a long entry for a long week

Wow, I guess it's been almost a week since I updated on what all's been going on in this part of the world. Where to begin? Well, obviously I've been going to classes. A little bit on that note: My classes are all really interesting. For those that don't yet know, I'm taking Beginning Dutch, Russia and Europe (a history class), Intro to Sexual Studies, and Social Trends, Social Problems, and Social Policy of the Netherlands. My Dutch class meets twice a week and the others all meet once a week for three hours each time. As of now I would probably say that my Russia and Europe class is the most interesting to me. The class is basically Russian history since about 1900. Last year I took a history class on Central European history from around the same period, so it's nice to take this class with that background because I already have some knowledge of the subject and it's really interesting to get more of a European perspective on the historical era. We're about to start discussing the Cold War, so that will definitely be nice to learn about in a classroom outside of the United States. That's also my only class that assigns anywhere near as much reading as my classes at Oberlin ussually do. Until this week we were reading about 150-200 dense pages for each class, this week it's only 60. My other classes are all pretty interesting as well, but I don't want to go into detail aout them, so if you have any questions just feel free to email me and ask.

So, what's happened in the past week...? On Monday night it happened to be one of my floormates birthdays, so I got together with my whole floor (there are 9 of us, well, technically 10... but I'll explain that in a minute). We had some birthday cake and then all decided that it would be cool for our floor to host a party later that week. The floor I live on is the biggest in the building I'm in and we also have the largest kitchen/lounge area, so with that we have the ability to host parties. As a result of this conversation, on Wednesday night my floor got together again for a marvelous dinner party followed by a pretty crazy late night party that went way into the morning (which was slightly unfortunate since I had a 10am class the next morning). So, that party was my Wednesday night activity (along with some homework of course).

But now about the extra person on my floor. This is actually my neighbor. I live in room G3, and the room next door to me, G4, does have someone who lives there, BUT I have only actually seen him once, and after talking to my floor mates it appears that most people have never even seen him at all. The one time I did see him was when we were both entering our rooms at the same time, this was about a month ago, shortly after moving in. Since I hadn't met him yet I took the liberty of introducing myself by saying, "Hi, I'm Ruth, I live next door to you!" He stared at me blankly for a few seconds before nodding and entering his room. No introductions, no hellos, just a nod, it was strange. Since then I havent actually seen him at all. I hear him in his room sometimes, and I see a light under his door when I go to the bathroom at night, so I know that he's there, but he manages to avoid all contact with everyone who lives here. No one has ever seen him in our communal kitchen, so we're not sure what he eats, I've never had the problem of him being in the shower when I wanted to use it... so I really just dont know what to make of the whole situation. I think he will just remain the infamous G4. Oh and one more thing, we looked through the mail that comes to our floor as a whole and of the three things addressed to him, one was a letter from the university, and the other two were from the police! We're not sure what to make of it.

In other news, the last few days have been filled with a mix of scrabble, late nights, and lots of dancing. On Friday I started out the day by going with my friend Mike to the nearby Turkish market. I wanted to get some cheese for cheap! We walked around the whole market, I bought some yummy cheese (I'm not sure what kind) and I also got a new bike lock because my old one was starting to rust beyond the point of being useable. Mike bought some apples and a beard trimmer. I think that short list of purchases can give you an idea of just how much you can get at this market. After we left the market my bike got a flat tire! My second flat tire of the week actually. Bikes are extremely convenient in this city, but also a real hastle when you continuously have to get them fixed. So, right now my bike is currently in the shop getting a new tire. I'm bikeless and it's unfortunate.

After the market Mike and I walked through the city in order to meet up with Scott and Claire (these are all people from my program, I dont know if I've mentioned them yet... Mike is from New York State and goes to Pace, Scott is from Minessota but goes to U of Santa Clara, and Claire is from Seatle, but goes to Vassar... Scott and Claire are in the picture). We were going to go check out NEMO which is the kids science museum, but we realized
it was closing soon and wanted to wait until a day where we would have more time to explore the museum since we were going to have to pay for it. Instead we decided to play scrabble! If you know me at all, then you know that scrabble is probably my favorite game in the world. We went to a nearby cafe and got some cappucinos and sat around for a few hours playing that wonderful game.

