Contact Info, Passover, Keukenhof
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Amsterdam,
Netherlands
Monday, April 21, 2003
Hello everyone.
I hope you are enjoying your morning 1-4-4. This is the second time I am writing this TravelPod. I wrote one yesterday at what is becoming more and more like the United Nations' cybercafe and I got a message on my computer that said I was almost out of time on my pre-paid card. I tried to save it and get a new card but everytime I tried to save, the network was busy and eventually, my pre-paid card ran out. I was pretty pissed. Anyways, if this TravelPod is not interesting or funny, believe me, the one I wrote yesterday was!
Today is my second bank holiday (Easter Monday) since I arrived 2 weeks ago. Not bad, huh? Do you think I need to let someone know that I'm Jewish? Anyways, Julie left on Saturday after a week in Amsterdam. We had a really good time - or at least I did. She had a few days on her own while I was at work and she seemed to enjoy the time wandering the city and luckily for me, she didn't do much shopping. We ate out a few times and the food here seems to be excellent. Every meal has been less than E40 total and is really tasty. We had Wagamama's, a noodle shop, one night which was fun since we hadn't been there since we were studying in London. We also had pancakes, which are more like crepes than what we call pancakes. They were good, I had mine with tuna, onions, cheese, and olives. It might not sound too good but it is. Julie likes apple with cinanmon. We also made a trip to the kosher grocery store on the southside of town. It is 2 stops beyond my office and about a 3 minute walk from the tram stop, although the map was so detailed that by looking at it, you would think it was 5 miles away. I got 4 frozen chicken breasts, 4 knockworsts, 2 boxes of matzah, a big jar of gefilta fish, and some turkey for less than E50 - a bit more than non-kosher food but basically the same as it would have cost in Chicago. Hopefully Julie will realize how easy a trip this was and will be takin' care of her kids (that's me) often.
While she was here, Julie saw about 15 apartments over 2 days. I think there were about 4 or 5 that would be acceptable but we are going to wait until we find something exactly as we want. The places we saw either were not on a canal, had a very small Joey's room (our 2nd bedroom), or was too expensive. We have spoken to many people and it seems like we should be able to find exactly what we want, it's just a matter of time. And since Julie doesn't move here until June 7-ish, we have that. In the meantime, I will continue to set up our lives here and hope to have everything in order before Julie gets here in June, but the way things have been working over the last few weeks, I would doubt it will happen.
Work seems to be going well. I am still kinda running around with no idea of what I need to be doing. Luckily my manager is an expat as well and she seems to be very understanding of how tough the adjustment is. I am still in the process of getting my computer working. I think this will take a bit of time. I have a logon but don't have access to my group's shared drive, where all the computer files are kept. I let our IT person know about this on Wednesday but I have a feeling it will take some time before it is corrected - not because it is a difficult task but because he is, well, Dutch.
I was successful at opening my ABN AMRO bank account. I have an account and a debit card but so far, no money. I initiated a wire transfer from my LaSalle account in Chicago on Wednseday but I think it takes a few days to arrive. I don't know why it takes so long, I would think it would be quick given they are sending the money electronically, they are not actually hand-delivering it, but what do I know, it's not as if I work for a bank or something. The debit cards are pretty cool. They have a gold chip on the front of them called a ChipKnip. Basically, this is like a petty cash purse for small purchases. This is the only way to buy food from the bank cafeteria so now I am able to go to lunch on my own sometimes, I hope. The card also allows you to swipe the magnetic strip on the back or insert the card into some special machine for more substantial purchases. Credit cards don't seem to be accepted as widely as they are in the US so I'm sure our American miles won't accumulate as quickly as they have thusfar.
Anyways, this was a pretty busy week and I think this is going to be long so I'll get right to it...
