Hey!

Yesterday the Odysseus ‘91 Dames 3 played in a 7 versus 7 tournament held at KDS, another football club in Utrecht. The theme of the tournament was Oud Hollandsche Spelen (Old Dutch Games). We played 5 games (20 minutes each) and won 4, lost only one. It was a super day, hanging with my teammates, scoring a few goals, and practicing my Dutch.

Between games, we had time to watch the other Ody teams participating in the tournament and to play typically Dutch games such as Sjoelen (kind of a bit like shuffleboard) and Koekhappen (where a bit of breakfast bread, called Ontbijt Koek, is suspended in the air and the object is that you’re the first to eat it all off the string. See example photos here and here. The first is of children, which is what the game is meant for, and the second is of the Crown Prince Willem Alexander being typically Dutch.). Another game we played was called Spijkerpoepen, where you tie a string with a nail around your waist–the nail is suspended–and you try to squat while coercing the nail into the mouth of a wine bottle. This one was quite tough, but very funny to see 20-something-year-old women squatting for this one. Example pictures here and here. The games were a fun intermission to our soccer fun. When all was said and done, we were the champions (kampioenen) of the Tournament!

This week I have a lot of fun in store. Thursday is (another) national holiday, Hemelvaartsdag (Ascension Day) and since Friday occurs between a national holiday and a weekend, it is a compulsory day off as well. Have I mentioned how much I love this country and its policies toward vacation?

That reminds me of an interesting piece in the New York Times magazine written by an American living in the Netherlands. He does a good job of addressing the seemingly large gap between American and the Netherlands (and discusses the elements of the Socialism label that many Americans are quick to tag the Dutch state with despite not understanding that there are benefits conferred to all citizens when taxes are paid). If you have time and are interested, it is found here.

At any rate, Wednesday I am headed down to the very South of the country to Heerlen, where Stijn’s family lives to hang with the fam a bit and to visit a restaurant called Cuba Libre for a story he is doing. Apparently, you can negotiate the price of your meal, very helpful in these economic crisis times we’re in-haha. Then, Friday, we’re off with a couple of his colleagues to the Efteling, a Dutch themepark apparently very well crafted and typically Dutch as well. One of the more popular rides as I understand it is the Vliegende Hollander (yes, the Flying Dutchman). I think for me it’s an excuse to revert back to being a 12-year-old again…

(This is the entrance to the Efteling–woah).

So, that’s the latest and greatest. Other than this, I’m busy busy with my job and thesis writing. I hope you’re all well! Hope to give you a full report soon on all the fun from the coming week. Tot ziens!

Hey!

Quick post about Saturday’s revelry…Yes, I definitely went as Madonna circa 1985 and yes, I definitely drank (too) much beer. It was a fine time with dinner beforehand at Anne’s, complete with a friendly visit by the police who were in the neighborhood investigating something else. Then we moved on to a bar called K-Sjot on the Oudegracht where the beer was cheap, the music was good, and a good time was had by all. Here’s our group photo:

And the rest of the photo album can be seen at this Facebook link. Hope you enjoy the pictures of one crazy night in Utrecht.

Now I’m back to being a serious law student for the week as I have a deadline and meeting with Ian on Friday. The paper is coming along well. I cannot believe it is 1 december already, though. Time flies when you’re living in the Netherlands, I guess

Tot ziens!

Hallo allemaal!!

I have just a quick post to make about my big news today: I landed an apartment from 1 January on…it is fabulous and I get to bring my dog, Sunshine. It is about 5 minutes biking to the center, 10 to my soccer practices/games, and 5 or so to class…and it’s in a great location (ironically on the intersection where I had my fun bike accident with the car I blogged about a while back–random!)

It is on the Jan van Scorelstraat … here’s the outside view of my building. I’m on the achterzide (back side…with a deck terrace…just wait for it!)

