Its another rainy day in Holland, but thats Dutch weather for you, and one thing you can count on with the Dutch is rainy summers and the famous Dutch sunlight. It is very frustrating to plan your day around the next rainstorm, and eventually you just get fed up and walk through it. Doesn´t make the sites any less magestical, well actually it does, but what can you do. Do what the Dutch do, bike through it. Did you know that part of this blog was written on bicycle? 1 percent of it. And with that we enter the nonsense.
Laura says I can talk to anyone, partially because my of inate ability to be charming at all facets of conversation (ego dropper), but also by my necessity to speak sports all day everday. I am even in process of launching a sports based site just so I can write about sports. Sports, Sports, Sports, that all you ever talk about...Ryan Braun is my cousin this...Ive decided im into Tour De France that...you can control yourself. Sorry, Laura took a hold of the keyboard there for a second. Why do I love sports though? It has certainly been a losing endeavour, in which I mean I am not a pro athlete (rec superstar counts for something) nor have I gone positive for my lifetime when gambling (its coming though, I can feel it, I´ll take Padres the over), but I am equally as hooked to all things sports as Meatloafs is to fantasy football....and probably meatloaf.
So what happens when you find yourself in a small Dutch town (Utrecht) with no one to talk to other than your soulmate, which btw if she is reading this really needs to spend more time on ESPN.com and less time doing, well anything else, and you´re running low on topics. What do I do, go on the internet, and what do I find there? (Don´t answer that) but a Russian, I´m going to call him Gare (pronounced Gary), who did not speak any English. I do not speak any Russian, but thanks to google translator I now know that Gare is a Hockey trainor who has trained Alexi Kovalev, Evgeni Nabokov, Alexander Semin, and Ilya Kovalchuk. I deduced this mostly through his high pitched voice, hand motions, and ice hockey type sounds he was making. If Jason Statham is The Transporter, I am The Translator....ok google was for the most part, but the point still stands. I can talk sports with anyone. Deaf mute? lets draw pictures of basketball hoops. 5 year old Dutch boy, lets don the orange and start yelling gooooaaalllllll. 14 year old nerdy girl, lets talk some qudditch. I don´t know much about this quirky Russian, but I do know he was supremely disapointed with Kovalev´s time with the Rangers (so was I) and wears the worlds ugliest hockey jersery (err sweater) in Europe. I don´t want to humblebrag here, but I am the greatest conversationalist on less than meaningful, surface filled, slow pacedm and broken language(s) conversations. Stick it Hedo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8_3JbyjfO0)
A big reason I choose to spend my summer in AMS, other than the ability to do highly illegal and illicit activities legally (Jaywalking comes to mind), but also to improve linguistically. That was our vocab word of the days boys and girls; ill now go back to the usual simple sentences, slang, mispelling, and uncanny ability to overuse explanation marks!!! It is an absoultely beauitful city seperated by canals, mostly friendy faces, and a thousand things to do. I love taking pictures here as they hide my deficiences of being a horrible photpgrapher with the exquisite scenery and the way the Dutch live which is so different than what we are used to. Traveling on bike is obviously a must for me when in the city, so clearly adaption to the way of life isn´t a problem, and the food is incredible and the biking hopefully minimizes the damage. The one struggle to becoming full Dutch however though is that I butcher this very difficult language constantly. Thankfully the Dutch love just to hear me try and humor my ridiculous attempt to perfect a combination of English and German. I am very good at ordering food and drink, and saying Ik prat kaput Nedelands (I speak broken Dutch). Although I am learning, and I believe that by the end of the summer I will be somewhat conversational (just bring up sports duh), but as of now its Panic in Needle Park (Great early Pacino flick btw for the movie nerds out there) whenever I am asked to do more than order fries or a beer.
An example of a typical dutch conversation for me.
Nederlander: Halo, what can I get you
Foxx: (memorized) I will have frietja met (Fries with mayo) and twee Piljs (two beers)
Nederlander: Anything else?
Foxx: (panicking) Nay. (Phew, although I did want some napkins...crap)
Nederlander: No problem and walks away
Comes back with beers
Nederlander: Here you go, and usually another question
Foxx: (sweating) Dankuwel (TY) Maneer and two napkins (Yes! got it! He thinks im dutch)
Nederlander: No problem (in English) that will be 5 euros (again in English)
Foxx: Crap I thought I was doing so well.
Nederlander: Well it was really good. (lying)
Foxx: No it wasn´t.
Nederlander: I know. Doy! (happy goodbye)
Foxx: (turning to others) ok! well that was an improvement.
I´m in Amsterdam now, but I spent a few days in Utrecht, which was a very cute city centered around a 467 foot cathedral. I was winded after step 2, and those were the stairs where the doors led you in. It´s also special to be in a city that was built around a church and expanded from that location. Anyway it was a nice way to spend a few days and meet some very interesting people. Like most Dutch cities it is filled with canals, bikes, and redone colonial houses, and I loved being there, except for the incredible Utrecht Light Tour. Yes, you read that correctly, a tour of lights, rather a self led tour where you follow the lights around the city. Even in theory it sounds ridiculous. Here is a light tour of New York, start at one end of Times Square, walk to the other, tour over. Well this "Light Tour" took you all over the city of Utrecht with one uninspiring relfection of light after another. Half of them were even turned on, the others broken, and the only one that was actually picture worthy you would need hard drugs to enjoy. The light tour was so bad that the girls I was with decided to take pictures of their shadows instead, oh wait, that was me. What made me think that spending an even following light at night (can you say street lights) instead of being in a bar, thankfully those stay open almost as late as the lights do and was the best part of the tour. Note to self, start following: stray cats, dark alleys, interesting smells. stop following: lights
With apartment swaps you never know exactly what you are gonna get, but I think we lucked out. Trading a 3 bedroom home in Amsterdam for a 1 bedroom NYC apartment doesn´t seem like the most even trade, but that´s why TradeDebate.com is gonna launch in late August. Well, I guess the NYC factor evens it out though, otherwise how else is a family four expected to really "see" the city rather than just do the tourists things. As strange as it is so sleep in someone elses bed, its even more strange trying to talk to their neighbors. Remember, in NYC your neighbors don´t actually exist but rather are moving pods that you are forced to talk to during painful elevator rides. I am loving this cat garden however, in which I mean a garden full of cats. Feral cats everywhere, oh the horror! I hate spending my afternoons expanding my mind around hundreds (ok 4) of cats just waiting to spend time with me. Having a backyard during the summer is incredible, and the cat bonus makes me drink (and share) triple the amount of milk and cheese. Well, its time to do Dutch things now, you´ve been great.
Aloha means goodbye folks.
-Foxx
The TradeDebate segue was masterfully done. +10,000pts
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