Diver Gingivitis

Today may have been the strangest day I have experienced thus far. By the time I got to work, I had pages worth of thoughts on the freaky Dutch but those nuggets have drowned in the rest of my bizarre day.

My boss, Marie, put it best. Holland is the most developed third world nation on earth. We ordered pizza for lunch because things are getting hectic at work and none of us wanted to leave for too long. The Dutch love the internet so it was perfectly reasonable for us to expect that we could order a pizza online. Danny, who has lived in Holland off and on for over a year, ordered a pizza from one of the local pizza joints. His confirmation email said, in English, "Your order will be delivered in three to five business days."

I worked a pretty long day, deciding to stay at the office until our weekly, Intern Tuesday Night Drinks. The bar was quintessentially Dutch, weird atmosphere with delicious beers. I didn't like the vibe and left fairly early. My legs and ankles were hurting when I got up from the bar stool. I said this aloud because it came suddenly and kinda scared me. Had the Dutch poisoned my beer with ankle depleting juice? Were my feet going to fall off my legs? It hit me without warning. Jon, my Texan friend, had a diagnosis. "It's Diver Gingivitis, have it in my family."

"Diver Ginvi- you're not serious."

"Yeah, swear to God, Diver Ginginvitis. Sarina, tell him. It runs in my family. What are your symptoms?"

"It hurts, kinda like a bruise."

"Yep, that's it. Diver Gingivitis. You'll be ok."

Five minutes later the pain had subsided and I realized it was just a severe case of my feet falling asleep. Diver Gingivitis. Jon will keep you on your toes.

The strangest and most Dutch part of the night came from the bartender. He was unpleasant all night. They were all unpleasant but this one guy was just ridiculous. I had to wait for twenty minutes or so each time I wanted a drink and the only people in the bar were those in my party. It's not like these guys were overwhelmed with work. After waiting for a good twenty minutes, another bartender took my order and rude bartender walked over near me. Europeans have no concept of personal space so I wasn't worried about him standing almost on top of me. I had just finished drinking my beer and had set my glass on the bar. Without warning, the rude, weird bartender takes my glass and, instead of taking it away, chugs the remaining beer which consisted of a small puddle of my backwash. The Dutch.

Going Dutch

Today was a quintessentially Dutch day. The sky was beautiful and the temperature was perfect. I started the day at a tourist shop so I could buy a Holland t-shirt for tonight's football (soccer) game. Then I ate lunch at Subway.

My favorite thing about Subway is that they sell Mountain Dew. I bought one with my meal and set off on the Plein (square) for a protest concert. The signs were mostly in Dutch so I'm not entirely clear on what they were protesting but I think it had something to do with President Bush. A policeman walked up to me while I was perusing the grounds and asked what I had in my hand.

"Beer?"

"It's a Mountain Dew."

"Oh, beer," he said with nod, reveling in the fact that he was proven correct.

"No sir, it's a softdrink."

"Oh! soft drink," he said with a puzzled look.

I wanted to offer some to him because Mountain Dew is so delicious and I'm saddened by his ignorance but I thought it best not to push my luck.

Off to the football game.

Willie's New Groove

I realize that Willie (for those of you just joining us, Willie is the baby blue bike I have been riding) has dominated the conversation. That is how things operate in Holland. Today is no exception. I have been easy on Willie Soft Spot (the soft spot refers to an unfortunately placed sticker on Willie's cross bar). The truth is, Willie's seat has been punishing my "soft spot" since I picked him up two days ago. I do not have any tools here so I had yet to remedy the problem until today. For some reason the seat was pointing up at about a 45 degree angle from the road. Luckily, the attorney I am working for has a crescent wrench and now things are kosher. I felt like an outsider before, with my wobbly wheeled bike that performed abortions on my potential children. Now I feel like a Dutch resident. I think that's what it takes to belong. You need a bike that can be mounted with pride, not trepidation.

I apologize for the abundance of words at the expense of pictures. I will include some eye candy for my ADD readers as soon as I get a chance. The medieval city of Gent, Belgium is probably on tap for this weekend which will likely reap hundreds of pictures.

Speaking of Belgium, I have a homework assignment for you. The next time you are at the liquor store, see if you can find a beer called, Kasteel. I think I mentioned it earlier. It is as ubiquitous as it is delicious over here but I bet we can't get it in America.

Peeosk

The Dutch do many things better than us. My first impression of Holland was the airport in Amsterdam. They have a toilet seat cleaner/disinfectant dispenser above the toilet. In The Hague I saw a kiosk with four walls that meet in the middle. You just walk up to the kiosk, pull out your junk and urinate in a hole. Why do we not have these in America?

One thing they do not do well is tell jokes. It’s not as if something is lost in translation because they all learn English by watching American films and most of them speak the language very well. The train ticket attendant pointed behind me and said, “Look at them in the queue.” He was right. There were in fact people standing in line to get tickets. Apparently this is an abnormal sight to a Dutch train ticket guy.

Amsterdam is an interesting place. It is smaller than I thought. Its winding canals and carefree attitude are indeed charming but, as with many tourist hot spots, the number of visitors can wear on you a little. I was fortunate to find a place called “Café Zool”. I would later learn that it is recommended in the Let’s Go to Western Europe guide.

I never got the names of the Americans who were sitting outside of the café. I underestimated the man. He seemed timid and uninteresting. His wife was the interesting one, Irish and vibrant. As I opened them up I learned that he was far from boring. Dude is a cartoonist/musician/dental prosthetic technician at Creighton University which is apparently in Omaha. I’ve never been to Omaha but I just met Nebraskans in Amsterdam.

I was hesitant to talk to this couple because while I knew they were American, I did not want to interrupt them. They seemed to be self absorbed, much the way Jami and I can be at a bar. She looked younger than him. He would later say that he is 60 and I would put her at about 50. The three of us talked for about 45 minutes before we engaged another American sitting to my right. She is from Tarpon Springs and now works as a “law enforcement liaison” at the U.S. embassy in Bulgaria. Surprisingly, she does not know Cuyler. They were all interesting people and are appropriately pictured to the right.

Café Zool’s proprietor is a man named, Ronnie. He and his wife run the bar which offers free wifi and some ridiculous number of tequilas and absinthe. I had a Belgian beer that was 11% alcohol. You could actually taste the alcohol, much like drinking whiskey. I drank it like a glass of wine. It took about an hour to finish a beer. Ronnie gave me an education in all things Amsterdam. Ronnie is everything I could have wanted from the Dutch. He is friendly, well traveled, and obsessed with football. He and his wife (whose name escapes me but I think is, Laura) eloped to Vegas. She is a flight attendant. While visiting L.A. she got the idea that it would be nice if they got married in Vegas. She called Ronnie and he agreed, in Dutch.

Ronnie gave me my first taste of absinthe. He is a connoisseur. I tried the one with some marijuana in it. I didn’t hallucinate or start laughing at everything he said. It just gave me a really good buzz. Of course this could have been due to the 11% beer I was drinking but either way I was having a good time. I stayed there until late and walked back to my hostel. Amsterdam is not dangerous at night. I expected drunk hooligans to be running around everywhere, having sex with prostitutes and smoking drugs. That wasn’t the case. I felt perfectly safe at all times.