Much to my delight, the Dutch love apple pie perhaps even more than the Americans do. Of course, they would never bake an apple pie from scratch at home. Heavens no, baking isn’t for doing at home, it’s for buying in a store. Check out the length our friend Beth had to go through to locate staple baking supplies in this city.

Fortunately, apple pie is on every cafe menu in the city so naturally it was our responsibilty to devote our seven months here to tasting every variety, rating them against each other and then proclaiming a ‘Best Apple Pie in Amsterdam’ winner. It would be rude not to. We weren’t so outrageous as to literally try every piece of pie in the city but we did try six, so roughly one per month considering time spent out of Amsterdam for the holidays and weekend trips.

Here are our results out of five bicycle bell dings:

6. Cafe Nielsen, Berenstraat 19

Earning only one ding, this apple pie was a real disappointment. The apples were mushy, the crust was way too buttery and cakey and there was no spice at all.

The following three tied for three dings:

5. Vlinder, Brouwersgracht 139

With a tasty marzipan base, firm apples and roasted almond slivers, this pie was enjoyed on a rainy Sunday afternoon. However, there was a lack of a counter taste to the sweetness and the base could have done with a bit more texture. Good but could have been better.

4. Walem, Keizersgracht 449

A piece of art really, thinly sliced apples forming a lovely cinnamon strata. Very nice texture but it could have done with a bit more spice and the crust was a bit too cakey.

3. Cafe Winkel, Noordermarkt 43

Having received rave reviews in our Get Lost Amsterdam book, I chose this to be our Thanksgiving apple pie. It did not disappoint even without the freshly whipped cream usually accompanying your slice when eaten in the cafe. It had a tasty amount of cinnamon and a very nice crust. For me, though, I hold out the big dings for pies with something a little special and this pie was literally just apples, small slices as well, and crust so we only gave it three dings.

The following two tied for four dings though in our hearts there is a clear winner:

2. Puccini, Staalstraat 21

This was more of an apple tart with a mouth watering almond paste base, beautiful firm apples and a near perfect balance between sweet and cinnamon. Definitely delicous, in fact we indulged twice, but it was a tart, not a pie.

#1, BEST APPLE PIE IN AMSTERDAM AWARD goes to:

Broodje Bert, Singel 321

Big chunks of apple, perfect sweetness, the kind of crust you could make a whole pie out of, baked with nuts and served with fresh whipped cream. Sheer perfection and the place is named for Bert of Bert and Ernie fame.

Our apartment is situated on a piece of tourist trivia. It’s not that tourists flock to it but should they find themselves at our canal they can be heard letting out sighs of “ah” and “oh yeah” and muttering numbers under their breath. Thirty meters to the left of our front door is unofficially named the Seven Bridges, it being the only place in Amsterdam where seven bridges bridge several canals and all the spans can be seen at once. So, in homage to the tourists and the bridges, my final entry from this most agreeable city will be seven things beginning with “B” that have made our life here quite sublime.

Bicycles

I will never look at bicycles the same way again. Nothing has recaptured my lost youth as much as these everyday objects. They represent freedom. Whether you are riding for a purpose or riding just because, the world whistles by seemingly glad you took the time to pass through. You are free from work, chores, driving licenses and most forms of responsibility. Bikes are top of the transportation food chain. Pedestrians fear you and cars fear of killing you. Only trams could care less but then they have no sense of self preservation anyway.

Closely related to bicycles but not counting towards one of my seven “B”’s are bells. These are the instrument of dominance that sit upon your handlebars wielding deadly power with a gentle “triiing”. Sarah has perfected a technique I call “Splitting the tourist atom”. To split a tourist atom, pick a group of bewildered tourists who have wandered aimlessly into the bike path, shift your angle of approach slightly and gun your bike heading straight for the center of the pack. At the last moment ring your bell and watch them split apart like neutrons from a nucleus. If you’re lucky you can actually see panic in their eyes and their realization they are nothing but mere playthings for the locals.

Beer.

Of course beer would feature somewhere on my list but what I had forgotten until living here was its simplicity. In an over-reaction to years of crap beer, the US may have made it just too damn complicated with the whole micro-brew phenomenon. Sure, Amsterdam has lots of different types of beer but simply asking for a “little beer” gets one a small glass of extremely enjoyable goodness. Better than a Bud, more complex than a Coors and more amiable than Alaskan Amber, the humble Heineken (or Brand or Juliper) exists in unpretentious simplicity. At about €2.20 for 25cl, it isn’t particularly cheap but the satisfaction and consistency cannot be beat. Besides, in no other country do they immediately wash your glass before your very eyes and serve a frothy head of at least 2cm. House wine, on the other hand, is a complete crap shoot (stress on the former) and I’ve sworn off mixed drinks until the only person who decides the amount of liquor going into my gin and tonic is the bartender and that decision is based purely on how much he thinks I’m good for when it comes to a tip. Big pour = big tip – it’s simple mathematics.

Borrel

A close cousin of beer, borrel is one of my favorite Dutch words. It has no direct translation but means something akin to a “shindig”, “soiree”, “cocktails” or “happy hour”. It is usually an organized affair but not to the extent a party might be. My soon-to-be ex-employer holds one every month for its employees and I have never been so completely and consistently shit-faced so often in my entire life. It can’t be the free beer (I am no stranger to that little pleasure) and I don’t think it’s the company (although my colleagues are fine people) so I’m certain it’s the word itself that makes me drunk. I have decided to take the word back home and if I designate something in Seattle a “borrel” and then find myself completely blotto that will serve as scientific proof that a noun can get one drunk.

Bitterballen
Another family member of good times in Amsterdam is Bitterballen. These are deep fried snacks that serve to provide nutritional balance at a borrel. The process of embalming these little rascals in grease can be a little unpalatable to the uninitiated, but those in the know understand it acts as a coagulant thickening blood previously thinned by alcohol and therefore leaving you in perfect shape for the mildly exerting but majorly thrilling ride home. It is best not to ask what’s in the deep fried breaded balls. A mystery meat for sure, but also a blend of mushy potato type wallpaper paste. Delicately presented on a white plate with a token leaf of lettuce and BOTH sweet chili sauce and mustard, these little delights are always welcome and polite competition always accompanies those who manage to take the last one. The Dutch trading empire extended all the way to Indonesia so in recognition of multi-culturalism and post-imperialism, bitterballen are always accompanied by the worst deep-fried-from-frozen spring rolls. These remain carrion for the people who were not strong enough to take down and devour the last bitterballen.

