Supermarket traumas

Supermarkets in the Netherlands are designed to make you feel like an idiot. Yes its true. They are specifically arranged to make things as easy as possible for the cashiers, even giving them a comfortable seat so they have front-row tickets to the sight of your various troubles.

The first time I went I happily strolled the aisles with my trolley, throwing in all those just-moved-in essentials. Washing up liquid, shampoo, laundry powder, tissues.... coffee. The pile in the bottom of the trolley didn't look all that big, not compared to the mammoth supermarket expeditions I have at home. Yet the pile continued to grow.

Having shopped in britain I was prepared for the worst. I knew about how the cashiers sit and watch smugly while you pack your own shopping bags, whizzing things down the conveyer belt towards you so you have to do a kind of Tassie devil impression; becoming a blur of movement in order to get everything packed in the bag as it comes hurtling towards you. So I was prepared for the worst.

I took up my station at the outlet where the goods come shooting down the ramp. But as the first things slid towards me I realised something.... Panic! There were no bags. The cashier was paying no attention to my plight, beeping things over the scanner. "Pardon, pardon. Heeft u bagages?" (In retrospect I think this translates something like "Have you got any luggage?" but this was the least of my concerns at the time.) She looked at me and held up a cardboard roll with one tatter of plastic hanging off it, and then shrugged to indicate how supremely unmoved she was by my plight. (I later found out that they do in fact have plastic bags for purchase, but she was holding out on me... and couldn't be bothered to ask the next cashier along for some). I watched horror stricken as my pile of goods mounted at the end of the conveyerbelt like a malign tower of Babel, and started to spill over the edges. At a loss for what to do I started to pack them back into the trolley from whence they came.

Relief came in the unexpected form of a cardboard box. So with a backbreakingly heavy backpack, a box balanced on my hip like an African woman with a baby, and a 12 pack of heineken dangling from my one remaining pinky finger I managed to catch the bus home and stagger to my apartment. I damaged muscles I didn't even know I had.

My next sortie to the supermarket I came prepared, with three heavy duty plastic bags under my arm. No one was going to make a fool of me this time. Still bicycle-less, I had resolved also not to buy so many heavy things. So I joined the queue much more confident, fixing the cashier with a steely gaze. When it came to my head of broccoli, she held it up and said "goobledee goobledee goobledee gook?". "Sorry?" I said. She sighed at this stupid foreigner. "You haven't put a label on it."
Label? What sort of label? "This is broccoli"? "This is Madeleine's broccoli"?.
"Sorry?"
"You have to weigh it. There is a machine behind you."
The queue was mounting up behind me with impatient Dutch people, so I sprinted to the machine, and somehow spotted the icon for broccoli amongt about 40 others. It weighed it and specified 60 euro cents. I sprinted back to report this to her.
"No, you have to print out the label."
I looked at the machine, at the queue behind me, and then back at her. My face must have said "please, rescue me", because eventually she sighed and got up from her seat to do it myself. I grovelled.... thankyou, yes, I promise I will never do it again. Washing her hands of e, she moved the slider across the outlet ramp ( a clever device that channels the next persons groceries in the other direction, whilst squashing your just-purchase bread and fruit to a pulp). Humbled once again, I retreated from the store with my two (still heavy) bags of groceries.

But my troubles did not end after these two traumatising incidents. There were also the fun occasions of my credit card not working. Not to mention trying to explain to a slack-faced supermarket employee exactly what beef stock was and what it perhaps might be in dutch, "for soup? for risotto? Its like a mix. Nonono, not chilli con carne mix."

And also the time I bought face moisturiser only to discover that it was exfoliant.

The House Elves

Settling in to a new place is always difficult. But it is even more difficult when you don't have anything to settle in to. So it was with considerable relief that I arrived home on Monday to discover that furniture had miraculously appeared in my apartment during the two hours that I was out.

Like the spirits that come by night they had left tantilising signs of their presence; a mallet, a screwdriver, a discarded IKEA instruction manual. A little pile of plaster on the floor beneath the coathook.

For the first time since my arrival I was grateful for my previous lack of furniture. In their haste to correct such a tremendous cock-up, DUWO had done a job-lot IKEA order. New desk, new drawers, new bin with the label still on it. New bed and new mattress, with new sheets still wrapped in plastic. Even a new fridge. The only thing that was second-hand was the stove, the previous owners grease generously splattered over the inside of the lid. I didn't mind. It was my stove now, and I loved it grease and all.

