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!   

Tatra Melky

We returned to Nijmegen last night after a long and complicated journey back from Slovakia, which included but was not limited to:

• An early morning trip to the Slovakia-Poland border on a local bus; 
  
• A border crossing on foot; 
  
• A mini-bus from the border to Zakopane, Poland, which ended up being a leisurely milk-run-style loop through the greater Zakopane area.  By the end, we had at least 24 tourists and commuters crammed into a van that looked like it was built for 15!
  
• Another bus from Zakopane to Krakow, this one full of tourists bearing souvenir wooden hatchets and white Polish cowboy hats;
  
• A guilty but entirely satisfying lunch in a McDonald's in the mall adjoining the Krakow train station (in our defense, the only other restaurant option was something along the lines of  "Loco Taco Fiesta" which seemed like even less of a good idea);
  
• A nauseating post-McDonald's sprint through the Krakow train station due to my faulty reading of the Polish train schedule (in my defense, said train schedules make IRS forms look like Hop On Pop);
  
• A train to the airport (barely);
  
• A flight to Düsseldorf, Germany on RyanAir, which makes Southwest Airlines seem like those luxury Korean airlines whose soft-focus ads imply that your own personal flight attendant is available to give you a neck massage immediately after the safety video;
  
• An airport shuttle from Düsseldorf back to Nijmegen; and,
  
• A ride from the train station with our luggage bungee-corded to the backs of our bikes, in which we remembered how to ride bikes while dodging revelers, trash, and traffic from Nijmegen's annual Vierdaagse, or Four Days March extravaganza.  (More on that weirdness later.)
  

Whew!  

All of that itineration notwithstanding, we had a lovely, relaxing time in the High Tatras of Slovakia. 

We stayed in a quiet village called Ždiar, which boasts a few small markets, a pair of churches, about 15 small pensions, at least 20 tractors, and a fleet of feral chickens that come bursting out of the bushes to induce heart attacks in unsuspecting tourists.   

 

On our most ambitious day of hiking, we took a local bus to the town of Tatranska Lomnica, then rode a very sketchily attached cable car to a trailhead in the mountains.  

  

From there, we hiked along a bouldery path to a mountain pass at about 6600 feet.  

 

We hoped to see marmots, but the closest we came was a friendly British guy who advised us that he had seen a marmoset on his way up to the pass. 

 

On our less ambitious days of hiking, we explored the ridges and forests close to the village. We had fun taking lots (and lots) of photos of insects, spiders, slugs and snails.  

  

We also picked a half liter of wild huckleberries, which stained our fingers purple.  We smuggled the berries back to the Netherlands in a Nalgene water bottle!

We're reasonably certain that we're going to end up with huckleberry cobbler for dessert tonight, not Slovakian Forest Death Pastry.  

Last but not least, we found two delicious new snacks: first, a (marginally) carbonated drink called Kofola, which was created as a Communist alternative to Coke and Pepsi and is still very popular in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.  

It tastes a little bit like weak root beer mixed with lemon pledge, but it's nevertheless quite tasty and refreshing. 

As an added bonus, it sports the following catchy slogan:  "Když ji miluješ, není co řešit. / Keď ju miluješ, nie je čo riešiť."  

Translation?  "When you love her / There is nothing to think about."   

Nothing to think about, indeed. 

But the crown jewel of our culinary experiences in the Tatras was our discovery of a snack called Tatra Melky.  It has the flavor of a caramel popcorn ball but the consistency of a Rice Krispie treat.  In a word: yum! 

If we do have poison berry cobbler tonight, at least we'll die happy. 

Warsaw Pact

I learned recently through the enlightening power of the Interweb that the Warsaw Pact is officially called the "Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance".  

For the record, I was lost in the Warsaw train system for nearly an hour and a half yesterday, but encountered very little friendship, cooperation or mutual assistance in the process.  Though I acknowledge that I was mostly asking for one-way assistance, and on top of that, rather boorishly expecting it in English. 

Maybe I was feeling a little overconfident.  

