Random Observations

1. I absolutely love the bells here. I know most people hate them, it rings every hour, on Sundays it rings all morning long. But to me, if I keep my eyes closed, it feels like I could be in 1860. Plus the fact that I can see the steeple from my window makes me feel like Wendy.

2. We have mice in our house. Actually, I think they're pretty much in all the old houses here. And I know that sounds gross, but I actually don't mind them that much. You just have to make sure not to keep food out, and I really don't hear them at night like all my roommates. I just didn't like finding that dead one downstairs by the front door. But they're kinda cute! I think I'm gonna start naming them...

3. I need to start using Rodolfo more. Because of my overprotective belief that everyone is out to steal him (yes, I know he's a poop brown secondhand bike), I keep him locked with a chain as thick as my forearm. Which is a pain to get off. So I'm having trouble shaking the habit of walking. I love walking! But I'm afraid I'm making Rodolfo sad... I'll have to stop being lazy and let him off his leash.

4. People in Leiden have a serious sleeping problem. The fact that I can get up at 8:30, run, shower, eat breakfast, loaf around and listen to music, be out on the streets at 11:30 and still be the only one there seriously concerns me. My friends say it's because Leiden is a student city so everyone sleeps late, but seriously people? Even the shops open at noon!

5. People don't really run here. Ok, yes I have seen a couple. But it doesn't stop me from getting strange looks... and comments. Yes, I am running in the rain. No, I don't need a ride home. No, I won't die of pneumonia. However, I appreciate the supportive bums in the park! "Ja, goed zo! You go girl!"

6. I live next to a Turkish bakery. Ok, and a coffee shop. But honestly, I'm more interested in the bakery. Do you know how dangerous/amazing it is to live next door to a bakery that just bakes fresh bread all day long? A mini baguette (read: a foot-long) is 35 cents! Ohmygod I smell it right now wafting through my window.

7. The clouds in Holland are awesome. I'm absolutely obsessed with them. Ok, it's really all of Europe. But they're so... dramatic. Our clouds in America, they're shrinking violets. These clouds are full blown CLOUDS, and they are just screaming to be painted. I call them Vermeer clouds, they're just oh so pretty!

8. Two other things I am obsessed with that my roommates think is hilarious. The windmill on our street. And rainbows. Yes, I know windmills are kind of a tourist oddity. But I think of the one on my street as a sort of pet. Every time I walk out of my front door, I glance at my beautiful windmill to see what direction he is pointing today, and whether he's spinning hard, a slower pace, or not at all. And the rainbows! They happen all the time here in Holland! I've already seen two, and I wasn't even in Holland last week! I caught my roommate looking out the window for a second longer than normal, turned around, saw a rainbow, and flipped out. They didn't understand the big deal. But come on people, correct me if I'm wrong, but in America if you see a rainbow, it's at least worth a mention, right!?

I'll just keep posting random observations about life here in Holland every once in a while. I haven't lived here in a very long time, and I'm just starting to remember how strange/interesting/amusing/awesome the Dutch culture is.

My Room in Leiden!

Ok I have been promising everybody forever that I was going to put this post up, but I just never felt quite finished enough with my room. To be honest, I still don't feel like it's quite ready, I want to hang some more stuff on the walls, but that's just going to have to happen when I wrangle a guy that has an electric drill. My walls are hundreds of years old and VERY thick.

So my house. I live in the center of Leiden, right on the Beestenmarkt plein (square). I'm a five-minute walk from the Haarlemmerstraat and the Breestraat, which are the main shopping streets in Leiden, and a five-minute bike ride from the university. So all-in-all, a pretty good location! Under us is nothing right now, but they're building a Toko shop, which is an Indonesian food shop.

And lucky for us they like to start their drilling and hammering at 8 o'clock in the morning. Next door to me....... is a coffeeshop. And not the Starbucks kind. I know, I know, most people would love to live next door to a coffeeshop, to fulfill their misguided Dutch fantasy, but I was kind of wary of it. Good thing it only opens 4 to 10, and you're not allowed to smoke it there, you have to buy it and leave. But so far, all the customers have been pretty nice to me, no weirdos standing around. On the left side is a Turkish bakery, which is oh so dangerous. Their mini baguettes are 35 cents and delicious. And they have Turkish pancakes and a sort of Baklava things as well. Then across the street? Another coffeeshop. And down the street? Another coffeeshop. I have four on my street. But it's ok, nothing too sketchy, and because it's such a casual thing in Holland, you don't get any weird illegal happenings, or sketchy drug incidents. But the best thing on my street? My beautiful windmill! I love it!