The next day I had another visit by the mysterious elves. I went to class, and when I returned a desk lamp had come from nowhere. The elves had as a trade, alas, taken back the mallet and the screwdriver. Next time it will be my firstborn.

As we speak I am still awaiting the day when they will see fit to return to me, and bring gifts of an armchair, a pillowcase and a toilet brush to further compliment my rather minimilist aesthetic. Even my firstborn would not be too high a price to pay for that armchair right now.

Settling into my newly aquired domestic bliss I decided I would do my laundry. I had been intially delighted to discover that the laundry room was right next to me, how very convenient! In subsequent weeks this delight had faded as I also discovered my corridor-mates tendency to do their laundry late at night. But at this time I had purchased some lovely new laundry liquid and was keen to use it and remove the general air of squalor that hung about my unwashed clothing pile. So I investigated the laundry room.

The first machine I put my clothes in and then tried to close the door. At this point I discovered that there was, in fact, a bicycle lock on the door in order to hold it open and prevent anyone using it. How very dutch (the bicycle lock... not the meanness of spirit). The second machine left me completely bewildered. It somehow managed to combine the inconvenient features of a top loader and a front loader, by having a front loader cylinder that you had to load from the top. The third machine was currently being used (quite a common state of affairs considering this poverty of machine-ness). The fourth machine was another peculiar top/front/loader, and I opened the lid and stared into it for about ten seconds before my mind would believe what my eyes were seeing.

Someone had gone to the toilet in it. With toilet paper too. I stared, unbelieving, until the smell hit me and brought me to my senses. I slammed the lid shut and stood, blinking at the machine for about another minute, dumbfounded.

Not all house elves are benevolent.
To what I'm certain is your relief I have chosen not to grace you with a photo.

Chips and Dips

The international student meeting day, that I got invited to my first student party. One of the Dutch students had taken pity on us all, and distributed invitation for a party in Oude Delft that night.

Student party I thought. Chips and dips right? Some dirty couches and maybe some free beer if I'm lucky. Well, why not. Like good little students we all trooped into Delft at 10:00, and met in front of the Niewe Kirk.

There was an icy cold breeze, picking up extra oomph in the open marktplace, and I foolishly was wearing a skirt.I had shaved my legs that day too, so I didn't even have any natural insulation. Me and my spaniards shivered for about ten minutes until we were joined by a few more spaniards, and then trooped through delfts canal-infested centre until we reached the house.

So I walked in the front door and was immediately assailed by a jester, who took my coat and hung it in the coat room for me. Next I passed a booth, where five euros buys you a strip of seven tokens - two tokens for a drink. Then I entered a seething mass of humanity.

The house is one of the larger 'student houses' in Delft; where a bunch of poor students have banded together to live in such crowded conditions that they can in fact afford a large house in the centre of delft. And like good students, they had converted the bottom half of the house into a night club. The walls were painted, there were disco lights, there was a live rock band in the back room. There was drunk people, and a chinese theme. It was everything a good party should be. The people were many and the servings of wine were generous. The room was hot, and even hotter when the next door neighbour came in and shut all the windows.

At 3:30 I called my tame taxi driver, steven, who for a mere 11 euros transported me home to my airbed, which I collapsed on so forcefully I'm surprised it didn't pop.

Bicyclomania

In a city full of bicycles, I couldn't find a single one.

Delft is not a very big town, and the majority of it is occupied by poverty-stricken students. This, in combination with the citizens being Dutch, makes the bicycle is an extremely popular form of transport. Everyone from old men to babies had overtaken me at some stage. In Delft walking is for suckers and tourists.

So at the beginning of the academic year, a tidal wave of students washed over Delft and bought all the cheap bicycles, leaving me floundering in their wake. With the average price for a bicycle having peaked above 100 euros, my hopes of a 30 euro bicycle were squashed forever.

Not that cheap bicycles weren't available. In fact, my ever-loving next door neighbour Joost helped me to find one on the Dutch version of ebay, "Marktplaats" and call its owner to arrange purchase. It was only 30 euros and pretty spick and span, just a few scratches on the frame. But when you use a bicycle every day of the year thats only to be expected. With high hopes I walked the 40 minutes to Delfgrauw to claim my prize.