Beth
Beth, dear Beth. Without Beth our stay here wouldn’t have been half as great as it was. She is our tour guide, translator, go-to girl and, most importantly, family. She is also braver than us because she moved, lock, stock and barrel to another country and another culture. We’re just elongated tourists and can go home anytime we want; she has to put skin in the game, learn the language, make friends and put down roots. She is, of course, completely looney but then the smart and daring have to be to make amends for the legions of the uninspired. We will miss her but we hope she doesn’t miss us because we’re the new worlders that represent her old world, she has a whole new-old world to conquer.

Brad and Brenda
Speaking of family, our dear Seattle friends Brad and Brenda visited in December and that all too brief encounter lifted the spirits of your homesick adventurers. Christmas here was very understated, slow to start and rife with strange racial undertones that probably need to be retired. The winter was long and dark and our mood was beginning to match it. And then my phone started to ring. Not just once but multiple times an hour. There is only one person I know who can pound the cell-phone keys like that and that’s Brad. Brad and Brenda already have friends here. Amsterdam is really their city, we were just borrowing it for a few months. To have friendly familiar faces and to catch up on old times over multiple beers was just the tonic. It recharged our batteries for both Amsterdam and Seattle and probably saved the day. I’m not sure they realize how integral they are to us still not being home but we’ll be sure to tell them over a pitcher of fussy American beer down at Linda’s.

Bookmarks
The Dutch are notoriously closed when it comes to new friends. The country is so small and nobody ever seems to leave it that friends made during childhood rarely need replacing or augmenting. It has nothing to do with friendliness it’s just pragmatism. There are only so many social hours in the week and priorities go towards the oldest and closest. Natuurlijk. However, we couldn’t spend seven months in Amsterdam and make NO Dutch friends so we pushed ourselves (in the nicest possible way) on Karen and Jaap. Fortunately, Jaap and I speak the common languages of jazz and literature and Karen and Sarah speak the common language of, well, whatever girls talk about so it wasn’t long before we were all talking the common language of mashed potatoes. Stampot is the comfort food of the Dutch. Everyone’s mother makes the best and everyone’s mother makes it differently. Karen and Jaap are now our new mothers, never have mashed potato tasted so damn good. Jaap is an artist of great imagination. His work from found materials is, like stampot, an enlightened variation on something you thought you knew. As a small gift he presented us with bookmarks made from the plastic binding tape that boxes are strapped together with. Simple, useful, thoughtful and fortunately for us, very light. We’re glad to be their friends and look forward to completely over complicating things when they come to visit us in the US.

So, there you have it. Seven reasons to love Amsterdam without venturing any further down the alphabet than “B”. The world moves and so must we. Next stop, Taiwan.

Details
Even after only seven months of residency, it has become necessary for us to make the kind of detailed to-do-before-we-leave lists that serve to remind us our extra-ordinary¹ lives are still buttressed by the everyday and ordinary. The paper must be canceled, as must our poor Dutch imitation of Netflix, the bank must be informed, health insurance suspended and so on and so forth. At some point in the not to distant past, one could work, be paid in cash and then use that to buy bread, milk and DVD’s. Now I can’t even sneeze without it involving an internet connection, a dimly recalled username/password combination and translation confusion whist I attempt to manage ‘mijn account’ or contact ‘klantenservice’. For nomads we have a lot of business to cancel.

Abstractions
All those things we promised ourselves we’d do because we had plenty of time must now appear in random abstraction as we rush to squeeze them in before our departure. It’s not that we procrastinate, it’s just we put them off for another day. A couple of weeks past, we viewed the Van Gogh museum (click here for my account of that particular artist) and we will mingle with the tourists to see the Anne Frank house in the coming days. Not to break the theme of depression and death we hope to secure tickets to Porgy and Bess. We have not, and there seems to be no inclination to, visit the Rijkesmuseum or the Rembrandt Museum. I’m not sure why. Strangely, we decided to do some day trips into the interior of The Netherlands. I’m not sure why we did that either. Quite frankly, my dear, it’s rather dull.

Details
I have details to wrap up at work. Call it professional pride, call it legacy building or just call it work. My project will not ship before I leave. This is a shame because, despite my lackluster facade to the whole general working concept, I would have liked to have seen my hard(ish) work be released into the wild. The project is in trouble. Like a parent raising a gangly teenager, I foresaw, and did advise, on the pitfalls and pratfalls about to befall the young whipper-snapper but pubescent pride means they must make their own mistakes. I have no doubt the product will ship but I can never understand why product releases are akin to slogging one’s way up the side of a mountain when they can quite easily be a series of gentle ambulations up pleasant inclines. The view is the same from the top but is so much more enjoyable if one isn’t out of breath. It’s unclear at present if I will be missed. Corporations are self-healing organisms; they don’t take long to clot and heal. Usually, there is panic surrounding my departure but that rush to transfer my knowledge to another willing host has yet to happen. Maybe it’s because reality has yet to bite, or perhaps I have nothing of much value up there anyway. Leaving a job is always a bitter-sweet affair but, in this case, probably a little more sweet.

Abstractions
Out apartment was built in 1700. I think I’ve mentioned that already. It has good juju. We can feel it. Last night, Beth informed us that her cat can summon ghosts and demons. That’s pretty cool, especially for a feline who licks her own bum. We’re certain there’s nothing to be summoned here although one famous resident, not only of our building but of our particular apartment, was Karel Appel. He was a famous Dutch painter. I know, I know, the damn country is full of them. Appel was an abstract artist who worked from the late forties until his death a couple of years back. He co-founded the very famous and influential movement of modern artists called Cobra. Our landlord, Ray, informed me of his famous ex-resident when we moved in and even supplied us with a book of his work to peruse. He thinks it’s all a big mess of paint but then I like big messes of paint. Our apartment is divided into two levels and up in the attic level is our bedroom. Back when Ray’s parents owned the building they rented just the attic to Appel because he couldn’t afford anything more. So, right where we sleep every night, Appel would eat, sleep and work. Around the world, hanging on important walls are important paintings that were created in our bedroom.
For the record, by writing the upcoming sentence, I am not in anyway saying I should be associated to Karel Appel but the plastic camera I received for Xmas as afforded me some great opportunities to ‘get all abstract on yo ass’. Why not while away some more time at work by clicking here to take a look.

