Holland, Part II of II - 2001

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Again, this is part of my attempt to chronicle our five years of living outside the USA (June 2001 - June 2006). I've already done our final year, which was South Africa (click on "Previous Entries" top left of this blog page and you can see other blog entries). Now I'm going back to the beginning, looking through old journals and photos to put our adventures, one by one, into blog form.

MORE NETHERLANDS

This is the second and final installment of our first year (June 2001 - August 2002) in the Netherlands when Bernard was attending the University of Leiden taking a master's course in Public International Law.



Leiden, the Netherlands

November 8, 2001

Dear Friends and Family,

I’ve been meaning to write this journal/letter for a month now. Bernie kept asking me when I was going to write about Ireland (see previous blog entry), and I kept putting it off. I’ve been trying to figure out why I was reluctant to write, and I think I’ve come up with the answer: Ireland was a wonderful, fun and beautiful experience. After September 11 when our world changed, I was reluctant to write about happy things. I think it goes along with us Americans temporarily loosing our senses of humor and the veil of depression enveloping many of us. This mood was brought home sharply to me when a friend wrote that he and his wife had been in New York last month and found it incredibly depressing in that the people were actually polite and friendly. They were not the rude, standoffish New Yorkers they’d grown up with: the ones they knew and loved. That made me laugh and damn, it felt good.

We were on the last part of our Ireland tour, and had just arrived in Dublin. When we got in the taxi to go to our B&B, the driver who had his ear glued to his radio was very upset, but quickly filled us in: a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers, but of course at that point we all thought it was an accident. When we arrived at the B&B our host ran out and grabbed us, hurried us to our room where he had the television on - we were in time to see the second plane hit the other tower. I don't have to explain the feeling of shock and disbelief - you all felt the same I'm sure. We all stood with our arms around each other in utter disbelief.

What was really interesting for us as Americans in a foreign country was how the Irish gathered us to their bosoms with love and understanding. I suppose it has a lot to do with the fact that we have so many Americans of Irish decent and America is still a big draw for them. Indeed, our taxi driver had two children working in the World Trade Center area - no wonder he seemed stunned.

The BBC, CNN and every other network in Ireland had constant coverage of the unfolding tragedy. Wherever we went when people heard our accents, they approached us to expressed their condolences. We went to the American Embassy the following day to sign the Book of Remembrance. The lines were long, Irish mostly, many families, lots of flowers. There was one young mother in line who told me that she had brought all of her children because she felt strongly they needed to be on record as a show of support for America. The next day the whole of Ireland shut down as a day of mourning. And I mean SHUT DOWN - no restaurants or stores were open. The churches were packed. We went downtown to the main cathedral where the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Bertie Ahern, and others were gathering and couldn't get near the place. We stood with a large crowd and listened to the sermon via a public address system.

We only had a few days in Dublin, so didn't get to see most of what we'd hoped to. We've got to get back to Dublin at some point to see it as it normally is - our time there was anything but normal.

People have asked how it feels to be away from home during this crisis. Except for our initial wanting to run to and hold our daughters, it has been a matter of keeping informed via CNN and BBC and the International Herald Tribune every a.m. with my coffee - not always a GOOD thing I might add.

We probably feel safer here than most Americans do at home because of the anthrax scare. Leiden is an international university town where speaking English doesn’t make you stand out - you could be Swedish, Peruvian or American - as all foreigners speak the “international language” of English.* The Dutch are very supportive of the “Strike on Terrorism” (so dubbed by CNN) and say that this time we have to do it right, i.e., not leave Bin Laden alive like we did Hussein. They have voiced more militant attitudes than what we'd call "politically correct." Example, in the newspaper they had the results of an opinion poll: 80% of the Netherlanders polled said the Muslim immigrants who cheered the bombing of the WTC should be immediately deported.**

(*Leiden's public library has a large English language section - from reference books to best sellers.)