Esther opened the door and looked down her nose at me. She showed me the bicycle, and after one look my dreams of breezing past the pedestrians faded. Optimistically I asked her if I could try it out. She raised an eyebrow.... we both already knew what the outcome would be... but said that I was welcome to try.

Well I couldn't even get onto the seat, and just to add insult to injury I pulled a muscle in my leg trying. Dutch woman resemble giraffes, and I amongst them a short, squat pygmy. Their bicycles are stick-insect bicycles, all angles and long thin pieces. Disheartened, I hobbled back to the bus stop which I had so callously mocked on the way there, imagining how I would sail past it on my new bicycle as i returned home. On the way I passed oh so many tantilisingly un-chained bicycles. I had gotten to the point where if a suitable sized child had cycled past, I probably would have pushed him off the seat and claimed it for myself.

The next day I fronted up to the railway bicycle shop, the only one which had enough bicycles so that it was certain to have at least one for short people. A week early I had turned on my heel and left the place, shouting behind me "100 euros? pah! I spit on your 100 euros". But by this stage I was a much more humble consumer. I had been walking for so many days that my hips were commuicating with each other in a secret language of clicking noises every time I took a step. Meekly I entered the store and asked if they had any second hand bicycles for short people.

They had one, and I watched as the proprieter lowered the seat as far as it would go, emphasising how even a short bicycle was not short enough.
"Are you sure you can't make it any cheaper?" I asked
"But it has new wheels!"
"You can't even take 10 euros off the price?"
He bobbed at the knees like a frustrated child, repeating for the umpteenth time to this thick-headed Australian.
"But it is a very very good bicycle! It has new wheels!"

I had had enough. I bought the little bastard, and 125 euros later we walked out of the shop together. I despising it for it exorbitant price, and my demeaning reliance on it. It detected my mood and rolled sullenly along beside me on its new wheels.

DUWO refugees

"And this clause in the DUWO contract that says you can't have any overnight guests, do they actually check on that?"
"Don't pay any attention to DUWO, they're pricks." replied Owen.

And this was my introduction to Delft's own student housing society as I spoke to one of last year's exchange students. So it was with apprehension that I approached their imposing building on Kaanalweg, one of Delft's more expensive streets. Mighty DUWO, with their stranglehold on the student housing in Delft.

Entering the building I had my first brush with their 'satisfied' customers. Walking through the foyer I passed fifty or so depressed, unhappy, filthy, tired looking young people with copious amounts of luggage. It was like a refugee camp. As I breezed through the middle of them to the V.I.P meeting room I felt their blank stares, devoid of all hope, turn to follow me.

Arriving en masse, the Ontwerpen exchange students had privileged standing and got to sit in comfort in the conference room while we signed our papers and collected our keys. It all seemed suspiciously civilised, but Owen's warnings echoed in my mind.

Later we had a student party, and with all the socialising and free beer available I didn't head to my room until about 7:30. Looking forward warmly to the prospect of finally unpacking my suitcase so I could actually remember what was in it. So I dragged my luggage up the two flights of stairs, walking down the corridoor, and turned my key in the door.

"Ummm....okay."

There was nothing in it. Nice room...... but not a stick of furniture. Not a bed, not a fridge, not even a light globe. DUWO was conveniently shut for the whole weekend. And their emergency number yielded only a startled caretaker with expertise in fixing plumbing and heating failures. What do you do in this situation? Wait for a fairy godmother to appear and solve the problem? My fairy godmother was still at the university, but would not be for long. I sprinted back.

"Janneke, I have no furniture."
"Oh."
Apparantly this had never happened before. But Janneke called her husband who promptly delivered an airbed and a sleeping bag, and just for good measure Janneke bestowed upon me all the leftover food from the student party. The prospect of vegemite sandwiches on stale bread yawned before me.
That night as I curled up on my airbed in one corner of my empty room it dawned upon me; I too had become a DUWO refugee.

Scottish Vices

I have never eaten so much in my life (except for that time at Lake Macquarie where I put on nearly four kilos in four days..). But "this is the second time I have eaten a lot in my life" does not have quite the same ring to it.