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CONTACT INFO
I was a bit surprised the other day when I finally got a Dutch work email address. That was until I realized that whoever processed my file spelled my name incorrectly. I guess for the next 3 years, I am Stephan Kantor (Stephen with an "A"). I suppose this is okay since it sounds a bit more European anyways. A Dutch friend of mine suggested that I also change my last name to Kantoor (double "O") since that is actually a Dutch word - "office". I requested that the aforementioned IT person fix this as well but... He is also trying to get me my US work email address set up. I was told to bring my ID file on a floppy disk from Chicago. The problem is nobody in the bank has access to the A-drive as they see this as a security issue. So I now have my email info on a disk that cannot be accessed. The IT dude is working on this as well. So in the meantime, I can't access my work email in the US or A'dam (well, I guess I can get email sent to "Stephan"). Consequentially, please stop emailing me at my work email. You can reply to this email (I am the only one who will see what you write) or email me at sbkantor75@yahoo.com.
I was however, able to finally get myself a mobile phone (nobody here calls it a cell phone, only mobile). This took me over 2 weeks and 3 seperate visits. I should mention that I am not fully mobile-ready as I had to buy a pre-paid mobile as opposed to what I would rather have, a contract. When I eventually change to a contract though, the phone number will stay the same (+31.06.11131832) but before calling, check with your phone company because calls to mobiles tend to be 2 or 3 times higher than calls to home phones. You might wonder why I couldn't get a contract now? Well, in order to get a contract, you have to have a residency card from the Dutch government. Why don't I have one? Well, because the Expat Center at work needs to apply for one for me and then, it takes about 3-6 weeks of paper work before the appointment can happen. I have very little confidence in US government agencies, I can only imagine what a European government agency is like. Well, has the Expat Center applied for my residency permit yet? No. They can only do so after I have signed my contract. When I went to sign my contract last week (this was the 2nd appointment to accomplish this small feat) my salary was short $10,000. I chose not to sign as I'm sure once my signature is on it, it is a done deal and I have just fucked myself. So now, I will need to make a 3rd appointment to sign my contract and hopefully, by the time Julie moves here, I will have a residency permit. I am not expecting that to happen, only hoping that it will happen. It's funny how the people at the Expat Center will make comments that they cannot believe I don't have email yet and at the same time, they have my salary off by $10,000. Personally, I think my salary is a bigger issue.
Well, until we find an apartment, here is my contact info:
email: XXX@yahoo.com
home: +31.20.XXX
mobile: +31.06.XXX
address: XXX, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
PASSOVER SEDER
I tried to find an English-speaking Passover Seder (service/meal) for Julie and I to attend. Everyplace I looked, it was only in Dutch. Finally, by the time I got back to the Dutch service to make arrangements, it was booked up. This left us with the Chabad. For those of you who don't know what Chabad is, it is a very religious group of Jews. These are the men who wear black suits, white shirts, black hats, have long curly sideburns, and the sort of ungroomed bread that you would find at a Phish concert. The men spend all day studying and debating the Bible and any commentary written about the Bible. The woman are basically baby manufacturers. They each have a handful of children that they care for all day and take care of the home. They are often looked at as second-class citizens. Please don't email me to debate this as I am simplifying this and am sure there is more to Chabadism than this.
Anyways, we were told to be there at 7:00. Apparently, Jewish Standard Time is universal as we were about 90 minutes early...and we were the only one to not know this. So until everyone showed, Julie and I spoke to an Israeli guy 27 years old who had just arrived from Berlin where he was looking for business ideas. We made small-talk for a bit until finally my 2 favorite topics, the monkey in the White House and his policies and the Israeli-Palestinian issue. I won't get into it here but it helped pass the time until the Seder.
We finally sat down for the service about 8:30. It was set up in what looked like a rented classroom or community center. The bottom floor must not have belonged to Chabad as it had Chinese symbols and pictures everywhere while the upstairs had Jewish symbols and pictures everywhere. There were seats at the table for about 50. The center table became the unofficial "kids table" as those who were students or travelers under the age of 35 sat there. To clarify, that is those under 35 that aren't on the O'Hara plan (ie. at least 4 kids). We sat next to the Israeli I talked about earlier, an Israeli studying ancient Middle East civilizations with an emphasis on Iraq (interesting timing, huh?), and what a few other young people. There was one other woman who looked somewhere between 20 and 27. She was holding a really cute kid. We made small-talk, even discussing the kid but neither myself or Julie knew if she was the baby's sister or mother. Finally, a man that looked to be in his late 40's arrived and kissed her...I guess that was her daughter.