Later that night I went out to a club called You II. Alanna and I ended up staying there dancing until about 4:30am, it was quite fun, and they actually played some pretty good music... Not just techno. I find that a lot of the places we end up going play a lot of techno music, and I really dont like techno that much... It's too repetative, and I find myself getting bored dancing to it. The next day Alanna and I went on an all female boat cruise, which was a very interesting experience. The crowd on the boat was a range of women from as young as us, to as old as 50. We spent the night dancing and trying not to feel too sea sick, but I think we both were glad to have gone, because how often do you get the opportunity to go on a boat cruise in the North Sea? Let alone an all female one.

Since I've been on foot for the past few days, I had the opportunity to take some pictures of all the bikers. I got held up at one of the canal bridges that was up to let a boat through, so I took some pictures of all the bikers waiting to cross. Maybe it's just me, but I just find it really cool to see about 20 bicyclists waiting at a red light and then zooming off as soon as it turns green. They're just like cars, except better, and more environmentally friendly!

Alright, that's all for now... My plans for the rest of the day include more Scrabble! And of course homework, the Sunday afternoon activity of college students everywhere.

one reason why the netherlands is amazing

Government takes a stand - against cars
21 September 2007

THE HAGUE (AFP) - The Dutch government has taken a trend to promote eco-friendly cities a step further than its European neighbours by announcing firm measures to discourage cars and driving.

The plan was outlined in the 2008 budget presented this week, and the capital Amsterdam -- a leader in the drive -- and other Dutch cities will use a "no car" day on Sunday, an annual event, to press home the message.

In the traditional address from the throne read out by Queen Beatrix, the centre-left cabinet said it would raise taxes on diesel fuel and vehicles using it. Laws are also being drawn up to make taxes dependent on how much pollution a vehicle emits: the more polluting, the higher the fee.



Unhappy, the Dutch car industry association RAi is trying to rally car owners to protest plans, which are sure to have majority support in the country's coalition system. RAi says the government measures will cost drivers EUR 500 million more per year.

But a number of cities, like Amsterdam, want even stricter action against cars. Among these are Eindhoven, The Hague and Leiden which have ignored drivers' complaints and joined Sunday's "no car" day.

On Sunday, streets inside the ring road that circles Amsterdam will be closed for incoming cars and open only to cyclists and pedestrians between 9 am and 5 pm.

The capital hopes to show out-of-towners that they can leave their cars outside the city and travel in via public transport or taxis, which will still be running Sunday.

Amsterdam, where half the residents do not even have a car, is also hatching other plans to clean up the air and unblock congested roads, including a tax on sports utility vehicles (SUVs), Jeeps and other big cars that run on diesel fuel.

Parking meters will be connected to vehicle tax records and drivers will have to punch in their license plate numbers. The price of a space will be calculated on how much pollution the car creates.

"The technology is available," Tjeerd Herrema, Amsterdam city council member in charge of transport, told the Het Parool daily. He wants to introduce the system in the course of next year.

To back the measures, Amsterdam will build large car parks inside the city for residents and just outside the ring road for visitors, linked to the city's "park-and-ride" public transport system. Plans call for doubling spaces in the outside lots to 2,300. At the moment, visitors pay EUR 5.50 per day to park and get two free public transport tickets, which the municipality wants to increase to five per car.

Inside Amsterdam it now costs EUR 3.90 an hour to park in the city centre from 7 am to midnight everyday, except Sunday morning during church service hours, but prices are set to go up.

The city also wants to improve public transport and increase the number of green spaces in the centre, and Herrema is pushing for trams and buses -- which now stop around 1 am -- to run all night.

The move to go "greener" has seen several European cities like Paris and Lyons in France, Barcelona, Geneva, Oslo, Stockholm and Vienna stock the streets with city-owned bicycles for cheap rental -- a step behind bike-friendly Netherlands which pioneered the idea of bicycle sharing in the late 1960s.