And the inside view out to the deckterrace with the beautiful double doors:

From the big double doors, here’s the view towards my bed (notice the fabulous light fixture, too!):

The Kitchen is next (and yes, it is a washer in the kitchen…but we don’t judge–space is a premium in the NL and why not have the washer in the kitchen?!):

The final photo is kind of a view from the entry-way hall–it’s nice that the kitchen is separate from the rest of the living space. The shower is to the left as is the toilet:

I’m really looking forward to living in this place and to be able to have my dog. We will definitely enjoy the space!

In other news, I have found an amazing website: www.kersthits.nl where it’s possible to listen to all the christmas music one can stand! Check it out if you’re in the mood for festive songs and not too tired of it from the radio stations already

At any rate…soccer game Saturday and also another all-club party Saturday night…the theme for this one is “When I was younger, I was a fan of…” and you must dress as anyone whom you idolized in your youth. I don’t know about idolatry, but I always thought Madonna was pretty freaking awesome…so I might go for a Madonna look, circa 1984…but maybe a little more classy than the following:

No matter what happens, I’m sure it’ll be fun. Still have not received my digital camera in the mail, sadly, so I won’t be able to post photos of mine…but maybe some from our website will be on there. Oh yes, speaking of websites and our soccer team, check this out! Goals #1 and 4 are brought to you by me…some of you may have seen this because I posted it to facebook earlier…I just think it’s quite fun. Enjoy!

Hope you are all doing well! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone..it’s weird to have missed it. I just had some pizza with friends and am off to bed. Tot ziens!

I got my computer back after it’s been on “vacation” at the apple store for almost two weeks! It is definitely a sign that I am overly reliant on a piece of technology if I think it was the longest two weeks of my life…but it was! I hated not having my own laptop when I needed to do my research, check my e-mail, write my paper, etc.

But now, it’s all better and now I’m looking ahead to the next big thing…a trip to Kansas tomorrow! I leave fairly early in the morning and for the first time in my life, I am all packed more than 12 hours before I have to leave. This is big, people. This never happens. However, somehow I managed to get it all done this morning before I went for a run and to the law library.

I am really looking forward to the symposium later this week but also to the time to spend with my mom, who will be visiting from Ohio, and my friends of course (and my dog Sunshine–how could I forget?!)…

Not much else has been going on in the last few days. I’m still getting lots of congratulations and positive comments about Barack Obama being elected as president. At the election party we were at the other night, the regional TV station came in and I made a quick appearance in my Obama t-shirt…good times! I’ve also played some soccer…too bad we lost again. It’s a shame, but we’re improving slowly but surely. The good news is that I am now in sole first place as topscorer of the whole club. Check it out here. There are still plenty of games to play in the season, so I’m not getting too arrogant yet, but it’s kind of fun!

I better get going on cooking some dinner soon and finalizing all the things for tomorrow. See some of you very soon!

tot ziens…

Hi, Friends!

I am still without my own laptop at the moment, still holding on to an optimistic hope that Apple will call soon to say that everything’s fine with only minimal costs…so I’m writing this again from the Utrecht Law Library but thought I’d let you all know that I’ll be visiting Kansas from the 11th through the 16th of November.

Washburn is putting on a symposium with which I somewhat been involved in the planning process called the Global War on Terror and the Rule of Law. A lot of amazing people will be in attendance to discuss different topics regarding international law as the Bush Administration has “interpreted” it and what kind of ramifications these interpretations might have.

Excerpting from the website:

The United States Constitution was founded on the Rule of Law. The Global War on Terrorism has tested the limits of our constitutional values and has posed unprecedented challenges for the U.S. legal system. Throughout these difficult times, the federal courts have been instrumental in upholding the Rule of Law.

The Rule of Law and the Global War on Terrorism Symposium will examine legal implications of governmental actions taken in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Our speakers and participants will reevaluate and reassess these complex issues to explore possible ways forward as our nation prepares for a new administration.
So, I will be in attendance on Thursday and Friday. My awesome mom will be coming in from Ohio to also attend and to hang out with me and other Kansas friends. I’m really looking forward to it!

