Things here have been going really, incredibly well. Aside from one stumble on Thursday, which was basically me freaking out about my future, I've been pretty happy most of the time. :)
Let's see, where did I leave off? Berlin, Africa stuff at work, becoming friends with Lisa...Right.
Last Friday after work, I went to Rotterdam with Lisa, and two others from my office, Juan and Michael. The plan was to go to Lisa's, make dessert, then go to Jessica's for dinner, and out afterwards to a club in Rotterdam. We arrived at Lisa's, achieved our dessert-goal, dressed and cleaned up a bit, and headed over to Jessica's only an hour behind schedule. We blamed it on the fact that we were with Miguel (Lisa's BF) and Juan, and apparantly the Spanish/Hispanic stereotype is to be late. Though I feel like this is a stereotype with every ethnicity - Jewish Standard Time, for instance, is always a good hour behind the normal clock.
Anyway, Jessica's BF, Daniel (also Hispanic [Colombian], so when we got there dinner wasn't ready yet, anyway) cooked for us, and we had a really nice, relaxing dinner in their home. Michael, as usual, provided the entertainment, as he described his efforts at writing a speech as Best Man for his friend's upcoming wedding. He tried out a few incredibly offensive jokes on us, and decided to scrap it and start over.
Then we went out to a club where Lisa's future co-worker (she was the other intern, and recently got a job at another company) was having a birthday party. It was very...Dutch. The music was super-Euro-techno, and mostly okay to dance to, but there were these 2 minute streches where it was an impossible rhythm, either too fast or whatever - undanceable. Plus, all of the guys were incredibly gelled up and dressed like what I would expect a typical Euro club to be like. And, as Daniel pointed out, not dancing, but watching the women in the club dance. Apparantly this is typical. Huh.
After, we went to another club that Jessica had noticed the week before, which had a steep cover. Daniel managed to talk his way into letting our whole group get in for 10 EUR apiece, which, beyond the financial savings, put everyone in a really great, giddy mood. The music was significantly better here, too, so we danced and danced and before we knew it, it was around 3:30. We sadly said goodbye, and Juan and I went back with Lisa and Miguel, who had invited us to stay the night so we didn't have to deal with trains back to Den Haag and Amsterdam, where Juan lives.
The next day, we walked about Rotterdam for a few hours, exploring some parks and looking at the super-modern architecture that is really prevalent in the city. This is apparantly because it got the worst of the bombing during WWII, so they had the most opportunity to rebuild in a style different from typical Dutch canals and tiny cottages. We went to this great, huge, overwhelming market where I finally found some good produce, spices, dried fruit, etc. It was excellent.
That night, back in Den Haag, I biked to Scheveningen to catch the sunset at 10, and Sunday I went to the Mauritshuis museum, which holds a dozen Rembrants and three Vermeers, including the Girl with the Pearl Earring, and a View of Delft. Both were incredible to see in person. I never thought I would be able to notice a difference between replications and originals, but when you see the original, you just can tell it's better. Maybe it's the placebo effect, though -if they put a replica in front of me and told me it was the Real Thing, it might look just as grand.
Fast forward another work week. Continued working on Africa stuff, as well as my Big Policy Assessment (I wish that had a better acronym). Marius also put me on another project he's working on, which will be really great experience in terms of material, the deliverable at the end (possibly published, at least internally), and the other organization that's on the project, called Global Mechanism. Anyway, I'm always shocked when people take me seriously, for some reason, and I was really flattered that he wanted me to work on this/thought I was capable of doing a good job.
Another weekend crept up super fast. Kim and I had plans to buy Harry Potter 7 at midnight between Friday and Saturday, and I had reserved a copy at The American Book Club (I know, lame), so we were going to head over there for the festivities.
We went out for drinks first, with Kim's co-worker Marta and Marta's flatmate, Monique, who is involved in the most amazing thing ever. Basically, it is a network for travelers and hosts, called "Couch-Surfers". It's international, and uses the internet to match up travelers with sofas to sleep on in dozens of citys. It's huge in Europe, too, thousands and thousands of people, mostly young professionals, are part of this movement. Also, there are social meet-ups all the time, apparantly, which means that there are almost always other travelers to hang out with and experience nightlife with, all really friendly people, because it's self-selecting. It's a brilliant system, and even though I was four-times removed from an actual Couch Surfer (Monique), and the only American (well, there was one guy from Aruba, which might be considered part of The Americas), everyone was so nice and fun.
I unusually found myself in a chatty group of four or five guys, Kim one group over, and Marta floating between. Word quickly spread that we were going to get HP after this, which resulted in a few things. Mostly, people took the opportunity to have a good laugh at me and Kim, but it also directed the conversation away from football, a subject which I am horribly underversed in, and I had been getting grilled on American Soccer by a Dutch guy named Carlo (a conversation spurred by my name...I should at least become familiar with the Chelsea Club), so I was totally fine with changing the subject to HP. But also, the jesting resulted in our HP group growing to nearly three times its original size. Promptly at 20 minutes to 1am, Kim, Marta, a guy from Prague, myself, and this guy David I had been talking to (and he didn't even read HP! He just wanted to see what the fuss was about) left the bar and walked to the American Book Club, where we "queued up" (which, in Holland, basically means the same as "clump up") and waited for them to open the doors.
While we waited, I talked to David some more, whose uncanny resemblence to Harry Potter lead Kim and Marta to actually start calling him Harry, which he did not appreciate. In any case, this kid was so cool. He was from Germany, and taking two weeks to cycle through the Netherlands (what can I say, I get on well with endearingly nerdy guys who bicycle, I guess), and stopped over in Den Haag on the way from Rotterdam to Amsterdam. He was also the only one I had met so far who was my age - everyone else is in their late 20s or early 30s, which I am totally okay with. But it was nice to talk to someone who also didn't have a real job/career/life yet.
After we finally bought our books, we said goodbye, doing the usual "three cheek kiss" that is the normal in Holland. Kim and I cycled back home, giddy with our purchases and our fun evening.
Along the way, it occured to me that I would never see David again, which was sort of sad, since we seemed to get along really well. In fact, I would probably never see any of the "couch surfers" again, since they were all transient and passing through. It's strange, no? I guess that's the nature of traveling - you meet people, and then have to say goodbye so quickly, and it's not even like, "Goodbye, I'll see you back in Chicago in September," but it's like, "goodbye, I hope you have a nice life, because I haven't exchanged anything with you except first names and some witty commentary on the Dutch". I guess you get used to it if you travel a lot, but this was my first exposure to it, and while it was fun, it was sad, too.
Ayah, this post is LONG!! Okay, enough. More next time!
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