Sight-seeing Sunday

To set the tone for the next seven mornings…. I woke up with horror to the sound of the morning knock on the door. It took another twenty minutes of lying in bed in complete disbelief, until I tentatively swiveled out a leg and put one foot on the cold floor. My clever technique of showering the night before, in order to sleep longer, unfortunately has one major disadvantage. Instead of the usual half an hour to wake up, when I don’t blast myself with water it takes three. I selected a random assortment of clothes (with as few clothes as I have, not that much can really go wrong) and stumbled downstairs.

“Breakfast included”.
I stared sadly at my two dry crusts of bread. They obstinately resisted being eaten, preferring instead to stick to the roof of my mouth, behind a gum, etc. The only good thing about the dry bread was that it was an excuse to eat Nutella, as otherwise there would have been no energy content at all.

This posed an interesting challenge, considering my front teeth don’t meet properly and the bread was very, very chewy. If I wanted any hope of getting a piece, I had to use my back teeth. I tried every angle in the book but nothing worked…. It was inevitable that the Nutella would be all over my cheeks, my lips, my eyebrows, by the end. The routine emerged…..bite….wipe face…..bite….wipe face.
After tackling the bread I discovered that there was coffee. Unfortunately no milk, and not a fine example of the Italian barista tradition, but made up for extravagantly by the fact that it was served in soup bowls. One or two of these and I was well on my way to caffeine-injected wakefulness.

Last stop before we left was to make a sandwich…with the same somewhat alarming ingredients from the day before on the same unwashed plate. I don’t entirely trust things that seem on the surface to be meat, but can stay out of the fridge for a whole week without anything apparently happening. Particularly when they have names like ‘boterhamworst’, or are fluorescent magenta in tone.

This morning the lovely Aranea was to be our guide for the day, taking us around on a self-formulated tour of the city. First stop was the “Torino 2006” monument, built to celebrate the cities Olympic hosting. An interesting monument, somewhat let down by its position in the most dog-poo filled park in Italy. But nethertheless rather nice, when you angled your camera so that none of the local winos got into the photo. We took full advantage of it, posing for a group picture in front, to commemorate our own ‘Torino 2006’. Next stop was a piazza, complete with the naked people statues without which a city would not feel properly Italian. These were particularly nice ones….giantly naked. Made all the more impressive by their apparent ability to lounge in a gushing fountain in the nude without getting cold.

Another lovely piazza followed. There was a famous statue in the centre, but unfortunately they had put scaffolding all around it when they heard I was coming. No pessimist, I instead took arty-farty photos of the scaffolding. The plan was to have coffee in the famous piazza in ‘Café Torino’, but any good tourist knows that plans like these are doomed to failure. Or else will completely empty your wallet. Five-euro cappuccinos sent us scuttling on our way, to cheaper and less salubrious surroundings. But our plans of feeling classy while drinking our coffee were not entirely shattered, when further walking revealed the poor-man’s version of the piazza…with an equally pleasant and somewhat more affordable coffee menu. After a prolonged cappuccino experience our fantasy of being classy came to an end, and we were soon eating our chemical-filled sandwiches in Piazza Castellano (yet another piazza?)

The afternoon took us to the ‘Mole Antoniella’, the domed building with a big spike on top that features heavily in any Torino sky-line view. What the building is most famous for is a glass elevator straight out of Charlie and the chocolate factory, which takes you through the middle of the pantheon-like dome, unattached to the wall on any side. Of course the view of Torino you get from the top is also very nice… but the elevator is better!

Mole Antoniella also happens to contain an excellent film museum, in the style of “Disneyland does film”. Different sets around the building are showing different films, so you can lie on a giant bed and watch romance, sit in a cave and watch horror, or in a stylish bar and watch Casablanca. I got the giggles after rounding a corner and seeing Wilmer sitting on a floral couch, completely at home watching the television in a recreation of somebody’s grandmother’s lounge-room. They also have “the temple”, in the central hall of the domed building. Red chaise lounges abound, so you can lie on your back at the perfect angle to watch the huge projection screens above. Happily oblivious to all the people around you doing exactly the same. Built-in headphones are conveniently placed next to your ears, bringing the soundtrack to you. And the chairs are oh so comfortable.

