The Exchange Legacy

During my senior year of high school, my family hosted an exchange student from Italy: Annarita. This is something I recommend to everybody, just as strongly as I recommend actually going on exchange - although I don't mention it as much. You get to share and learn, and of course you disagree and there are hard times but in the end everybody is usually a better person for it.

This week, Annarita came to visit me in Middelburg - the first time we had seen each other since she left Portland in June 2005.

I met her at Schiphol, and it was almost immediately clear that neither of us had actually changed all that much. Despite my exchange to the Dominican Republic and the last few years in the Netherlands, and even though Annarita has studied at universities in both Italy and England, we are both more or less the same as we were at 17. Perhaps slightly more mature.

But only very slightly.

We spent Wednesday afternoon walking around Leiden, which I hope to one day call home (although in these last months in Middelburg, I am really beginning to dread the day I catch the intercity train out of Middelburg and leave for good, never to return except as a visitor). It was a beautiful, sunny day, and Leiden, although not the most beautiful Dutch city, has some very nice views, buildings, canals, and windmills.


Thursday was spent around Middelburg - a good cup of coffee at Ko D'oooooooor, a walk to the Oostkerk, the library, and the nice used bookstore, and stopping for a tasty tosti and cup of coffee at St John's Coffee House. Then to market to buy a few things for the house dinner, a pack of the obligatory stroopwafels (if there is one thing you HAVE to eat when you come to the Netherlands, that's it - herring is a close second, but stroopwafels get top priority), and general browsing.

Thursday night found us at the student bar, enjoying Annarita's favorite beer (Heineken) and RA society.

Friday I spent in school, and then a cup of tea at Honeypie, dinner at the Pannenkoekenhuis with some of my housemates, and a night out with some friends at Schutterschof.

Today was, sadly, her last day - how quickly three days go! - and we spent it having coffee and appelgebak at Ko D'oooooooor, walking along the canal, and visiting the Abbey. We stopped for a bakje of the best frieten in Middelburg, picked up a souvenir pack of stroopwafels for Annarita to take back home, and waved goodbye from the platform of the Middelburg station and the 3 o'clock intercity train to Amsterdam.

It wasn't what we did, though, that was so nice. It was the simple fact that we did it, that we did anything. That we saw each other again.

Minutes before the train came, I had said to her, "Do you think that way back in 2005, when you left, we would ever have believed that the next time we saw each other, it would be in the Netherlands, as college students?"

It's pretty remarkable. These exchanges create extra branches on our family trees. I know members of my aunt's Dutch host family, and my French host mother was my grandparent's "French daughter". My brother recently spent a year in Ecuador. And I have to tell my sister (for the hundredth time) how lucky she is - she just found out about the host family she'll be living with next year, near Naples.

If I could do it again, I would. In a heartbeat.

A Hearty Snack

My study snack of choice for the past couple of weeks has been a small handful from the sack of Necco Sweethearts that I brought from home (along with a package of High School Musical Valentines that I distributed to friends yesterday).

They're perfect because you don't eat them very fast and you get sick of them after eating only a very few. But they can also be a little distracting, especially if you are a literary-minded person.

Also if you once took a class called "Topics in Linguistics", with a lot of emphasis on cognitive metaphors.

Once I glanced down at a sweetheart before popping it in my mouth and froze. It said, "Top Chef".

I've no idea how that's romantic. It seemed to be a nice, if slightly generic, compliment. They could just fill the hearts with other little two-word niceties like, "nice hair" and "good legs".

Then I picked another one that said "Stir My ♥". And later, still another, that said "Melt My ♥". Hmm. Maybe these are image schemas - I didn't do too well in that class. At any rate, Necco seems to like the cuisine-related suggestions they get from people. I also get distracted by all of the hearts that have to do with contact. From "Call Me" to "Fax Me" to "IM Me", there are a lot of these. Who even uses a fax machine anymore? Okay, some people do, but they seem to have been relegated to purely business-related contact. What are they trying to do, record the history of communication means in summary? A quick visit to the Necco website tells me that VP Walter Marshall introduced "Fax Me" in the '90s when he first decided to add and dismiss sayings each year. Therefore, "From old tech, 'Fax Me' to new tech, 'Email Me', Sweethearts keep the pulse on the heartbeat of the nation".

So it looks like perhaps they are logging an overview of the history of communications. They should introduce some more old-school sayings, like, say, "Write Me". I don't think they have that one.

Anyway, I sure wish I had thought of this as a topic for my final paper in linguistics last spring. It probably would have been, well, sweeter, than whatever it was I chose to write about - I've shut that assignment out of my memory.