But Amsterdam has not forgotten its numerous cyclists, who are almost as much of a tourist attraction as the 17th-century canal houses. The city is setting aside EUR 70 million for the capital's bicycle riders over the next four years to pay for improving bike lanes, creating more bicycle parking spaces and cracking down on bicycle theft. [Copyright AFP 2007]

I just read this article and had to post it. I wish the US could make some steps even remotely close to this in order to cut down our pollution. I can't wait until no car Sunday!

remembering

My mom just sent me this article from the Mills College newspaper, I put it on my wall, and I'm putting it up here because I think everyone should get to see it. I hope it's somewhat clear.

pannekoeken escapades

Yesterday I went on a very exciting journey with Alanna, Yitka, Taryn, Martina, and Rebecca (those last 3 people are Yitka's SIT friends). We had heard from Yitka's host mom that the best pancake house in Amsterdam was located in the Amsterdam Woods which areon the very edge of the city, right near Schiphol Airport. It was a beautiful sunny day so we decided to venture out into the wilderness on our bikes in order to find and enjoy these delicious pancakes. It wasn't long before we really knew we were in the woods, because shortly after our bike ride began we ran into a Bison! (or some animal of that sort, none of us were quite sure). Yitka spotted it from her bike and so we all hopped off so that we could get a few pictures of the wild animal. We kept biking and eventually reached the ferry that would take us over closer to the pancake house. (We found out on the way back that it's actually much faster to just bike the whole way and avoid the ferry, but I think we all wanted a fun boat ride. Unfortunately, Alanna, Martina, and myself made it onto the first ferry and then there wasn't enough room for Yitka, Taryn, and Rebecca. We decided that we would just wait for them on the other side before continuing our bike ride. The ferry was really cool... It's a medium size boat that can hold up to 100 person and also a fair number of bikes. One of these pictures is of all the bikes packed onto the ferry. Everyone just stands in line to get on the ferry and the driver piles the bikes on one by one. Because of this, everyone has to exit the ferry in the same order that they got on, we were the last people on, so we got to get off first. The ride itself was probably only about 7 minutes accross the water, but I think it was more about the experience of being on a boat in Amsterdam than anything else, and we all really enjoyed that.

After everyone had gotten over the crossing we hoped back on our bikes and really got into the woods. We followed a few more bike paths before coming accross a big field with horses and goats and other animals roaming around, and then the pancake house was right next to this field. At first the whole establishment was a bit overwhelming. None of us could figure out where to order or what to order because there were so many different pancake options. We finally figured it all out and placed our orders. After a few minutes our numbers appeared on the screen and we found ourselves with 6 amazing pannekoeken, Heerlijk! (That means Delicious!). After we all thoroughly enjoyed our pancakes (we finished everything on every plate) we decided to get some ice cream for dessert.
At this point we were all thoroughly stuffed and we decided it was time to head back to the central city, but before we did so we made sure to stop and see the deer! Martina bought some feed and fed one of them, it was very exciting. This place would definitely have been really amazing to visit as a little kid. They had deer to pet, and playgrounds, and all these cool toys to play with, I know I would've loved it even more than I loved it today.

Our day didnt end after our bikeride back to the city though... For those who I haven't told yet, I got my eyebrow pierced yesterday! (I hope you like it mom). Anyway, Yitka, Taryn, and Alanna were nice enough to come with me, and Yitka held my hand while Taryn and Alanna documented the whole thing on film. I don't have any of their pictures yet, but I do have a picture of the final product.

Later that night we all went to this place called Trut, which is a gay and lesbian underground party that only happens on Sundays. We all had a blast and there was a lot of SIT-CIEE mixing which was lots of fun. Now I'm up because I was planning on doing some homework, but instead I'm posting this entry. Now to work!

The Decemberists! (and other happenings)

Tonight I had the pleasure of going to see The Decemberists playing live. The show was at Paradiso which is a nice concert venue in central Amsterdam. Kellan and I made sure to get there a bit early so that when the doors opened at 7 we were able to get to the front of the concert hall and secure ourselves a spot FRONT ROW CENTER! It was really awesome. For the entire show I was looking right into the lead singers /face (I would say Colin, but I always think it sounds wierd to refer to band members by their first name when I obviously dont actually know them). They played an awesome show including many songs from The Crane Wife and then a few from random other albums. At one point they divided the audience into teams and Colin leaned down and asked me and Kellan and the people around us to come up with a good name for our side of the audience... Kellan came up with "The Deceptacons." Oh yeah, and she also got his pic when he threw it into the crowd, she was pretty excited about that. I also really liked the opening band that played. They were called Land of Talk and I wanted to buy their album but by the time I got to the merch stand it was sold out... I'll have to find it somewhere else. All in all it was a pretty amazing show and I think Kellan and I were very pleased that we went.