I woke up some time later.

Unfortunately this short nap still did not prepare me adequately for our hour-long tour of the GAAM modern art museum. We were taken through the Piedmontese art section, with an entourage of five art security guards prowling around like bulldogs. It really was very nice of the young lady to give us a private tour. And I really was inspired by her passion for the subject. But after about two modern sculptures my eyes started rolling back in my head. So first I went and stood next to the wall. Then I leaned on the wall. Then I leaned my head on the wall.

Paranoid security guards leapt to attention. In my mind I saw the searchlights swinging round to where I stood.
“Excuse me, don’t lean on the wall”.
I hastily forced myself into vertical again. After my own private security guard had found a new infringement to occupy himself, I subtly examined the offending patch of wall. Was it a modern artwork? Maybe… but it looked an awful lot like a wall to me.
The next room contained a bench, to which the lucky ones who were first in the room swarmed. Sitting down proved to be a mistake however. First I leaned my elbows on my knees. Then I leaned my chin in my hand. Then the eyes started trying to shut again. Maureen took a photo of me where I appear to be critically evaluating the words of the art guide, but in reality I had only managed to open my eyes for one split second through sheer will power.

By the time we left the museum our appetites had woken a few people up, and some of us quickly retired to a Brek (translation: grab anything on a plate that looks nice and then pay at the counter). I feasted on what looked like a bowl of worms in dirt, but actually was short noodles in mushroom sauce. I caught a few dubious glances at my food but was unmoved, because it was so delicious. A stingy moment had left me without drink, and so I watched sadly as my tablemates consumed a bottle of wine. Guido had promised to go with me to the gelateria/chocolateria, and I quickly enrolled Koen and Aranea in this mission also. Even though Aranea is clearly not human, as she does not like chocolate.

But Guido had an endless committee meeting. Like small children whose mothers get ‘caught’ in a conversation, we shortly began to whine. Jiggling in our seats and all but tugging on his sleeve. “Guido …puh-lEEEEEEAAAAAASE!!”. But eventually our efforts were rewarded and we all became the proud owners of giant chocolate blocks and ice-cream cones.

Our efforts to find Quadrilatero Romano that night were in vain, it eluded our grasp. We found the piazza itself, but it appeared to be mysteriously empty. Wherever the Turinese hide their nightlife, they hide it well. Even given that it was a Sunday night. Disillusioned…we began the long walk back to the hostel, searching all the way for somewhere to drink. Our search was eventually fruitful, in a small bar that had expensive table service, but also doubled in a bottle shop. And they were the only place in the world that I’ve seen selling 1 litre cans of beer. We couldn’t believe our eyes. So everyone stocked up on novelty size beer cans, and we hastened back to the hostel.

Slow Saturday

One by one we stumbled off the bus, deposited on the Italian doggydoo-bespeckled pavement in a typically “wrong-side-of-the-tracks” kind of street.

When you first arrive in a new country it doesn’t matter how beautiful the scenery is, how charming the architecture, how orgasmical the food. You are oblivious to all these delights until you have showered, and possibly slept. After twenty minutes of standing like pacifist zombies in the foyer of the youth hostel, me and three girls retired to the room that we would share for the rest of the week. Over the next hour or so they took turns showering, while I passed out face down on the pillow until air deprivation forced me awake.

Amazingly I’d managed to choose a room with the three girls of the tour who had the most typically Dutch, impossible-to-pronounce names. In order of difficulty; Veronie, Agnes and….Geertje. Oh boy….that one took a while to learn. I know it doesn’t look hard; but now try to say it and gargle with your own saliva at the same time.

Soon the sweet sound of the football being kicked back and forth by our friendly on-tour footyheads alerted us to lunch being served in the courtyard. Said lunch consisted of several alarming dutch foods; chosen purely for their ability to stay out of the fridge for 10 days without perishing. Afterwards there was a pleasant but mercifully short recourse to kindergarten, playing getting-to-know you games with everyone on the tour.