Details
The Russian Embassy is a bitch. We went all the way The Hague last Monday to apply for our visas and they turned me away because I was lacking some paperwork that their website didn’t say was required. One needs the following for a single-entry Russian tourist visa:

Passport

Photograph

Proof of residency in The Netherlands if you are not Dutch (this was the information they conveniently omitted)

Letter of invitation from a state recognized hotel in Russia complete with the official Russian Tourist Board stamp (no copies accepted)

Proof that you’ve actually paid for the hotel via an approved Russian tour company

Proof of medical insurance

Sarah was required to fill out a form longer than a job application and then had to pay €130 (€40 more than me because she’s American). It’s a tourist tax and needs to be outlawed. We are, after all, spending money in their country and have absolutely no intention of over-staying our visa to live illegally in Russia (why on earth would we, we’re Americans!!).

The Chinese Embassy is only slightly better. Whilst waiting for two hours with the assembled masses, we were treated to a lengthy and very proudly detailed video concerning the country’s preparations for the 2008 Olympic games. Here’s some fun facts for your fun fact book:

Every Thursday in China is ‘Stand-In-Line’ day. This is a government encouraged event where the Chinese learn that barging wealthy tourists out of line is rude. Apparently, they should act civilized and queue like the British. The Dutch would also do well to have a ‘Stand-In-Line’ day.

The amount of water they can recycle in a week in one of their Olympic venues is 7.989 million liters. In any other government sponsored spin, this number would magically and not unreasonably become 8 million liters or even ‘just under’ 8 million liters. In China, accuracy seems to be important.

Tourists may become lost in Beijing so the government asked for volunteers to become ad-hoc ambassadors and patrol the streets looking for tourists to offer them help. Over 200,000 people stepped up for government training to do this. Can you imagine over 200,000 New Yorkers offering to help lost tourists? No, neither can I. One volunteer was asked about her experience and she said, “At first we were shy and hoped another volunteer would go up and happy them.” We look forward to being happied.

Abstractions
We had to buy books for the trip. Buying books for backpacking is a science. It is a delicate combination of weight, price, text density, subject matter and credibility. Mess it up and you’re left with a huge, heavy but spaciously kerned book for which you overpaid and are unable to digest its contents – a book every backpacker for 10 miles in any direction is also reading and is also wishing they weren’t but the nearest English language book store is in another country. Do not take this lightly, it may be more important than your first aid kit (I have a suture kit in mine, what’s in yours?)

There’s more to be said, but that’s all for now. If you’ve missed our little deluges of the world in a jam jar, don’t worry, only two weeks to go before we’ll be blogging like crazy again. As Sarah said to me last night, “I cannot protect you from the people outside your bubble.” Conversely though, I’m more than happy to protect you from the squat toilet, rusty bus, crowded, smelly, noisy and generally fascinating place that’s the global bubble. Live vicariously through davethegrinch.net. Strap in, we’re in for quite a ride.

¹ After an enlightening discussion down the pub last night, Sarah and I have decided to change the emphasis on the first two syllables of the words ‘extraordinary’ and ‘wonderful’. The world is full of such things and we do them no justice by flattening their sounds. From now on EXTRA-ordinary things are WONDER-ful.

I have a hole in my thumb – almost. It started as a mild welt, then became a slight abrasion and now it’s almost a complete breach of my haberdashery. A few desperate and disparate threads of my cheap Dutch gloves separate my thumb from the world at large. Once they give up, the thumb will make a break for it and my body, being firmly attached, will have no choice but to follow. I estimate another six weeks – give or take.

Albert Heijn is just about the only supermarket in town. Not that there’s only one supermarket in Amsterdam, there are many, but they’re all Albert Heijn. AH started out as a welt that quickly became an abrasion too. I ask myself only three questions as I embark on our bidiem shopping excursions:

1) Will it be open?

Each store in this nationwide chain has different opening times regardless of branch size or metropolitan location.

2) Will it have what I want?

Each store in this nationwide chain stocks different things.

Each store in this nationwide chain sells out of things, not just a few things but lots of things and all of the time.

Each store in this nationwide chain stocks all its shelves simultaneously during opening hours making aisle negotiation impossible. What actually is placed on the shelves remains a mystery because the previous statement concerning stock levels is always true.

3) Will I have to wait long to checkout?

Each store in this nationwide chain never has enough checkout staff; perhaps they are all busy in the aisles stocking shelves chock-a-block with the finest Dutch thin air. They have several ‘basket only’ express lines but their entire Amsterdam customer base arrives and departs by bike so shopping carts only tempt more groceries than can be transported and are not a popular option. Perhaps they should have a 15 items or more line.

Tonight was a particularly frustrating shopping experience but that may have been because I have a hole in my thumb – almost.

Beth, darling Beth, is going back to Seattle this week for a brief respite and recharge from Amsterdam. She blogs about her life here brilliantly. It is a grand and sweeping epic compared the minor distraction of this effort. She is looking forward to going Stateside for a couple of weeks. We can tell because the original reasons she gave for leaving the United States are now temporarily the reasons why she wants to return. The minor quirks of Amsterdam have now become major irritations. For some reason, she has become fixated on the alleged prevalence of the Dutch female over-bite. This is a sign of a woman who needs a break. She is frustrated with Dutch grocery shopping too. Gone is the novelty of taking all Saturday to bike around the butcher, baker and candlestick maker. Last week, a gourmet, US style grocery store opened on her street. She flipped with joy even writing a blog entry and emailing us twice. We checked it out on Saturday (closed on Sunday – not very American). It wasn’t all that but then we haven’t been crawling on our bellies though the Amsterdam retail desert for quite as long as she. I can’t blame the girl for her over excitement – she saw a mirage of Trader Joe’s oasis. She’s worn right through her gloves but I’m confident she’ll buy some new ones in Seattle, ready for her return to her adopted home.

I have officially switched pronouns to ‘we’ when describing the company I work for. I guess that’s encouraging, but more for my employer than for me. But not for long. This week I shall hand in my notice at work. Remember that job I wanted but didn’t want and then wanted again until I realized I finally didn’t want it? I’m giving them 6 weeks notice which I think is quite generous. I hope they will be suitably devastated and beg me to stay. To which I will gracefully decline and leave them with a deep sense of loss that will take more than an hour but less than a day from which to fully recover. I won’t be there for the launch of the project I’m leading. That’s somewhat of a shame. I also won’t be there for the two week panic prior to the launch. That’s definitely not a shame because it proffers nothing but late nights and misery. I would like my boss to keep news of my departure from my team until close to the date but it’s unlikely he will.

