EEK! A mouse!

So there is at least one way in which this summer is preparing me for the new apartment in Chicago - there are mice in the office. My first day, Jessica pointed to a room and said, "And that's where the mice live." I definitely thought she was kidding, but sure enough, I saw a littttle mouse running around the office. It was all I could do to not squeal (I'm not a squealer, but there's some universal reaction that happens when you see a little rodent scuttering underfoot), but sure enough, others had seen it as well.

Let me say at this point that I'm beginning to realize my office is full of ridiculous young men. Even in another language I can tell that they have a ball goofing around with each other, when they aren't working extremely hard. It's the best work environment I've ever been in.

Ok, back to the mice. Two guys who had seen the mouse were now determined to catch it. Have you ever tried to cup a spider? You flip the cup upside down ontop of it, slide paper underneath, and release the spider out the window. Well, Marius and Michiel did this with the mouse. Except of course you can't use a cup because it's far too large and fast. So they used a trash can. Not a huge one, but certainly too large for a piece of paper, so they got a cardboard box and *successfully* "cupped" the mouse. Michiel looked crazy, but he took this mouse in a garbage pail all the way down to the street and released it in our neighbor's alleyway. He came back up to the office looking triumphant, until about an hour later when we saw another mouse. They didn't go through the ordeal again, so I sat with my feet off the floor the rest of the afternoon.

Marius was bragging that the mouse was lucky Michiel caught it, or else he would have kicked it out the window, to which Michiel replied, "No, you're not a killer." It made me think of the conversation at the Wick table a few weeks ago, during which we debated the terminal velocity of a mouse, and at what height it would need to be dropped to actually die on impact, or if it would die at all, since it's body weight is so low. I kept these thoughts to myself in the office this afternoon.

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I went to a concert in the Haagse Bosjes tonight, to listen to the BigBand Youth Orchestra play "I Feel Good" by James Brown, sung by a blond teenage Dutch girl. Not quite the real deal. I was freezing afterwards (quite cold outside) so I decided to go for a bike ride to explore the city some more. I succeeded in finding the bad parts of town, including the RedLight district. Glad I've got that neighborhood covered, now. I got home safely, and now I'm off to bed. Good day, overall.

Aww, it's getting better, now.

I'm over the hurdle. It took a week, but I'm no longer jet-lagged, no longer feeling completely lost and terrified, beginning to at least recognize some Dutch words (though I still can't get the pronunciation right - did you know Gouda [town famous for it's cheese] is pronounced "Khow-da"? Not Goo-duh. At least that mispronunciation got a laugh. And "Spui" [the central road that leads to my office] is "spow", not "spoo-ee". Who knew.)

In any case, I'm feeling good. Working harder and longer than I did last summer, but at least that means the time passes relatively normally, instead of molasses-slow. And the work is really interesting. I'm learning a lot, fast, and I'm considering changing my BA topic. Sorry, Mayor Bloomberg, but at least you have the Independent party to keep you occupied (I'm still keeping up with US politics - Woohoo!).

Biking to work is great. Most of the time. It's a nice ride, the bike runs smoothly, and though it's been cloudy, I haven't had to actually ride through the frequent rains. Until this morning. And of course, I'm wearing the wrong shoes, shoes I had never biked in before; shoes with no tread. So my feet are slipping all over the place, I'm getting drenched in the rain, and the woman in front of my was pedaling painfully slowly, so I couldn't even just speed up to get the ride over with. And the way the bike lanes are set up here are like the road, so there's oncoming bike traffic, and during rush hour, you can't really pass. Argh! The other terrifying thing about biking here is that the bike lanes are shared between the bicycles and the mopeds - an unfair compromise, if you ask me. They go so much faster than we do; they belong on the road!

Plus, I can't figure out the lights. It seems like there is no pattern, and no one obeys the green/red, either. There are cute little bike lights, same as the traffic lights, except smaller, on a pole, and instead of a green, red, or yellow circle it lights up in the shape of a bicycle. But it doesn't matter, because no one follows them. So I'll be sitting at a red bike light (which corresponds to I have no idea what for the cars) and someone will whizz by me, yelling presumably to get out of the way. I can't figure it out, and it's terrifying.

In any case, doing well. Sunday I went to the ParkPop, by myself, and it rained the entire time. But it was fun, anyway. It's liberating going places by yourself - it's like when you first get your license and you don't have to be on other peoples' schedules to get places - except more so, because it's just YOU. It's nice.