All my roommates keep making fun of me, but I am in love with that thing. I've taken a million pictures of it, and sometimes I like to just stare at it. When I first google mapped the location of my house, I couldn't stop laughing. I mean, I'm really getting the Dutch experience here. I saw the bar next door with a huge Heineken sign out front, a coffeeshop next door... and a windmill on my street. Seriously? And by the way, not every Dutch person has a windmill on their street, and our houses aren't powered by wind or anything... I just happened to be very lucky! See the pointy house on the right? That's my house!

Ok now on to my room! My room is huge! It's about 20m2, and on the top floor facing the back of the house (quieter). I was so lucky to have family in Leiden that helped me out the first couple days. And they even took me to Ikea (there was A LOT of Ikea involved... I still have boxes stacked up all over the house). But now it's finally done! It feels like home!

I'll just let the pics do the talking :)

The stairs up to my room (I feel like I live in a pirate ship - yes, that is a rope instead of a banister).

Before:

AFTER!

The view from my window! 

Becoming a Leidener

Hoi! It has now been a week since I moved into my new place, and I'm loving it! I just about finished putting my room together, just a few finishing touches tomorrow and it will be done! Don't worry, I'll put up lots of pictures of my room... and my house... and the windmill on my street. Yes, I have a windmill on my street.

So I had been in an awkward waiting period because you can't really do much without money, but my chipkaart (a Dutch debit card that is pretty much the only thing accepted besides cash) finally came in on Wednesday! First thing I did? Grocery store. I literally ate nothing but fruit and toast for 4 days, and my pants were getting a little too loose. Not to worry! I quickly loaded up on all my favorite Dutch foods again. Yes, I already went through a liter of Fristi  (a yoghurt drink), yes, I'm halfway through my liter of Chocomel (the best chocolate milk in the world), and yes I have a sandwich with Jong Belegen (young Gouda cheese) almost every day. Oh, and I already had a piping hot Stroopwafel from the street. So food is no longer an issue!

Actually, I'm getting quite spoiled over here. In Fredericksburg, I would rarely cook, because honestly? I'm lazy. I'd come back from the gym or class.... and pop in a lean cuisine, or a make a wrap. My favorite trick was to literally make an entire box of quinoa, make a salad out of it, put it in one of those huge bowls, and ate that for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 10 days... or until whenever it went bad (Quinoa tastes fizzy when it goes bad... weird). But here, all my roommates are quite avid cooks! And we've already had some delicious family meals together!

Pannekoeken met zalm en avocado
(Dutch pancake with raw salmon and avocado)

Kabeljauw bedekt met ui en rijstwafels, en een sla van rucola
(Cod encrusted in onion and rice cakes and arugula salad)

I am a bit of a fruit freak, so I was little dismayed to see that there was kind of a limited produce selection at my local Digros (the nearest grocery store). But I heard/already saw that Wednesdays and Saturdays there's a huge market (markt) on the Botermarkt, near the Stadhuis (Town Hall).

So I went, and yay! Cheap fresh fruit! I bought 5 apples for 1,50 and 5 clementines for 1E. Two cucumbers (komkommers) for 50 euro cents, and a bunch of bananas for 1,75. I was a happy camper :) There were lots of strawberries, but that's what I ate last week for 4 days straight, so I wasn't too inclined to get more. But next time I'll get some wild strawberries. Now THOSE are delicious! And you can't get them in America, but they're even sweeter... and more expensive... than strawberries. A real delicacy, highly recommended if anyone is visiting in the area!

Miss you all! Kusjes!

...and waiting...and waiting....

I've realized I'm kind of using this blog as a diary now... sorry! It will get less...diary-ish soon I hope. But hey, I've got time to kill, so for now you're gonna read my thoughts, and you're gonna like it.