What else is going on? Well, still playing soccer of course. Last weekend we won 6-5 (yes, crazy soccer score) but a win is a win and I scored quite a few goals! If you don’t believe me, check this! My coach credited me with 5 of the 6 but I technically did score the first one…it was a shot across the right side and it deflected off the defender for an own goal…so in my mind I scored them all I’m now in the hunt for the club’s topscorer award given to the person who makes the most goals over the whole club (10 men’s teams and 5 women’s teams). The topscorer right now has 8 goals and I have 6…my coach and the coach of the other topscorer made a bet about who would be the winner at the end of the season, so now there’s some pressure to keep adding to my tally! There are pictures here from our club’s Pubquiz and Karaoke night last weekend too. Lots of fun with the soccer club! The guy in the pictures with me is my coach Marc.

I’ve also had the fun balanced out with some drama as the university did not file my residence permit papers until today…you can only stay in the Netherlands without a permit for three months and I have been here about that long! It seems like everything’s going to work out, but Immigration, as in the United States, is not something you want to mess with!

Other than that, I finished my comparative law paper with the girls in my group on Thursday and we have a test next week over the content of our course. I have also been in the middle of “tussentoetsen” (mid-terms) in my Dutch class. I have one more next Tuesday about speaking, but we’ve already had listening, writing, and reading. My dutch is coming along, but again not nearly as quickly as I would hope! Ah the adventures of being a buitenlander (foreigner) in this beautiful country!

The weather has turned colder quickly and Christmas lights are already starting to go up. After this past weekend when we set our clocks back an hour for daylight savings, it gets dark around 5:30 or so…it’s crazy! But I’m still really enjoying my time here and looking forward to graduation from Washburn and embarking on the LL.M. at Utrecht starting in February!

So, if you’re in Kansas the week of the 11th, let me know! Maybe we can grab a drink or some dinner and catch up on life! Don’t forget to vote next Tuesday (if not before!)…what a historic election! I’m very glad it will be over soon, though. Barack the Vote!

Tot ziens!

Hello again! It’s Saturday night in Utrecht and I just got home from a super soccer day! Our team had an away match against what I think must have been the Dutch national team. We got destroyed something like 10-0 and it was a pretty physical match. Despite the awful result, we did our best so we are now looking forward to our next game, which will be Monday night, against a team we played earlier in the season. I am guest playing tomorrow for another of our club’s teams. However, I will be playing goalkeeper!! Yikes!! It should be fun, but I much prefer my position as striker/forward (in Nederlands: spits). Lots of soccer in just a few days, which is really nice.

After the game, some of my teammates and I went to a cafe, had some drinks, and played board games. That’s a genius business model, I think, having board games at a cafe/bar. We sat, played, ate, and drank for a few hours. It was a good time. I learned a new game that my teammate Anne labeled as typical Dutch: rummikub. So despite our disappointing result during the match, we still managed to have some fun today!

So anyway, I wanted to write this post this week after the trip to London. Because here in the Netherlands it’s starting to get quite cold, and because our heater/furnace doesn’t work in our apartment (yes, we have someone coming to look at it, but not until the 24th!!), I have been wanting to buy a sweatshirt of some kind. When I was in London, a store called Lillywhites was having a huge sale, which I think they always do, and I purchased this sweatshirt for about $10:

I thought it was a great deal and exactly what I was looking for re: the cold weather solution! So, part two of this story is where it gets interesting. As a side note, I left my phone charger in London at the hostel (that makes me 2 for 2 in leaving phone chargers in foreign cities–last summer I left my charger in Barcelona)…and so Tuesday I was in panic mode as my phone is my phone from the US (Sprint Samsung Ace) and I was convinced that I would have to buy the charger from Sprint and have them send it to me via international mail. The other option was to buy a new phone that was sim-lock free (as in I could keep my same phone number and sim card) … So, as I was traipsing around Utrecht and finding the sim-lock free phones to be about 35 euros or more, I happened upon a store that sold a charger that was compatible with my phone! It was very lucky for me, and it only cost 17 euros…not bad, all things considered.