The last time I went to Poland was in 1996, when my friend Scott and I traveled by night train from Vienna to Kraków.  We slept through the Kraków stop (note, gentle readers, the lack of any friendship, cooperation, or mutual assistance from the conductors) and ended up quite inadvertently in Warsaw, face to face with a ticket agent who shook her head ruefully when we asked if she spoke any English.

The only reason that we're not still stuck in Warsaw is that Scott was able to trot out enough German to buy us tickets back to Kraków.  

So this time, when I bought a train ticket from Kraków to Łódź via Warsaw, I felt good, at least, about going to Warsaw intentionally.  And even though the train left at 7 a.m., I was reasonably certain that I wouldn't sleep through Warsaw and end up in Minsk.   

But as it turns out, the Poles are not so keen on signage.  Particularly not interactive signage.  On the trains, on the platforms, or anywhere else, for that matter.  The primary source of information in Polish train stations is a series of scratchy announcements, which is fine if one speaks Polish fluently and has dog hearing.  And is not so fine if you have a tight connection and you're me. 

Long story short(er): I took the wrong train into central Warsaw, where a conductor urged me back onto the platform based on the incompatibility between my ticket and the train's destination.  From there, I wandered into a labyrinthine underground station complex and found even less friendship, etc.  

Only through the power of paying €8 for an hour of Internet access in the Warsaw Marriott lobby did I sort my train schedule back out, let John know not to meet me at the train station at 11:20, luxuriate in the non-train station bathrooms and enjoy, somewhat unexpectedly, music from the American Beauty soundtrack piped into the lobby.  

One Snickers bar for lunch and an hour of waving "bye-bye" to the Polish baby in the seat in front of me later, I made it triumphantly to Łódź. 

(And vowed, in a pact between me and me, never to set foot by train in Warsaw.  Ever, Ever Again.) 

As it turns out, Łódź is a pretty interesting city, in the decrepit-and-weird-but-still-architecturally-lovely sense of interesting.  John has already been here for a week, as one of 800 physicists who have descended upon the city for the 2009 International Cosmic Ray Conference.  

And if "International Cosmic Ray Conference in Łódź" doesn't sound like fun, I don't know what does.  

My plan for the week is to be a hotel bunny until the conference is over on Wednesday, then we'll head into the hills of the High Tatras for a few days of hiking in the mountains.  Though I'm pretty sure that "Łódź hotel bunny" is a phrase that has never been uttered.  Ever, Ever Before. 

Aan Het Goede Schip Pannekoek

This morning, at an hour way too early to be discussing the King of Pop, I found myself on the receiving end of a series of condolences from my classmates on the death of Michael Jackson.  

Then I tried to explain (in broken Dutch) that I while appreciated the sentiment, I'm not feeling particularly devastated about his death, that it doesn't really matter to me one way or another. I'm mean, of course I'm not happy that he's dead, it's just that — oh, never mind.  Condolences accepted.  

Maybe I'm just a cold person / bad dancer, but my most emotional reaction to the news was my immense relief about not being in the U.S. to live through a harrowing 72+ hours of news coverage and tribute film.  

I do feel the need to come out of the closet and disclose that Thriller was my very first cassette tape.  Though it came about only after some friends of our family — who were probably exactly 7 and 9 years old — expressed scorn-laced disbelief that I hadn't even heard of Michael Jackson.  

Twentysomething years later, I think this proves once and for all that you can take the girl out from under a rock, but you can't take the living under a rock out of the girl.  

Those thrilling (ha!) conversations this morning were just the icing on the cake after a weekend of exploring some of the Netherlands' weirder attractions with our friends Josh and Eugenie. 

On Saturday, we ventured into the thriving metropolis of Malden, to the De Muse Accordion and Harmonica Museum, Shop, and Cafe.  Which was even more awesome than it sounds.  

The owner gave us a tour and a detailed tutorial on how accordions work, during which which we all — four musician-types who have day jobs as a mathematician, physicist, physics-leaning engineer and other (me, though technically speaking, I don't have a day job) — listened enthusiastically and asked a million questions.  