The View from the Counter

When Torrefazione Italia closed in 2005 and I broke down crying at the end of my last shift, a coworker did her best to comfort me. "There'll be other cafes," she said. That seemed unlikely at the time, but, within months, I was frequenting Costello's Travel Caffe for an afternoon of coffee and reading, and Mio Gelato replaced my job. It wasn't the same, of course, but did I really want it to be? I loved them both, for the coffee they served and for the coffee I made, for the people I served and the customers I met.

Since then, there have been several other cafes. I remember certain cafes I have visited on trips - Kopplin's Coffee in Minneapolis, the local Insomnia Coffee chain in Dublin, the Black Medicine Coffee Co. in Edinburgh, the multiple Autogrills on the roads in Italy where Dad and I stopped for a quick shot of espresso - and each time I go back to Portland there are new places to try at my parents recommendation, and the old places to go back to (especially Northwest Coffee House for a delicious mocha and Extracto for a bowl latte and the best chocolate shortbread cookies).

But it's not just the coffee I love. It's the atmosphere.

Cafes are the most inspiring places, ever, anywhere. All I need is enough change for a cuppa, several sheets of paper, a pen with a full ink cartridge, and I'm set for hours.

The effect is even better when I'm working.

This past week, I've done some last-minute filling-in at a local cafe, one of my favorites. In the lulls between customers, I grab a scrap of paper and jot thoughts and ideas down. I sketch out characters and build up plot triangles. Clever bits of dialogue, either from a real-life customer or from some wonderful part of my mind, pop out and clamor to be recorded.

Last summer, I was working on a novel in my free time. The thing that kept me writing, all summer long, was my job. As my hands cupped a steel pitcher and I waited for the milk to hit the right temperature, the ideas hit me. I scrawled on napkins and scribbled on receipts. After work and on my days off, these scraps were grouped together and became a fictional Portland coffeehouse with character, bustle, and, of course, coffee.

The view from behind the counter is the best narrative viewpoint.

A Long Winter

This afternoon, as I was curled up on my couch under the window with a book and a cup of tea, I looked out the window and saw some very ominous clouds and decided I had better go do the grocery shopping right then, rather than waiting another hour (as I had planned) and probably getting stuck outside when those clouds broke.

Outside, it was freezing, much colder than expected, and my teeth chattered as I rattled down the little alleys, able to go at breakneck speed as it's Sunday and there's hardly a soul on the streets.

I zipped through the store, getting held up only when I had to wait in line, first to get to the canned tomatoes and second, to get to the half-full organic milk. (I don't know why but the grocery store is always crowded on Sundays, contrasting with the rest of the town.)

On my way back home, I felt specks of moistness. I would get home just before the rain hit.

Inside, I ran to my room, then back to the kitchen to put things in the refrigerator when I glanced outside and saw big puffy snowflakes circling down.

This has been one long, crazy winter for me. Probably the snowiest of my life. We had a big snow day here in November, and it snowed without sticking several other times before I went home to Portland for Christmas break. There, we had a week of heavy snowfall, and after that, freezing weather more or less until I came back to Middelburg.

Here, it's been below freezing for days. This past week it warmed up a little.. but not much. It snowed on Monday, and stayed most of the day (that's when these photos were taken) - absolutely making the day for me, one I had been dreading.

It's not the snow that's so amazing, though - I've seen snow before, and I've seen it enough in Middelburg. I still think it makes everything incredibly beautiful, especially here, but I was much more surprised last Saturday when I went for a walk, on a beautiful sunny but cold day, and turned a corner to see a huge stretch of canal icing over (see picture below).

I had walked to the library with a housemate and her boyfriend, who told me that not only in Friesland were people ice skating on the canals again, but even in Zeeland, it was possible. People had skated from Middelburg to Veere - about a half hour away by bike.

Oh, how can I have missed that? What could possibly be more picturesque than ice skating on a Zeeuws canal?!?

Procrastination Deactivation

This semester has started pretty much like every other semester before this one: I'm just not that into it.

My classes are all very interesting - even fascinating. In class, I enjoy the discussions. I take notes and jot down the names of books and people and events that I want to look up. Things I should find out about. Facts and figures that could be useful to me in the course.

But outside of class I really don't care. I'd much rather read a book or watch a movie and work on my knitting.

The difference between this semester and the others, though, is the effect of this disinterest. In past years, I procrastinated, avoided homework, and just tried to wait until I got back in the swing of the things.

This time, it's the opposite.

I have been so on top of my homework that I constantly have free nights. I'm usually done by 9 at the latest, leaving me plenty of time for movies or reading or friends.