Last time something involving me occurred at work, (the unfortunate firing, on my behest, of a ne’erdowell team member) I was chastised by the class. Left out in the cold and treated like a boy who does not wash his hands and then touches everyone’s keyboard. They can be quite childish so this time I wish to not be in the playground during recess. I will wait until a week or two before my departure date, break it to them gently and then slip quietly away. No fuss. Despite my reservations about the job, this work experience has been the reverse of my thumb dilemma. It started out as a breech of my freedom and has now mended itself to be part of the fabric of my life. I’m sure I’ll have more to say on this topic in the last week of my gainful employment.

So that’s the story of my gloves and the thumbs that live in them. Even though they might head south before we head east, they will owe me nothing. My life is richer for owning them. I thank the Hema store, Kalverstraat, Amsterdam and my wife for purchasing me a small but important present that brought comfort, warmth, protection and good times to my hands and to winter 07/08.

We humans are such creatures of habit. Dare I say, immediately after dropping those dusty, dirty, too-heavy and not yet retired rucksacks down on our temporary Dutch floor, David and I subconsciously set about creating a life extremely familiar. Even our choice of winter home could be considered a habit. Amsterdam is a large enough city to have culture, art, music and shopping while small enough to navigate entirely on foot or bicycle. It’s charming, has great coffee, good beer, there is water everywhere you look and it rains. Sound familiar?

This part of humanity makes me laugh and leaves me curious: why are humans so inclined towards their familiar? Why did we wrap ourselves up in a comfy security blanket of routine in the blink of an eye? These aren’t hard questions. They are screaming with easy answers. After nine months of sensory overload, overwhelming stimulus of the unfamiliar, smells, sounds, foods, animals, and the wide assortment of non-regulated public transportation in two-thirds of the world’s 3rd world countries, we craved cereal.

And we have it. Five days a week we have cereal for breakfast. On weekends, we make special breakfasts. I make coffee each morning, David and I have a cup together and I finish off the press after he leaves for work. We have a newspaper subscription, we change the bed sheets every two weeks, we have a savings card for our local grocery store and we rent movies. I go to yoga twice a week and the instructor knows my name. We even found a nice little karate school and had our first karate test last month. We are proud yellow belts.

We like to ride our bikes real fast and especially at night when the streets aren’t as crowded. We know that even though the Dutch have the word “sorry” in their language and it means the same thing, they will recognize our accents when we say “sorry” to mean, “please switch to English”. And *finally* a culture that appreciates cream for your coffee! You will never, ever be served regular milk for your coffee here, cream is the normal, the natural, the default, and it’s dreamy. It’s my perfect coffee existence.

So, it’s really no wonder neither of us has written an entry since October. We didn’t keep a blog before we went travelling and we really can’t think of anything to say now. What can we really say? Our lives are routine and clean and calm and I love it.

I suppose I could take this opportunity to provide a brief summary of the past three months. We brought October to a close in the country of my heart and name, Hungary. I was thrilled to finally show David where I lived during the summer of 1999, to show off my Hungarian (thank you, excuse me, cheers and six more beers please), and to take him to the famous Lukacs pastry shop. In November, we had a Thanksgiving dinner even though it was a workday with no mention at all of the enormo holiday going on in the US of A. I couldn’t even stream the Thanksgiving Day Parade and we had to have game hens instead of turkey but that’s OK. Then, we went with our friends, Nina and Steven, to Germany to see a Christmas market where we drank Gluhwein. We had a 12″, pre-lit, pre-ornamented Christmas tree on our window sill. We flew to the UK to spend the holiday with David’s family who were ecstatic to have the Grinch himself home for the first time in ten years. We had roast dinners, plenty of wine, Christmas eve down the pub and pram races on Boxing Day. New Year’s Eve was back in Amsterdam where they allow normal citizens access to vast quantities of sparkly gun powder most modern cities restrict to professionals at an extremely safe distance from the public.

Further putting our current geo location to good use, we began 2008 with a snowboarding trip to the Austrian Alps. I realize how luxurious that sounds but we really did try to find the cheapest village we could. It had been two whole years since our feet were last strapped to a board, and we were on rented boards at that, but things came back to us and before long we were screaming, “woooohoooooo” down the beautiful slopes of snow. To my observation, snow sport customs are the same in Europe as they are in America: skiers hate snowboarders, snowboarders wear baggy pants and no one likes getting off the chair lift. I’m glad I’ve had this experience but I still maintain that the best skiing is at Whistler and I’m thrilled that my permanent home is only five hours away from this winter wonderland. David and I *already* have butterflies about being re-united with our own gear and making the beautiful drive up to B.C. See, there you have it, we are thinking about home.

But what about home? We refer to Amsterdam as, “home with a little “h”.” I have recently had a revelation like a brick falling on my head: I like that I live here. I like the constant ringing of bicycle bells, I like how all the cafes have candles lit in their windows all day every day. I’m getting used to the ridiculously over-crowded grocery stores, I’m getting used to just about everyone being at least a foot taller than me. Frankly, it’s teaching me to walk with confidence better than my 9 years of studying karate. Claim your space! I’m not getting used to the clouds of cigarette smoke everywhere; I’m surprised actually that the Dutch don’t smoke in the grocery stores, they smoke everywhere else. But, hey, every city has its thing. So what am I trying to say? Life in Amsterdam is pretty good and it is beginning to feel a little like “h”ome. It’s carving a special little place in my heart as affection begins to grow. These are the streets that I have woken up and looked out upon for the last five months and it’s all beginning to feel quite normal.

This past Friday night I returned from a work meeting in Rotterdam at about 5:30pm and met David near the train station. He and I walked his bike to a wine bar where we had arranged to meet Beth. We see Beth at least once a week but we always seem to have SO much to catch each other up on that the evening flew by over beautiful wine and perfect bits of food you put on gourmet crackers. We ended our evening, as you do, with Beth getting on her bike and us getting on ours. There is one thing that all Dutch women know how to do with effortless grace that I am sure is a skill very very few American women have: they slide themselves perfectly side-saddle on the back of a moving bicycle, instantly cross their ankles, hold on with one arm, and away they go. It’s pretty hysterical to watch me try to do the same thing. As much as I would love to pass the blame onto David, we both know that it is entirely my fumble because he has given backies to Dutch women who have complimented his steady bicycle maneuvering. Apparently, he is innately capable of keeping his bike from wobbling. I can’t help but laugh myself into contortions as I try to get a running start and throw myself on the back of his bike but finally we were off and I was treated, which doesn’t happen very often since I usually have my own bike, to hands-down the best view of the city. And as we were turning here and there down Amsterdam’s narrow, brick-paved streets, the fairy-tale architecture may have been passing me by but the moment was not. I’m pretty darn lucky to be calling this city home with a little “h”. Afterward we stopped at the bar downstairs for a night-cap. It’s a good, honest bar that serves stew and local gin and we like to think the staff recognizes us when we walk in.