At one point, Eugenie asked yet another question about the placement of the holes inside the accordion.  Mr. Accordion narrowed his eyes at her and asked "What is your field, exactly?"  We surmised at that point that most visitors just smile and nod and then ask him to play a polka.  

Prickly-but-charming Dutch accordion makers notwithstanding, the museum is a heady melange of harmonicas, accordions, concertinas, bandoneóns, and their brethren:  

 

 

Plus a requisite diorama, a handful of scary clowns, posters from the heyday of accordion music, and — o sweet oasis in the land of big government! — the Gipper's own personal harmonica.

 
 

On Sunday, we went for broke by taking our maiden voyage on Nijmegen's Pannekoekenboot — a.k.a. a 2 1/2-hour pancake cruise on the River Waal.  

With all-you-can-eat pancakes. And a narrated tour (in Dutch) of the "sights" along the Waal. And beer. And about 427 Dutch children.

I have to say: I don't think I hadn't really lived until I had spooned an mind-boggling assortment of sprinkles onto a pancake under the watchful breasts of a wooden mermaid.  While floating down one of Europe's main commercial shipping channels.

Heaven & Hell

We're in the middle of what can only be described as a morass of Dutch religious holidays, the most recent of which was "Hemelvaartdag", or Ascension Day.  We spent the day off making bibimbop and moving our golf clubs from the basement to the attic.

In reality, we could have used the carpenter version of Jesus over the weekend, since we started working in earnest on our home improvement list for the apartment.  

You know that image you have in your head of moving to the Netherlands and sitting around in cafes and riding your bike everywhere and going to Prague for the weekend and drinking cheap but delicious wine and eating fancy cheese?  Try massaging "installing clothing rods in the closet" into that list.

As much as I would like to expound on our two trips to the neighborhood "Doe Het Zelf" store, our three scary Dutch conversations with DHZ men about clothing-rod hardware, and the resulting bonanza of spiffing up the closets, I offer instead a holiday-appropriate distillation of our weekend adventures: 

Hell

- Spending an entire afternoon trying to decipher Dutch telephone wiring in general, and in particular, the circuitous path of our only functional phone line from the basement to the third story of the house.

- Going on our fifth shopping trip in two days to buy more power strips.

- Hearing myself utter the words: "You know, it's too bad we can't just go to Home Depot...".

- Not directly related to home improvement, but hellish enough to make the list: after finally finding a microwave and buying microwave popcorn at the grocery store, realizing that we bought ZOET (sweet) popcorn, not ZOUT (salty) popcorn.  Whose idea was it to tell the Dutch about kettle corn?  

- Putting the finishing touches on our computer closet (a lovely, out-of-the-way spot for printers, routers, and our server), only to plug in our printer and discover that it is not, in fact, compatible with 220-volt electricity.

Heaven

- Figuring out how to use anchors in plaster walls that turn to dust as soon as one starts probing them.  (On second thought, maybe that's more like purgatory.) 

- Buying an espresso machine and then making it all the way home with it bungee-corded to the back of my bike.

- Having our downstairs neighbor come home while John was WD-40-ing our lock and cleaning the front of the door, causing her to exclaim that he must be a "goede huisman" — a.k.a. a good house-husband!

- Finding the hidden phone line after hours of searching, then successfully installing — hallelujah! — high-speed internet. 

Polka Choir

I couldn't resist riding downtown this afternoon to attend Paasmarkt (i.e., Easter Market), with its glittering promises of Eastern / Indian products and live music. 

After checking out the wares here and at the market in Beverwijk, I've come to the conclusion that "Eastern / Indian products" does not mean what I think it means.   

To me, it means exciting new spices and exotic utensils for the Asian kitchen.  In the Netherlands, it appears to mean imported linens, wallets, perfumes, and t-shirts...in other words, something between a flea market and a row of vendors from the streets of New York.  