Over dinner we developed are own, much more entertaining getting to know you games. Proposed by (and this doesn’t surprise me in retrospect) Simon, there was one round of everyone’s sexiest faces. Not so sexy in my case because I was laughing my head off. And then trying to explain exactly what the English word flaunting means (its not really the kind of thing you think about often, is it?). My initial alarm at this table full of strangers disintegrated after a couple of glasses of wine and a frighteningly dry pizza. Then it was sexy faces with the best of them.

This was followed by a rather endless walk through the city at night, setting a precedent for the rest of the week. I suffered greatly at the hands (or rather, legs) of the tall dutch people. Always it was Guido and Agnes at the front, taking mile-long strides on their long, long legs, while I had to jog to keep up at the back. I had trouble memorizing everyone’s faces, since I only ever saw the backs of their heads.

More or less inevitably, we eventually ran into the river Po, and found a brightly coloured bar to rest our weary bodies awhile. It was horrifyingly expensive… 4 euros a glass of wine. I refused to drink anything on general principle, at this exorbitant price, having become too accustomed to the cheap beer in Holland. Of course the result of this that I remained sadly sober while everyone got progressively drunk around me. Soon I was to learn that 4 euros is a normal price for a drink in torino…after which I abandoned all sensibilities to the wind.

You see its not possible to go to the river Po when you are sober. This is because it is dominated by a rank of excessively nasty discothèques, which no one in their right mind would go to unless they were at least three quarters drunk. Including all but the most dodgy Italians. Every other year the river floors, and mercifully submerges them from human sight for a few weeks. After which they return to their former river-smelling concrete glory, no worse for the wear. Open the doors and they’re all ready for business again.

The toilet was so bad that I could only stand and laugh, while I tried not to fall in. Could only stand, because it was of course, a hole in the ground. With no paper. And no lock on the door. Not even a doorknob…rather, one of those western-style swinging saloon doors so that Clint Eastwood can come busting in on you. Being caught enthroned when someone walks in on you is one thing. Gazing up sadly at them from your precariously balanced position above the hole is quite another. Especially when you have a handbag hanging around your neck like a St Bernard’s barrel, because the floor is so disgusting that you dare not put it down for even a minute. And of course there’s no doorknob to hang it on…

After being traumatized by the toilet, a group of us decided to return to the hostel. Missing the last tram, we waited hopefully beside the taxi rank until a group of Italians took pity on us and called a cab for us. The Italian girl made small talk while we waited.
“You went to the discos?”
We exchanged wary glances with one another, and nodded meekly.
“Yes…. I know. They are not very nice are they… Next time go to Quadrilatero Romano.”

She was our guardian angel.

The torture of the midnight bus ride

After a week of making stupid miniature windmill pen-holders, by Friday I was beginning to feel I genuinely deserved a break. My cold was retreating, after the doctor had so kindly informed me there was nothing wrong with me, and my assignments were put on hold for the next week. My fridge was empty, after I had pressed all my leftover food upon Erik. My room was moderately tidy and I had said the Last Rites over all my pot-plants.

I trundled my luggage to the bus stop, and upon its arrival somehow managed to wedge myself into the Connexion bus. Who would have thought it would be packed at nine on a Friday evening, I thought everyone had bicycles in Delft? The trip was short but full of adventure, as I fell lavishly onto other commuters each time we turned a corner, and then managed to rip the grip-pole out of its socket (sometimes I don’t know my own strength…). A flock of three earnest teenage boys showing off their muscles couldn’t put it back in either.

