unofficial fall break and picture updates

This past week was my unofficial fall break (conveniently the same week as Oberlin's fall break). I say unofficial because classes are not officially cancelled, but most professors choose to cancel class in order to give students a break, or time to prepare for a midterm, or they actually schedule the midterm for that week. Luckily, all but one of my classes all week were cancelled and I only had one paper due. I made sure to finish my paper by Tuesday and I skipped my one class on Thursday in order to ensure that I could spend as much time as possible with Rachel for the 5 days that she was here. It was a very nice week and I took advantage of Rachel being here to actually force myself to visit some of the museums that I've been meaning to get to for a few weeks now.

Over the course of the week we played lots of scrabble and set and also managed to visit The Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art which is currently home to an extensive Andy Warhol exhibit. We also went to Foam, which is a photography museum in Amsterdam that currently has an exhibit dedicated to Amsterdam photographers and portraits. Both exhibits were really awesome and both were also extremely well done and laid out extremely well, etc.

The rest of the week was spent relaxing, visiting markets, watching movies, eating pancakes, and riding bikes, some of my favorite activities in Amsterdam and the world. But in now for some pictures that I've been meaning to put up for a while.

This is a picture of the carnival that was set up in The Dam for some time. Unfortunately I wasn't organized to get myself over there and actually go on any of the rides, but I heard they were ridiculously overpriced anyway... The next picture is from the Albert Cuyp market as are the few following it. Next is a picture of some awesome graffiti that I bike past pretty frequently. Then there are some pictures are of an amazing sunset from last weekend. Natalie took this picture from my window and I really love it. I took the second one on the way home from the market. There's also one from Scott and my romantic candlelit dinner last Monday night. Then some pictures from my week with Rachel, scrabble and many failed attempts to take a good picture of ourselves together. And finally, here are Alanna and Kellan all dressed up for the Halloween party that my dorm threw last night. (Much to Rachel and my dismay given that we had to wake up at 6:30am this morning and the party didn't end until 3am). It's too complicated to try and get the captions to go next to all the pictures, but I'm sure you can all figure out what's what.

































I just realized looking out my window that it's raining. Luckily this is the first time it's rained in at least a week.

a fabulous weekend

Yesterday most of my friends hoped on a plane to Istanbul for the week, but before they left we had a fun weekend together. My friend Scott (who actually doesn't leave for Istanbul until Thursday) had two friends visiting, one of them is studying in Barcelona and the other in Vienna, and since it was Scott's birthday this weekend they decided to come visit. Scott's birthday was on friday and my other friend Owen's birthday was on Monday, so we spent the whole weekend partying in celebration of them both being one year older. On friday night we went out to dinner at this awesome chinese restaurant which Scott's parents were nice enough to treat us to (via their credit card) and then we hung out at Scott and Owen's apartment for a while before going out dancing at You II which is a mixed gay and lesbian club. As Yitka mentioned in her blog, they (unlike most clubs in Amsterdam) actually had a DJ who was playing some really good music and not just mundane techno, and we all enjoyed ourselves so much that we stayed there dancing until 3am.

On Saturday I went to the Albert Cuyp market again with Mike and Natalie. None of us bought anything, but I took some pictures that I wanted to share with you all. This first one is an in motion shot taken while riding down Kerkstraat (I was pretty impressed with myself for the accomplishment of pulling my camera out of my pocket, turning it on, taking this picture, turning it off, and putting it back into my zipped up pocket). We didn't actually end up getting to the market until about 4:30 and they pack up and close most of the stalls around 5, so we weren't there for too long, but we looked at a bunch of things and decided that we would come back when they return from Istanbul and do some real shopping.

After the market we ate at Maoz, which I don't think I've mentioned yet, and therefore I will tell you all about it. Maoz is a vegetarian falafel restaurant chain that was started here in Amsterdam but now has locations in cities all over Europe and also in New York. The way it works is, you get a falafel sandwhich with just the falafel and the pita bread, and then you can go to their salad bar that has numerous toppings and delicious sauces. The best part is, you can go back to the salad bar as many times as you want! I don't even think I want to mention how many times I've been to Maoz in the past week, but it really is wonderful, and also wonderfully cheap!

