Still Around

No worries. I am indeed still alive, despite the slovenly manner in which I have updated this blog. I assure you, as I have in the past, updates will be more frequent and of a higher quality.

The past couple of weeks her in Holland have been excellent. I have made many friends from far off and exotic places like Whales and Germany. Exciting, I know.
School has been going great, aside from a bad case of the lazy ass one day this week. This crazy two block semester means that exams and assignments are sneaking up on me in a hurry, but I'll survive.

As for the homestead. I actually really like my apartment. The tiny little thing is growing on me. The building is great as well. A big group of us students have become close and hang out at the corner bar a lot. Also, this little guy is apparently our unofficial building pet.



Nobody knows his name, but he hangs out behind the building around the bicycle parking all day, occasionally crying for food. He is clearly well fed, which is why he stays around, I'm sure.

Last weekend, a big group of us from the Narwal (the name given to either this building or the neighborhood, I haven't figured out which one just yet) went out to the beach on Zandvoort which was good fun. On the walk to the train station, Dafydd and I spotted this odd looking fellow.



There is so much to say about this man. I don't even know where to begin. So much spandex on one human being. Where do you get a pink do rag anyway? Baffling.

From that little distraction, we were off to the beach. Which was quite nice. I was expecting it to be cold as it was the previous few days, but went anyway, despite my best judgment. Luckily, I was dead wrong. It was a beautiful day for the beach.

I wasn't sure about this beach, but we come to the stairs and catch the first glimpse, and it was nice.




But, if you notice off in the distance, is this



A nice big sailing ship, which we spent most of the next couple of hours hatching a scheme to pirate it. It was quite a complex plan, which involved the hijacking of no less than two other smaller boats, in order to get to that one. Alas, as the beer flowed, we lost interest and never fulfilled out dreams of being rogue mariners.

Later on, I spotted this tenacious fellow. He was trying to surf the saddest set of waves I have ever seen, but damned if he wasn't getting up on a few. You have to kind of admire that.



Towards the end of the evening, we left the beach, where me and Dafydd split from the group to meet up with some other folk, where we proceeded to get a right bit inebriated and involved in some light petty theft, if you can call it that. None the less, good times were had by all involved. All in all, it was a good Saturday in Holland.

And now, I must be off to continue my studies. But I assure you, there will be more to come.

I am no longer bicycleless

Now I can be everywhere and unstoppable, as I finally secured a bicycle. And after much headache, it is now fully functional. Behold



It's no looker, but it gets the job done.

Other than the cycling business, a lot has gone on this past week. I began classes, which has been exciting. All of my lecturers are Dutch, which I didn't really expect, but perhaps should have considering I'm studying at a Dutch university. I think I'm going to enjoy this semester. It's very nice to exclusively study exactly what you want.

My buddy, Paolo showed me around the university and a bit of the town, and directed me towards the oddly named book store. It was really just a regular ass book store and not one devoted to the sales of text and school books, which made it a bit difficult, luckily I had a native to guide me. Below is said oddly named bookstore, which I now know how to pronounce, but cant pull off spelling it phonetically, so you will just have to guess.



After getting all set up and getting back into the groove of school, I wandered around town a bit. My neighbourhood, Haarlemmerdijk seems to be nice. It has a ton of shops and a market every Saturday.



It's no Adams Avenue, but it will do just fine.

On Friday, a few of us from the building went to our corner bar for some drinks. CJ, an American I have befriended here is half Dutch and his father was in town for some sort of college reunion. Thus we went out to the Spui to see if we could scrounge up a few free drinks from his dad and his buddies at the bar they were at. When we finally arrive after getting a bit lost, the bartender says he is closing up shop and isn't serving anymore. He claims he was sick, but I think he didn't want to serve a few Americans and a Welshman, the racist bastard.
After this slight, he points us to a couple of bars, one of which he calls a punk bar and have very cheap beer. Naturally, I am intrigued and insist on going for both the punk and the cheap beers. You can't really beat that.
Thus we spend the wee hours of the morning with a bunch of Dutch punks. Good times were had by all. A few days later, I am walking back home and stumble upon this place in the daylight.



Oddly enough, there is no stage, but I will have to return.

That is all for week two, but I leave you with a few photos, naturally.

I saw this and thought it was a classy piece of graffiti, then I translated it and it became so much more glorious. I don't know who did it, but I admire him to no end. It translates to "we are everywhere and unstoppable."


Here is De Krijtberg R.K. Kerk St. Franciscus Xaverius, the big Catholic Church in Amsterdam. From what I understand, it was made in 1883. Don't worry Moms, I will investigate into the church further, per our agreement.