It turned out I was one of the first at the station, even before the ID committee. Which was just fine, because at the train station the adventures were continuing. A mini pulled up with smoke pouring out of the bonnet, and the driver got out to blast it with a fire hydrant. This was shortly followed by a fire engine that screeched to a halt in front of us. Unsatisfied by the fire hydrant blasting, they blasted it some more with a giant hose. Then the police arrived as well for some reason, and talked intently to the young couple who owned the mini.
“Is this your mini?”,
“Yes.”
“We have reports that its on fire, is this true?”
Then a young man who’d come to watch the spectacle pranged the car that was in the parking space in front of him. Lucky for him, the large surly-looking driver of the hotted-up vehicle was inside buying a coke and didn’t notice. Lucky for me too, I don’t really like watching people having their arms ripped off. Especially not just after dinner.

Soon the rest of the Torinissimo trippers arrived and to our dismay the first drops of rain began to fall. The forecast for Torino was a week of rain and 9 degree temperatures. So much for a little break from the cold weather. But maybe it was still possible to leave the sogginess behind in Delft. We packed into the bus, and somehow me and Veronie managed to get the best seats in the whole place, with the most leg room and the biggest reclining angle.

After watching Pulp Fiction with Dutch subtitles (which introduced me to all sorts of words in Dutch that I probably shouldn’t know), it was 2 in the morning so we tried to sleep. This was of course, torture. Just as you are getting to sleep it time for the driver to stop and take a break, and your only opportunity to go to the bathroom for the next two hours. So off you stumble. The ritual consists of tumbling out of the bus door as you try to pull your coat onto one arm, with your scarf wrapped around your head. Once on the ground and vertical, you try to discover which country you are in, and what language you are speaking. You approach the cashier in the petrol station with a sentence something like the following: “Enschuldigung, welke stad is dit? Je suis tres fatigue. Gratsie.” Once you know what country it is, you can then figure out whether you should be buying chocolate, cheese, or miniature Swiss army knives.

This is not always a reliable approach however. Such as when I was overjoyed to discover that the cashier was speaking French, and thus we were in France and almost halfway through our trip. Alas, it was only lower Belgium. Although there are also other telltale signs; the next stop I still wasn’t sure if it was France until I noticed they had ashtrays in the bathroom. At last morning dawned, on a beautiful alp-strewn day in Switzerland.

I had plenty of company on the journey, every few hours my phone would beep with a cheerful little message.
“Welcome to Belgium, for dialing assistance please call XXXX”
“Welcome to Luxembourg, for dialing assistance please call XXXX”
“Welcome to France, for dialing assistance please call XXXX”
“Welcome to Switzerland, for dialing assistance please call XXXX”
“Welcome to Italy, for dialing assistance please call XXXX”

I had no idea I had friends in so many countries!

THE SICKNESS (beaurocratic nightmares part II)

When I arrived home I wasn’t feeling to crash hot. By Tuesday I was even worse. By Wednesday I was as sick as a dog. Being sick is one thing. Being sick in a foreign country is quite another. Being sick in a foreign country in a house by yourself is even worse. And especially bad is being sick in a foreign country by yourself with the nearest pharmacy and supermarket 10 minutes bicycle ride away. I had to send nadia to the supermarket ….invalid that I was, too feeble to ride my own bicycle.

Marianne, bless her heart, had sent a big bag of food home with me, and I lived off it for the whole week. Raisin buns became my staple diet, because I happened to have a bag of them. I didn’t even like raisins before, but oddly enough after a week of eating them they’re not so bad anymore. Dinner was cheese on bread.

Meanwhile I had four assignments due before I could go away to Torino, and to boot was supposed to be making miniature windmill pen holders (yes I know). Everybody was allocated a task for torino, and mine was “relational gifts”. Great, buy a few bottles of wine? But no, the budget is 3 euros per piece….make something in the workshop!

All this I probably could have coped with normally. But then came the letter…it had arrived a week earlier but been cast aside, because I didn’t have time to get someone to translate it. I came back to it upon my return. My (weird) neighbour approximately translated it for me….. “something something… inadequate documentation…. something something…. residence permit”.
Oh dear… “You must act on this letter within seven days of receiving it”…. Even more oh dear.
Considering it had already been two weeks.

“Oh god” I sniffled. But, nothing to be done… It had to be sorted out.