In other news, last night I had a few more adventures to tell you all about. To start the night, I went over to SIT where Yitka's program was having an event so that all the students could show their photo essays about different Dutch cities that they had visited on solo excursions last weekend. Yitka invited me to come see the projects and also so that I could finally meet the rest of the SIT folk, so I went and had a great time drinking wine and eating snacks and meeting new people. The night moved on and me, Yitka, Alanna, and Taryn and Ellen (Yitka's friends from SIT) went out and met a bunch more people from CIEE. First we went to this bar called Vive La Vie where Alanna immediately made friends with a table of older South African lesbians. Somehow they got to talking and we ended up spending the rest of the night with these three women. In the hour or so that we were sitting outside of Vive La Vie, about 10-15 police officers formed a sort of blockade of the road we were on. They started stopping every person that walked by in order to pat them all down. The one person that was actually from Amsterdam in the group we were sitting with told us that they were most likely searching for weapons. What was most interesting about observing all of this though was that no one seemed particularly annoyed or even felt that they were being violated in any way. In America, any type of attempt at a random search on a public street would cause an uproar because of the violation of constitutional rights that would occur. Here, many of the Dutch that were being stopped found it almost exciting. We heard more than one person exclaim in Dutch, "Oh, what fun!" when they found out what was going to happen to them. After the blockade had been in place for about twenty minutes a large group of about 20-30 people marched through in an obvious form of protest because they made it so the police would have no way of searching all of them at once. But even these protesters didnt seem particularly upset, in fact they seemed rather light hearted and excited about their night. It was interesting to observe such a thing, and just another thing to add to my list of extreme differences between this culture and the one I am accustomed to.

After we had been at Vive La Vie for awhile we decided to head over to Cafe Sappho where it was womens night. We spent the next hour dancing at Sappho until the bar closed and we had to leave. At that point we were all really hungry so we decided to go get some falafel before calling it a night and heading home around 4am. Another night full of adventure! It seems that spending time with Alanna is a sure way to meet a bunch of random people who she finds herself randomly talking to at all the bars we go to, I enjoy it.

Tomorrow Yitka and I and some other friends are going to try and take a long bike ride to a pannekoeken house on the outskirts of the city that you have to take a ferry to! I'm really excited because Yitka's host mom, Cinta, said that they're the best pancakes in Amsterdam and it's supposed to be really beautiful out tomorrow, so it'll be a nice long bike ride on a wonderful sunny day (or so we're hoping). Well, I'll write about that adventure in my next post I'm sure. As always, I'd love to hear from anyone who's been reading!

-Ruth

the library! (and other adventures)

As promised, I will now tell you all a little bit about why I love the central public library in Amsterdam. Well, on Monday after my Dutch class I realized that I still had a whole lot of reading to do for my Tuesday classes, and I really don't enjoy reading in my room (I don't get that much done because I end up writing blog entries, etc.) so I decided to bike over to the library. It's actually only about a one minute bike ride from where all of my classes meet (which are only about a 5 minute bike ride from my dorm) so it's very close and convenient, and I'm planning on spending a lot more time there because I enjoyed studying there. People have been telling me for a few weeks now that the library has the best views in the city. Not only is it one of the tallest buildings in the entire city (it's probably about 6-5 stories) but it's right on the edge of the city in the harbor and so you can stand on the top floor and look out over all of Amsterdam. Although my main intention in going to the library was to get some work done, the first thing I had to do was go see the view. It was a rainy day, so I'm sure on a clear day I would have been able to see more, but even so, it was a wonderful view. Also, on the top floor there is a nice cafe (which is probably out of my price range, but it's nice nonetheless). The library also has a huge selection of DVDs and CDs, so I'm planning on opening up an account there so that I can start to take advantage of this collection. Another thing I found really cool is that the way all the lighting is set up, all the books sort of glow... Maybe I'll take a picture of it next time so you guys will know what I mean... It's pretty cool though. Oh yeah, and this last picture is of my bike with groceries... Yummy ice cream, don't worry though, that's not all I'm eating, I just happened to be bringing dessert over to Kellan's because she cooked me a wonderful dinner a few nights ago.