I'm in such a weird in-between moment right now. I've done all I can in terms of getting the ball rolling (applying for a bank account, going to town hall, etc.) and now I just have to wait the week before everything is sent to me. I am essentially penniless right now. Everywhere in Holland, you need a card that has a "Chip" in it, that you swipe differently than a credit card. So of course, nobody accepts my credit card. So here I am, in my partially furnished room, with a basket full of fruit and a loaf of bread that has been lasting me 2 days and should last another, and I am about to go stalk the mailman until he brings me that !$#^*% envelope with my Dutch card in it! Until then, I'm just gonna keep watching "Taken" on my laptop.

By the way, look what we as a country have contributed to society. I'm so glad that is our legacy.

OOH! I hear the mailman, I'm gonna go run downstairs for the 16729 time and stalk him. Wish me luck!

A snapshot of Leiden

Instead of trying to tell you how beautiful my city is, I thought
I'd show you...
(the pictures get bigger if you click on them)

Moving to a new country is so hard...yet so easy?

Hallo! It is now my third day in Nederland, and I'm already feeling more at home! Let me tell you, I should get an award for how productive I have been. It's because I'm barely sleeping, but hey! Whatever gets the job done!

So the first day was kind of my disorientation day, Leon and Inge-Britt, my parents good friends, picked me up from the airport, bedraggled and sleep-deprived, and took me back to their house in Leiden. The weather was AMAZING, 75 and sunny! Not normal weather for Holland, but I'm not complaining. They loaned me one of their bikes, and off we went to see the city! Look at how the restaurants put their tables on a barge in the canal when it's nice weather!

I also had some errands I wanted to take care of ASAP, such as the fact that I felt like a drug mule because I was carrying every penny I had to my name on my body. However, we soon realized that getting things such as a bank account were not so easy. Ok, try to follow along.

-To get a cell phone, I needed a bank account
-To get a bank account (which takes 4 days processing), I needed a BSN (SSN) number.
-To get a BSN number, I needed to register myself as a resident of Leiden at Town Hall.
-To register myself as a resident, I needed to show my Dutch passport and my Rent Contract.

SO: I got my rent contract yesterday when I met with the landlord. I signed, we shook hands, and I am now officially a resident of Nieuwe Beestenmarkt, Leiden.
Then today I went to town hall, contract and passport in hand, "Are you married?...do you have kids?....where were you born?.... how long are you planning on staying?...."You know what we found out!? I had left the country for America on June 28, 1995. Yes, I came back to Holland EXACTLY 17 years later!! How weird is that? That wasn't even planned, it's destiny! But anyway, before I knew it, I was "ingeschrijven" in Leiden. She wrote down my BSN number for me on a piece of paper, but the official resident card would take a week to come in the mail.

But luckily, the number was enough for the bank! The lady at the bank put in my number, and lo and behold! I exist! In the Dutch system! Yay! So I got a student checking account. And I learned lots of fun new words, such as: kaartbijdrage (card fee) and spaarrekening (savings account). And yay! I got a bank account... which also takes a few days until it all comes in the mail.

But I couldn't help mentioning to Leon how easy all this was! I mean, on one hand, is it a lot. Moving to a new country is exhausting work. But on the other hand, things were happening quickly, boom boom boom! All I could think about was when I was trying to do this in Spain. HAH! Going to the ayuntamineto para apuntarme como residente en España was a pain in my culo. The line was long, the people unhelpful, and in the end I got nothing done. So I was quite impressed with the organized Dutch system. Yay for Northern Europeans and their no-nonsense, logical approach to life! I've spent the rest of the afternoon assembling Ikea furniture (boo for the Swedish), but I'm going to save everything pertaining to my new house for a new blog post, because that deserves its own space. But in terms of becoming a legal, functioning citizen of Holland... I'm well on my way! And soon I'll even have a cell phone! Things are looking up.... :)

Oh no! I ended up in Copenhagen instead of Amsterdam!

I'm obviously joking. Copenhagen was a planned layover. When I was looking for flights a couple of weeks ago, SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) was the cheapest flight I found, with a 5 hour stopover in Copenhagen. Hey, you know me! Any place I haven't been before... I'm beyond pumped! So of course, against the advice of absolutely everybody, I decided to metro into the city center and walk around Copenhagen for a bit.