I looked at the website; couldn’t find the right information. But there was a number to call; “this number incurs a charge of 10 cents a minute”. But of course I am an ultimately stingey student; “screw that” I thought. I sent an email. Ten minutes later, a reply. “Your dossier is unable to be accessed by the personnel in this department, any requests should be directed to the following number (this number incurs a charge of 10 cents a minute)”. Bloody hell! I gave up my dignity and principles and called the number.

On hold…. On hold….. on hold. Finally a person. She doesn’t speak English….. on hold… on hold.. .. on hold. English speaking person. English speaking person looking through my files. “One of the things you need is a bank statement showing you have enough money in your account to live here”.
“But I don’t. My parents are going to transfer extra money in as I need it”.
“Oh……” She didn’t know what to do…..
on hold….. on hold…

Bing! Boop! “You have no credit left”. In one pointless conversation, this useless help desk had chewed through ten euros of my money. I couldn’t email, I couldn’t go anywhere, I couldn’t print anything, and my phone was useless. I had no infrastructure. For ten minutes Madeleine was replaced by a shrieking banshee, throwing various objects at the wall. Then the banshee was replaced by a wailing heap; calling aghast parents on the other side of the world and blubbering at them.

But janneke, my guardian angel, put it back in perspective for me when I showed up at her office with my letter.

“Oh don’t worry about them. They are a government department…. So they like to send letters. Just send something back. If it’s the wrong thing, then they I guess they will just send you another letter. And if worse comes to worse, they can’t kick you out before December anyway.”
I sent a letter back. It was even polite!

Vierhouten...

I had had the worst hangover of my life. Followed by the other worst hangover of my life. And it wasn’t even the weekend yet. Oh god…what has become of me.
I was in severe need of some detox. Fortunately that weekend I was visiting the Schlingemanns, in a place far removed from the incessant parties of Erasmus.

All week I had been receiving sweet little emails from Marianne:
Dear Madeleine,
Have you received my e-mail? You can come anytime when you want (feel like it).
Coen has studied at TU Delft mining(engineer).
I hope you like it there,Delft is very nice.
Sorry Madeleine for my bad english.
Lost of Love Marianne.

I was looking forward to finally meeting the author. So after several hours on the train, next to a smelly person (why does this always happen?) it was great to pull into the station at Apeldoorn. Marianne was patrolling the platform, while Koen waved a homemade sign saying “welcome Madeleine, Australian girl!”. When I found them, and it was like I had known them all my life.

We drove home through the forest, along a two lane road. They were doing roadworks and Koen had to severely reprimand the driver of a bulldozer until they let us through.
“No, you are not allowed to pass through”
“But we live here….”
“Oh, ok.”
After a pit stop for appeltaart met vanille saus we returned home for lunch. I rediscovered the concept of variety in food. When living on your own you end up eating the same thing for three days, because if you buy more than that they everything goes off before you have time to eat it. Like when I bought 250g of salmon by accident and then had to eat it for four meals in a row (I wasn’t complaining mind you). Or the giant block of pate I was ‘forced’ to consume on my own. So when Marianne put this eye-popping spread of different food types on the table I couldn’t help but have three sandwiches. She had also stocked up on every typical Dutch food she could lay hands on, so I got to try everything within the course of the weekend, learning (to my future detriment) about more new and addictive cakes and biscuits.

Marianne and Koen were the perfect hosts, and throughout the weekend I saw twee little harbours, eel-smoking frames, dykes and fish nets. Oh so many fishnets… to which I had a bad attack of camera trigger-finger. I was given hot chocolate with rum in it, and spent time luxuriating in their heat cabin.
But something was wrong…. I could tell. My back was aching and aching in a way that screamed “WARNING … virus alert!!”. My week of partying was coming back to haunt me, I was getting sick for the second time since arriving in Delft. I was not as sociable as I woud have liked to have been… I kept falling asleep on the couch in front of the Dutch version of “Dancing on Ice”.

On my second day Marianne took me cycling in their forest, stopping for a sad moment at the grave of their son, who died in a car accident 16 years ago. I can’t understand why such bad things happen to such good people.

