Here

Back in Portland, two posters hung over our bed. They look identical: empty white sheets of paper framed in black. But they each have a single, barely visible line of text precisely in their center. The one on my side of the bed said: Somewhere better than this place.

It is the motto of our meta-life. We met in Boston five years ago only to move to DC, to the Hague, to Portland, and now back to Boston with the expectation of another move two years from now. On good days, I feel like my life is a grand quest, with us cast as the fearless explorers (albeit of a modern, domesticated sort).

But on bad days - and there were many bad days in recent weeks - I feel scattered, my mind and body so jangly that the skin under my skin feels like it is vibrating. In our last couple of weeks in Portland, living amongst boxes yet again, our quasi-nomadic lifestyle deeply unsettled me: it's like a perpetual motion machine, with us propelled forward every time we think we come to rest. In those moments, I was drawn to the poster that hung on the other side of the bed: Nowhere better than this place.

With our remaining time in Portland slipping away like it never existed, I tried to collect a few last moments that were purely "here." It being June in Portland, I literally stopped to smell the roses.

Strawberry picking on Sauvie Island 

Sauvie's: a flat delta island just beyond the meeting of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers, a pastoral enclave right on the edge of the city. Most of the farms are u-pick, and the first big crop is the strawberries. It was a good year for Oregon strawberries; at the very start of June, the vines were already dense with fruit, real strawberries that are bright red and delicate all the way to the core. These strawberries are too fragile to ship; they can only be eaten locally. My sister wanted flats of them to make strawberry jam, yet with four of us, the picking only took twenty minutes. (A jar of my sister's Oregon strawberry jam was the first item in our new fridge in Boston. It didn't last long.)

The Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade

A repetitive childhood memory: waiting for what seemed like eons on an overcast day with drizzle for the annual Rose Festival parade to start. Was it an omen that this year, for the first time in my memory, parade day dawned bright and sunny?

The Trees of Veenkade

It's been more than a year since we left The Hague: 15 months, in fact.  Since then, we've driven across the United States, settled into Portland, and gotten married - which explains my blog silence for most of 2012 (at some point, I will re-post my Oregon travelogues from the wedding website).  That was followed by two honeymoons to Hawaii and Japan {{awkward throat-clearing and modest blushing at excessive travel indulgence}}.  And then I applied for a job that will take us back to Boston next summer.  Never a dull moment.

In the meantime, in a fit of nostalgia about the Netherlands, I have compiled a year's worth of pictures of the trees that lined our canal in the Hague.  (Veenkade translates loosely to "peat wharf.")  It's the equivalent of posting baby pictures: these mean a lot to me and Jeff, and there's a slight chance that you will find them moderately interesting as well.

At our arrival in October 2010

During the snow storms of December 2010

Midnight on New Year's Eve

January 2011

Biking to work in June 2011

Canal construction in August 2011

September 2011: Instant nostalgia as we leave Veenkade.

Our Hague

Now this makes me nostalgic: a map I started while we were still living in the Hague of all our favorite Haagsche places. It's pretty awesome! I just hope some of these cafes are still in business, nine months later...

View Our Hague in a larger map

Gardner's Guide to Groningen

I realize that many of our most memorable experiences traveling around the Netherlands and Europe have not made it into my posts because they are, individually, not that interesting. Take, for instance, the one night and subsequent morning we spent in the northern Dutch town of Groningen during our Friesland adventures: nothing singular happened that merits writing home about, yet we liked the town very much and have great memories of exploring its compact center.  To illustrate our more typical travels, then, I've compiled a map of our several little discoveries that, taken together, made our brief time in Groningen so memorable: 


View Guide to Groningen in a larger map

Best Day Ever, Solstice Edition

As I've said before, we should all have Best Days Ever at least once a month, ideally once a week.  My most recent: June 21 - also known as the longest day of the year (coincidence? I think not).
For example:

• I did not have to wait more than 2 minutes for any mode of public transit all day.
• My office mate shared her Leonidas chocolates with me.
• I did not get rained on.
• Jeff made me a fabulous Lebanese-inspired dinner.
• The Senate confirmed a mentor of mine as a federal judge.
• We celebrated by splitting a bottle of nice champagne with our friend/neighbor.
• I feel asleep easily and slept soundly (for the first time in a week).

