Gezellig? Me??

Jen, you made my day today when you came into my dingy, light-deprived little abode in need of tidying and pronounced it gezellig (cozy/homey). And I didn't even have any candles lit or cookies baked! Ah, the things to which we aspire...

I had an orchestra in Amsterdam...

Played Beethoven, Schubert, and Saint-Saens in a lovely church in Amsterdam today. I couldn't believe how many people crammed into the church and paid €15 a head to hear an amateur orchestra play, especially when the tempo for a couple of movements of Beethoven's Fourth got so out of hand that it began to sound like a runaway county fair orchestra... but for the most part I was impressed and proud. It was the first time my family has ever seen me play violin in public, too, with the exception of a couple school functions. I do wish for their sake that it hadn't been a three-hour concert, but c'est la vie. The 12-year-old soloist on Saint-Saens was worth every penny even if everything else had been horribly out of tune and tempo -- she is utterly phenomenal. Just picture a tiny little girl playing this, and weep.

Settled.

Finally, we've settled enough into the new place to contemplate doing things with our spare time that don't involve moving furniture around or trying to magically rearrange 108 square meters of stuff into 75 square meters of space. Oddly, this new place already feels like home in a way that Utrecht never quite did. Maybe it's the old-Dutch character of the 1930s tussenwoning. Maybe it's that we live on a tiny street on which the neighbors all know and actually talk to each other. I think, though, that it's most likely the fact that our immediate environs are now rife with friends. The kids are still reveling in their ability to have buddies from school over to play, to say nothing of having their mother say "sure" when they're asked to come over after school. For our own part, being within biking distance of social evenings that might involve a couple glasses of wine and easy train distance of, say, an amateur orchestra in Amsterdam, has opened up entirely new options. Life.

Verhuizing hiatus

Sorry for the lengthy hiatus, but it's been an eventful few weeks. We've questioned our sanity for making any changes to what often feels like a precariously-balanced existence, but we're almost moved to Hilversum now. Although we've taken a hit in square meterage and are going to miss our outdoor terrace, we think the 1930s condo is quite a bit more sfeervol than the new style architecture in Leidsche Rijn. Even better, school is now just a short (albeit rather nervewracking with Dylan) bike ride away rather than an hour's drive. All that remains now is to get it gezellig enough to have people over...

What's that sucking sound?

That'd be every last cent leaving your pocket while you try to make any sort of business or government related phone call in The Netherlands. I am continually amazed and appalled at how businesses here try to suck money out of merely-potential consumers in a way that'd be a death knell for an American business. I'm not thrilled about it, but I understand that actual physical space here is limited enough that I can't expect free parking everywhere I want to shop. I will thus happily trade proximity to my parcels for historical and environmental preservation. Paying money to find out when a business is open, though? Are we the only ones who find it a bit counterproductive for a business owner to charge us to find out when we can come in and spend our money?

Here, in no particular order, are my favorite (most ignominious) examples of having to pay for phone calls.

1.) The website that touts itself as having the cheapest airline tickets available does not have the capability of searching multileg flights (a la every non-Dutch travel website I've ever checked). If you want to book city to city, you have to call their 0900 number and pay 45 cents a minute. Yes, that includes that half hour you have to hold before they answer.

2.) When we first moved here, we purchased the majority of our new little European household at IKEA. We didn't have a car and couldn't quite get the beds and bookshelves onto our bikes (ha), so we paid through the nose for delivery several days hence. On the appointed day, the kids and I sat in our curtainless, light fixture-less, telephone-less (don't even get me started on utilities) condo for eight hours waiting for the delivery truck to arrive. After hours of sitting on bare concrete floors, the truck never showed. My only option was to call their 0900 number and pay an additional 25 cents per minute to be told that our delivery truck driver LIED and told them he came and we weren't there and that we'd thus have to pay another exorbitant delivery fee plus a penalty if we wanted the thousands of euros of our stuff we'd already bought. Talk about adding insult to injury. In the end, we (Jeff) convinced them that it'd be in their best interests to attempt delivery ONCE before attempting to charge us more money for our stuff, but they got their money for the phone call, by golly.

3.) After having paid over €800 in fees, we were still required to pay 25 cents per minute to make the mandatory phone calls to check on the status of our immigration applications. That really added up when you figured in that we had to call an office to make an appointment for a slot of several hours one day when we would have to sit by our phone waiting for a call from another person at that office who would... make an appointment for us to call the person we needed to talk to. I honestly could not make this stuff up if I tried.

4.) And last but not least, my absolute favorite: If you witnessed a crime and want to assist the police in solving it, you can pay 20 cents a minute (that's a discount!) to call their crime solvers line. Yes, I'm sure it weeds out some of the false leads, but I have a feeling that there are a few people out there cheap enough that they don't particularly feel like paying a witness tax to help the police do their jobs. Holy counterproductivity.

Best things to do with a euro

I'm making a list. I'll be checking it twice, but spending it only once. I'm collecting a list of the best kid-friendly things to do with a euro. Here it is so far:

6.) Go to a kinderboerderij.
5.) Go to a speeltuin.
4.) Shop at a vlooienmarkt.
3.) Shop at the kringloop.
2.) Get a kunststof bloemetje to wrap around the handlebars of your fiets.