After parking our bicycles we walked together in the forest for couple of hours, hoping to see a wild pig. Of course, as soon as they heard I was coming they all left town for the day. Wildlife does not like me….although the fact that we were having a good and rather noisy chat probably had something to do with it! Marianne introduced my to dust mushrooms….fungus designed to entertain. They obviously only exist to be destroyed, because when you stamp on them they explode into a cloud of dust. It’s so amusing that I’m surprised they haven’t become extinct.

We finished the afternoon with a leisurely stroll through a food festival that was happening in the main street (well… main for a very small town). Watching sheep-herding demonstrations and falconry. I got a close up of an owl….and took the sort of photograph that makes me look like a person who can actually take good photographs. Afterwards we wondered the food stalls, once again eating such an astonishing variety of delicious things that I couldn’t finish my dinner. I’m not a greedy person… honestly…..

When I left the next day it was with sadness and foreboding…. I was leaving the Schlingemann’s and paradise to return to starving in a garret. And hurtling head first in to the waiting arms of ….THE SICKNESS.

Het Feest van Erik....

It was necessary to celebrate Erik’s 25th in style.

Slight problem; he was living in a shoebox in Poptahof, with an irate Chinese flatmate. Magnanimously I offered my common room; together we could bring it back to life from its 100 year sleeping beautyesque suspended animation.

The cleaning of the Augean stables began. With two of us working it took (only!) two hours to scrape off the thick layer of scum that had developed, somewhat helped by the permanently open balcony door. Remember that I am only talking about a very small room here. I was astonished by the results that sweeping the floor had; I actually collected a whole plastic bag full to the brim with dust. There was nothing else inside it; only dust. This is something I have never seen outside of a vacuum cleaner, I didn’t even know it was possible!

By the end it was looking half decent. We consoled ourselves with the thought that no matter how much mess the people in the party made, they couldn’t possibly make it worse than it had been before we cleaned it.

At eight we began mixing sangria in a giant pot. It was quite nice, but not alcoholic enough. So in went my prized bottle of Bombay Sapphire. After this, it was not so nice anymore, but could knock your socks off. At nine on went the music and the people began to arrive, out of the pouring rain like a string of wet lemmings. In a short while my room resembled a second hand clothing shop, with coats piled to eyeball level on every free surface.

By ten thirty the party was in full swing. My corridor mates were actually meeting each other for the first time, people in the corner were making balloon animals (and wings, and hats, and anything else that took their fancy), the room was full of smoke, the sangria pot was slowly but surely becoming empty. Barry was running around lighting candles, I was trying to figure out how to tie the balcony door shut with a piece of shiny ribbon (and hold back the howling gale). A selection of Blanca’s 15 flat mates had appeared bearing a crate of beer.

By twelve Elia was dancing on the couch, my (peculiar) next door neighbour was sharing a bottle of some sort of horrible Eastern European rocket fuel, Lennart was progressively (and unknowingly) squashing various women’s heads as he posed for photos, and Blanca and I were taking exuberant photographs in front of the nude woman poster in the corridor.

By four Thomas was covered in water, Elia was asleep on my couch with her head wedged in between two cushions, and the party was winding down. The last person left at four thirty to the tune of me and Erik trying to convince Elia that in fact she was probably not sober enough to go home (to which she responded with demonstrations of her ability to walk in a straight line). This only convinced us further that in fact she was not qualified to go home. By five Erik and Elia was asleep in a tangle of various bedding items on my unfolded couch, and me on my bed.

By twelve we were reluctantly facing the morning again. A cup of tea and one hour passed before Erik was able to crawl out of bed for some ham and eggs. Elia limped off to a group meeting. By one we were cleaning the common room again, and regretting saying that it couldn’t possibly get worse than how it was before. I discovered firsthand that it is not a good idea to invite 8 spaniards, 6 portugese, and 4 french people and not leave an ashtray out. We were fascinated to discover exactly what happens to a lolly on a tile floor after it is stepped on by a progression of 40 people. Inventively, someone had spilled sangria on my door (???). And horror of horrors, my unique and only IKEA mug lay shattered on the floor along with my dreams of a morning cup of tea.

