Balkan Hosts

I have some bad news. Willie Soft Spot was stolen last night. I enjoyed a nice dinner with Francesco at the same Italian restaurant that Rhett and I frequented. When I walked outside, Willie was gone. I played back the situation in my head a hundred times. Did I forget to lock the bike? Surely not, it has become second nature to lock my bike much the way you lock your car door. I’m less likely to forget to lock the bike because it is such an ordeal. Forgetting to lock your car door is a pretty easy mistake to make. All you have to do is push a button, from anywhere. You don’t even have to be next to the car. The bike is different. You have to unlock the chain, take it off of the bike, wrap it around the back tire, and relock it. Regardless of how it happened, it happened. The good news is the office has an extra bike which I am now borrowing until I can find a suitable replacement for Willie. The part that bothers me is that it wasn’t my bike. It was Brent’s bike. He was nice enough to let me borrow it and I lost it. I feel like a jerk.

In the meantime I have a pretty nice ride. The seat is not as nice as Willie’s and the color isn’t as awesome but the new bike is an upgrade in all other respects.

A lighter note:

My coworker, Jelena, went to Bosnia and brought back some of the local red pepper sauce, homemade by her mother. I raved about it when we went to the Bosnian restaurant and she promised to bring back the recipe when she went to visit. She did me one better. Apparently it takes eight to ten hours to make this stuff. The time spent is evident.

It's Not That Bad

It has been brought to my attention that my blog may have a negative bent to it. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m not enjoying myself or that I don’t like Holland. I just like nearly everywhere else on earth more than I like Holland. But, Holland isn’t that bad.

I’ve decided to make a list of Holland’s pros.

Pros:
1. The ICTY has been an amazing experience- I’ve met some incredible people and learned A TON.

2. The beer is incredible- The Dutch beer is pretty damn good but the Belgian beer is out of this world.

3. The towns are beautiful- European cities are gorgeous. They have strict zoning laws that serve to maintain the historical integrity of the buildings. I like this.

4. The cops leave you alone- I have a problem with authority so I’m glad the cops aren’t breathing down my neck all the time (this one is a bit of a stretch since I rarely have trouble with the law at home).

5. I have fallen in love with the Balkans- This one should probably be a subtitle of #1 but we’ll count it separately.

6. Their drug laws are superior- I don’t take drugs but I think people should be able to if they so desire. The Dutch don’t understand why we criminalize marijuana. I agree with them.

7. The bars are charming- They are cozy, a quintessentially Dutch quality.

8. Soccer is actually pretty cool- I got into the game with the Euro 2008 and had my interest confirmed by a trip to a World Cup qualifier.

9. Proximity- Belgium, France, and Germany are very close.

10. Bicycles- This one is the best. Bike travel gives you a morning workout and a stress reliever on your way home.

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.