Trash Day is Long Overdue...But Enough Streakers, Thanks

I know, I know, I haven't updated in a month, I am SO sorry. I promise I'll post a bunch of updates soon to catch everyone up!

In the meantime...Amsterdam stinks. Yes, right now I am speaking literally. The garbage workers have been on strike for about a week now (I think, my concept of time is not awesome), and as such, the garbage is just piled everywhere. Dumpsters are surrounded by a few feet radius of trash bags. Trash cans have little piles of trash under/around them because they are so full that they are just overflowing. So...Amsterdam literally smells in parts. The main touristy areas are the worst, there's just litter EVERYWHERE. If I remember I'll take a picture tomorrow and update this post.

As for the streaker...well, I was over on the square on Spui by the Aetheneum, and there were a bunch of guys dressed in ridiculous outfits, with one running around naked waving a neon green flag in the air. I would have said it was a frat stunt, but they don't really have frats here as we think of them in the US, so I don't really know. Also, they really weren't very smart - with Ascension making today a national holiday, the square was pretty quiet with most of the businesses closed...making the streaker's presence only visible to a few tourists.

Not that I am saying that I -want- to see more streakers (because I certainly don't, thank you kindly), but I always see the awkward ones that never really took streaking 101. You know, the class that points out that the point of streaking is to be seen by people? Streaking on a religious holiday when there is no one around is almost as sad as the time a streaker at a college I was visiting ran past my tour group...with us being the only people on campus as it was spring break. Fail streakers, fail.

Fun Dutch Facts

I have a bunch of things I want to post about, but I'm about to head to London for Easter to visit my family. SO for today, I will leave you with a handful of fun Dutch facts my Dutch teacher shared with us in class the other day. Some I knew, some I didn't...and here are my favorites!

1) The Rijksmuseum was designed to represent a church and "The Night Watch" by Rembrandt formed the 'altar piece.'

2) Manhattan, among others governed by Peter Stuyvesant around 1650, was purchased by the Dutch West Indita Company for the equivalent of 25 euros.

3) When you arrive at Schiphol Airport, you are four and a half meters below sea level.

4) The Dutch swapped New York, formerly called New Amsterdam, for Suriname in 1667 in a trade with the Brittish.

5) For more than 200 years, from 1639 to 1868, the Dutch were the only westerners in the world allowed to trade with the Japanese.

6) Sri Lanka was a Dutch colony from 1656 until 1802. Therefore, Dutch has contributed substantially to its official language Singhalese.

7) The last German emperor Wilhelm II found asylum in a castle near Utrecht in 1920. The castle used to be the home of the grandmother of Audrey Hepburn.

8) When queen Beatrix turned 65 she received a state pension just like everyone else, despite the fact that she is worth $300 million.

9)If requested, a sex worker will be provided for a physically and mentally disabled person, paid by the state.

10) The Dutch company Philips invented the CD player in 1979.

11) Out of the 16 Dutch Nobel Prize Winners, 10 received the prize for their research in physics and chemistry.

12) The first dikes were built around the year 1100 by monks.

13) The original color of a carrot is not orange. The Dutch artificially manipulated the carrot around 1600 into orange to match it to the national color.

14) In 1679, the Dutch scientist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek found for the first time bacteria and spermatozoa with his own made microscope.

15) According to Dutch scientist Simon Stevin, Adam and Eve spoke Dutch in Paradise, and Dutch would be the most logical language in the world. Therefore he wrote most of his work - late 1500s- in Dutch. This is the main reason why in Dutch most scientific words are Dutch not Latin.

16) In the beginning of the 1630s, tulips were more expensive than gold and cause a tulip mania. It collapsed as they didn't know yet the different colors and stripes were caused by a viral disease.

Finally on Drugs

Ok, this is not quite as exciting or taboo as it sounds. As many of you knew from talking to me, I've basically been sick on and off since I've gotten here. It is such a reverse of how I am normally am, as back in the US i have a superhuman immune system; usually I'll only get sick once or twice a semester, though if I'm sick I'm very sick. Since being in the Netherlands I've been getting sick for two days, fine for four, sick for three, fine for six, and so on.