Julie and I were the only non-Israelis there. The 3 or so yound Chabad men (they looked like they were no older than us) led the service in Hebrew. Not a word was spoken in English except I noticed one of them said "anyways" a lot. If I hadn't recognized a few of the prayers, I would have been certain they were talking about us the entire time..."look at those dumb Americans". They did all the prayers I knew and melodies were basically the same but they didn't do the time-honored "Said the father, to his children..." song my mom loves so much. It seemed like they stalled for about 45 minutes, talking about nothing because there needed to be 3 stars in the sky, signifying night, for certain events in the service to occur.
Since Julie and I couldn't really follow the service other than some of the prayers, we began to read from the 2 English Hagadas (Passover prayerbooks) that were supplied to the stupid Americans. The funniest thing that we saw was a contract for the sale of Hametz. During Passover, Jews are supposed to rid your house of all Hametz (food that is not kosher for Passover like bread and pasta). I don't know anyone who is that religious that they do this but apparently, there is a loophole which allows you to sell a corner of your freezer or a shelf in your pantry to a non-Jewish person. I thought that was really funny. Next year, I'm just going to sell my whole kitchen to a non-Jew and then buy it back after Passover. You think that's allowed?
Finally, at about 11:15, we ate. And boy was the food worth waiting for. No matzahball soup. No brisket from mom. Come to think of it, we didn't even get gefilta fish. They handed out a few weird salads like potato salad and shredded carrots, and a tray with heavily-processed deli meats. I'm not really even sure what meats they were. I simply asked Julie to get me some more of the "pinkish stuff with white dots" or "redish fatty meat". Following our meal, we excused ourselves from the table so that we could catch the tram back to civilization before it stopped running. I can only image how long the rest of the service was.
Before we left, sometime during the meal, the man in his late 40's with the wife in her 20's asked Julie if her engagement ring was real and if it was a real diamond. I had told her when we arrived to turn it inside her hand because most Chabadnics have very little money and they have a tendency to do fundraising at these types of events...I wasn't in the mood to be the big donor of the night. Luckily the conversation was over with her answer - and I'm glad to know that Julie still doesn't know she's wearing a fake.
On the walk to the tram we talked about how the evening was a bit better than we had expected although the food was real bad and it was real long. This had been Julie's first time to Chabad since her days as a memeber of the "Army of Hashem (God)" when she was maybe 10 years old and told her mom she wanted to be in Chabad because they got to make Challah (bread) on Fridays. I don't think Julie was happy about the Hebrew but we wouldn't have understood anything at the Dutch services either. I guess this is her incentive to become active in expat groups because if she doesn't find us some Jewish friends, we'll be back at Chabad next year.
KEUKENHOF
Friday was Good Friday so I had a bank holiday. Julie and I decided we would go to Keukenhof, a huge flower garden that is in bloom for about 6 weeks a year. We took the train (E12 each) from Central Station around 10:15, arriving in Leiden about 10:45. We had decided that we wanted to rent bikes (E7 each) and were off by around 11:15. Everyone in the Netherlands rides bikes everywhere because the country is flat and they are not fat ass Americans. As a result, there are bike paths everywhere and they are very well marked. We headed out of Leiden towards Lisse, the town that the Keukenhof is in. We rode through really small towns, taking notice of some very nice homes with thatched roofs, really pretty canals, and the occasional town church or gazzebo. At around 12:30, we stopped for a quick snack...Julie had an icepop and I had fries with mayo and sate sauce - I can't stop, it's soooo good. We contined on to Keukenhof (E11 entry), finally arriving around 1:45.