(**As time passed and Bush wouldn't listen to the Europeans (or anyone else) who didn't believe Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, rejected the UN's pleas to wait before invasion, ad naseum, whatever good-will we had was squandered and we felt the stirrings of anti-Americanism. We spent three more years in Europe and the anger toward the US just kept growing - with Abu Ghraib, CIA renditions, etc., we watched as America's reputation went from defender of justice to world bully.)

Leiden University. Enough of that or I’ll get depressed again. Bernie is loving his school, but has so much reading and class preparation it takes almost all of his time. He has classes four days a week and several hundred pages of reading per night. This is Sunday and normally he’d have a few free hours, but for tomorrow’s class he has 400 pages to read!

The part he is loving is the subject matter. There is so much fodder in the news headlines that his lecturers have trouble staying on topic. It is exciting time to be studying public international law/international humanitarian law. There are about 30 students in Bernie’s program and they have all their classes together, so it is becoming a cohesive group. They have a study group on Fridays when a handful come to our place and I fix lunch before they get down to studying.

I’m still plugging away at my Dutch lessons. Actually I’m enjoying the mental exercise of studying a language. I know I’ll never speak the language, but it is making it easier to get around and do errands. I belong to the International Center affiliated with the university. We go on excursions, have a book club, a lecturer every Tuesday morning, and lots more. There are cooking clubs, but I haven’t joined one yet - need to feel out the situation because they normally take turns cooking at members’ houses. Our apartment/kitchen is so small I don’t think it would be feasible to have the club here. I’ve just started tutoring a student in English, which I’ll do a couple of times a week for a few hours. My student, Magali, works for the university. They want her spoken and written English (which are already super) to improve technically because she deals in English everyday with the international students.

Biking. I bought a bike a month ago and have ventured out and about. I don’t wear my helmet here because nobody does and I don’t want to stand out as an American dork. However, the cobblestone and brick roads worry me, so I ride very slowly. I’m still wary of the whole biking scene, but so far I think I’ve figured out the rules: Never look as you enter an intersection because then you have the right-of-way. If you are in front, the guy (car, bike, pedestrian) behind you is a non-entity and you can do whatever you like - he has to fend for himself. Bikes have the right-of-way most of the time, but since cars are bigger, in reality you defer to them (that is if you’ve actually looked at them). Never play chicken with a lorry (truck).

Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away and I’m trying to figure out how to cook a turkey in my tiny oven (picture an overgrown microwave). I found a “bird man” - a shop that specializes in nothing put edible birds! Most of the plucked carcasses under glass I couldn’t even identify. Anyway, my bird man said he can special order a small turkey for me. We’ll invite some of Bernie’s classmates over.

In the meantime, we hope you are all have a wonderful Thanksgiving* and peaceful Christmas and Hanukah. We have so much to thankful for, all of us, and I think this holiday season could be a time of reflection and true giving of thanks.

(*Little known fact: Our founding English Puritans/Pilgrims didn't sail for The New World first, but actually to the Netherlands where they lived in Leiden for many years. When the Netherlands wanted England as an ally as Spain was saber-rattling again, England said sure, but you have to return those "Separatists" to us. The Puritans then bought a boat (The Speedwell) and tried to sail to the New World from the Netherlands. For much disputed reasons, it floundered and they barely made it to England. They then bought the Mayflower and continued on their journey. Because of this, the folks of Leiden feel very close to America and indeed have a special Thanksgiving celebration of their own - a parade, the mayor addresses the crowds. There are several plaques in town with the story of the Separatists, a museum, and several of the houses they built are preserved as historic sites.)

February 2002

We’ve been having an extremely mild winter here. Had one cold snap where our hopes got up for ice-skating on the canals, but the wind blew in mild weather that has been with us for a month now. We noticed while on our Sunday walk that some ornamental cherry trees are actually in bloom! I think spring will be early this year.