The lengths I will go to to get homework out of the way is rather astounding.

Tuesday night, the party night at RA, I watched Singin' in the Rain with my housemates (who had never seen it!), and then decided to go ahead and join them to the student bar, Barrel, for a drink.

Barrel was a bust - I didn't know more than 8 of the people present, and the whole time I kept thinking, "If I went home now, I could still get something done."

So, I left. I went home and I read half of the assigned chapter of my art history book. Which didn't even have to be done until Friday.

And after that, at about 3 in the morning, I got online to talk to my brother about a music assignment. Also not due until Friday.

Thursday evening, when I was done with everything for the next day, I seriously considered doing my literature homework for Monday. In the end, though, I opted to watch another Fred and Ginger ("Carefree" - quite decent; the first movie where Ginger Rogers really stood out and I felt actually displayed something of a talent for acting).

Then I got up early on Friday and did most of my lit homework before I went to Art history at 11.

And after I was done with classes at 4, I went home, brewed a pot of coffee and took out the walnotenkoek I treated myself too, and did my music homework. Then I finished the rest of my literature. And now I have almost nothing that must be done this weekend.

It's so strange, but it's gotten to the point where the thought of doing homework tomorrow is even more disgusting than doing it today.

I don't know what has gotten into me, but it might be serious.

At least I hope it is.

Binging on Fred

When I was a kid, we had a copy of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie "Top Hat", which we watched together one night and which resulted in my immediate adoration of Fred Astaire. A few days later, we went down to a family get-together. My mom brought it with us. The night we planned to watch it with everyone I was extremely excited, until I saw that it wasn't "Top Hat" but a different movie with what I thought was a similar title: "Topper".

Over the years I have seen and enjoyed other Fred movies - The Gay Divorcee, which I watched with some family friends while we visited them in Birmingham, and Daddy-Long-Legs, which is based on one of my favorite books, and I can't be mad that the leading man isn't the young handsome type he is in the book - because it's Fred Astaire, and what's not to like about him?!

(I've seen "Funny Face" too, but that one's not very good, so I don't like to count it.)

I always loved musicals in general - some other favorites were "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort" (with Catherine Deneuve and Gene Kelly) and "Meet Me in St. Louis" (which I tried, unsuccessfully, to convince my choir instructor to take on for the spring musical. She didn't, but I remember singing some of the songs heartily in the car with two or three other girls on the way up to Seattle for an annual choir trip). The first time I saw "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" was in the theater with I believe my mom and my paternal grandmother. That evening I had a sleepover with my friend and neighbor and, at the video rental, immediately convinced her that we should rent it. When the movie finished, I remember galloping up and down the length of her parents' large room with flowers doing our best to reprise the song "June Brides".

Well, it comes and goes. I love all the revivals of the genre, the remakes currently coming out of Hollywood such as "Hairspray" and "Mamma Mia". I have a huge weakness for the three High School Musical movies (and I'm no longer embarrassed to admit it).

In the days before I came back to Middelburg, I browsed the movies available for rent from iTunes and decided to get "The Gay Divorcee" for the flight. I hadn't seen it in years and was very pleasantly surprised - I even laughed out loud while sitting at the boarding gate waiting area in Chicago. These old movies all of the best sense of humor and the cleverest little jokes.

When I got back to Middelburg, I went on an internet hunt for Fred Astaire movies and was extremely successful. I had only seen those two Fred-and-Ginger movies but I'm currently working hard to up that number. The other night I watched "Top Hat". My favorite joke from that one - though there are many great ones - is when Horace says, "Are you sure you didn't forget yourself in the park?" And Fred Astaire's character Jerry says, "Positive. If I ever forgot myself with that girl, I'd remember."

Last night, I spent the evening with friends for birthday celebrations. We drank wine and ate cheese and crackers and birthday cake, and listened to pop/hip-hop/rap music on too high. That sort of ruined the image for me. Me, who has watched nearly a musical a day for the last week and a half and been listening either to musical soundtracks or Nat King Cole. It was a bit of a shock. The whole time - except when we did a sort of karaoke to the Black-Eyed-Peas' "Don't Lie" - I kept thinking how bad the music was and how if we were doing this at my place, the music would be on a much lower volume and it would probably be jazz.

Oh and how maybe I should have been born about 80, 90, 100... years ago.

For the complete inventory of my recent movie watching, consult below:

"The Gay Divorcee" (1934): a classic Astaire-Rogers mistaken identity film. Very amusing!