At anyrate, at this shop I was buying the charger from, the guy working behind the desk made a comment about my sweatshirt. In fact, his exact words were: “Don’t wear that sweatshirt in Utrecht or Amsterdam, or really anywhere in the Netherlands, if you don’t want your ass kicked.” I wasn’t sure I heard him right…so after he repeated that he was certain I would get my ass kicked if I wore the shirt around, I asked for an explanation. It turns out that this brand, Lonsdale, out of London, was a clothing brand popular with a lot of neo-nazis. Yeah, that’s waht I said. Neo-nazis.

Excerpting from Wikipedia: In the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, the term Lonsdale youth became a widely used synonym for teenagers with extreme right wing tendencies, sometimes associated with the gabber subculture.^[1][2] A website, Lonsdalenews, has been set up to track racist incidents in the Netherlands.^[3] Right-wing extremists have liked tops bearing the Lonsdale logo, allegedly because a carefully placed jacket can leave only the letters NSDA showing; acronymic of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter, National Socialist German Worker, and one letter short of NSDAP, the German language acronym for Hitler’s Nazi Party.

Yes. I accidentally bought a racist sweatshirt in London for wearing in the number one country where wearing it is a really awful idea. Not only is it awful for anyone to own something with racial undertones like this, but given my commitment to human rights and equality, I feel even more like a prize idiot for buying it.

See more here, here, and here about how big of a problem it has been in the Netherlands. I guess now I know, but I can’t imagine wearing it ever again…maybe I can rip the stitches on the logo off so it’s a plain white sweatshirt…I don’t know. I’m glad the guy at the phone store said something though, before I wore it unknowingly around Utrecht and ended up bloody in some back alley or something. Aaah the lovely lessons one learns while abroad!

In other news:

I voted this week via absentee ballot, so I’ve officially done my part to help Obama get elected. The election rhetoric has turned extremely nasty in the last few days, which seems due in part to McCain’s sinking ship of a campaign. Palin is driving me crazy and I wish we could just fast forward to 5 November when it’ll all be over…I watched the debates live (yes, that means I stayed up until 4:30 my time Wednesday morning) with a friend. We decided to make a drinking game out of the phrases “my friends” and “cronyism” uttered by McCain for the next debate. I hope it’s on a night when I don’t have class the next day because I’m afraid if we played this game for real, I’d be extremely drunk extremely fast!

One good thing to come out of the financial crisis, as sick as it’s been overall, is that the dollar has gained against the euro quickly. When I arrived here at the end of July, it was holding steady at about $1.55 to $1.60 to the euro. Today’s exchange rate is $1.32. Unbelievable!

What else? I’m still really enjoying my time over here. My Dutch is improving slowly but surely. I am really hard on myself as I’ve only been here for 2 months, but I want to be perfect yesterday! It really helps taking the class and having my Dutch soccer team. I really like my teammates and all of our activities; I know I’ve said that before, but I really, really do!

I’m off to bed. I’d love to hear from you if you get a chance! Tot ziens!

Well, I have much good news. First and foremost–we have the internet at our house finally!!! It’s so nice to be sitting in the living room and posting from my house. It’s crazy (a) how much I took internet for granted while I had it all the time and (b) how addicted I am to the internet!! But now all is well because I can be connected 100% of the time!

Second and just as important: I had extremely good news from the physical therapist when I met with him Friday. He went through the standard battery of tests to see the integrity of my ligaments just to make sure. After asking me a few questions about when the knee actually hurt, he said I could try to run on it again and play soccer as much as I could tolerate. Friday evening I went for a 5K run and it felt great!!! Our team had training yesterday, so I played in that and the knee felt super. I guess this means I’m back in action on the football field!

Third, and related to the soccer talk–our team had a feestje (little party) last night at which much wine and beer were consumed, lekker (tasty) food was had, and good times were had by all. I, in fact, enjoyed too much wine but going out with my teammates was really fun. Here are a couple photos from the evening:

We had a very nice dinner at one of our teammates’ awesome apartments, played a drinking game with the same idea as Circle of Death (in Dutch, of course), and then went out to a bar afterward. I really am enjoying being part of this team. It’s a great way to meet new Dutch friends, practice Dutch, and (of course) play soccer!