So, again, I have to ask myself, “what am I trying to say?” I know that I’m not trying to say I want to move here forever and I know that I’m not trying to say that I don’t want to shake out those dusty rucksacks and get back on the road. The next leg of our journey is even cooler and more exciting than the travelling we’ve already done! We are making friends here, though, and everything is growing comfortable. Even the little things that used to drive me crazy don’t drive me so crazy anymore which I think produces some weird feeling of accomplishment that they don’t drive me crazy anymore which then kind of turns into affection for what was irksome. Perhaps I am nervous that by the time our departure dates rolls around, I will feel like we’re actually leaving something which is not what I wanted. I wanted to feel emotionally free to go. Is that what I’m trying to say? I dunno….we’ll have to see.

I wonder how many times I’ve flown in and out of Sea-Tac airport. Over the past 10 years, hopping on a plane for everything from same-day business trips to our three-month life break in New Zealand, I’m gonna go ahead and average maybe 5 round-trips a year which has my tally roughly at 50 take-offs and landings in and out of Seattle. And each and every time I see those gorgeous mountains, those amazing lakes and that beautiful city skyline, it takes my breath away. It doesn’t matter what kind of excitement I’m flying off to, I’m always sad to be saying goodbye and it’s the view that is the first to welcome me back home. No matter how many times I see it, the awe never wanes. It is simply stunning and it means home.

Of course my last take-off out of Seattle was January 8, 2007 and I have since had 33 take-offs and landings. THIRTY-THREE! Our carbon footprint this year is absolutely enormous and this number is really nothing to be proud of but my point is this – not a single one of those take-offs or landings had the spectacular view out of the window that you can have from Seattle and certainly none had the same feeling as flying home but that’s OK because not one of those flights was actually returning me home. That is until my flight on September 25th and my eight flights since then.

As most of you know, I have secured a contract position with my former employer that allows me to work remotely from our apartment in Amsterdam and in return I commute to their London office every other Monday morning and return to Amsterdam Tuesday evening. September 25th marked my return to the ever-familiar and ever-glamour free world of business travel. Even trans-continental business travel is not really all that glamourous. It felt strangely similar to every other business trip I’ve ever taken except this time I had to clear immigration – between two countries I’m not allowed to work in which made explaining my interesting non-working working situation almost dramatic/traumatic/problematic/deportomatic. However, my story eventually seemed reasonable to the nice immigration man and once drama was safely avoided, it was business as usual.

Work travel is work travel is……work…..travel. Rising well before the sun, traveling on every possible form of public transportation, drinking soothing smelling but terrible tasting airline coffee, security, immigration, customs, two different currencies, desperately trying to remember to get a reciept for everything, hours in an office, work work work, drag your trusty carry on luggage across town to check in to your home away from home, plug in your laptop before you even take off your shoes, back to work and still working at 9pm, where have the hours gone??, order room service, watch some TV, take a shower and smile at leaving the towel on the floor, sleep, rise well before the sun, do the whole thing over again in reverse. finally……returning home…..like a record…playing…backward.

And technically I was returning “home”. I was returning to the city where I’m currently paying rent. My husband was there waiting for me. And, as I guzzled my free KLM international flight wine (tip for next time: free wine on international flights is great and it certainly was welcome after working and commuting, etc. but the London-Amsterdam flight is only 40 minutes which equals about 15 minutes to drink cold red wine which isn’t pleasant so next time go for white), I had a brief “ahhh” moment as we were descending into my new, if temporary, European home city and the captain said prepare for landing.

And then the ahhhh moment disappeared and suddenly I was struck hard by my very first bout of homesickness. It felt like a normal work trip, it had all the markings of a normal work trip, the overall travel time was about the same, I had a laptop with me, life felt normal, familiar, the same..but..but..

Where were the mountains??

Where were the pretty lights??

Where was the Space Needle??

The yellow cab? I5? Downtown Seattle? Capitol Hill???? My lovely condo???? My home?

I am returning to a city that I don’t really know, yet I’m living my normal life in. I am expecting the city to wrap its comforting arms around me and welcome me home. But it can’t – despite it’s willingness, it simply can’t. It’s not the city, it’s me. I’m just a tourist with a roll-a-board and some high-heeled shoes.

There is an unmistakeable feeling of landing in a new place, a city you’ve never been to before, a new discovery. We have had so many opportunities this year to feel that sense of excitement that we’ve almost been too busy to feel any homesickness. For as long as we’ve been away from home, the only bit of home that I really needed was my husband by my side. This feeling of landing in a new place is unmistakeable because it can never been mistaken for the feeling of a homecoming. There certainly have been places along the way where we’ve stayed for a while. But none of these places were ever pretending to be anything other long short stays and we, though we always tried to become familiar with the local ways and assimilate, never pretended to be anything more than observers, maybe sometimes contributors, but mostly selfish observers…tourists.

There is also a very unmistakeable feeling of coming home. For all the cities that I’ve been to, all the foreign cultures I’ve observed, I’ve never ever found a place I wanted to call home more than Seattle. It may sound completely contrary to what David and I are presently doing with our lives, but I really enjoy my home and I absolutely love my city. David and I passionately rave about it to anyone who will listen. That familiar, warm, welcoming feeling of home is like a soft enveloping breeze – it makes my heart smile. And that feeling seems intensified when returning home from a work trip. Work trips are weird. You are are expected to fulfil your normal daily responsibilities, do your normal job, work with your normal co-workers, talk your normal talk and wear your normal work clothes, yet you are completely removed from everything normal. Your normal home, bed, pets, couch, food, routines, friends, family, dinner with your husband. I think….it is slightly unnatural. Returning home is even more fantastic in this scenario because one is usually travelling solo meaning there is someone or something waiting for you. It is very sweet.

Yet, suddenly I’m changing the rules, in fact I’m changing the entire game and expecting it to instantly fall into place. And for the very first time since leaving home, I desperately want the welcoming arms of Seattle. The captain of my plane is speaking dutch, the planes outside my window are not Alaska Airlines planes, but KLM, and an immigrations officer stands between me and my apartment and, yet, I am home. Hmm, I suppose for now I’ll just take the free wine and the view out the window for what they are. A little cold and not how I’d have it forever, but they’ll both be gone before I know it so I best enjoy it while I can.