Another two hours and half a bottle of eucalyptus floor cleaner and the room vaguely resembled its former state. Returning on my room I first sat on the couch. Then lay on the couch. Then lay on the couch with the blanket over my head. “Thanks for the party” said Erik, and rolled uncertainly home.

Weeks later, oh how ill the smell of that eucalyptus floor cleaner still makes me feel.

Life below sea level...

The Dutch are trying to make me fat.

Its true! Why else would they provide such a wide variety of delicious cakes and biscuits? I had to actually stop buying stroopwafels because I can’t be trusted to keep them in my cupboard. They gradually migrate out of the cupboard, and into my stomach. For a while I tested the theory of buying mini stroopwafels so I could have just a small amount instead of giant ones. But that didn’t work, because then I just had to have more of them to compensate.

And then as if that wasn’t enough, they have to make the beer obscenely cheap too (oh what a shame). Its possible to consume the calorific equivalent of ten sandwiches without paying more than 5 euros. Not that I’m complaining of course. All I can say is, thank goodness I have to ride a bicycle everywhere or the results would be disastrous.

Meanwhile I have been trying to blend in to the culture here, with somewhat lame attempts to learn the language. First there was the Dutch CD, which covered all the basics. It was not so bad… I did arrive in the Netherlands with a basic grasp of some phrases. But there comes a time when you want to move beyond asking for train tickets and where the nearest doctor is, saying things like “Oh dear, my pancreas has fallen out. Can you help me?”
I was sent a free BNN calendar in the mail, so I thought maybe it would be helpful to learn each page; so every day I would be able to remember just a few new words. This is how I came to have the rather useless phrase of ‘welke stad in nederlands is helemaal op palen gebouwd’ in my vocabulary. (Which city in the Netherlands is entirely built on pillars?). This approach rather quickly came to a halt as I learned that the things written in the calendar tended to be quite obscene…. I think it was the day that I turned the page to read the heading ‘sekswoordenboek’. I think it would be wise to learn a few more basic phrases before I start memorizing different words for pheromones, libido and aphrodisiacs. Not to mention other things that would make your hair curl.

Meanwhile, while I’m trying to learn Dutch, I am also experiencing something known as the Erasmus effect. As a native English speaker it affects me in the following manner. The English of everybody around me is improving, while mine is officially getting worse. I find myself saying things like. “I will borrow you this”, and “Blanca say to me”. Not to mention using the present tense in any sentence where it is a vague possibility to do so. By the time I am back in Australia I will have to return to 6th grade grammar classes to gain any semblance of my former speaking capabilities.

I discovered another interesting fact. Nothing in this world is permanent…. Except for Jehovah’s witnesses. Here, in Korvezeestraat, on the other side of the world, they still managed to find me! Fortunately in Holland I have a distinct advantage….. their pamphlets are all in Dutch. It is very effective to play the ignorant foreigner at these times. If so desired, I could probably pretend I didn’t speak English either; by trying my best Erasmus phrases on them. “Are you liking my draw? Is your nose constipated? I am always having a lotalotalotalot of things”. That would get rid of them quick smart.

A day on the canals...

The weather was beautiful, I had a bag full of chocolate and stoopwafels, and it was promising to be a good day.

In the manner typical of Erasmus, everybody assumed that somebody else had told everybody. I missed the message. So they all went to Amsterdam in the morning to see the Rijksmuseum and I tagged along at midday. But it wasn’t a problem, because at 1:00 we all rounded the corner of centraal station’s immense three-storey bicycle garage to see Joost, waving to us with debonair style from his leather-bound boat. It didn’t look so big compared to the enormous canal boats (with tourists pressed against the window like they were trapped inside), but it was big enough for about 12 of us. Plus a stereo and an esky.