This week ahead is looking like it’s going to be busy. Tomorrow I meet with my supervising professor, Ian, to discuss the research project. It is super that we have internet at our house so I can research from home at my convenience. Have you gotten the idea that I’ve been missing the internet?! I also meet with my physical therapist to touch base after the weekend’s activities. My friend Lucy is coming up from Maastricht on Friday before she and I head off to London for the weekend. Of course there will be another blog post coming soon with details about our upcoming trip.

As always, I hope all is well at home for you all! Tot ziens!

Hey, everyone!

It’s another rainy day in Utrecht. Very typical but at some points hard to get used to. It’s also started to turn a bit cold so I took advantage of the local store H&M to find a nice warm jacket for the winter months ahead. I know, shopping has always been hard for me so it was torturous to find a yummy wool coat but somehow I survived the shopping experience just fine

This week has been a bit crazy. We still don’t have the internet at our house so I’m at the library by our apartment writing this update. I started my comparative law class this week. We have a project for the class with two other students (groups of 3) to write a 15-page paper comparing a topic in two jurisdictions. My group and I chose the Netherlands and a state in the US (not quite sure which one yet) to discuss child maintenance (who pays and why). This will be a nice intro to my research project ultimately.

I am also continuing with my Dutch classes. Now I’m on level 3 and the course is going at a nice pace. It is from now until February two times a week. I’m feeling much more confident with my listening and reading skills but speaking is killing me! I don’t know what it is about Dutch, but it’s so difficult to speak!! My soccer practices, meetings, and team activities are all in Dutch though, so that is always a good way to test my skills! The website for our team is www.odysseus91.nl and we won 2-1 last weekend against a higher ranked team.

Here’s our team photo. Notice the purple–not my first choice in uniform color! Notice also that I am definitely team grandma as all of my other teammates are so young!!! But that doesn’t mean I still can’t work my magic on the field!!!

Other news of the week:

1. I got hit by a car. On my bike. No, I’m totally serious. I’m doing just fine (thankfully). I am actually really lucky that nothing happened to me, health-wise. My bike was not so fortunate but I have already found a replacement to keep wheeling on around the city. I’ll post pictures later. Too bad this bike isn’t pink, but it overall is a more solid model that will probably survive the year with me (as long as I don’t run any more red lights!).

2. I had my first American visitor this week. Jenny Calvert, a friend since middle school (is that right?!) is touring through Europe before she begins her very first adult job as a fancy lawyer in San Francisco. Her travels brought her to Amsterdam, so I joined her on the Rembrandt Square for lunch and then after my language class in the evening, she visited Utrecht. We had a nice dinner outside on a terrace and then went to a couple bars with my roommate Rachel (from England) and her friend, Jules. It was a really great visit from Jenny. All of you reading this are welcome to come anytime!!!

3. I think I had some sort of stomach virus or flu or food poisoning yesterday and today so I spent too much time being sick over the last 24 hours. I am back to feeling somewhat normal, but I think I will lay low tonight. My friend Clara and I talked about going to see the movie Into the Wild. The book was really good so I am hopeful the movie follows suit.

4. I just read the sad news about the KU football team…too bad. The last-minute heartbreaks are the worst. Perhaps it’s still early enough in the season to still make it to a quality bowl if we can manage to play well the rest of the way out. Rock Chalk!!

5. My heart goes out to all the people affected by the hurricanes. What a mess (after mess after mess) there will be to clean up. It seems like this time around, though, people are heeding the warnings and getting out of town well in advance.

6. I just received word that our internet modem should be delivered Monday. No one really knows if that will happen, though, so no promises. You just never quite know with the Dutch and the service! I owe you some photos of the new apartment and another post with more details. As soon as the internets are up and running, I’ll be able to post more.

I hope everyone’s doing well. I’d love to hear from you if you have the chance!

Tot ziens!