Last night, I went to Utrecht with Pieter, a work associate. There was a discussion on the fourth assessment on climate change from the IPCC and it sounded interesting. He sent out an email in the morning asking if anyone wanted to go with him; I figured this was an opening to become friendly with work people, and I took it. Plus it was an interesting discussion; the two guys leading it were actually from the IPCC, they had some interesting opinions about US politics, and I got to see Utrecht a little bit. Really really cute city. Much less modern than Den Haag, and the university is there, so it's really young and international (though Den Haag is very international, too, with the courts). It was about an hour train ride to get there, so I got to talk to Pieter a bit.

I'm not sure I'm ready to go out socializing by myself, but I think I'm getting there, slowly. I want to meet people and I don't know any other way then to go to bars. Any suggestions? I might have a new roommate in the next week (Jeff, the guy who owns the apartment, is in Greece and then going to the States for 8 weeks, and Isabel left this morning). Now that I'm feeling more comfortable, I hope she's up for hanging out. We'll see....More next time.

Ahh, the weekend.

Well, plans for Delft were thwarted by the rain. It cleared up enough to go out in the afternoon, though, so I explored the city some more.

After going to the Escher in Het Palais Museum today, (museum dedicated to MC Escher - amazing!) I came across this sculpture garden right across the street. It's an annual event that happens, this year dedicated to sculptors from "down under" - an Australian sculpture festival. Giant squid climbing a tree! I thought of you when I saw the scooter sculpture, Dad. And who doesn't love a melting Darth Vader?

There was also a street fair going on with loud music and bustling people walking around. It's all very disorienting because I don't speak Dutch...I feel like they can tell, too, even without me saying anything, just from my constantly dazed and confused look.

In any case, it was a good day. As long as the weather holds out, tomorrow is ParkPop, which I think I may have convinced my roommate, Isabel, to go to with me.

Pictures

In the first picture is the Hofvijver (Court Lake) next to the Binnenhof (Inner Court), and in the second picture is the Binnenhof and Ridderzaal (Knight's Hall), with some statue of a man on a horse in front of it. This is basically right across a square from where I work.

Things get underway.

The weather was crummy today. Rained from about 11am on, which wasn't a big deal since I was inside all day, but still. I'd rather look out the window and see sun than rain.

I've all of a sudden got a lot of work on my plate. I forgot I was working for a consulting firm first and foremost; it doesn't matter what they are consulting about, the intensity of the work is the same. Also, people have been giving me assignments that are taking longer than they would if I knew what I was talking about. I thought I understood carbon trading, CDMs, but there are so many technical components that I would never need to understand as a lobbyist or a legislator or policymaker, and I don't yet understand any of them. Maybe that's not fair; I'd probably need to know a lot of the intricacies to be a policymaker. But it feels like I've been pushed right in, and I don't know how to breathe underwater yet. I'll probably be fine in a few days.

I met a few more of my collegues today. It's so funny; the office is really quiet most of the time - no music, little chatter, everyone working very seriously and intently. We use email and Skype as the primary means of communication, so people Skype-chat back and forth instead of calling across the room. But then, lunchtime! Everyone eats together, pays into a pot and they order sandwich stuff from the grocery store each week. It's really communal and great. In any case, this is when peoples' personalities shine. It's a male-dominated office; I brought the total number of women at the table up to four, today. I guess there aren't that many more guys, but they are much more raucous then the women. Typical consulting-firm antics, I guess? I think it's so great, though. No matter how much work everyone has (and I'm sure there is a lot of it) everyone takes a half hour to chat, laugh, eat, talk about ridiculous things. It's really human.

Then, after lunch, a Skype-chat popped up on my screen, with the message, "Are you Jewish? And don't think that's a weird question, because I'm Jewish, too." It was one of my co-workers, a red-headed Canadian. A red-headed, Canadian JEW. I replied, "Yup", trying really hard to not to laugh outloud in my now-silent-again office. JEWSPOTTED! Everywhere I go. It's completely ridiculous. I don't even look that Jewish!

Unfortunately, my coworker lives in Amsterdam, so I still am faced with going to Synagogue by myself tomorrow night. I biked by after work today to make sure I knew where it was, and I only got a little lost. It looks like a charming building.

After work I got the cell phone that they gave me at work activated, at the urging of my "supervisor" Jessica (which worries me - they gave me a phone, pushed me to activate it, does that mean I'm on call always?). I then went grocery shopping and tried to make pasta and tomato sauce. It turned out well enough, but it didn't taste like Paul's sauce, no matter what I did. Where did I go wrong?!

