13 january 2005

This week has brought lots of changes. For example, I am no longer the only person living at Plantage Muidergracht 20. I now share the six-story, fifty-flat building with Natalie from Venezuela and Hoske from Iceland. I don’t see them often, since they both immediately started classes, but at least I occasionally encounter them in the kitchen, ending my Twilight Zonesque solo existence. Another big perk is that last night I actually went out after dark. During the past two weeks I’ve mostly come home by seven or eight and stayed in. I was exhausted from walking around all day, unsure of where to go, and generally using nighttime as a chance to work on my Dutch and my thesis. But shit. I was going a little crazy, being in this great city and not going out at night.

So Hoske from Iceland, Gail from Belgium, and I went to a few bars and talked about geography, language, and how much better the food is in the parts of the world where we are not currently living. Namely, everywhere but the Netherlands. Dutch cuisine comprises three key dishes: (1) pea soup with ham, (2) raw herring, and (3) stamppot (lit. mashed pot), which is exactly what you might think it is, unless you are an eighteen year old stoned English tourist in which case it is not at all what you think it is, but you’re probably laughing at the name anyway. Mashed pot, the Stoned Wheat Thins of the Netherlands.

We drank the requisite light beer, served in small glasses packing a deceptively high alcohol content, and bounced around two major nightspots, Rembrandtplein and Leidseplein. We returned a bit after 2, which made my 7:30 wakeup a little unpleasant.

I’ve found a new route to my class that lets me leave fifteen minutes later, when it doesn’t feel quite so much like the middle of the night. About ten minutes into my walk the streetlights and bridgelights pop off, which is a little like being in a movie. Like the end of As Good As It Gets.

My new route also brings me across the Dam, a large public plaza, just at nine o’clock when the bells of the towering Niewe Kerk are sounding. The sound fills the plaza and echoes off all the stone walks and buildings and rings in the air. Again, movie.

Several years ago I spent six hours in Sienna, and I instantly wanted to move there. Not hypothetically or metaphorically or eventually, but really and immediately. I felt a pull to live in Sienna so strong that I would have picked up and relocated with the flimsiest excuse. The main cause for this force was the big wooden doorways. The doorways were so out of proportion to the tiny streets, and I could imagine living there and going through one of those doorways every day, and it making every day magic. It is how I felt living in New York City and walking into Prospect Park each morning, and how I felt living in Monteverde and walking across the Rio Guacimal each afternoon. Certain places have a set of colors, textures, and sounds so completely unlike anywhere else that passing through them gives you this self-contained moment, when everything feels complete and right and perfect. And it is near impossible to pass through a place like this every day and not become acutely aware of the blessing of your life. In case you weren’t already.

Walking across the Dam as the sky is filling with light and the church bells are clanging is that place in Amsterdam. Hordes of Dutch commuters pedal by on their bicycles. Pigeons coo and scatter. My footsteps crack on the small cold stones where people have gathered, traded, judged, worshiped, and celebrated for seven hundred years. (It was maybe just like this – maybe almost exactly the same – walking across this square in 1500.)

So. I was going to write about Dutch class, but I’ll save that for later. I’m now going to sit back and daydream about hoop skirts.