Yesterday after writing my paper and seeing my friends off to the airport, Scott and I (the only two of our group who are around right now) decided to make ourselves a feast in my kitchen. We headed over to Albert Heijn to pick up all our ingredients and then back to my place to start the preparations. We made a delicious meal of chicken fajitas, with onions and peppers and garlic, and we also had some beans to put inside them, as well as cheese and salsa. Then lit candles and drank pineapple juice out of wine glasses and had a very romantic candle lit dinner. It was pretty fun. Afterwards we watched a movie in my room before calling it a night.

In about twenty minutes I'm heading over to meet Scott at the Jewish Historical Museum which is just a few blocks away from my dorm. And after that I'm getting on a train out to Schiphol to go meet Rachel!

Hmm... I was going to upload lots of pictures right now, but it's being particularly slow at the moment, so I'll just do a big picture update next time I've got some time to spare.

haircuts and ani difranco

I just got a haircut on Monday and I promised my mother that I would post a picture on my blog. So, here are some pictures. Disregard the wierd faces I'm making. It feels weird to take a picture of myself, so I usually make a face so that I feel less awkward.

Last night I went to see Ani DiFranco live at Melkweg and it was amazing. She was soooo goood. I went with Yitka and a fe other people from her program. She played a two hour set, and even though I didn't know all the songs because I only have 3 of her numerous albums, it was still so good. Yitka and I parted ways knowing that we were both going home to have a night full of continued listening.

In other news, I just got back from my last class before our unofficial midterms break/fall break. I say unofficial because the break is not actually scheduled and professors do not have to give their students the week off, but most of them do so that students will have time to study or write their midterm papers. For international students however, it is the most popular time to travel and so in the next few days most of my friends are taking off for a variety of European destinations including: Denmark, Italy, Turkey, etc. etc. etc. I'm not going anywhere next week though, because Rachel is coming to visit me on Tuesday!

Alright, that's all for now.

parties, animals, picnics, van gogh, frisbee, and middle school throwbacks

That long title is just to give a short outline of everything that I feel I need to talk about within this post. Since it's been almost a week since my last post, a lot has been going on, namely: parties, animals, picnics, van gogh, frisbee, and middle school throwbacks. That doesn't really make sense by itself though, so let met explain each of these things and in so doing I think I will be able to give you all a somewhat clear picture of what I've been up to for the past week.

PARTIES:
On Tuesday night my friend Alanna and I decided to host a small get together of friends. I volunteered my room as the location, and we created a facebook event inviting everyone we know here (which was only about 20-something people) and we assumed that maybe ten or less of those people would actually show up since we didn't think of this idea until late Monday night. Well, as it happens almost everyone that we invited did show up, and many people brought friends as well. This picture is early in the night when only about 12 people were there, but this doesn't even begin to describe how many people came by the end of the night. At one point there must have been about 25 people within my room and another 10 outside in the kitchen area, it was crazy. I don't plan on hosting anymore parties this semester, but I enjoyed the night and later after everyone had left Alanna helped me clean up so that wasn't too painful either.

ANIMALS:
On Friday my friend Scott and I took advantage of a free trip to the zoo organized by his RA's. The Artis Zoo is located just around the corner from my dorm, so it's extremely convenient, and although I did go to the zoo once quite briefly, I hadn't gotten the opportunity to walk around at all and see all the animals. So when Scott asked if I wanted to go, I jumped at the opportunity. We walked around the zoo for a few hours and saw loads of animals including: baboons, lions, jaguars, elephants, llamas, gorillas, etc. etc. They also have an aquarium within the zoo so we went in there and saw lots of beautiful colorful fish. And then before we left we made sure to catch the penguin feeding and the seal feeding. We both really wanted to see the lion feeding, but apparently Friday is the only day of the week that they don't feed the lions. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera with me, so I don't have any pictures to share.

PICNICS:
After leaving the zoo Scott and I headed back to my block to meet up with Alanna for a picnic dinner. I don't know if I've talked about the weather here in Amsterdam yet on this page, but I'll say a little bit now. For the most part the past month and a half has been full of overcast and rainy days with a periodic beautiful sunny day every few weeks or so. But this past week the weather has been entirely un-Amsterdamish. As I think back over the last week, I don't think it's rained once, and almost everyday has been sunny and around 65 degrees, it's glorious. It still gets really cold at night and layering is definitely required, but the days have been really beautiful and I've spent most of the weekend outside picnicing, writing, reading, and playing scrabble by the canal. So, as a result of the continued beautiful weather, the three of us decided to walk over to the nearby park and had a nice little picnic with a wonderful pasta-salad concoction made by Alanna, and a nice bacquette with brie and mozerella, it was a delicious meal.