The first day I was with Anne and John, I was recovering from a london hot chip diet. They took my enthusiasm for the first dinner as an indicator of my usual appetite, and adjusted my menu accordingly. Roast dinners, chocolates on tap, fried food, fresh butter, a ginormous cheese platter, and delicious strawberries with icecream. I know that for at least two of the days I had four meals a day.

Emerging for breakfast I would do my usual traveller's thing where you eat a lot of food before you go out, so you can go sightseeing for the whole morning without stopping. So I would have cereal, toast with butter, fruit, and orange juice. Then I would retire for my shower. Washed and polished I would appear at the bottom of the stairs to go out, only to be greeted by John; with some sort of delicious fried object in a bread roll. I couldn't rightly say no could I (and didnt want to either)? And I suppose I could have skipped lunch to make up for it, but my stomach likes to maintain its schedule whether its been fed recently (abundantly) or not. Dinner was always fantastic, and afterwards I would be presented with one (or both) of the two things I have the most trouble resisiting. Cheese and chocolate.

Then the night I went out with the Katherine clan I experienced a different kind of abundance. The photo says it all (please note the way I am holding onto the bar for dear life). And what the photo doesn't say I don't know if I should repeat.

Rest and be wet

Five hours on a train found me openly welcomed to the abode of Anne, John and Lindsay in suburban Glasgow. I was so pleased to be in a proper bed again that I probably would happily have stayed in it for the whole week. But fortunately they had plans for me, and prevented this waste of a train ticket.
The weekend found us roaming the countryside, but the fickle scottish weather was not on our side. All day we climbed hill, after monument, after hill, all with splendid views from the top. Or, at least, there would have been. There was however, a splended view of the mist.
C'est la vie.

After we had done all this travelling on the rainy Saturday, the Sunday was of course perfect weather. John was most aggreived by this, but I consoled him by telling him that if we had done it the other way around then the weather would have done it the other way around too. Storm clouds follow me like bad luck for Jonah.

The perfect day

Escaping my confinement, I went to Covent Garden for the day. It only took a day for me to develop the habit of hanging my umbrella from the outside of my bag. This way, no matter what the indecisive weather I need not be inconvenienced but having to endlessly take the umbrella in and out of my bag. I could simply open it without detatching it.

I had remembered Covent Garden as being very expensive. And so it was, but not as much as in my poverty-stricken recollections. In fact, there were things in the market that I could actually afford. I celebrated by spending everything in my wallet, and becoming the proud owner of an amber ring amongst other useless items.

The ring itself was bought at a discount. I tried on every ring in the nice Canadian man's stall, but they were all so very very delicate. In other words, didn't even come close to fitting on my savaloy fingers. The only one that did had a much larger stone and was more expensive. But the nice Canadian man took pity on the fat-fingered girl and gave her a discount so that she too could be elegant and bejeweled.

Just as I was beginning to wonder what to do for the rest of the day a voice called from behind me "Excuse me madame, excuse me". I turned around to observe a cute guy calling to me. This is not something that frequently happens to me, so I wondered what he wanted.
"Excuse me but I am a hairdresser and I am looking for a hair model today. Do you have time for a hair cut?"

Wha?

"Ummm... maybe." I said. "What is involved?" Wondering if I would follow him into a side street only to be mugged and stabbed. Or perhaps he was legitimate, but would cut my hair into a purple mohawk.
"Just a hair cut. Or a colour. Or both. Whatever you would like?"
"Okay..." The vision of the purple mohawk was slowly retreating. "Can you do it like this only shorter?"
"Sure. Whatever you like."
Okay. Not so bad, if legitimate. Cute guy (undoubtedly gay), cut hair for free. Could be fun?
As I followed him to the salon I started to wonder why he had chosen me. Was my hair really so bad that this man felt compelled to drag me off the street and cut it for me?

But it was great. "Danielle" (he even pronounced it like the girls name, although I will give him some leeway for being french canadian) was new at the London salon and needed to prove to them that he could cut hair, even though he had already been a hairdresser for three years. I got my hair cut and coloured, while being served cups of tea and buried in gossip magazines. I was too embarassed to admit I had coloured my hair myself, when Danielle complained that the previous hairdresser hadn't done a very good job. And then I walked out of the salon newly coiffed, glancing casually at the price list on my way out. If I'd paid for it (not that I would have) it would have been 80 pounds.