And my favorite for last:

1.) Get an ice cream cone at the gelato shop on the Groest in Hilversum.

Avondvierdaagse: another lesson in Dutch culture

Aislin was begging me to be able to do the Avondvierdaagse event this year with all her buddies. Since I (usually) can be cajoled into doing activities that have no equivalent back home -- for the cultural value, y'know -- I agreed to go along with it despite a few logistical issues for us.

A little background: Avondvierdaagse (A4D) is a four-evening series of walks that each Dutch city or group of smaller towns sponsors each May or June. Thousands of children and their parents walk together through the countryside each evening after school for four consecutive nights, and at the end the kids who have sucessfully completed each of the walks receives a medal. The 6- to 9-year-olds walk five kilometers (3 miles!) each night, and the 9 and ups walk 10 kilometers. Little Dylan, who is actually too young to participate this year, decided he was not going to let Aislin have all the fun; he insisted on walking the 5K. With great apprehension and visions of toting him on our backs for many miles, we consented to let him try.

Okay, so you now have the basic parameters. Here's what may not be immediately obvious. Since the school year lasts into the month of July, this is all done during a school week. The kids do a full day of school, eat some dinner, bike/walk/ride to the A4D site, mill around until the start, walk for a few hours, then bike/walk/ride home to do homework, take bath, and go to bed. Then they get up the next morning and start the whole thing anew. Since we live in a different state instead of in town like all the other walkers, we have the added benefit of a 30-minute drive home (what was I thinking?!?). It also bears mention that the weather in June in the Netherlands is not particularly reliable. More like a blustery March in North America -- 50-60 degrees, windy, and likely to be wet.

The first night I was organized to a fault. I had a substantial dinner packed so that after playing for a few extra minutes after school we could drive from Hilversum to Nieuwegein to pick up Jeff, eat dinner on the castle grounds, then drive back to Hilversum for the start of the festivities. Thusly fortified, we all took off on the 10K, Avery bouncing along the rooty forest path in the stroller sans shock absorbers. We had to pad her head with a blanket so she wouldn't have shaken baby syndrome by the end of the night. Padding or no, it became clear that it might be a better idea for Avery's head and Dylan's homeostasis to cut through and join the 5K crowd, though Aislin persevered with her group of buddies. All in all, it was a nice evening walk through the forest; just us and a couple thousand of our closest friends. We were home by 9:30, in bed by 10:00. Late, but doable.

I let them sleep in the next morning and we got to school a wee (ahem) bit late. After a freak head injury at school that day, though, the doctor decided that Aislin had better forego the walk that night. Although I was looking forward to another evening in the woods, let's just say that I wasn't crushed with disappointment when we got home and into bed at a normal time without walking a quarter-marathon. Especially when we started hearing the thunder.

On the third night Jeff was working and couldn't watch Avery, so again I let Aislin walk with her buddies in the 10K and took Dylan on the 5K with Avery in the sling and a backpack on my back. I was a little loaded down, but we were prepared, darn it: drinks, snacks, bottle for the baby, raincoats, camera... in short, about fifteen pounds of everything you might possibly require for an evening walk in the woods with two young children. Except an umbrella.

The delightful school group behind us was yelling "doorlopen!" ("walk through!" i.e. "let us through, you slowpokes") at our group from the time we departed, evidently unaware that we could walk only as fast as the group in front of us...? When we reached the first bottleneck, a gate that allowed only one person at a time through it, their shouts grew more heated as if we were personally responsible for the pace. Shortly after, one of the adults started yelling in Dutch at one of our smaller kids toward the back who happens not to understand Dutch. I turned around and smiled that they might need to be patient with the little legs. The woman's response to me is unprintable in civilized discourse. After carrying on insulting me in particular in Dutch for a while, this woman then proceeded to teach the six- to eight-year-olds around her to start chanting at us, "Move your ass! Move your ass!"

"What's 'Move your ass' mean, Mommy?" inquired Dylan.

"Oh no, dear," I responded, hustling him further forward in our group, "they're saying 'Mow your grass.'"

"Oh," he panted as he jogged along at my hastened pace. "Are you sure?"

Pleasant evening walk, indeed. Oh well, once in the middle of our pack we carried on some slightly less hostile conversation.

And then, just as we reached the kilometers-long clearing, it started sprinkling. The initially refreshing shower quickly became drenching deluge, and under thousands of feet the dirt path was suddenly mudslog. Avery, who had never before had issues with things on her head, decided she didn't want to leave her hood on, so her grumblings shortly turned to outright protesting... all of which began to make this cheery evening stroll feel a bit like a death march (except to Dylan, who rather enjoyed the rain and kept it entertaining for everyone around).