VAN GOGH:
On Friday nights the Van Gogh museum opens up until 10pm and they have a bar and a dj and sometimes some live music as well. With our student museum cards we get into most museums in Amsterdam for no charge, so this Friday I went with a bunch of friends to the Van Gogh museum. I'm slightly ashamed to say, I haven't yet been taking advantage of all the wonderful museums in Amsterdam, but, I plan to visit many more, especially when I have visitors, so don't worry, I will see them all before I leave Europe. After having a drink at the bar when we got to the museum, we all started wandering around the galleries. There are some really amazing pieces in the museum, but unfortunately we only had about an hour to walk around before the museum closed, so I'm going to have to return for another visit, especially to see the current exhibit on Barcelona that is up right now.

FRISBEE:
This is a short one, but yesterday I threw a frisbee around with my friends Scott and Eric out in the park near our dorm and it was really awesome. It reminded me of Oberlin and playing frisbee with Adam out on North Quad when it finally gets warm in the spring.

MIDDLE SCHOOL THROWBACKS:
So, instead of going out to a bar or a club last night, my friends Scott and Eric and I decided to spend the night in Scott's apartment playing a bunch of random games and having a few beers. We had decided on this course of action because we were all pretty tired and didn't feel like staying out too late or anything like that. Well, after attempting to leave and go to sleep at 2:30am, we started listening to a series of wonderful middle school throwback songs. We spent the next two hours listening to everything from What If God Was One Of Us? by Joan Osbourne to Father of Mine by Everclear, and everything inbetween, it was extremely fun and I can't wait to download all of those songs and make myself one of the greatest mixes in history.

Well,that's all my main points, so in other news: I've rearranged my room yet again AND Scott put my tapestry up for me! It looks amazing, and I think my room decorations are finally complete. Here is a picture so you can all appreciate it as much as I do.

a trip to an anarchist sauna

Yesterday I went with two of my friends to a sauna that is run by anarchists here in Amsterdam. The facility was about a half hour bike ride from my dorm (actually it's just around the corner from Yitka's house). I agreed to go to this place knowing in the back of my mind that this would probably mean a bit of nudity, and although I wasn't completely sure that I would be comfortable in the situation I was getting myself into, I decided that it would be stupid to allow my slight discomfort to stop me from enjoying this wonderful place. After all, I'm naked all the time at Onas, the only real difference with this place was that I didn't really know anyone there, except the two friends I went with. Despite my slight discomfort, I made myself go, and I am extremely glad that I did so, I plan on going back at least a few more times before the semester is through.

At 6pm after my Dutch class ended, my friends Jenna, and Natalie, and I hopped on our bikes and headed over to the sauna. We got there and upon entering were given a locker in which we could put all of our belongings for the time that we were there. We quickly stripped down into towels (which were soon removed) and started to venture into the various rooms that the sauna had to offer. There was a steam room in which I sweated more than I think I've ever sweat in my entire life. A sauna, that was probably the hottest sauna I've ever been in in my life. An outside area with a cold shower, which felt really amazing if you went in right after coming out of the hot sauna. There was also a freezing cold bath (which also felt amazing after coming out of the steam room), and then the upstairs was lined with mats for people to go lie down on and relax between sauana/steam room/cold bath-shower trips.

I stayed at the place for about two hours getting my fill of everything they had to offer, and it was extremely relaxing. It also made my skin feel incredibly smooth, and it still does. Apparently sometimes they have a massuese there, so I definitely want to go back at a time when I can get a massage. It was definitely an awesome experience and I'm really glad that I made myself go, despite my initial discomfort.

Well, that's all for now, hope all is well with everyone reading.

-Ruth

October Begins!

As I look at the date I continue to be amazed that I've already been here for almost six weeks. It's really crazy to think about it, but just this afternoon I was going through the weekends here and it seems like there's barely enough time to fit in all the things that I have planned for the next 2 months. At least half of my weekends from now until December are already booked with various trips to Vienna, Lille, and other parts of the Netherlands. And on those weekends that aren't spent leaving Amsterdam, I feel like I will still find myself with so many things to do, because that seems to be what always happens in this city. I'm really enjoying that about living here. There is almost always something exciting going on in this city and rather than searching for something to do, I find myself trying to decide what to do from a multitude of options.