I went to the university doctor about a month ago for a specific time I was sick, but she told me that I should just rest and drink tons of fluids. She did give me a tiny prescription of some kind for a couple of days, but told me to wait to fill it and see how I was. Since I thought I got better, I never filled it. I was also pretty intimidated by the receptionist, as she wasn't the most friendly towards me when I wasn't in the university system (no idea why), and I needed to pay out of pocket as they don't take my health insurance.

Fast forward a month. After having to skip both Dutch and Dutch Social Policy on Monday as I was in bed with a fever, I decided enough was enough and went back to the doctor. Different receptionist was much friendlier, and the doctor I saw had a better command of English, so that was helpful. She also gave me drugs- An actual course of antibiotics, which is rare in the Netherlands, since they are much more homeopathic based. Woo! Maybe this will spell the end of me being perpetually sick?

Day Trip to Den Haag

Look! Its a post that is NOT about food! You should all be proud.

Since Rachel (other girl from Oxy in my program) and I both do not have class on Fridays, we decided to get on a train and go to the Hague for the day. The Dutch public transport system is awesome, so this was really not a big deal at all, trains run there at least every half hour if not more. I am SO jealous of the Dutch public transport system when compared to Los Angeles.

We ran around the city happily for the day, covering a lot of ground and having a blast. The main attractions/sights we visited:

1. The Queen's Palace

I wasn't that excited by this, as it was fairly understated on the outside, as is usual for the Dutch. More attention grabbing was the pair of evil seagulls that harassed us as we tried to eat our sandwiches on a bench across from the palace. Still, it was neat to see.

2. The International Court of Justice/Peace Palace

It took us a while to find the building, but I was glad when we finally did. While we were not able to go inside (you have to reserve a tour in advance, and we also didn't have our passports on us for identification). Still, the building was beautiful, and it was just fun to stand outside and look at.

3. Museum of Communications

Rachel and I stumbled up this on the way to the Peace Palace. Thanks to our museumkaart (thanks CIEE!) we were able to get into the museum for free. Everything was in Dutch, so we clearly missed some things, but the museum was basically an exhibit on the different ways we communicate. The most exciting areas for me was the section showcasing the different phones used in Hollywood movies (including Clueless!), and the children's section, which was this huge interactive board game/play area. Seriously, if I were a Dutch 10 year old this would have been the best museum ever! There was even an R2D2 phone in the futuristic section, which made me VERY happy

4. The Mauritshuis

Probably the coolest part of our visit. The Mauritshuis is an art gallery which showcases Dutch painters, including Rembrandt and Vermeer. Rachel was SO excited to go see The Girl with the Pearl Earing, and even though I'm not a huge art history person, I'll admit it was pretty awesome. It helped that you recieved a free audio tour with your admission (again, free thanks to the museumkaart!), which helped make me look at the paintings and not just wander restlessly. The Mauritshuis itself was a beautiful place for an art gallery, feeling like a stately old mansion with character rather than a sterile museum.

You Know You're in a Drinking Culture When...

1) There is a "borrel" (party) almost every night of the week, and everyone goes regardless of whether or not they have a 9am class. (This means that I end up being super lame, because I just can't handle a 3 hour class when hungover/tired, or when my body keeps getting sick). Borrels are not just student run, but are also put on by the university as a way to mingle with students/professors.

2) Your Beginning Dutch Professor spends time in class explaining the types of beer glasses you can ask for, and not to ask specifically for Heineken (because if its not on tap it will be 2x the price), and that using the diminutive biertje is only polite, and has no relationship with how big your beer will actually be.

3) It is normal for students to try to ride their bikes home drunk (or high).

4) You are more likely to get stopped by the police for not having bike lights than you are for biking drunk.

5) Adults go to and actually enjoy karaoke. Why? Because it's pretty hilarious when you're drunk. Only after drinking a few beers does singing Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me" sound like a good idea.

6) They only sell non-alcoholic beer at football (soccer games), in order to control the aggressive soccer hooligans. The also have breathalyzers at the gates for big games, ie Rotterdam vs. Amsterdam (but not U.S. vs. Netherlands).

7) Finding beer sold in a bar for less than two euros is a big deal, regardless of how big that beer might actually be.

8) Your study abroad program gives you two drinks at every official event/dinner, despite being an American program with American students.