In other news, since I got back from Paris on Sunday night, life in Amsterdam has been quite lovely. Despite the rain, which is common and cold and annoying, but I'm getting used to it, life here is good. Last night Yitka and her friend Taryn came over to my dorm to hang out with me and some friends and then we all went out to a few bars and had a bunch of fun playing darts and such. In a little while actually I'm supposed to go over to Yitka's homestay for tea time! Then later we're getting dinner before our skype date with Adam and Seyeon. But now I must shower, I'll update again when there's more to say.

-Ruth

Paris!

Ahh, the (long awaited?) Paris update is finally here! Well, as I'm sure all that are reading this probably know, last weekend I went to Paris for the first time in my life, and it was a wonderful experience. I'll give you the break down of all that I did, because man did I do a lot in a short period of time. I was quite exhausted by the end of the trip, and was more than happy to get back to my room at Plantage Muidergracht 20.

Well, my trip began way too early on Friday morning. I had an 8:50am flight out of Schiphol Airport and so I awoke at 5:30am in order to catch the first tram to central station just after 6am. Luckily I was able to figure out what train to get on that would take me to Schiphol and I got to the airport with plenty of time to check in and go through security and then grab some starbucks (Amsterdam doesnt have starbucks except in the airport, and I really needed caffeine, so I figured what the hell). My flight to Paris was on time and went very smoothly. After deplaning at Charles De Gaulle Airport, I followed the wonderful directions given to me by Amanda Miller and made my way via the RER and the Metro to the 16th arrondissement where I was staying with Alanna and her friends from high school, who are currently studying in Paris.

I forgot to mention a few of my first impressions upon arriving in Paris. At this point I was still carrying my backpack around and I wrote down a few things that happened to me that I wanted to remember. First of all, I saw soldiers carrying guns in Charles De Gaulle right after I deplaned. If I had been coming straight from New York, I probably wouldn't have taken any notice of this at all, but after being in Amsterdam for almost 3 weeks, it was a weird site to me. In Amsterdam I don't think that I have seen one gun the whole time that I've been here. Policemen don't carry guns around with them, so where else would I see them? It was definitely the first thing I saw in France that made it clear to me that I was in a different country, and also reminded me how amazing the social policies in Amsterdam really are. I'm really excited to learn much more about them in my Social Trends, Problems, and Policies of the Netherlands class. The next thing I noticed was that I saw a bunch of tall buildings from my window seat on the train approaching the center of Paris. Amsterdam has very few tall buildings, and even the tall buildings really aren't that tall. I live on the 5th floor of my dorm, and there aren't many buildings that go much higher than that.

The next two things that I wrote down were about encounters that I had with two Parisians. First, while I was waiting for my metro train, I went to get myself a chocolate bar because I was getting really hungry. Right after I had purchased my chocolate, a 30-something year old woman who may or may not have been a gypsie came up to me and asked for some money... I gave her one euro (which she basically took right out of my wallet) because I didnt really know how to get out of the situation, especially since I don't speak French. I thought that was it, but then she came and sat next to me on a bench and when I pulled out my chocolate she asked for a piece and practically grabbed it out of my hand! I was very taken aback and didn't really know what to make of the experience. The next encounter was a lot more pleasant. After I exited the metro, a nice old Parisian man came up and started speaking to me in French. I said in English that I did not speak French and he quickly switched over to English and started asking me how I liked Paris and why I was there and many other nice questions. We had a nice little conversation and it seemed like a better way to be introduced to the Parisian population than my first experience had been.

Okay, now moving on... After walking around and getting lunch with Alanna and her friends, I figured out the metro and made my way over to where Michelle takes classes. When I got there I ran into a few other Oberlin kids who happen to also be studying in Paris on the same program as Michelle, so that was pretty fun. Obies are all over the world! Michelle and I spent the rest of the day together. We went and saw the apartment she's staying in, and then went over to the Bastille, then to the Museum of Erotica, and then finally to the Eiffel Tower where we shared a lovely bottle of wine and had a great time talking about life and being abroad and Oberlin and softball. It was a very fun night indeed. When I finally decided to make my way back to the apartment I was staying in, it was too late to take the metro, so I took a cab. The taxi driver was a woman, which I also found very interesting. I don't think I've ever had a female taxi driver in New York, and I wonder if it is a more acceptable job for a woman to have in Paris than it is in New York City, or if it was unussual that I had a female driver.