We had a most excellent Christmas! The Christmas market in Nuremberg was nothing short of magnificent. In addition to all the vendors selling wonderful holiday wares, there were gluhwein stands where we could get a mug of the hot-spiced wine. Everybody stands around warming their hands on the mug and chatting - very festive. There was also a stage where entertainment was happening every half an hour or so - gospel singers, children’s choirs.

Our Swiss friends, Emil and Renate, met us there. Renate was born in Nuremberg. We visited the cathedral where she was baptized, confirmed and they were married. She was a terrific guide as she loves her city and knows the history well. Every night she did her research so that whatever sights we were going to see the next day she had all the information - just like a professional tour guide.

It was cold and snowy in Germany, but it seemed to be perfect holiday weather, in fact everybody was thrilled to have such a white Christmas. Of course many people are on holiday during the Christmas season, so skiing is very popular - the more snow the better.

We drove five and one-half hours from Nuremberg to our friends’ home outside Zurich, Switzerland, the small farming town of Herisau. The trip normally takes four hours, but with the snow people were driving more slowly.

Emil and Renate have a beautiful house on the south-face of a hill overlooking a farming valley. In the distance you can see the Swiss Alps, and just beyond them the Austrian Alps. When walking on their property you can see across the valley behind their house to the Lake of Constance (Boden See) and across the lake is Germany. It is a magical place. We spent 4 days there and it snowed almost a meter (3 ft.) during that time. We went walking through the hills every day from one to two hours - most of it in knee-deep snow! It was cold, but with snow you expect cold and it is so pretty you tend to forget your numb toes, nose - okay, so you don’t forget them, but it was fun anyway.

On Christmas Eve their son and daughter (36 and 33), who live nearby, came for dinner. It was fondue! The Swiss are famous for their fondue, but we hadn’t eaten in that style since the 1970s when it was popular in the U.S. Anyway, it is the perfect Christmas dinner in that it takes forever to eat - you talk a lot while your food is cooking and they are small pieces of meat and vegetables, so you cook a lot and thus chat a lot. It was fun and Nicole and Patrick were delightful company - both well-traveled and interesting. We had met Nicole in Alaska when she was traveling with her parents, but it was the first time we’d met Patrick.

A highlight for me was the Christmas tree Emil cut from his land the day before Christmas. They put it up late afternoon and by evening Renate and I were able to decorate it with ornaments and REAL candles. It was beautiful! We watched it closely (especially Patrick) , but the tree was so fresh I don’t think you could have burned it with a blowtorch. Heard on the radio the next morning that there were several house fires Christmas Eve from candles on trees. Go figure.

I have to mention the wonderful food at Emil and Renate’s. Lots of the provisions come from their land - Renate’s garden, Emil’s sheep, game from local hunters. Renate walks down the hill to the local dairy for fresh milk complete with cream on top. They enjoy food and it shows in their delicious preparation and presentation - a truly wonderful experience.

So after a wonderful time in Germany and Switzerland, we headed to Barcelona, Spain. I got sick the day we were leaving Switzerland, so landed in Barcelona with a nasty flu. Fortunately we were staying in a bed & breakfast with two very nice New Zealand hosts, a comfortable bed and plenty of Kleenex. Actually it didn’t stop me from touring. The first day we did a walking tour of the historic section. Bernie lead me around by the hand as I tried to focus because my eyes were watering so much my contact lenses were floating, rendering me almost blind! What a funny sight we must have been. I know Gaudi’s architecture is weird, but I’m just not sure if it is as weird as seen through my eyes.

Our hosts fed us tons of fruit and juices, so I got better and Bernie never got the bug. Go figure, I pick it up from some obscure place and the man who is sleeping with me and handling my tissues, doesn’t get it! Life is not fair. His immune system must be impermeable.

Anyway, Barcelona was a great city to walk around. We calculated that we walked five to six miles everyday. We did museums, shopped, ate and in general enjoyed ourselves. We were ready to return to Holland, however, as Bernie’s classes were starting soon and he had material to pick up from the university and reading to do.