I've plans to bike to Delft on Saturday if it's nice out. It's a ten-mile ride, and it'd be a great day-trip. There are a whole bunch of towns within a ten-mile radius of Den Haag, and Delft is supposed to be a really cute, old-style town.

Then, Sunday is the biggest pop festival in Europe, right in my backyard! It's called ParkPop, and it's on the other side of Den Haag, in a big (you guessed it) park. So, I missed out on Bonnaroo, but THIS is free, one day, and only a tram ride away.

I suppose this post is long enough. I'll update again soon, with more pictures, hopefully!

Day One - Pictures!

To the left is the front of my building, the side that faces the street.

Below is the street looking towards the Centrum. It's about 2 miles away from the Centrum, which is really nice because it's residential, not touristy at all, and GREEN! (as you can see.) Tons of trees. :)




















These are two pictures of my room. The apartment has a kitchen, bathroom, a real bedroom (mine's a converted office or something - in the bottom picture you can see the curtains), a living room, and then another room off the living room with a pull-out bed where the third person is staying.

Arrived safely, Day One.

The first flight was long. The seats were uncomfortable. I was in the second to last row of the plane, in front of (of course) a family of screaming kids. Actually, there were only two kids but I'm sure the parents were screaming on the inside. The kids did not stop. It was kind of unreal. But the flight attendents gave our row "first-class meal trays" - I'm not sure if this was because they ran out of the other kind by the time they got to our row, or because we were seated in clearly worst spot on the plane. In any case, it came with a mini personal bottle of wine, so I got about an hour of restless sleep after dinner.
The second flight (Dublin - Amsterdam) was fine, once I negotiated through the Dublin airport, which is pretty confusing for such a small airport. It was shorter, the seats were more comfortable, and the children were better behaved.
After two plane rides, I bought a ticket for the train to Den Haag Central Station. Standing on the platform, an older gentleman with an Australian accent started chatting (he saw my UofC bag, was behind me on the ticket line). It turns out he was the Australian embassador to the Netherlands for three years some years back, also sat on the Australian parliament for many years, and was excellent conversation. Had some choice words for our Mr. Bush.
Once I got to the apartment, Jeff showed me around, I took a shower, and got settled in. I managed to stay awake until 9:30pm, in an effort to get on the proper sleep cycle. But then I ended up sleeping until 11am this morning, so it didn't work out quite as I had planned.
Strangest thing, because we are so far north (latitudinally), it stays light until almost 11pm, and gets light at around 5am. There are blackout shades in my room, but it was still quite bright in my room as I was going to bed. It's a good thing I sleep like the dead.

Today I took out the bike Jeff got me, and set out to find my office and explore the city. I was expecting it to take a while but it was a quick trip into the Centrum. I got incredibly lost almost instantly, so I biked around for an hour or two to try and get my bearings, and then I pulled over to get out the map I brought. The thing is, with a bike, it makes it much faster to correct for directional mistakes, but if you're not careful, you can get pretty far out of the way before you know it. As I was paused to look at my map, the chain fell off my bike. I popped it back on, no problem, but it did that a few more times (only when I was stopped; I think as long as I'm moving it's fine) and by the time I found the place I will be working, my hands (and jeans) were covered in bike grease. I looked a little more like a hobo than I was comfortable with, but I had to get a watch, since my cell phone is usually my only way of keeping time, and I don't have that here. I went into store after store looking for a watch, and finally came across an higher-scale Claire's (though they had one of those, too), asked if they minded speaking in English, and bought a watch. Success!
On the way home, I bought my own map (Jeff had lent me his, but it's a book, and the seam of the spine falls in all the wrong places) and found a health food store to get some tofu and lentils. I made the mistake of also getting a couple of apples here - and ended up paying 1.60 euro for them. I think the general grocer will serve me fine for produce in the future.

I've decided I have to learn Dutch. Every time I had to ask someone if they minded speaking English today, a little piece of my pride died. They don't mind, and they speak it perfectly, but it feels really helpless to not be able to speak Dutch, or read the signs, or the newspaper, etc. So I'm going to just do it.

That's enough for today, I think. I'll post again soon to update on how the job is working out!

Welcome!

Hi! Welcome to my very first blog. I will be abroad this summer in the Netherlands, and I figured this is as good an excuse as any to set up a blog. This way, I won't have to write long, impersonal emails copied to many people who will probably stop reading by the end of the summer anyway. You can keep updated with stories, adventures, awkward moments, and all associated photos right here!

So, summer has officially started and I leave in a week. Until then, enjoy the weather, and I'll catch up on the other side of the pond!

-Chelsea