We walked around for a few hours. The flowers were beautiful. The grounds are so well-kept and the place just seemed very peaceful despite the hords of visitors taking advantage of the Easter weekend and beautiful weather. There was an orchid exhibit and I couldn't help but think about the movie "Adaptation" the whole time. One of my favorite flowers is named the "Hillary Clinton"...add your own adjectives here to image what you think this flower looks like. We had lunch at the gardens, which was really expensive (E25 total), especially since I could only have a salad because of Passover. Then we continued walking around.
The Keukenhof has a few things that are traditionally linked to the Dutch to make this a bit more tourist than just a botanical garden. There was a man making wooden shoes and an oversized clog that was large enough for Julie and I to sit in (photo-op). There was a man and son who was making Stroofwafels, basially a graham cracker with hot carmel in the middle...yum! They even had a huge organ-grinder which included a riviting rendition of "The Rose" by Barbara Steisand. We didn't spend much time at the organ-grinder because it reminded us both too much of what we thought a Drum Corp tournament (or Corp-off) whould be like.
After seeing every flower in the place, we decided to head out. This was about 4:00. We decided to take the more scenic route back to Leiden via the North Sea. We rode for about 20 minutes and came upon one of the most gorgeous sights I've seen. We came up a slight hill and at the top you could see rows upon rows of different color tulips. It reminded me of the scene in "The Wizard of Oz" when Dorothy and company need to cross the field to get to Oz and eventually fall alseep. The fields had the deepest reds all the way to the palest yellows, and everything in between. Since the country is below sea-level and the Dutch actually had to take back the land from the sea by an intricate system of dikes, dams, canals, and windmills, the fields all seem to be planted on plateus that rise from small canals. It was really pretty. We contined to ride but the fields seem to never stop. Eventually, we reached these huge sand dunes. These must be the only hills in the whole country. We rode through these dunes until, again, out of nowhere, we were at the North Sea.
The sun was out but the weather was not warm and yet, the beach was pretty well populated. I guess when you have darkness for so many months, the Dutch have to take advantage of whatever they get. We played around the beach for a bit, but not too long. It was starting to get late and I was getting tired.
We continued south through the dunes for some time on our way back to Leiden. We continued to make our way through small town after small town. At some point, we saw our first helmets in the country. Amsterdam has about 800,000 residents and over 1,000,000 bikes. In all of this, I think they have 6 helmets. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wears a helmet while riding a bike and yet, we saw 2 girls on horses and they both had helmets on. I don't understand the reasoning there but I suspect the horse helmets have more to do with the outfit than the safety.
Anyways, as the hours passed and my ass began to hurt more and more, we made our way closer and closer to Leiden. Finally, I saw a sign - Leiden 5 KM. We were close. We continued to ride for another 15 minutes and another sign - Leiden 5 KM. Another 15 minutes of riding, another sign - Leiden 5 KM. What the fuck? Were we just riding around Leiden? My ass was beyond hurting at this point. My legs were jelly. I was hungry and it was starting to get a bit cold. What seemed like a good idea at 11:15 in the morning was now coming back to haunt me. We continued to ride though. Alas, good news - Leiden 3 KM. Followed by - Leiden 1 KM. This last KM seemed to be the most dificult one. I think we rode straight into the wind the whole time, barely moving. My legs were so tired, I think the only thing moving the pedals was the momentum from previous revolutions. We finally arrived at the train station at 7:00. I got off the bike and my legs felt as if they weren;t even there. My ass was pounding and even now, 3 days later while sitting at the computer, I have a constant reminder of my trip to the Keukenhof.
We rode for over 5 hours that day. I don't think I have ever done that much excersize in my life. Some day, I will begin to walk normal again and will find joy in sitting on my ass and will look back on that Friday and remember how gorgeous the weather was, how flawless the flower fields looked, and how nice it felt to accomplish the roundtrip to and from Leiden.
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Sorry this was so long. I hope that everyone is happy and healthy in their respective places and that the holiday weekend was kind to you. Speak to you next week.
-Stephan Office
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