Keys
I have decided to title the paragraphs. The last literary affair rambled, so by now titling the paragraphs I’m hoping to give the reader a clue to the general thrust of the upcoming diatribe so easing the demands on my long, comma ridden sentences. In the long run, this will save us all time although it may be a while before that investment is realized. So, keys. I have them. They serve as a metaphor. They lock things up whilst reminding me I have things that need locking up. Locking my things up protects them from people who would like them for some nefarious gain of their own and so depriving me of my ever so important things. I have seven keys: bike front, bike rear, door up, door down, card key for work, key for the locker at work where my laptop lives and the ubiquitous mystery key. I’ve always had a mystery key. I don’t look for it, it just appears on the key-ring one day. Instantly I cannot remember quite what it (un)locks but I’m scared to dispose of it in case I can no longer (un)lock something I think is important. This too is a metaphor but of what I have yet to deduce.

Keys and their Role in my Life
Keys haven’t played much of a role in my life this year. I’m writing this to remind myself to not put so much importance on them in the future. Conditioning is a hard habit to break as I’ve always carried them and their meaning around with me. They bunch together nicely, all the keys to important things in one place. I suppose this is the best way – to carry them individually is just asinine and that is why key-rings make such fine presents for that awkward family gift exchange come the holiday season. To refuse the gift of a key-ring is to admit the desire to randomly spread one’s keys across one’s life and, by transference, implies one is also asinine. But, my life in Amsterdam is one where key mayhem is rife. Here’s my conundrum. Bike keys are only needed when cycling but when I do cycle the keys remain in one of the locks on the bike. They won’t come out. This is a safety feature designed to ensure you always lock your bike but is disconcerting because I always pat my pockets for my keys every-time I leave the house and every-time I get on the bike (or car, if I had one). My life of key conditioning has led to always expect the same volume of key in my pocket. But now, half the keys are missing (they’re in the bike lock, stupid) and I ever-so-mildly panic – every time. My work key card is a card not a key so it can’t live with the other key shaped keys but does carry with it a key shaped key to my locker and the mystery key (also fashioned in the shape of a key). BUT, they too must remain in the lock of locker, separate from the card key so adding to the mayhem. The worse case, is when I cycle to work – I need all my keys but only some for some of the journey and some of the time – throughout the whole commute to my desk, various keys come on and go off the key-ring at some quite confusing moments. And, that, I suppose, is yet another metaphor.

An Aside Of Keys, Please Waiter
Talking of bike locks, Sarah, a few weeks ago, locked her bike and left the keys in the lock. When she returned her trusty steed would have been nothing but thin air if it were not the brave action of my bike who, at the last moment and in total disregard for its own safety, threw its own lock around Sarah’s bike in a effort to save its friend from the black market. The cunning criminals stole her lock instead.

A Question
How is this whole paragraph titling malarkey working out for you? Its a device I suppose but its not a concise device. Oh well, onwards…

Lost in Translation
My Dutch is not all that. But then, the internet means it doesn’t have to be. Thanks to the babel fish translation service from Altavista, I can stuff words, sentences and whole websites into the mouth, but more likely up the ass, of this powerful little fish and out pops “translation”. I wouldn’t use it for anything where accuracy is even remotely important but then I’m trying to avoid such requirements in my life anyway. Here’s a few favorites from today:

When deciding what internet package to order: You want mail beside and surf sometimes a photograph send or music to download? Then UPC Internet Easy the subscription for you is!

Customer support pages when the internet doesn’t work: Krijg I have been possible subscription money if I by a cable crack not at?

When you need to find the hotel you’ll be staying in: The whaler lies in the village groin, what approximately between Midsland and Oosterend in lies.

When deciding to rent Star Wars in Dutch: When imperial troops arrive to destroy where the rebellen flights Han solo and Princess Leia to Cloud city, they caught are taken Darth father. Luke Skywalker set off to the planet Dagobah, where he by Jedi-meester are trained the Yoda in the Force.

And so on… There’s no doubt that laughing at a tool that stops people laughing at me is cruel. But even crueler is my insistence on reading the translation with a dutch accent, even when I’m reading it silently to myself. The Dutch speak wonderful English but babel fish just makes them look cheap. Well, it actually makes me look cheap for only knowing the Dutch for thank you. I will continue to laugh at babel fish and try to remember to say thank you to the good Dutch folk who make my life easier by interacting with me in my own language.

My parents’ love of American football did not rub off on me. Their pilgrimages to the Super Dome, their New Orleans Saints shirts, hats, all around color coordinated outfits, the non-stop football on television, both college and pro – none it made an impression on me. In our house, football was not only on the television but simultaneously on the radio as well. In fact, it was not at all uncommon to find my dad sitting with headphones on listening to one game on the radio while watching a different game on TV. You could hear him yelling at the TV down the street. He was religious about his college game statistics. I liked for my Dad to teach me about football, but not really because I was interested in the game. It was just fun to see my Dad get so excited. I also secretly liked that my Dad had football on the TV all the time. Again, not because I was at all interested, but because it was one of our family traditions and I liked that. To this day, the sound of football reminds me of my Dad.

I was on my high school dance team and performed on my high school football field every Friday night for 2 years. I was required to learn about the game and cheer on the team and I did so obediently and had plenty of school spirit but none of it made me a true football fan.

And then my college football team, the LSU Tigers, made it to a bowl game the winter of my sophomore year. My friends and I were with that team every step of the way through that winning season and I loved every single college game I went to. The pre-game parties, the tailgating, pom poms, pendants on our cars, flags hanging out dorm room windows, the games in LSU’s beautiful stadium, the band, the cheering, everything about college football is just plain fun. But….I haven’t seen an LSU game since I graduated.

When I moved out of my parents’ house, I moved away from the sounds of football. When I left college, I left college football. Contrary to my father’s assertion otherwise, I did manage to find a non-sports fan for a partner and even married him.

Yet another opportunity to officially label myself a football fan presented itself in January 2006 when my home team was fighting for the title of Superbowl champions. And of course it was exciting and of course I put a sticker on my face and wore a t-shirt and went down the pub with a group of friends and got just as excited and had just as much beer as everyone else there and it was fantastic. Even though, thanks to some absolutely insane calls by the ref, the Seattle Seahawks lost the game and the championship, that day is still one of the best football memories that I have.

As I take this casual walk down football memory lane I am actually surprised by how much of a football thread is woven throughout my life. And still not a fan. Until……..

