  Every year?!

To add insult to injury, we ventured downtown on Friday to get some much-needed groceries, only to discover that pretty much everything was closed because of the march.  

We realized that in addition to forgetting a great deal of Dutch while in Slovakia and Poland, we had forgotten our finely honed paranoia about closures of grocery stores on even the most minor holidays.  

Luckily for us, the streets were instead teeming with carnival-style vendors, so we were able to stock up on essential items. Like California Peanuts. 

But speaking of insect photos, we've posted a selection of photos from our Slovakia trip on our baryon.net website.  Snails, spiders, moths, caterpillars, beetles, bees, and two bigger critters (i.e. the two of us) abound!