"Swing Time" (1936): another Astaire-Rogers, apparently Rogers' favorite of the ten they made together. If you've never seen this one, I recommend it; Fred's father-figure adds a lot of amusement. Also features the song "A Fine Romance".

"Funny Face" (1957): not worth it. Hepburn can't sing and Fred doesn't tap dance much (probably so that he doesn't look that much better than Audrey!) Put it back on the shelf and check out one of the other ones I list here.

"Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954): Not a Fred Astaire movie, but a classic musical! The cast is stock full of Portlanders, the most well-known being Jane Powell. Really, really fun.

"Royal Wedding" (1951): Fred Astaire and Jane Powell! Lots of fun dance scenes (on a rocking ship, on the walls & ceiling, etc.) This film is based on/inspired by Fred's roots doing Vaudeville acts with his sister Adele.

"Top Hat" (1935): Fred 'n' Ginger, at least as good as I remember it. It lost a little sparkle for me when I read that Fred didn't like the closing number, "The Piccolino", and therefore let Ginger do almost all of the performing. But there are some really good Astaire solos, and this one is full of funny moments.

"Follow the Fleet" (1936): Another Fred and Ginger. Another cute and fun flick. This time, Fred wanted to get out of a tux and top hat to change his image a little and prevent being typecast, so he's a sailor named "Bake" Baker who always chews gum and leaves his mouth hanging open at the end of every dumb joke while he waits for the punchline to settle in - very cute. I also love the opening number, "We Saw The Sea", which is full of clever lyrics.


Up Next: "Carefree" and "Shall We Dance". Plus, I've rented "Singin' in the Rain" to watch with my housemates, who have never seen it (gasp!).

Mama Said

Since I left home for college, my mom has given me a lot of advice, much of it concerning food and cooking. One of the ones that I always remember is to keep tot he perimeters of the grocery store - all of the essentials are there, and once you go in towards the center you'll find all of the gunky junk food and useless objects.

Well, today, I ignored that rule, and it came back to bite me.

I was almost done doing my re-stocking shopping trip, having returned to Middelburg only hours before, but I waited to get greens - located in the front of the store just as you enter - so I could check and see if the frozen spinach selection had improved.

It hadn't.

I did all of my other shopping in between, and got to the freezer section at the end, to find that there was still your regular assortment of chopped spinach and creamed spinach, all in cardboard, not plastic, and doubtless freezer-burned.

So I doubled back to the produce section to grab a bag of organic mixed greens for salad and - the key mistake - cut through the center aisle of the store.

"cut through" might be a little misleading, though, because I was actually lengthily distracted not halfway across the store by an enormous table with seven or eight "BONUS!" signs.

Usually, these don't get me, but today, I saw the object on bonus was books.
Books! In the Netherlands! For only 2.50!

Since I'm moving in less than six months, I KNOW I should not be adding to my already rather large library. But I can't resist a deal when it concerns books.

I shuffled through, and found a thinnish, silly, trashy-looking novel, but one that was written in Dutch. (The others were mostly translated.) That might do me some good; I'm taking advanced French this semester but I really need to work on maintaining and improving my Dutch at the same time. Just your typical chick-lit, really; two girls trying to lead decent lives in the big city, only in this case, Nicki and Petra live in Amsterdam, not New York. So I put Yoyo van Gemerde's "Sushi & Chardonnay" in my basket.

With considerable will power, I set the translated copy of The Nanny Diaries back on the stack (reminding myself that I HAD already read it, and even if I didn't remember it very well, there was probably a reason for that).

Moving on, the next part of the table caught my eyes. CDs! After another few minutes spent shuffling through these, I finally pulled myself together with the intention of bee-lining it to the produce section...

...only to find that the end of the table housed the DVDs.

Mostly BBC miniseries, for the low price of 5.99. But good luck keeping me away from the classics.

I skimmed over Pride and Prejudice (1980 version, not '95), Great Expectations, He Knew He Was Right (though I considered that one), and Persuasion. Then I saw The Barchester Chronicles.

Bingo.

What's not to love? I loved Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now, as well as the relatively recent mini-series of the book. So the Barchester Chronicles can't be bad. And second: It stars Alan Rickman. One of the best actors around. Who I especially love in period pieces (such as "Sense & Sensibility").

The fact that it's a 385 minute miniseries, not a two-hour movie, sealed the deal. Once my subtotal had ballooned to an uncomfortably high price (I had to buy phone minutes and I treated myself to the fresh-squeezed orange juice and some parmesan cheese for my pasta; that seems reasonable), I packed everything into my "Ga Rode Sokken" bag (thank you thank you Franny!), and headed home.

Now I just gotta find enough time for a lot of television-watching.