The 2007 Rugby World Cup

England vs. South Africa

played in Paris

watched in Amsterdam

I can hear it now the shock and awe from my English family and friends – the Rugby World Cup actually made me an American Football FAN?? And didn’t serve to reconfirm my lack of interest in the sport?? How can this be.

Well, the entire event is one big shocker.

Shocking that I woke up Saturday morning excited about our plans to spend that evening in an Australian theme bar.

Shocking that I was so excited about this Australian theme bar that I wondered out loud over breakfast whether or not they served cheeseburgers and thus set my heart on a said cheeseburger as my dinner.

Not shocking that we, as we do, completely underestimated how many other expats had planned to have cheeseburgers at the Australian theme bar and by the time we arrived there were security guards blocking the entrance.

Shocking that I insisted we go straight to the next bar down the line, an Irish theme bar, to quickly grab a seat.

Yuuummmmm, cheeseburger.

Then shocking that we enthusiastically changed venues because we could not concentrate on the game at the Irish theme bar….could not concentrate on the game!

I had received some rugby tutoring the night before from one of David’s new co-workers, a very nice man Ravan from South Africa. We were very excited to watch the game with Ravan and have a true England vs. South Africa but, alas, Australian them bar, security guards….all we could do was wave to each other – Ravan being on the inside, us on the outside. Anyway, my point here is that I knew going in that there were clear differences between rugby and American football and so far, it seemed rugby was far superior. I was prepared to embrace a new sport.

There is no denying, rugby players are the superior athlete. Every member of the team knows how to kick the ball. I mean, it basically being a combo of soccer and American football, every player kicks, runs, passes, defends, offends, tackles, jumps feet in the air, what goes up must come down, gets piled on, collides, dives, everyone does everything and they do everything without a single pad – no pads and no helmets. So that part is impressive and I will trumpet their athleticism. And mild stupidity – seriously they should at least wear helmets. I could quite clearly see why they call it cauliflower ear and at one point during the game the ref forced a player off the field because he was dripping too much blood: very thin, eerie streams from both eyes and both nostrils. But I digress.

Completely contrary to what I expected to be happening, though, was not an arms wide open embrace of a new sport, but a strange feeling welling in my heart. An unfamiliar feeling, almost a yearning, an allegiance almost to – the other football!

With beer in hand, surrounded by tourists and expats from every nation congregated in this fair city of Amsterdam to watch a sport that the entire world not only plays but firmly believes comparisons between it and American football are nothing short of ridiculous for football’s inferiority, I found myself, first thinking and then yelling out loud, listing reasons why football is BETTER!!

Firstly, I don’t like how the ball never dies. It is always in play unless it goes out of bounds. So just when you think, well naturally the ball is dead – it’s on the ground and 20 men are piled on top of it, it POPS out of the pile up like a slippy baby and off it goes again. I don’t like this. It’s messy and confusing and it should just be dead.

Secondly, there is no concept of an interception which kills many a gasping cheering opportunity. When one team kicks the ball and the other team catches it and starts running the other way, this event is completely anti-climactic. No one even mumbles a comment. I’m screaming to fellow fans, “don’t you know if you made that a big deal how much more yelling you could be doing??!!”

Thirdly, the Rugby World Cup happens onnce very 4 years. It’s equivalent to the Superbowl but if the Superbowl was only every four years. Can you imagine the hype and excitement if we Americans had to wait an entire three years between Superbowls??!! Rugby fans get nothing. NO pomp and circumstance. Nothing. No half-time show! No pre-game, no post-game, no post-post game, no special uber-expensive highly anticipated commercials, no post-commercial commentary, post post commercial debating rating. No flashy celebrities, no wardrobe malfunctions, no high school dance teams from around the world, no dry ice…..The only thing I can say is that the Princes were at the game. And the British Prime Minister. Does George Bush go to the Superbowl? I don’t think so. So I guess that is something.

But I found myself yelling in my beer assisted homesickness, Bring on the Pomp!! Bring on the over-the-top! Bring on the touch down dances, the lone kicker coming onto the field to a roar of applause, the 1^st down, 2^nd down, 3^rd down, 4^th down, sacking the quarterback, the interceptions, the bionic arm passes, the cheerleaders…..bring it all on.

Everything about America is excessive including football and I believe we all love it. It’s what we want. As I finish the diary marking my official entry into the world of American football fanaticism, I have to remark on a strange coincidence. I currently have BBC World News on TV and they have just done a commercial for a sports show that will take a serious look at the Rugby World Cup and will also peek into the glamorous world of American football. Proves my point exactly. With rugby, all you get is the game. With football, you get glamour. Thank you, rugby, for opening my eyes and helping me to accept and open my arms to the game that has been trying my entire life to grab my attention and make me fall in love.

I’m literary impotent. Please reread the first sentence in case you interpreted the second word to be literally. I should be scrawling a dozen notes concerning the daily deltas of living in Amsterdam but all I have managed in the last three weeks are these last three sentences. It cannot be something in the water that causes my dereliction of duty – it is the best in the world. This I know from my latest faux-pas. Whilst checking into our new apartment, the conniptions caused by my mere suggestion that a water filter be made available were quite hostile. Two real estate agents, the landlord and the previous tenant all took offense to my question in a choral unison of “Nee, Nee” (pronounced “nay” like a horse). An equine harmony of incredulity and offense as a response to my implication that Amsterdam tap water is not the finest in the entire world. Our 1705 apartment overlooks a canal so my mind forces me to glance first at the tap, then to the canal and then worry as to the degree of technological advancement of early 18th century plumbing. The same process happens in reverse whenever I walk into the bathroom.

See, one paragraph in and all I’ve been able to talk about is tap water. My malady? Oh yes, the pressure of maintaining a blog when nothing of great excitement is occurring. Usually I would refrain from posting because I am, as I have repeatedly prattled about, a great believer in self moderation concerning contributions to the public internet. There is an inordinate amount of mis-focused photos and mis-directed opinions in the cybersphere that do nothing but clog my google with irrelevance. I wish not to be one of the cloggers but, I have an audience, they demand to be entertained and so the show must go on.

This is paragraph three. Paragraph one was about tap water, paragraph two was about, well, nothing at all, and here I am at the top of third, the bases are loaded and I’ve no idea what to write about next. I’m going to make coffee. Please be kind enough to await my return……… I’m back. I thank you for your patience. So, yes, let me tell you about personal space here in Holland. We traveling types reserve the great proclamations of cultural clashes for the exotic destinations of the world. Nothing raises a chuckle of self-righteousness as a story about the crazy Indians or the insane Vietnamese (see most of the previous posts in this blog). But here, in the westernized, developed country of Holland, personal space is a concept as strange to the Dutch as keeping dogs for pets rather than for food is to the Vietnamese. Perhaps it is a conservative concept of selfishness ripe to be revolutionized by that famous Dutch liberalism. In Amsterdam, if a building lays empty for more than a few months, it may legally be squatted. This concept is freely practiced, albeit on a small scale, with my personal space. I, and this sounds ruder than it is, have been squatted too. We have been reached over, reached round, reached though, barged back, pushed forward, sit next to, sat on, stood over and slid under in the course of everyday life here.