Below is the Dam Palace, where the Queen lived when she lived in Amsterdam, before high tailing it to the Hague. She still stays here when in Amsterdam, but it's not or ordinary residence.


Finally, I think Chevrolet needs to reevaluate its strategy in Europe.


More to come,
Matt

The Triumphant Return

This week marks my return to Holland, as well as the return of this blog, apparently. I had many requests to get this thing back up and running, and I can't keep my anxious fans waiting.

I arrived in Amsterdam at 930 or so Wednesday morning. This time, I was armed with the knowledge that virtually everyone in this country speaks English. That tidbit made everything go much smoother. No timidity when asking for a taxi or a train ticket. Clearly the Dutch realize that no one knows their language. All went well as I traveled from the Airport to the city by train, and got all setup with my apt. When I first arrived at the apartment I was skeptical. The place seemed like a hole at first, with flooring that appears to be particle board with a dense hard seal on it. Upon further review, I think it's just some sort of cheap ass laminate.
The most troubling bit was the bathroom. It has no real shower stall or tub. It's just a shower head with a floor drain below it next to the toilet. It seems a bit sketchy, but what can one expect for a relatively cheap apartment in an expensive city.
Below you will find photos of the place, after I got somewhat moved in.













And there it is.

I spent most of Wednesday running around getting things to live and trying to catch up on this time change business. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Friday was the international student orientation at the University. I think they tried to break our spirit that day. They claimed it began at 10am, but didn't get anything going until 10:30 at the earliest when they started signing people in and giving us some documents. I then picked up some books whilst waiting on the introduction from the head of the UvA Faculty of Law. I had assumed they budgeted in a time for lunch in the schedule, but clearly I was wrong. I only ate a bowl of cereal that day, which I was forced to make last until 5pm. At that time the feed us, not food, but booze. Which made for an interesting group of people easily affected by alcohol.
All in all, it was a good day. I met a few folk, and it was a rare day of sunshine in Holland.

On Saturday, I slept most the day and cleaned up this place, as I kind of just threw everything around and not really unpacked. Come 5pm it was time for some LSU football.

As that game was getting out of hand, as I suspected, I had already made plans to go see some friends up in the Hague. Good times were had by all.

Classes begin this week, with my first on Tuesday, which should be all kinds of exciting. Tomorrow I have to pick up my books and some loan money from the lazy asses at UvA who only stay open for two hours a day in that office.

As tradition dictates, I leave you with a series of photos. Look for more updates.

This is the church near UvA. This city is crawling with old beautiful churches. I'll get some more photos of them


I had no idea that they got out of the west coast, but the subway was crawling with their stickers, so I guess they made it out here and the Dutch love them.


I'm reasonably certain I'm not crazy, but this building looks slanty. Can anyone else confirm this?


And clearly you got to be hard to live on the mean streets of the Amsterdam City Centre (found on the UvA campus).


More to come.
Matt

One week left.

Sweet Fancy Moses! It is cold outside. The beautiful Dutch weather has hit us yet again. The sun has made a brief appearance Saturday, but other than that it has been cold as ice, quite literally. The fountain out in front of the Tribunal froze over today, it was so damn cold. Luckily I only got a week of this left. Unfortunately, I also only have a week left here. As my time here comes to a close, I realize that I'm really going to really miss this place and all the good folk I've met here. Many of my good friends have left recently and the rest of the interns are trickling out this week, so the Tribunal was eerily quiet, as most of the interns bailed out on Friday.
As for this weekend, it was rather uneventful, save for a short trip down to Delft for a bit. I figured, so long as I am in Holland, I should see some local things. It was an interesting little village with a couple of nice churches and the grave of Hugo Grotius, the Godfather of international law. I couldn't let my time here pass without seeing him.


I told you it was literally cold as ice.



One of the two churches in the town square. The steeple appears to have been burned at some point


The other church


The monument to Mr. Grotius and me looking like a jackass.


It took some searching, but I finally found a pair of clogs big enough to fit me.


Another church in the town. This place was very densely packed with places of worship.


The Dutch know how to lay some bling on their bicycles.

And I am out on that note. More to come from my last week, assuming I survive the going away festivities. But, if I have survived three separate Serb parties, I think I can handle this week.

More to come.

I always suspected HTM was trying to kill me.