Belgium. You’d think that was the end of our travels wouldn’t you, but NOOOO. The weekend after returning from Barcelona we went to Belgium, to Brugge/Bruges and Ghent. We traveled with a friend of mine from Dutch class and her 12-year-old son, Mara and Josh - great traveling champions. Both cities are picturesque canal cities with old buildings and oodles of history. It was much colder there than in Leiden. I know one of the reasons it seemed so cold was because we were outside all day sightseeing, although we did make it a rule to stop for tea or hot chocolate at least twice a day. Then of course there are the famous chocolate shops that had to be explored and tested.


Bernie’s School. Several people have asked about Bernie’s LLM program (a masters in Public International Law). He is doing great. He had two classes that ended just before Christmas and the finals were given then. They didn’t receive their grades until the second week of January. We had a party here to celebrate; eight for dinner and if you saw my kitchen/dining room you’d realize what a feat that was. The grading: 10 is an A and anything below 5 is failing. Bernie got a 7 (on both) and was at first disappointed. Then the professor gave a breakdown of the grades: Out of 30, only 4 people did better than 7 with the highest grading being an 8.5, all the others were below him and 8 failed completely (professor said there were a few 2’s and 3’s - no-hope cases). So Bernie looked at his grades in a different light and is now quite tickled with his grades.

One of the reasons he did so well is because of his study partners. As is Bernie’s bent, his study partners are three to five wonderful young women (Tina, a Greek; Meredith, a Brit; Anna, Norwegian*; Petra, German and Andra, a New Zealander/Kiwi - depending on the class. Their photos were in the last blog). The youngest is 22 and the oldest 36. I told Bernie I am happy he is hanging out with the smart kids in the class as the majority did extremely well.

*Anna graduated with honors, only a few did.

This semester is tougher as he’ll have five courses; several started in January and will overlap a bit with the others starting in February. The bad thing will be that he’ll have two finals to take while trying to prepare for the new courses. As he said, in February he’ll have virtually no time for any social activities. We’ve even had to tell a couple of people who wanted to visit then that it was impossible - Bernie will not have a spare minute.*

*When you see the photos of all the folks who visited us, it is amazing Bernie did as well as he did!

The amount of reading Bernie has to do for each class is amazing - sometime 400 pages per night. That means he is reading non-stop 7 days a week. He has decided that he needs to take one evening a week off, but normally he reads, studies, outlines from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. Today I took him for a walk for an hour, but that is the only time off he has had this week.

You’d think it would be overwhelming and sometimes I think it is, but if you ask him how he is doing he’ll tell you he is enjoying it immensely. And he is, he is consistently in a good mood even though he has so much work to do. He is learning so much about a subject he is interested in; he is networking with interesting people and making connections for future (hopefully) job opportunities. Now ask again at the end of February and you might get a different amount of enthusiasm, but right now he is jazzed.

Kathy. I’m still enjoying Holland very much. I’ve continued taking a Dutch language class, teaching English to a young lady, going on excursions and to lectures - generally having fun. Sometime I wonder where the days go, like a few days ago, then I counted up all of my “errands:” three groceries stores (they are all small and have different things), a health food store, the post office, office supply store (three of them actually as none had what I was looking for), the cheese shop, butcher, and the poultry store for a rotisserie chicken for lunch - I certainly didn’t have time to COOK anything for lunch that day! Some of the above I did on foot, but most was on bike. You have to learn how to balance a full backpack and bags hanging off the handlebars. Put all that together and I’m in reasonably good shape.

Future Plans. Bernie’s classes end in late May, but he then has a thesis to write. The paper is due August 6. We have our apartment until the end of August. In December we’ll be traveling to Argentina for Marcela’s wedding!! Yes, she and Tim Jensen finally made the decision. The civil ceremony will be in Washington D.C. sometime this summer,* but the real church wedding is in December** in Cordoba. We are excited and happy for her. Mid-May we are flying over to London to the wedding of good friend, Joanne Bolton to Robert Henshaw.