Now, those crazy Indians are no strangers to the shoulder check either but it’s always in pursuit of something important like a train ticket or seat on a five hour bus journey. The Dutch are very polite in those circumstances, it’s helping themselves to the salt and pepper shakers from your table where the greatest infractions are dealt. No asking, no gesturing, no excuses, apologies or humble offerings of self-deprecation, just a dirty great big arm, between you and the fork that holds your next morsel of food en-route to your expectant mouth. It feels like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. First the pepper mill, next my soul. Being rational people we know that we should be waging war on our own cultural upbringing and not the poor guy who just wants to add some seasoning to his otherwise blandly deep fried Dutch fare but, we can’t help balking at the violation of our personal constitution. Sarah’s conditioning suffers greater than mine but this is probably because America is so big it affords plenty of room for all the people and all their condiment containers to exist in simultaneous spacious harmony. The UK is smaller but I believe Holland is the most densely populated European country and so, just like the Indians, this may be a matter of pure survival too.

The last couple of paragraphs weren’t too bad. Must be the coffee. Moving on. In matters concerning work: An interesting social experiment has been occurring in my life these past weeks. My stress levels have been blatantly rising despite my previous post which, incidentally, brought a few detractors from out the woodwork. It appears my adoring public don’t want to scratch the underbelly of the beast and would like to continue their faith in my corporate divinity. So be it and let it please them to know I have recently and continuously found myself waking early and thinking about the day ahead in terms of spreadsheets, reports and memorandums. This is in stark contrast to a few short months ago when my mornings were centered on nothing more but the location of the nearest banana pancake. Conversely, the tail end of the day leaves me mentally exhausted but with plenty of physical energy and a nagging feeling I should have climbed the hill instead of taking the vernicular. Words are not flowing as they should, my lexicon is shriveling back to acronyms and nouns stolen from a more organic origins and now shoe-horned into a technical products – spring and hibernate mean something different to me now than they did earlier in the year. But I shall not moan, just observe and promise myself to redress this balance once we return to Seattle.

Oh dear, this is all turning a little morbid and self-absorbed. Time for a another Dutch-ism. You don’t become one of the world’s greatest trading nations by splashing your cash. Centuries of becoming rich by being the globe’s middlemen (tea, spices, beer, slaves) have left the Netherlanders with a sense of obsessive frugality. The matter in question is that of the rent on our new apartment. When asked where we live, the reaction is always first of wonderment (our street is very desirable) nipped at its heels by the disbelief of spending so much money on rent. This reaction is not based on the actual Euro amount, it hasn’t come up in conversation yet, but just the fact we must be paying for something intangible like location or charm. Sooner or later, they will tentatively ask how much we are paying which encourages us to justify our answer – proof this thriftiness must be mildly addictive. We live on a picture postcard canal in the middle of a major European city yet our hosts have the hardest time understanding the whys of our wherefores. Our rent is comparable to that of downtown Seattle, less than central London, yet remains more than any average local would spend. I feel they would rather live an hour outside of Amsterdam in, quite frankly, the deep fried blandness of provincial Holland, to save some money. It’s not they can’t afford it, it’s just they don’t want to pay for it and can’t, for the life of them, understand why anyone would. The Dutch frugality is everywhere, dormant until highlighted by the excessiveness of us, the Americans.

My maladies seem to be cured. I have more to say but worry that your life is too short to read it at present. You have your own busy lives to lead and I should not want to clog your google with more ramblings today. Tomorrow is a whole new day so sleep well my friends and remember the Dutch may be a little odd but you, the Americans, are as mad as balloons.

Date – Saturday, September 22, 2007

Time – 8:30pm

Location – Frenzi http://www.frenzi.nl/, a lovely little restaurant serving Mediterranean fare.

Good ideas based on information had at the time:

1. wear a white shirt and brown leather belt to accentuate new brown, leather knee-high boots

2. rest the hard-cover wine list behind the salt & pepper shakers and bottle of olive oil

3. have a glass of red wine

David reaches for bottle of olive oil.

Salt & pepper shakers do not hold up hard-cover wine list.

Wine list falls into glass of red wine.

Full glass of red wine topples over in slow motion.

The glass shatters.

I look like Carrie.

The entire restaurant gasps……

Red wine is dripping, dripping, dripping from the table edge, the edge of my chair. It is much colder than it should be. And in much greater quantity than I thought. Good value for money, I suppose.

David and I are both shocked. People are running all around us. Gasps, stares, laughter, whispers. But we just stare at each other.

I push my chair back. I am surrounded by waitresses. I am escorted down to their supply room. I am given a waitress shirt to change in to. They will wash my shirt for me. They are being very nice to me.

Then, I notice that I have a napkin in my hand and the wine I’m wiping from my hands isn’t wine colored. Is that blood?

I remove the napkin. All three waitresses nearly vomit. They cover their mouths and turn away. You can see fat deposits. Several layers deep. You could call it a gash. A gape, a gape like PacMan’s mouth.

Oh wow.

“You must come up to the kitchen. The chef will know what to do.”

I am in the small kitchen. One chef is attending to me. The other is preparing dinner for the entire restaurant. I am in the way and the floor is very slippery. Nice chef is washing my thumb, being very kind, drying it off, preparing a butterfly for me. I am in the other chef’s way.

David appears. Apparently, the Dutch waitress said to him, “It is very deep. I want to call you a cab to go to the hospital.”

That’s right folks. I would be my 3^rd visit since we left home, if anyone is counting.

But, alas, we think things are already congealing. The human body is amazing.

Then suddenly, chef whose way I’m in starts yelling. There is food up and no one is taking it. Turns out our appetizers are ready. “It is OK, this food is for them (pointing to David and I)”. Something in Dutch yelled back. “But it is for them so it doesn’t matter!”

We decide to stay. Nice chef has made a beautiful butterfly bandage. Things are already healing. I put on the waitress shirt. I return to the table in my new outfit and the restaurant cheers.

I order another glass of wine.

And this is my thumb now (click for the gory detail):