See, it's not that hard - a Best Day Ever does not require being nominated for a Nobel Prize, getting married, or having a successful IPO for your start-up that enables you to retire 30 years early.  Because everyday life, by itself, can be sweet enough.

And for the record: sunrise 5:22 am; sunset 10:07 pm.

Paris recycles

Saturday morning in St. Germain-de-Pres.

A Top 5 List of Roman Food Moments

What I love: Food, lists, Rome.  Hence, a Top 5 list of the little food moments that made our Rome weekend so perfect:

Overheard in PDX

I'm checking out my favorite double-fried old fashioned doughnut with the dark chocolate frosting in the pastry display case when I first notice the anxious strain in the voice of the woman in front of me. She's just turning down the slightly stout barista's offer of her usual americano, her voice trailing off lamely as she explains, "I saw a woman who had like a cup with all this whip cream, and I thought ... I need ... to have one of those..." 

The barista, black beard and black clothes with one tasteful tattoo on his right forearm, busies himself with the espresso machine. After a pause, he offers, "How's your day going so far?"

"Well, I just woke up actually, so I'm just like going to work now, so... my day's, I guess, not really going yet..." She fusses with her purposefully mussed-up hair. "I was on this date last night," she states. "With this guy I used to talk to all the time when he worked at Whole Foods." Just like we talk, every day - shit, but don't think I actually like the Whole Foods guy: "But it was like a total clusterfuck. Yeah, I thought he was cool when he worked at Whole Foods, but you know, it turns out he's a total douchebag." 

The barista is staring out the window over the top of the machine as he pounds the ground espresso and locks it into place to pull. He looks down briefly as he shifts to start steaming the milk. "Where'd you go?" he finally says.

She leans into the counter, as if invading his personal barista space will force him to turn around, and takes out her lime-green wallet. "To [somplace]. I mean, he just talked about himself all night, like for 3 hours." She pauses. "It was a total clusterfuck," just so we're clear.

"Maybe he was nervous." He shakes the whip cream cannister as if whipping it by brute force.

"Oh, yeah, maybe... But whenever I tried to say anything he'd just interrupt again..." 

The barista waits several beats before capitulating. "I'm sure he was a tool," he offers as he swipes her credit card.

"Yeah," her voice sounds relieved, "it turns out he's, like, a super-famous Feist fan." Air quotes and forced giggle.

"What does that mean?" More interested, but still avoiding her eye as he slides her the credit card receipt and pen across the counter. "'If you check out issue 52 of the Feist Fanzine, bottom of page 4, you'll see my latest piece'?"

She giggles again, "I know!" Her hand trembles as she signs.

"Later." "Later." And she leaves, unrequited crush.

Of Bikes and Shame

The problem with bicycling to work, I have discovered, is that every day I seem to find a way, at some complicated intersection or another, to do something really stupid. Although crisis is always averted, it is usually thanks to the quick reflexes of the unlucky pedestrian, bicyclist or driver who made the mistake of crossing my path.

Take this morning, for example: it being a fine spring day full of blue skies and birdsong, I set out for work on my bike - and immediately did something really stupid. Faced with a barrage of Dutch from the construction workers observing my stupidity, I felt painfully clueless (were they scolding me or defending me?) and wished I knew enough Dutch to apologize. Instead I could only stare blankly back at them and the livid driver I almost rode in front of. But the worst - oh, the worst - is the righteously indignant glare. The driver this morning gave me a doozy - as in, "Are you crazy! Or just really dumb?" It's a version of Dutch I understand completely.

As I continued on my way, shaken and (I admit) near tears, I came to realize that there is (surprise) a lesson to be learned. It goes something like this:

1. Living a good and full life requires trying new things.
2. However, when we try something new for the first time, we will not be good at it.
3. Thus, as we undertake any new endeavor, we will make mistakes - many of them.
4. But those mistakes help us get better at the new endeavor, much more quickly and successfully than if we never made mistakes.
5. Plus mistakes can sometimes lead to humorous stories of self-deprecation that provide good foder for cocktail parties and dinner conversations.
6. In conclusion: Mistakes are good, learning curves are important, and we can't give up just because we're embarrassed.

So right about now, you're probably thinking, "Thank you, Captain Obvious." But as a recovering perfectionist, for me this is a very hard lesson to learn. In fact, it's a lesson I've "discovered" and "learned" many times already. Two steps forward, one step back.

In the meantime, if anyone knows of a Road Guide for Bicycling in Holland, please let me know.