NOTE: Some of these are true of Dutch culture, some of international student culture, and some of both. It's hard to tell, since the international student population is fairly isolated from the dutch student population. The only Dutch student I have regular contact with is Jantien, one of my ISN orientation leaders.

Dutch Desserts

Alright, so by now you must have realized that my life revolves around food. This should probably be attributed to my Italian heritage, and going to my Grandmother's house for giant Italian buffets. (Interestingly, she wasn't actually Italian - that was my grandfather, who passed a decade before I was born. Still, she knew how to cook all the Italian staples...her sauce recipe is famous in our family). Since the Dutch eat to live, not live to eat, this becomes a bit of a problem - hutspot (mashed carrot and potato) just is not that exciting to me.

While their standard diet might be a bit bland compared to what I'm used to, the Dutch have some AWESOME sweet food, which almost makes up for all the mashed potatoes. I have already talked plenty about Dutch pancakes, but here are some other awesome examples.

1. StroopWafels

These are the quintessential dutch cookie/candy/snack. Consisting of two thin waffle/crackerlike discs with caramel syrup pressed in between, these were basically the first "Dutch" food I had. Rachel, the other girl here from Oxy, always has a bag of them with her - wonderful since I steal them all the time. (To be fair, its an even trade - she makes sure I eat during the day, I make sure she doesn't walk into traffic and get run over by a bike).

2. Kwark

The best way to describe Kwark is a cross between yogurt, and cheesecake. It is basically a thick, sweet, creamy yogurt. You can get it in many flavors - so far I've tried apple/cinnamon, lemon, and vanilla bean. (Vanilla bean was by far my favorite, it tasted rather decadent). The picture below is my favorite brand so far, but my albert hijn doesn't carry it - I have to walk down the street to the Spar to get it. Not a huge deal, but I just have to remember to do so, since I can't be bothered usually to go to two grocery stores in one trip.

3. Vla

My favorite of all the Dutch sweet food I've tried. A light custard, its comes in a juice/milk carton, and you have to pour/shake it out (a lot of yogurt products come this way here). Again, it comes in many flavors, but I vastly just prefer plain (blanke) vla. A dutch friend first introduced me to vla by giving me blanke vla, and handing me a shaker of cinnamon to mix in with it. Yum! I am definitely addicted to it, to the point of me wanting to figure out how to make it so I can still have it when I go back to the States - it can't be that hard, right? Right!!?!

Is This Grade Ok With You?

In the last two weeks I have had to do my two big presentations for my UvA classes. For both of them, I had to present some of the weeks readings, provide connections to current events, and lead discussion and/or class activities.

For my sexuality class I got to work with a partner, which was actually really fun for a change - usually I'm not thrilled about group presentations because I want to control everything, but my partner was this awesome grad student from Spain who was super smart, so it was really. Though, he and I both talk too much.

My presentation for Religious and Cultural Diversity I was on my own though, and I have to say, that presentation was one of the most stressful presentations I have ever given, since I had to talk about somewhat dense political theory, and be sure it made sense to the rest of my class that thinks linearly, not in my weird looping logic.

(For those of you who were in the American Presidency seminar, I now sort of get what Heldman was trying to accomplish with our presentations. We were just so far from that its funny, but then again, we also only had 10min).

I got the grades for both of my presentations this week, and it was very odd. After Sexuality on Tuesday, Silke (my prof) walked up to me and said that she had been thinking about my grade for the presentation, and was wondering if I thought an 8.5 was ok? (it translates to an A/A-). She was basically asking what I thought my grade should be. I was a bit confused by this, and just said yes of course. A similar conversation took place for my other presentation, with the prof asking me if I thought my grade was about right for the class standard (he was subbing, my normal professor had a stroke and is out for a month).

When I texted my dutch orientation leader later I found out that this a pretty standard Dutch practice. Apparently, here professors are less interested in a hierarchical interaction with their students, and treat them more as equals. They also sincerely want your feedback on the class, and your feedback on how well you think you are doing. This is pretty strange to me, since I feel like talking about what grade you deserve feels a bit like grade grubbing, but apparently that is not the case here. It's somewhat refreshing in a way, but at the same time quite unnerving, as it is definitely not what I am used to.