One of the teachers in our group insisted on giving me her umbrella, and another pointed out a nearby shortcut. Les enfants and I diverted course, made a bottle for the youngest, and plodded on down a new path sans madding crowd. Dylan only asked to stop once, and I was able to cajole him on after only a minute or so of leaning up against a bench. It wasn't until a couple of A4D officials on bikes showed up and asked if we wanted a ride back to the starting point that I realized how hilariously bedraggled we must look. I consulted Dylan about the ride, but he begged to "finish the race." The man looked at me incredulously, glanced at Avery with eyebrows raised, then back at me. "Wij lopen." We'll walk.

You could see the amusement in his shoulders as he rode off.

A few minutes later, they were back. They rode about a hundred meters past us and stopped, then the amused guy whipped out his cell phone and proceeded to take a couple of pictures of us. God only knows where those will turn up.

At any rate, after a two rounds of "The Ants Go Marching," we made it back to the starting point where we huddled in a little dugout thingy and fortified ourselves with cereal bars while we waited for Aislin to make it back. She and Karna finished the whole 10K, but returned with tales of their new head injuries inflicted by the rough-housing boys and then went to the bathroom and threw up. The docs the next day decided that any concussions were mild at best, but I didn't cry too hard when ours opined that we might have to forego A4D the next night. Thankfully, Aisie still got her medal at school on Friday to prove that she lived through the experience. Since Dylan is actually one year younger than those allowed to participate, he got nothing but the pride of knowing that we never had to carry him even once, and that he is now just a little more Dutch than he was before. That, thank goodness, is enough for him.

Belangrijkste Nederlandse tradities

I recently read in one of our local newspapers a list of the most important Dutch traditions, according to a study undertaken by the Instituut voor Volkscultuur in 2008. Let's see how we're stacking up here.

1. Pakjesavond (Dec. 5, when Sinterklaas comes and gives presents to everyone)
2. Putting up the Christmas tree (this is apparently often done on Christmas Eve, or at least the tree is lit for the first time on Christmas Eve -- no wonder we got such weird looks last year when we had ours lit two weeks before Christmas!)
3. Queen's Day (celebration of Queen Beatrix's birthday on April 30 that ends up being a big patriotic holiday)
4. Oliebollen
5. Easter eggs (who knew this was a Dutch thing? But maybe we should've figured it out since the Dutch word for Easter is "Paas!")
   
6. Carnaval (i.e. Mardi Gras)
7. Beschuit met muisjes
8. Candles on cake
9. Sint Maarten
10. Eating herring

All in all, I don't think we're doing too badly here in getting the cultural experience. And just because it shows up on the list doesn't mean you're going to get me to down raw herring whole like a sword swallower.

Milestones

I think that any parent of a child more than a few years old has experienced that certain objects or places that seem perfectly innocuous, even boring to adults, a child will find endlessly entertaining. The "shell park" is one of those places for us. To me it looks like a few worn, fiberglass blobs, but the kids are always begging us to take them to this holy grail of parks. It's about a ten-minute bike ride away, so we don't go too often since there are at least a dozen parks (no exaggeration) nearer us than that.

Tonight, though, we yielded... and for the first time ever, Dylan rode his little bike, training wheels and all, down our streets and the bike paths to get there! (It was also Avery's first extended bike ride in the seat, but that was far less noteworthy at the time, somehow.) Dylan is really close to riding without the training wheels, but he just needs that last little bit of confidence.

They then had loads of fun chasing each other around these asymmetrical thingies, which just goes to show once again that a parent is no judge of fun.

Nemo

John and Ashlie are here visiting, so we decided on a special treat: a visit to the Nemo science museum in Amsterdam. The building itself is a pretty spectacular contrast to most of the Amsterdam skyline; it's supposed to evoke the big ships that have visited the harbor for centuries. The kids liked the interactive exhibits, but it was rather crowded since school's out at the moment so there was a little more than the usual amount of shoving required to get to utilize the more popular exhibits. They loved getting to blow bubbles bigger than their bodies, and they waited for something like 20 minutes to get to use the "elevator" that utilized kid power to turn a huge screw and raise them a whole floor. Here's Aisie trying to decide whether she'd rather use 1, 3, or 5 pulleys to lift her body weight.

I was surprised to find that I'm still far more prudish than I ever would have suspected pre-parenthood when I saw the exhibits intended for teens. We decided to steer our non-teens elsewhere after we saw the posters depicting the different sexual positions. Then there was the video exhibit where you push a button to "feed" doses of different drugs to a woman dancing like she's in a club. Each dose causes her to dance differently -- more quickly if you give her cocaine, more languorously if you give her marijuana -- and is accompanied by practical advice for taking said drugs (a la "If you take two hits of ecstasy you might find yourself very thirsty, but be sure to rest and not to drink too much.") I mean, seriously?! It was a caricature of what people expect of Amsterdam, or the outrageous asymptote that American conservatives would conjure up to try to keep sex and drug education out of the schools. Pretty hilarious.

At any rate, the rest of the museum was more than enough to do in a day. Nemo also has a huge roof where you can just go and enjoy a pretty incredible view of downtown. It would've been great to have slightly warmer weather, but the kids weren't deterred from running through the water. Heck, we were going to get wet from the rain anyway.

Oh to be young enough not to notice your impending hypothermia.