(This post was brought to you in part by Heather B., who first told me it's OK to try things I know I won't be good at; Ms. Milani, who taught me the importance of having good foder for cocktail parties; and Mysti, who likes to say "in conclusion".)

The Little Green Bike That Could

I did it, I did it, I did it! I rode my bike to work today!!

Lest you think this is no big deal, I wish to remind you of my lack of adult bike-riding skills. I might also point out that this undertaking involved a total of 10 miles of biking in work attire in winds topping 25 mph (and it was uphill both ways - er...)

So yay for having quests, and for persevering.

Dag, Strippenkaart!

(This post was originally intended to be published February 3.)

Don't get me started.

The Dutch like to make things complicated, in the name of efficiency. They devised many years ago the strippenkaart, an ingenious system to standardize payment for public transit throughout the country - but which proved to be, at the same time, both impossible to decipher and easy to cheat.

Since before our arrival last fall, the Dutch have been slowly easing the strippenkaart out, to be replaced with a nation-wide stored-value card (like the Charlie card in Boston, or the SmartTrip card in DC). But unlike the Charlie and SmartTrip cards, the people who designed the OV Chipkaart wanted it all: something that would work on all public transit throughout the country, but that would also charge you per kilometer. Thus you have to tap your OV Chipkaart whenever you get on or off a bus or tram. If you mess up, your punishment is a 4 euro charge. If the machine messes up, your punishment is a 4 euro charge. One of these two scenarios happens surprisingly often.

Take me as an example. Granted, I am not Dutch, nor do I speak Dutch. But I am an intelligent, educated, and careful person who has successfully used stored-value cards in myriad metropolitan transit systems. (Update: On a recent trip to London, my use of the Oyster card was flawless.) I would venture to say that the problem is not me. But in a two-day period last November, between the REM subway in Rotterdam and the HTM trams in Den Haag, Jeff and I managed to lose 16 euros. Now this is where the exasperating part comes in.

Whatever the cause of an OV Chipkaart mess-up, if you want your money back, you have to apply for it. I have now long surpassed the time-for-money value ratio for our 16 euros, but it's become a matter of principle. With HTM, it took standing in line, 30 minutes with a Dutch form and six weeks for them to refund 3.30 euros out of the 4 euros they owed me. (And for the record, that was a clear machine mess up.)

For Rotterdam - oh, Rotterdam - I waited in two separate lines, spent more than 30 minutes deciphering a Dutch web form, then waited two months to no avail. When I finally made it back to Rotterdam in person, a nice lady explained that of course I couldn't use the online application form (don't ask me why) and gave me paper applications - which she partially filled out for me - that I submitted the very next day. Four weeks later, still nothing.

I also don't understand how tourists are supposed to use public transportation anymore, since (1) the stored-value cards cost 7.50 euros (yes, please let me pay you for the privilege of having you take my money and refuse to give it back), and (2) if you ever do succeed in convincing them to give you your money back, they will only refund it to a Dutch bank account.

I am so scarred by this experience that I have not used my OV chipkaart for three months. I have gotten by by reverting to the good ol' reliable strippenkaart. But the strippenkaart was phased out of the Hague area on February 3. (Why February 3, a Thursday? I don't know, and I also don't know why they ended up extending the deadline anyway. What can I say, it's Dutch.)

Oh, strippenkaart - how I will miss you. For now, I will have to await the popular uprising against the OV-chipkaart.

***

Update: On March 30 - 144 days after our fateful visit to Rotterdam last November (but who's counting) - the Rotterdam metro refunded 9.66 of the wrongly deducted 12 euros to our bank account. Whatever, I'll take even partial victory at this point.

I celebrated by promptly forgetting to "check out" the next time I took the tram - at the cost of another 4 euros. Sigh.

Best. Day. Ever.

My blogging silence over the last month has been due solely to a large project at work that - thanks be to heaven - we successfully completed last week (World problems: solved! International criminality: vanquished!). Over the next couple of weeks, I will publish belatedly a batch of blog entries I drafted during February but never had a chance to post. Expect to be amazed! (or at least, I hope, entertained...)

But first I thought I'd share, as a one-day snapshot of my life in the Hague, how I celebrated the completion of this monster project: My Best-Day-Ever, Dutch style.