The next day I slept in and then met up with Michelle again, and with her we walked for a while in order to meet up with my friend Amanda, who went to Beacon with me. Amanda happens to be studying abroad in Paris this semester and through facebook and instant messenger we managed to get together and see each other for the first time in two years! After we all met up, we grabbed some lunch and then headed over to the Catacombs! The Catacombs are these crazy underground tunnels filled with bones from old Paris cemeteries. Sometime in the mid-19th century the city decided to get rid of many of the cemeteries in the area, but they also decided to relocate all of the bones to these underground tunnels. And they didnt just throw them down there, they organized them in a very systematic and artistic way. It was really cool and also really creepy. Just getting down there requires you to walk down what seems like a neverending spiral staircase (which made me really dizzy) and then at the end you have to walk back up! The Catacombs is not for the weak of heart! I thoroughly enjoyed myself though, and highly recomend it to anyone visiting Paris.

Michelle and I spent the rest of the night with Amanda and her roomate Chloe (who I apparently have a lot of mutual friends with, because she is from Brooklyn too).
It was a fun night, we walked around Paris a whole lot and I treated myself to a crepe with nutella and bananas, HEAVEN. Michelle's host family had gone out of town for the night, so I decided to spend my second night in Paris at her place.

The next morning, we slept in again and then made our way to the Louvre. This must be the largest museum I have ever visited in my entire life. We were there for almost three hours and probably saw less than a quarter of the entire museum. Dont worry though, we made sure to get a look at the Monna Lisa, and all of the rest of the galleries we were able to get to were really beautiful and we both had a great time just looking at all the artwork. I have a bunch more pictures of the Louvre in my facebook album, so if you want to see more, you should definitely check it out.

After the Louvre, we walked accross the street and into Notre Dame, which is absolutely beautiful. We only stayed for a little while because there was a mass going on, and I think that we both felt a little bit intrusive being so touristy when people were trying to be spiritual. But we did get a good look at the architecture and the stained glass, and it was a wonderful sight. We also sat around outside until six when I had to catch my train back to the airport, and so we got to hear the bells tolling. There were so many different bells! We didnt know what they all meant, but it was fun to listen to.

Finally it was time for me to head back to the airport to catch my flight back to Amsterdam. It was a fun filled, and completely packed weekend, and I hope you enjoyed reading about it... More updates on life in Amsterdam to come! I already have some new pictures to post, and yesterday I went to the public library for the first time, it's so wonderful it might merit a post of it's own!

Also, I've posted all of my Paris pictures on facebook, so if you want to see more than those that are included in this entry, you can go to my facebook profile or just copy and paste the URL below:

http://oberlin.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024342&l=066cd&id=4302935

Thanks for reading!
-Ruth

fietsen en pannekoeken! (bikes and pancakes!)

So, I've been meaning to write an update about all of the bikes in this city since the day I arrived. I think I've mentioned before that they are by far my favorite thing about this city, and more specifically, the bike traffic lights are probably even higher on my list of coolest things in Amsterdam. This first picture is from just a block away from my dorm where bikers can press this button when they are stuck at a red light. As I was saying, I love the bikes in this city. There are so many of them. I think that it would be entirely impossible to walk down a single street in this city and not see at least 20-30 bikes parked and locked up on some part of the block. This town is definitely a bikers city. We were told on the second day that we were here, if anything happens between a motorist and a biker, it will always be the motorists fault, in other words, "the biker is always right." I'm starting to get much more used to riding around the city. At first I was petrified everytime I came to a busy intersection, but I guess that can be scary on foot as well as on a bike. There are just so many things to look out for in this city. Not only are there bikes and pedestrians in mass numbers. There are also numerous mopeds, cars, and trams! Sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming to navigate around everything and I find myself hopping off my bike and walking it through the busiest of intersections. Luckily, there are all these bike traffic lights so that you always know when you can go and not be scared of getting run over by some other biker/mopeder/automobiler. I think it's really amazing that biking is so huge here. Not only do college kids ride bikes to get everywhere, throughout the day I constantly see: elementary school kids riding to/from school, businessmen riding to/from the office, old men and women riding anywhere they need to get to, parents riding around with their kids (sometimes up to 3 at a time) on their same bike. The parents who ride their kids around are numerous and there are numerous aproaches to where to put the kids. Of course there are the seats on the back which I know my parents used to use to ride me around when I was younger, but then there are also seats on the front, and sometimes there are big basket-type things on the front that I've seen up to 3 kids sitting in at once. Unfortunately I dont have any pictures of these things, but I hope you can imagine it from my description. Sometimes they just have the small child sitting on the handlebars and leaning back into their chest. I'm extremely impressed by this, and at the same time rather terrified that the child might fall off and crack their skull. And that reminds me of another thing, no one, and I mean absolutely NO ONE wears a helmet here. I dont think I've seen one person wearing one, not even little kids, given the conditions people often ride around in, it seems completely obsurd not to wear one, but that's just how it is I guess.