Nice day?

A room of one's own

London is an expensive city. Or so they say.
The first time I went I breezed blissfully through the streets, thinking it the most perfect place in the world. Sure, the food was expensive, but surely that was just the exchange rate? But no matter how hard you try, an impression like that cannot be maintained. The second time round the cracks start to show.

Lorraine most charitably shared her shoe-box with me. In a street full of beautiful tenements, hers was the ugly brown council flat left over from the seventies, redeemed slightly by backing onto the Thames path. But alas, in a fit of greed, the landlady had at some time in the past converted the living room into another two bedrooms. Thereby blocking general access to the backyard and ensuring that there was nowhere in the entire house to sit. And in a house with seven bedrooms and a potential fourteen tenants this is a very bad thing. So it was that I had for the first time the peculiar experience of eating my dinner standing up in the kitchen. And all this dubious honour for a price of just 80 pounds ($200) a week.

Lorraine's room itself was nice, as she had command of the back door. Or at least it would have been, accept that London prices demand shared rooms and so there were two tennants. When me and my air mattress were added to the mix things could not help but become rather chaotic. So we tripped over one another for a few days until we worked out a routine. Lorraine would get up in the morning and poke me until I was awake. At this point I would get off the airbed and crawl into her bed, so she could get to her wardrobe and dresser. She was allowed to use the end of the bed for sitting on while she got ready as long as she avoided my feet. Then at 9:00 I would wake up, and (on request) poke Sandra until she had also woken up. This normally took about an hour of poking, but did mean that I could switch the light on while I was getting ready.

It was lovely to see Lorraine, but five days or musical beds was about all I could manage. Lorraine has somehow managed five months.

The ubiquitous McDonalds...

"Where will I meet you?" I asked Lorraine.
"McDonalds at Hammersmith station, its in the shopping centre."
So I arrived at Hammersmith at 7:30 in the morning. having endured the tribulations of a 23 hour flight, my body wanted some grease. Fast.
"A small fries please"
The adolescent behind the counter looked at me as though I had started dancing the nutbush.
"We don't have any."
'You don't have any fries? Here?"
"No."
HAD THE WORLD GONE TOPSY-TURVY??!
Maybe he thought it was too early for fries, but my stomach certainly didn't. I decided to let it rest however, and ordered a bagel instead. But it was so infinantly less satisfying.
The service was prompt however, as no doubt the young man was eager to be rid of this malodorousk greasy bag-wileding lady who was demanding fries at odd hours of the morning.

So it wasn't long before I was reunited with Lorraine, and reunited with a comfortable horizontal surface. Its amazing how much you take these things for granted.
"Where should I meet you after you finish work?" I asked Lorraine.
"Outside the McDonalds at Liverpool St Station."
What a surprise. It wouldn't be long before I had toured the McDonaldses of London.
Lorraine was Lorr-ate so I actually spent quite a long time in that McDonalds. Enough to watch a German family buy and then consume two industrail size bags of food. The bags could have been used as crisis housing.

But there was one more stop on teh tour-de-mac. on Saturday evening we went out to a nice pug in Clapham South, that soon became a nice, very full pub. Then when the rain started and everyone packed inside it became a nice, very ful, very unbearably hot pub. Eventually the jet lag kicked in and I could take no more. On the way home the bell tolled cheese-burger o'clock, something that only happens after a certain number of drinks. Normally I can't stand the sight of the things, but at these times I want nothign else. others may experience this phenomenom as kebab o'clock.

The waiting game...

Airports are all about waiting. Waiting to see if your miles-too-heavy bag will be allowed on the plane, waiting for security to give you your shoes back, waiting in teh wrong departure lounge until they call yout name over hte loudspeaker.
As i say waiting at the gate, I wondered idly which of the three infants I could see would be sitting beside me and keeping me awake. It turned out to be the newborn. Not beside me though; in front of me. A minor detail.
I joyously anticipated the next nine hours. But to mine and the infants relief, it was moved nine rows forward to the bulkhead seat - and the possibility of a crib. So leg one of the journey was not so bad. i spent my time waiting to see what my next meal would be and whther the sound on the channel I wanted to watch would ever start woring 9 it didn't).

Leg two passed quite quickly too. I simply amused myself by having the kind of nosebleed that the Red Cross would take a professional interest in.