• 6:30: Wake up. Decide to go back to sleep.
• 7:30: Creative writing, with coffee and breakfast made by Jeff (with love!).
• 8:00: Yoga with my youtube guru, Esther Ekart.
• 8:30: Pick out my favorite dress to wear to work (it has glitter and ruffles! Even boys compliment it!)
• 9:30: Leave the house an hour later than normal but with no sense of guilt or compunction. Pause while transiting through Central Station for a koffie verkeerd (cafe au lait) and a hot danish. Decide to take the bus instead of the tram the rest of the way to work - less efficient, but more scenic.
• 10:30: Spend the first hour at work chatting socially with assorted colleagues.
• 12:15: Go to Step (aerobics) class at the in-house gym.
• 2:30: After a late lunch, embark on a cathartic cleaning of my office. Shred massive amounts of paper. Amaze colleagues with the ability to actually see the surface of my desk.
• 4:00: G-chat with friends back in the States.
• 5:30: Enjoy leaving work early.
• 6:30: Go with a work friend to see Black Swan at a movie theater downtown.

Tangent: This was my first movie experience in the Hague, and it was delightfully civilized. The movie theater is in a Beaux Artes building on one of the main pedestrianized squares downtown. When you buy your tickets, you choose your seats - an ingenious concept that both allows you to see how crowded the theater is before you commit to tickets and obviates any need to throw sharp elbows to get non-neck straining seats. Instead we could relax over a glass of wine and bar snacks in the lovely art deco bar of the movie house (which in the warmer months spills out onto the square) before walking into the theater right as the movie previews started. Even better, you can "subscribe" to the local movie house chain and go to as many movies as you like for less than the cost of two movie tickets per month. This could be the start of a very dangerous addiction...

• 10:00: Late sushi dinner at a tiny Japanese restaurant on a canal around the corner from my apartment. Unfortunately, sushi in Den Haag is nothing to write home about, but sometimes there's just an itch that needs to be scratched.
• 11:30: Contemplate joining another colleague at the wine bar on the way home. Decide instead to go directly to bed and sleep for 10 hours. Sweet.

I have, by the way, a personal philosophy that we should all have best-days-ever at least once a week: the day when the bus comes as soon as you get to the bus stop, and there's a window seat free; or when the Starbucks barrista accidentally makes you a grande instead of a tall; or when you get to catch up with friends for happy hour; or your loved one has dinner waiting for you when you get home from work. It's a stop-and-smell-the-roses sort of theory.

I Heart Yellow Trains

As with the lovably rag-tag feel of Boston's T, or the cleanliness and efficiency of the DC Metro, I have come to feel warmly towards the yellow Dutch trains, with their 80s-style interior and (typically) friendly conductors. I commute every day through Den Haag's central station, where the yellow trains line up patiently for commuters and travelers alike. I like how the trains are both mundane components of the national public transit system (who doesn't love commuting by train?) and the promise of new adventures, the link to the greater European rail network. Bucharest, here I come! Few things thrill me more these days than hearing the shrill whistle of a conductor as the train doors close and we pull out of a station.

Reasons why I heart yellow trains:

• The voordeelurenabonnement, aka Jeff's NS card: 40% off (40% off!) all travel on trains throughout the Netherlands - and not just for cardholder Jeff, but for three other people, too. This is an even better deal than the museumkaart, though only available to people with a Dutch bank account. In fact, the NS card was one of our primary motivations for getting a Dutch bank account. And boy was it worth it.

• Instant gratification, aka the joy of jumping on a train as the whistle blows and the doors close: We have shown up to the train station without tickets literally two minutes before a train is supposed to leave. No problem! And while a thirty-minute layover in an airport is a recipe for craziness, a five minute layover by train is perfect - it still leaves time to grab a coffee and a snack. Anything longer than half an hour, and you have time to see half the town. Trains involve no security lines, no long terminal halls, no check in or ticket collecting at a gate. No lines, period. This makes for efficient, fun, and spontaneous travel.
• The information people at the stations appear to have memorized the train schedules and platforms for the entire country. Going from Maastricht to Den Haag? Take the 13:23 from platform 3, transfer at Eindhoven to platform 15. Next!
• Many of the Dutch train stations are beautiful relics of the golden era of train travel (notable exception: Rotterdam), and all of them are centrally located. Thus we continue our 100% avoidance of taxis in the Netherlands.
• Trains are cool.