But let me back up and explain to you my first interactions with the Scandinavians. It was a bit of a process: first I thought they were really cool and fun to look at (sounds mean but it's true), then I got a little weirded out, then I wanted to smack them, then I thought they were charming and cool again. They all look like little woodland fairies and sprites, and so many have white-blonde hair, and are the color of a nut. I really don't understand the Nordic coloring. I really think I get my skin tone more from my Dutch father than my Peruvian mother, how do they get so tan!? They live near the arctic circle for heaven's sake! As I continued to stare at them (my fascination with them was endless), I started to notice strange similarities. They all have tiny feet, especially the men. TINY feet. Like I'm talking woman's size 9, and they are not short people. A lot of Hell's Angels wanna-be's (why??): leather jackets, earring, studs... and this is on 60-year-old people. They all were wearing Blues festival t-shirts from West Virginia, Missouri, etc. So strange...

Let me tell you the story of my seat partner, now here is an interesting character. Origin: unknown. Age: around 70. Nice guy, big smile, but what language does he speak?? He had a Danish passport, but every time the Danish flight attendants talked to him, he stared blankly at them. He smiled at me almost the entire flight long, not in a creepy way, but in an innocent, childlike way. When we got our food, he watched how I ate and ate the food in exactly the same order. When they took our drink order, I asked for ginger ale, and they didn't have any and offered me Sprite. When they asked him, he looked at me, looked at them, smiled, and yelled "SPRITE!!". And I mean yelled. He looked so proud of himself, it almost broke my heart.

The woman behind me, however, I could have throttled. She is the proud owner of Denmark's worst baby ever. I mean, really, I would expose that baby on a mountain. Okay, that's horrific, but I can say that after the flight I had. I could not close my eyes for even a second because Damian,  Demon Baby, the kid screamed the entire time. When she was happy, she screamed in pleasure. But when she was sad... ohhh man, forget the foghorn, they should see this tyke's lungs. I did not know they could have such stamina! And of course she was a kicker as well. And the mother? She looked so unworried, almost bored. 'Oh, I'm sorry, is my child disturbing your transatlantic flight? Oh you're trying to sleep?' She was reading a magazine, half-heartedly shushing every once in a while. I felt like turning around and saying "To hell with your Scandinavian, liberal, hands-off-approach-to-parenting, a little slap never hurt anyone."Needless to say, that flight confirmed for me that I don't want kids for a LONG time.

When I got to Copenhagen, I ran straight to the metro, and took it 15 minutes into the city to Kongens Nytorv, the main square in Copenhagen.
I went really early, around 7:45, so when I was there, it was almost completely empty. But I didn't mind, I walked around, took some pictures, found a cute little cafe, and had a nice breakfast.

But with the warning words of my father ringing in my head, I dashed back after only an hour and a half because I was scared I would miss my flight. -___- I got back to the airport and of course have 3 hours to kill. So what did I do? I walked around in circles in the Copenhagen airport because they hadn't posted the gate for my flight to Amsterdam yet. And when they did, I promptly went to the gate, and passed out asleep. I hadn't slept a wink the night before because of the Danish demon, so I don't even think I was conscious. I remember stirring for a second, hearing Dutch all around me, being comforted by the fact that I was among my own people, and going to sleep again. All of the sudden, I bolted up. I was at the gate, completely alone. Not a single person around me. I ran to the desk and said, "Are you boarding for the flight to Amsterdam??" She said "Are you Ms. van der Noordaa? We've been calling your name for 15 minutes!" Yep, that's right, I held up the whole flight. Let me tell you, the looks I got when I finally got on the plane...we're not too nice. I can't believe I didn't almost miss my flight because I went into Copenhagen, but because I passed out. Drooling. On my chest. Everyone always says, 'ohh you must be such a seasoned traveler.' Yeah, well, with the stuff that happens to me, I'm not so sure. I apparently need a chaperone. But no harm, no foul, I'm here, in Leiden, writing this blog post, so all is well. I'll save my first day in Leiden for the next blog post... keep you guys hanging. Kusjes! xx