There are also bike lanes all over the city. Every major street has a bike lane on both sides so you are ussually supposed to bike on the right side of the road in the same way that cars do. But also most smaller streets have bike lanes as well, and those that dont, the biker still has the right of way basically all of the time. Another thing about biking in this city is that everyone has a bell on their bike (including me). So for pedestrians, if you ever find yourself walking in the bike lane where you're not supposed to be, it wont be very long before a little ding will tell you to clear out of the way. At first I found myself making this mistake constantly, especially during the first few days when I didnt have a bike of my own, but now I find myself on the other end of the spectrum and I am now the one dinging my bell at pedestrians in my way! Okay, I think that's about all I have to say about bikes for now, so we can move on to the second focus of this entry, pannekoeken (pancakes).

After a few failed attempts to meet up for lunch at a restaurant called Pancakes! Yitka and I finally succeeded in meeting up and having a delicious meal today. We ate it about 9 hours ago, and I'm honestly still not hungry. Pancakes in the Netherlands are on a whole other level than pancakes in the states. First of all, they dont have to be sweet, in fact, we (me, Yitka, and her friend Rebecca) all got different variations of the more savory pancakes and they were all absolutely delicious. I got a pannekoeken with spinach, onions, and cheese (just like what I like in my eggs at Black River), Yitka got a mushroom pannekoeken, and Rebecca got tomatos, onions, spinach, and cheese. These are some pictures of them, despite how huge they are, we managed to finish all of them in their entirety. I do really want to try a sweet pannekoeken, because I'm sure that would taste amazing as well. We're planning on making lunch at Pancakes! a weekly tradition, so I'm sure I'll get around to it soon.

Alright, well that's all I've got on Pancakes and Bikes, in other news, on Tuesday night Alanna, Kellan, Alisha, and I had a pretty great night at a few different bars around the city. We met some new people and made some new friends. Here's a picture of me with a cute lesbian couple we met and a funny old man that Alanna made friends with at this bar that we went to to listen to some live music.

To bring it back to bikes for a moment, we were getting around on our bikes all night, but Alisha's bike was broken so she was riding on the back of mine. We were doing great all night and then we stopped to take some pictures and in the process we both managed to fall off. Luckily we caught it all on film thanks to Alanna Beroiza, photographer extraordinaire. I like to call this series: Fuck, we fell off our bike. I hope you guys enjoyed this incredibly long post. I'm heading to Paris for the weekend to see the sites and visit Michelle (aka Cupcake)!!!. I leave tomorrow morning and will be there until Sunday night, so my next update will be about that I'm sure. As always, feel free to send me an email and say hey.

time for an update

Hello again!

I have been told by someone, I won't name names, that its been too long since my last update, and that I'm due. So, now I have a little bit of free time, and since I dont have class tomorrow, plenty of time to procrastinate, so why not update? Since my last update on Saturday I cant report all that much that has happened. On Saturday night I decided to stay in because I realized that out of the 9 days I had at that point been in Amsterdam, I had gone out in some form or another on all but 2 of those evenings. So, instead, on Saturday night I went over to the abode of my friends Alanna and Kellan and Alanna cooked an awesome meal for us. I stayed there for a while, but then decided to call it a night... As I said, not too much to report, which is probably why I havent been doing so. On Sunday I spent the day doing homework and laundry. Doing laundry was a fun experience... but not really. There are 3 washing machines and 2 dryers in my building that houses about 40-50 students. It wouldnt be terrible, except the washing machine cycle is literally 2 hours long, and so after bringing my first load down at around 2pm, waiting for a machine to open up, and drying, the entire process finally ended at around 10pm when my laundry was finally all done. It definitely is an all day affair, luckily my only plans for the day were laundry and homework, so it worked out well.