Reasons why I sometimes threaten to break up with yellow trains:

• Lack of information: There are some stations in the Netherlands (erhem, Leiden) that do not have any central sign announcing the next trains. Instead you must decipher the complex yellow train time tables (in Dutch) which of course cannot provide updated information about delayed trains. Which brings us to...
• Track works: two more dreaded words were never known to Dutch train travelers. The Dutch train system is fairly orderly and efficient - it's no Germany, but trains usually run on time, and delays typically do not exceed 10 minutes. But boy howdy, throw in some "track works" and all bets are off. Going north? Today you will have to go east then south, then loop around via Germany. Trying to get to the airport for an early morning flight? Oops, we forgot to tell you this train isn't going to the airport today - you will have to get off at the next station, detour to Amsterdam, then backtrack to Schiphol. And if you can understand this Dutch announcement, I should also warn you the next train to Amsterdam is delayed.* Have a great flight!

* True story.

Bagels Worth Bragging About...

I've got to hand it to Jeff. After his highly successful lemon roll experiment over New Year's, he faced down the left over cream cheese in our fridge last weekend and came to the only logical conclusion: He would have to make some bagels.

There was some yeasting, some kneading, some boiling, some baking - and some damn delicious bagels. That's my boy!

It's like riding a bike...

The last bike I owned was purple, and it had streamers coming out the handle bars and blue stars on the seat. Needless to say, my biking skills are a little rusty.

But Jeff has a fantasy of us riding Dutch bicycles together while holding hands. Given that it's against the (unspoken) law here to wear helmets, such dare devil antics will take practice. We started on Monday with a gentle ride in one of Den Haag's many parks: Haagse Bos.

I forget how nice it is to be in a wooded park, where you can't hear cars or city life. We biked along muddy paths and streams until we reached the Queen's residential palace, Huis ten Bosch. It was refreshing to realize that, even though we have been here three months already, there is plenty more of the Hague to explore. I am designating January as our "Explore Holland" month.

Apple Pie

There are in Den Haag a plethora of little twee cafes that serve basic sandwiches and homemade sweets on mismatched china. I was at our favorite (based on quality of coffee, value, and general homeyness)* with a new friend the weekend before Christmas. We both ordered apple pie - Dutch apple pie, which is a towering mess of diced apples, dried fruit, and crumbly crust.

Our very kind waitress explained that there wasn't much pie left, and also that it wasn't very good (I did not catch why she thought it wasn't very good, but at any rate she turned out to be wrong). She offered to bring us what they had left, with some whipped cream, for half price.

She re-emerged carefully balancing a large baking sheet with a third of an apple pie and roughly a cup of whipped cream mounded next to it. "I'm sorry," she explained, "it started to fall apart when I cut into it, so I just brought you everything we had." We didn't complain.

Half an hour of chatting later, we had made a major dent in the pie, but progress had significantly slowed. That was when the thin Dutch man, with whom we were sharing a large communal table, leaned over. "Excuse me," he said with an exceedingly polite Dutch accent. "I would like you to know that if you need any help with the problem you seem to be having," he inclined his head towards the pie plate, "I would be very happy to be of whatever assistance I can." And he smiled.

It took us a moment, but then we laughed and slid the baking sheet with the ruins of the apple pie over to him. A few minutes later, he slid it back to us. "As you can see," he informed us, "I have been able to take care of the problem. I am very happy that I could be of some assistance."

Four euros for a third of an apple pie and some cross-cultural bonding? Now that's a value.

* "Appeltje Eitje" (roughly, little apples little eggs)

Little Luxuries

I recently learned something very important about living in Holland: fresh cut flowers are cheap. Cheap as in a bouquet of flowers costs 2 or 3 euros (and with the exchange rate swinging back in our favor, that's a pretty sweet deal).

Now that we have bikes (at the same ratio that Americans own TVs and we used to own computers), my next step for going Dutch? Buy myself fresh flowers every week.

Umbrella fail

It was a dark and stormy night last Friday. When we arrived in Rotterdam Saturday morning, we counted six broken umbrellas discarded on one block alone.

Windows and Balconies

The weather has been unseasonably sunny and "warm" (in the 60s), allowing us to make use of our balcony before winter sets in.

Everyone here seems to have a balcony, just like how every building here seems to have big windows - and a lot of them. It makes me nervous for winter, if the pursuit of every ray of light is so deeply institutionalized in the culture.