Deniz still had beer left over from the balcorridor party at his house. This is a phenomenon experienced regularly while in Delft. For some reason, in a rather cold country, an architect once decided it would be a good idea to put the corridors on the outside. Instead of one down the middle, there are two ‘balconies’ down the side. It would surprise me if there was just one of these, but there must be an architectural mass mania (look how creative he is! I want to do that to!), because they are all over Holland. The result can be seen two ways; either as a corridor that doesn’t keep you warm, or a balcony that you can’t do anything with because it’s a thoroughfare. Thoroughfare or no thoroughfare this didn’t stop us of course. We sat on blankets on the balcorridor of the17th floor, graciously moving our feet aside for any passerby.

Joost decided to act as our tour guide for the day. However, he only knew the location of one tourist sight – Anne Frankhuis. And he couldn’t find it. He seemed a strangely anxious about this, but everybody else was too relaxed to share in his sorrow. We just kicked back and drank the beer, and cracked open the stroopwafels. All while compulsively taking photos, as though we had itchy trigger fingers. Every so often Joost would turn the boat into a new canal and say “I’m sure this is the one now.” So we would all wait with polite expectancy until the inevitable “actually, maybe it’s the next one…”. Eventually Joost got this monkey off his back and we found the right canal; Anne Frankhuis clearly visible by the block-long queue outside its door. We glided on by like celebrities “haha! Enjoy your queue!”

But soon the carefree atmosphere evaporated, as all the beers caught up with everybody at the same time. Then our pleasure ride became ‘mission toilet hunt’. The permanent canal-boat houses that had looked so pretty were suddenly no more than inconvenient obstacles between us and a parking spot. And they were everywhere!

Its amazing how slowly a boat actually moves when you begin to notice it. Just turning a corner is like geological processes, occurring over a number of millennia. In slow motion we eventually ground to a halt in front of the casino, where someone had most graciously left a parking spot. Suddenly the situation was reversed, and everybody was in fast forward. We all leapt out and sprinted to the nearest café, leaving the least desperate person to guard the boat (or was it just the slowest desperate person?).

About 5 minutes later when everyone was of a somewhat more relaxed demeanor, we strolled around the square buying ice-creams (and more beer). To my horror I saw Amsterdam urinals for the first time. They are obviously modeled on the practice, adopted by drunken males, of peeing in corners. Because they are composed of four corners stuck together. A man just walks up to them, and wedges himself in the corner to have a pee… I did a double take. Sure, you can only see their back, but that’s hardly the point is it? I still know what the front is doing! If you felt so inclined you could walk up and tap them on the shoulder “Sorry to interrupt, could you please tell me the time?”.

Restocked with beer and food we returned to the boat. At about five we decided to ring the drive through (sail-through?) pizza place near the Amstel. They took a while to cook it, but fortunately it also took us a while to find it. Everyone gained a very comprehensive view of the Amstel, as we went up and down it about four times; clearly this was Joost’s intention. Stocked up with a boat full of pizza, we finished our afternoon with a leisurely cruise through the red light district and back to the Singel.

I have a theory. The Dutch have some sort of national fetish with nasty but nice things in small windows. Of course there’s the famous red light district where you have (rather bored looking) prostitutes strutting their stuff in little glass rooms. But there is also the national food substitute; Feebo. Feebo is something equivalent to Australian meat pies; where it tastes really good but you don’t really want to know whats inside when you’re eating it. Feebo’s food preparation policy consists of collecting together a lump of processed meat, and deep-frying it with a schnitzel coating. But then…. the clincher. They display a whole wall of Feebo croquettes behind little glass windows, which you can pay to open if you want one. The parallel seems obvious to me…..

Later we went out to Leideseplein, drinking some coffees in a giant café with the worlds most bad-tempered waiter. So after several crappuccinos we abandoned him and moved on to a pub called ‘the watering hole’, where aged rockers were singing covers of rock and roll hits. A numble of jugs later we finished our night with a stroll (giggling like school girls) through the sex shops of Amsterdam, eventually returning to the station to catch the night train to Delft. How civilised of them to provide a night train for me! And so popular that even at 3 in the morning some people had to stand.

For your gratification, couch party

For your gratification, Lost in Delft (we hate blogger)