Not really my kind of stuff, though I was sorely tempted by a t-shirt that said (in Dutch): "I'm blond, so you'll have to speak slowly."  Which would be a perfect introduction to my Dutch conversation skills.

All was not lost, however, because I joyfully discovered what can only be described as a series of Dutch Polka Choirs: groups of 15-20 middle-aged Nederlanders in matching outfits lustily singing Dutch polka-style folks tunes. Oh, yes.  Yes, yes, yes.

The first group was the most charming, if not the most in tune.  Apparently sponsored by a fruit drink (note the underaged worker with his promotional sign to the right of the stage), they sang spirited ballads that went something like this to my ears:

Nederland...mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm

Fiesten (bicycles) mmm mmm mmm mooi (lovely) 

Hmmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm 

Mmmm mmm mmm Vaderland (fatherland)! 

The second group I saw took it up a notch with their Netherlands flag scarves, the talents of a soloist, and their heartfelt ballad dedicated to Amstel (the beer). 

And the third group proved once again that you can always count on women in leopard print to draw a crowd.  Even if they're on the cougar side of leopard. 

20 x 8 x 8

It would be a grave understatement to say that I am happy to be back in the Netherlands after nearly three weeks of purging more stuff, closing on our house, packing things up, visiting my parents and shopping for hard-to-find essentials.  

I briefly contemplated posting updates from our journey to Madison, WI and Fulton, NY, but somehow, weekly dispatches on the desperate act of cleaning out a basement just don't have the same intrigue as our Dutch adventures.  

Certainly there were no pornographic gummi candies to be found in the upstanding city of Madison.  Although we did find a certain amount of intrigue in fielding questions along the lines of "Netherlands...is that near Amsterdam?!"

Some quick logistical updates, for those of you playing along at home: 

We sold our house without any breakdown-inducing last-minute issues from the buyer, so we are no longer members of the landed gentry: 

We did not manage to escape the shackles of home ownership and long-distance mortgage payment, however, without one last opportunity to shovel snow.  At the very end of March.  

With the help of four diligent movers, our earthly belongings are now packed like sardines into a 20-foot shipping container (insert two sleepless nights about whether everything would fit into a 20 x 8 x 8 metal box) and are happily positioned atop the MSC Davos.  Which, thankfully, will not be taking the Gulf of Aden route to the Netherlands! 

If/when the container arrives in Rotterdam at the end of April, we'll move from our IKEA dream flat into the upper two stories of a house that (we hope) will feel more like home for the next two to three years:

The apartment is a short walk to shops, restaurants and the center of Nijmegen, which we're excited about after living squarely (and I do mean squarely) in the middle of campus for 8 weeks.  

It also has two bedrooms and a closet-sized room called a third bedroom, which we hope will encourage a steady stream of pilgrims to the cultural riches Nijmegen has to offer.  

As a side note, have I mentioned that we're living in the oldest city in the Netherlands?  We saw recently that Nijmegen's city slogan has changed from "Nijmegen: up to date since 2000 years!" to the less grammatically thrilling "Always Nijmegen".  Who knew what marketing genius we would discover in this part of the world?!

Since returning to Nijmegen, we've been mostly trying to remember our paltry Dutch and reacquaint ourselves with our hobbit-sized refrigerator.  After our snow-filled excursion to the Upper Midwest, we're also relishing spring weather lovely enough for bike riding in jeans and a t-shirt.  

We have also been enjoying the endless long weekend of Easter, which has brought with it the handy realization that the Easter egg dye of my childhood, PAAS, comes from the Dutch word for Easter: Pasen.  

I really don't think that anyone other than PAAS makes Easter egg dye, which makes me wonder how this small Pennsylvania Dutch company has managed to skirt antitrust laws for all these years.

And, we've discovered that bowling is a popular Easter pastime for the Dutch.  

Or perhaps it's just that the citizens of Nijmegen couldn't resist the clever rhyming poetry at the Ol' Round:

"Ga u met Pasen naar het strand / of nemen we een bowlingbal ter hand" translates roughly to "For Easter, go to the beach or go bowling!"