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Published: January 28th 2009
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My first time in Europe, and the stories are true. After a sleepless plane ride made worse by a Nyquil-induced mini-trip and the painful experience of watching the first 20 min of "Miracle at St. Anna," we landed at Schipol airport, all 80 of us, and stumbled through customs into a rainy Amsterdam. My half hour stay in there was a blur of American fast food signs, Mercedes taxis, and street signs that seemed to be written in baby talk. I walked up the stairs of the bus, flopped into the front row of seats, and fell asleep.
"Oh look" "Wow" Those who were awake had recognized the little town of Well, and I knew we were close. The bus dropped us off in front of a little brick bridge, and down the foggy path I could make out the entrance to the Castle. It was too much to appreciate right away; instead I crankily took in my surroundings (fields, moat, castle), shivered in the cold, and tried to understand what it would be like to live here for the next three months.
Orientation weekend was fun, but the day's activities don't make for very exciting reading. We had
meetings all day to keep us awake and introduce us to the Castle, and at night it was the Linden. I wasn't there for the initial invasion of this small-town pub, but I heard from others that it was pretty awkward. Picture a group of twenty or so Americans, wandering like lost sheep into a near-empty bar in rural Netherlands, not speaking any Dutch and, as Emersonians, having little bar experience. After twenty-five years Jack the bartender is used to this scene, and he kindly invited them in and explained how things are done. By the time I showed up, you would think it was an Emerson bar.
The drink of choice is called 'half and half' which is the Dutch equivalent of a black and tan, a mixture of dark and light. The brand of choice is, quite literally, Brand (pronounced brahnd, with your best German accent). The night ended with an experience with another staple of Dutch culture, but that's another story for another time. Let's just say, once again, the stories are true.
We spent Saturday getting used to the Castle and Well. Students went into town to the supermarket, the ATM, and All Under
One Roof, the Well equivalent of Wal-Mart, only much smaller and without the human rights violations. It's a hardware store, pharmacy, post office, etc etc. One of the more noticeable sections was the costume accessory section, which I later found out was in preparation for the Dutch version of Mardi Gras: Carnaval. It takes place around February 20th, so look for an entry on that.
We got a little preview of Carnaval that night at the Linden. When I got there I heard live music coming from the bathrooms, so I decided to go check it out and found another door which led to a back room which had another bar and a stage full of locals auditioning their songs before judges and spectators to be used in Carnaval. It wasn't long before all the Americans were back there, getting dragged into conga lines by gel-haired Dutch boys and funny-hatted Dutch men. After drifting back and forth between the two parties for a bit I decided to call it a night.
The classes started on Monday. They were a wakeup call. Over the weekend I had started to question my reasons for coming here. Suddenly the novelty of
lax laws and beautiful countryside were starting to wear off (although the countryside is still beautiful, and the civility of being able to have a few beers at a bar like a human rather than binge drinking in a basement still makes this place a thousand times better than the US). But it was the classes that really put the program in perspective. Oh yeah, I'm here to learn, and what an amazing place to do it. The professors aren't "Emerson professors," meaning unlike the professors in Boston, they are not as familiar with how media-focused the Boston campus is. As far as they're concerned, we're here for a liberal arts education, and they don't dumb down their subjects so we have more time to make YouTube videos with our friends. The first class History of Art I: Renaissance and Baroque, is being split by two professors. Through mid-March, our professor is taught by Rob Duckers, a Dutchman who specializes in book illuminations and curates a church's art collection. The second half will be taught by Dulcia Meijers, who is half-Indonesian, full Dutch and has a passion for history. She taught the first class and gave us a highly informative
crash course in Western Civ for perspective on the art we would be studying. The second class was Media Criticism and Theory. This one will take some getting used to. Unlike the Boston equivalent which I imagine to be a movie-watching class, our professor is teaching us extremely abstract concepts like semiotics, linguistics, and cognitivism, which he interestingly relates to film as a language.
European Lit is taught by the only American professor, a woman who has come here every Spring in the Castle's 25 year history. She calls herself a mix between a '50s nun and a '60s hippie, a casually swearing, politically leftist, joking person who will turn on you if you break a "Castle Rule" (reminds me of a female Lewis Black with less anger) Thankfully she is teaching books that relate to places we are visiting or will visit, and her tangential rants are educational as well as entertaining. Tuesdays mean a four hour block of The World Since 1914, which of course means Europe Since 1914, which is fine by me. The professor has said that we will spend more time on the earlier parts, WW1 and WW2. I look forward to the WW2
stuff most because of our proximity to so much of the most important fighting towards the end of the war. The Cold War and Vietnam stuff will be taught with a focus on Europe, which is a good escape from the normal high school stuff. The best part is that the professor is German, and he still lives in Germany. Being an American learning 20th Century history from a German in the Netherlands is an amazingly unique opportunity.
So things are going well in Well. Tonight is American night at the Linden, and Sophie's Lounge just opened downstairs. I hear Dulcia's down there, so I have to leave.
It's going to be a good semester.
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