Ever since my bicycle was stolen, I have been forced to use the public transportation system in the Hague, Hague Transit Management (HTM). This was supposed to be temporary, as I had intended to purchase a new bike as soon as a cheap one was available, but alas, one never came about.
But on with the story, Ever since I started regularly riding the bus and tram here, I have noticed that the time schedule posted on each stop was in no way related to when they would actually arrive at the stop. Due to these irregularities, I have frequently had to wait for upwards of a half hour for a damn bus, as the busses are much more inaccurate than the trams, time wise. Being as soft as I am, I want no part of standing in the cold that long and I know that as soon as I start to walk where I need to be, the bus will show up, so I always wait.
Because of all this lateness, I had assumed the people of HTM were, naturally, out to get me. They had been subtle about it for months, occasionally giving me hope by sending a bus just a few minutes after I got to the stop. Although, more often than I care to count, a bus would pull away just before I get to the stop and the bus driver always ignores my flailing arms and cries to stop. But, alas, these were all suspicions, until Monday.
Monday, I was heading to a movie with some friends, so naturally I took the bus. Seats were scarce, so I took one at the very back. For background, it is necessary to know that the normal HTM busses have three doors, on in front to get on and one each in the middle and the back for exiting. Because I was seated at rear of the buss, I chose the rear exit. Well, supposedly, the bus driver did not notice that I was back there, so at the stop, he opened both exit doors, but the rear door opened and closed very quickly, lodging me in the door. One would think, as a safety mechanism, the doors would reopen with a bit of pressure against them, and I'm sure Boudreaux would back me up here. But, the Dutch will have none of that. The doors were tightly closed on me and wouldn't budge, no matter how hard I pushed. Finally, the driver heard my cries for help and opened the doors again, setting me free at last, thank god almighty.
This driver feigned remorse and apologized, but I know he was part of the greater HTM conspiracy to destroy me.

American Thanksgiving, Coonass included

No worries to everybody, I did get an actual Thanksgiving dinner, although the fascists at the United Nations required that I work that day. These kinds of things are borderline un-American, but when I told them all I got was the whole "we're not an American organization" story. No respect for the modern day hegemon.
But anyways, all was well. A bunch of the American interns at the tribunal threw a bit of a pot luck Thanksgiving dinner after work, with turkey and all the trimmings.
This year, as fate would have it, I got to continue my Thanksgiving tradition of spending some time with a coonass. While this years festivities did not include frying a turkey in Whitey's garage with the mighty coonass duo of him and Boudreaux, the neighbor of the broads who were hosting the dinner came over. And wouldn't you know it, she is a genuine coonass whose family never left Nova Scotia. Goes by the name of Comeaux. So the streak is still alive.
Needless to say, good times were had by all, even by the coonass French Canadian and the two regular Frenchies that were invited as well.

The RedBull Knockout or: How to anger a Swiss girl by holding a motorcycle race on the beach.

Last Sunday was spent at Schreveningen for the Second Annual RedBull Knockout, and believe me, it was glorious. It consisted of 500 bikes tearing ass on the beach for upwards of three hours. Some, like my Swiss officemate say this is madness, but nay, I say, there is no better a sight than motorcycles flying through the air for hours on end.

Also, whilst at the race, Chris and I went to get some fries at the fry stand. Now, I have known for some time that the Dutch loved their french fries, but I was unaware as to the level of seriousness they directed towards their fry consumption. Whilst in line, two men got into an argument about their respective positions in the fry line, and fisticuffs ensued. There was a 30 second or so brawl and about 15 minutes of Dutch jawing afterwards, all over some delicious Belgian style fries. So take heed, never get between a Dutchman and his fries.

Don't ever say I didn't warn you.

Also, a few photos were taken, and as an added treat, a couple of videos courtesy of the good folks at Youtube and my digital camera. Ain't technology great.


This is one of the first few laps in the opening segment. Craziness ensued with 500 bikes in one race. The track was quite large, but it still made for a dense, and therefore excellent race.


This is the start of the Knockout round, where they knocked out ten riders a lap after the first ten laps. You can hear them pin it all the way down the long front stretch, sounds glorious with the thumpers mixed with strokers.


This is not my video, but someone else that took a much better one of the same event.
Between this and the Last Man Standing, RedBull can do no wrong.


Your winner ladies and gentlemen, Frenchman Timotei Potisek, in all his blurry glory. He took home 15,000 Euros, which is not too shabby for an afternoon's work.


You can see the start here in the back. It was a heap more impressive in person.


This guy endoed just before this. It took him about five minutes to get his bike back up and going. He looked pretty injured, but kept on going. You have to respect that kind of determination.


The bikes were about this dense the entire 60 minute qualifier.