(*I flew to D.C. and surprised Marcela & Tim. Vicky, Marcela's twin, and friend Nancy worked with me to keep it a secret until I showed up at the reception.)

(**Bernard, I, niece Denise and grand-niece McKayla all went to the wedding in Argentina.)

Right after Bernard finished his thesis and graduated, we moved to Bochum, Germany where Bernie worked at the Ruhr University with one of his Leiden professors, Horst Fischer. We were there two years and I'll be doing a blog on that next.

BE SURE TO CLICK ON "2" OR "NEXT" BELOW FOR MORE PHOTOS

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Photos

Keukenhof Gardens
Keukenhof gardens are one of Holland's biggest tourist draws - open for only approx 2 months during the height of the bulb flowering season

Stuart & Susan
The tulip fields were breathtaking. With many of our visitors we biked through tulip/daffodil/narcissus fields, small towns, more fields . . .

Guatemalans
On Amsterdam canal tour boat. Jackie, sister Mercedes and cousin Hugo Fernando came to Europe for a whirlwind tour.

Almarene
A good friend from Alaska who now lives in Tucson came for a short visit

Best Buds Mara & Leslie
I met Mara and her husband Larry in my Dutch class and Leslie at a lecture at the Int'l Center

International Center
This was our Tex-Mex Fiesta at the University's International Center - a GREAT bunch of ladies coordinated all of our activities

Magali, Armand & Birgid
My English student, Magali, Birgid her boss and Armand a collegue. Wonderful people, all of them. Birgid and her boyfriend entertained us several times - we loved their roof-top garden

My Trusty Transportation
Notice the saddle bags - that is how I did all my shopping, including grocery. Sometimes I'd have the saddle bags full and plastic bags hanging from the handle bars. If it was too heavy, I'd have to walk the bike home as it was too unstable to ride

Larry, Alicia, Mara & Josh
We had many wonderful adventures together. This was taken in Utrecht just before they returned to the USA. They went kicking and screaming as they'd had a magical year in Leiden where Larry was working on a project with another professor while on sabbatical from the Univ. of Texas at El Paso

Aunt Betty
This great lady was game for anything - even eating the raw herring that is so popular in Holland

Alfonso
Alfonso is a friend from Mexico - he found it a bit cool in Holland too

Don & Karen
These wonderful friends from Alaska have visited us in many places - they came to South Africa also.

The Hansen Family
The Hansen family are our most faithful visitors - came to Germany also

Jaqueline & Marysia
While our Guatemalan daughter was visiting, Marysia from Poland and her boyfriend, Mieck, drove over for a fun reunion

Julie Page
Julie, a chiropractor, was in Amsterdam taking a course. When she visited us it was one of the coldest days EVER but we went to The Hague anyway, after all, she is from New Jersey and me from Alaska so a little winter weather couldn't stop us

Janet
A friend of mine from line dancing class in Tucson came over for a week. Here we are at Apeldoorn castle

Maryes & Louis
These French friends are some of Bernie's oldest - met them when they were all hiking the Chilkoot Trail in 1977

Tandy & Susie
Good friends from Alaska came and we biked all round the area - from the tulip fields to the ocean dunes, up to Delft, took bike ferries across canals and rode thru farms and fields. Taken in Katwijk at a cafe on the North Sea beach. Note the glass screens - enables them to stay open even in winter; we were enjoying hot chocolate

Pablo & Celia
Pablo, Marcela's brother, from Argentina was dating Celia (Dutch) who was living in The Hague/Den Haag, so we saw Pablo quite a few times during his stay in Holland

Frehner Family
Our Swiss Christmas with Emil, Renate, Nicole & Patrick was magical - note the real candles on the tree

Comments

[dede supriyatna]

amazing
really beautiful park,, i like tulip... so amazing,,,,.