On Sunday nights the RA's in my dorm show a weekly movie. This week they were showing a Dutch film called Blackbook, which is about Amsterdam during WWII. It was extremely sad, but a really good film, and I highly recommend it for anyone who hasnt seen it. After the movie, my friend Alisha (who lives one floor below me) and I were both feeling a little sick with a cold so we decided to have tea time together, which was really fun.

Monday I went to class and then to dinner over at Alanna and Kellan's again, also with Alisha, and today I did the same thing, class and dinner down the street at Alanna and Kellan's. Tonight we're heading out to attend a Drag Bingo event at a gay bar in the Red Light District, so I'm sure I'll write about that in my next post.

I dont have too many new pictures to show, but here are two from random times when I saw something I decided I needed to take a picture of. Both times I hopped off my bike and pulled out my camera right on the side of the road.

This first one is of a draw bridge by one of the main canals near my dorm. I was totally amazed by it because I had absolutely no idea that it was a draw bridge at all until I rode up and saw it looming above me, you really cant tell when its not up. Check out everyone on their bikes and on foot, all on their daily commute home after work.

The second photo is of this random guy I saw in on the canal today. I just thought he looked really cool and wanted a picture of his boat.


Soon to come: an update about bikes, my favorite thing about this city by far.

albert cuyp market; red light district tour; and more pictures

Well, the past few days have been quite eventful. I've now had all of my classes at least once and I think that they're all going to be very interesting, especially Intro to Sexual Studies. Yesterday our professor took us on a guided tour of the Red Light District, making sure to point out all of the good gay bars and leather stores in case we had any desire to purchase some new leather gear during our stay in Amsterdam. The tour definitely had a gay vibe to it, but nonetheless it was very interesting to walk around the area for two hours. This was my first time in the district, so I guess I wasnt really sure what to expect when I went into it, but I was struck by how blatant everything is. I guess I've been told that it is before, but I'd never actually seen it for myself. I watched a few different men just turn on their step and walk into a prostitutes room with such great intention in their stride. I was also struck by the close proximity of churches and schools to the prostitutes windows. We walked down one block that had a row of about 10 red light windows, followed by a pre school, followed by 10 more windows, and accross the street was a huge church. Obviously something like that would never fly in the US, people would be up in arms and it would be all over the news, but here it's completely acceptable.

Anyway, before I went on the Red Light District tour I met up with Yitka and some of her SIT friends at the Albert Cuyp market. We got some cheap lunch and then wandered around the market for a while. It's an outdoor market not far from my dorm that's open six days a week and sells a large variety of things. Some of the highlights that I took pictures of include fresh strobwaffle (i dont know how to spell that, sorry) which is this delicious thing they have in the Netherlands that basically consists of two pancake type cookies, with caramel in the middle, theyre fabulous.. Anyone who visits me, make sure I take you to get fresh ones when you're here. The other highlight was a chocolate stand that sold all sorts of erotic chocolates. We didnt purchase any, but I took some pictures.
Needless to say, we had a good time at the market, oh yeah, and we also were followed for a little while by this music playing vehicle with a guy asking for money.

It even followed me after I left the market and headed to the Red Light District... I also took a few pictures in the Red Light District, pictures of any of the prostitutes is strictly prohibited and there are cameras all around the district to make sure everything runs smoothly, but I just snapped a few shots of signs I found interesting or funny or ironic.




Isnt it wonderful? You can get all the things you need from the sex shop, and then rent a bike!

Today I somehow woke up at 9AM on a saturday in order to go on a bike tour of the city. We went all around, I had already been to most places, but it was nice to hear a little bit more about the history of the city. And we also went over to the Vondelpark, which I hadnt been to yet, so that was really nice, and apparently Yitka is going to be living somewhere near there, so I now know basically how to get there, which is good. So, here are a few pictures from this morning.


Okay, well that's all for now. Feel free to write me an email or call me on skype, I'd love to know how all of you are doing.