The first week in October has gone by quickly with a few exciting highlights. First of all, on Wednesday night, I got together with a group of my friends from my program, and we had an italian themed pot luck. My friends Mike, and Natalie, and I attempted to make a pizza, but since we didn't have a baking pan to bake it on, it ended up getting turned into a calzone, which was actually quite delicious. This is a picture of Natalie, Erika, and Scott enjoying the pot luck... Not a very good photo, but I was trying to get a candid shot.... I failed slightly. The rest of the week was extremely exciting because Wendy (a friend from camp who is living in France until April) visited me for the weekend.

On Thursday night I made my way to Centraal Station to pick Wendy up (her train got in at 11:05pm). Unfortunately, Centraal Station is extremely large and although we had picked a meeting point, since Wendy had never been to the station before, we had a lot of trouble actually finding each other. Also, since Wendy's French cell phone didn't work in the Netherlands, we couldn't even call each other. Eventually Wendy went to an information desk and they let her borrow their cell phone so we got in contact with each other and finally managed to find each other, which was pretty miraculous. We were going to go out dancing that night, but by the time we got to the place it was almost 1am and they were closing up for the night, so we decided to just head home and ended up talking for a few hours in bed before actually going to sleep. It was really awesome to have such a close friend from home here just to talk to and reminisce about the summer and so forth.

We spent the next two days enjoying the (unusual) warm weather and cloudless sky by visiting both the Turkish Market near my dorm and the Waterlooplein market, which is also quite close to my dorm. Wendy purchased a few random articles and I got myself a big cloth hanging to put
up in my room. Now all I have to do is figure out how to hang it up. Unfortunately my walls are concrete, so I don't know if I'll be able to hammer anything into them... But I'm going to try. This picture was a warning by the hemp bracelets that a vendor at the Waterlooplein Market was selling... priceless. When we got back from the market I decided to rearrange my room to make it a little more comfy and homey, and also to create a good spot to put my new wall hanging. I plan to put it over in the corner by the bed is I can ever manage to get it into the wall. Otherwise I'll just have to save it for my room in Oberlin next semester. Here is a picture of both my room as it is now, and the wall hanging, so you can imagine the wall hanging going into the empty corner over my bed. I hope it actually happens.

Later that night Wendy and I went over to Yitka's house and cooked dinner for all of us and also for Taryn (the girl Yitka lives in her homestay with). It was a delicious meal with Couscous and stirfry vegetables. All in all a pretty laid back night, but also very enjoyable. Today Wendy and I got up slightly earlier (for me at least... It was about 10:30). After puttering around for a little while we headed over to Centraal Station and sat by the water chatting for a while before Wendy had to get on her train back to France.

I spent the rest of the day doing homework and napping, and then this evening my dorm had a "Neighborhood Potluck." Each floor was supposed to cook a dish from a different country and we all got together at 5pm and had a delightful dinner together. I was a little skeptical that anything would actually happen, because the RA's had just put up these posters randomly advertising this event in the middle of this past week, but no one from my floor had spoken about what we were going to cook or anything like that. But two people on my floor ended up being wonderful and getting it all organized so that we didn't seem like the moochers floor that didnt contribute anything to the dinner. There was lots of good foods from all over the world, including Vietnam, Romania, Italy, Camaroon, and many more that I just can't recall right now. I ate a whole lot and got nice and full and then spent a few hours sitting on our terrace by the canal and talking to friends, lots of fun.

Tonight my floor is throwing another party so within the next hour or two there will probably be a large number of international students roaming my hall and kitchen area with lots of alcohol and loud music... It should be a grand old time. That's all for now, I'll be sure to update if there's anything exciting to tell you all about, and as always, I would love to hear from all of you. You can also write me letters, as I have recently purchased stamps and will be sure to write back to you (eventually) in either letter or postcard form, just make sure you include your address somewhere on the letter. My address is:

Ruth Allanbrook
c/o ISHSS
P.O. Box 26
1000 AA Amsterdam
The Netherlands

I look forward to hearing from anyone motivated enough to write to me!

-Ruth