The end

This blog is coming to an end. I plan on turning it into a more advanced website in the future, but nothing new will be added, since i've left europe. but my other blog has restarted, if you are interested.

tomorrow is my birthday... i won't be a teenager anymore... i'm sad


i'm not sure if i'm going to go back to my old blog or if i'm going to hold out until i can get the site that i'm making up. we will see.

happy new year to everyone. i'm going to boston for new years, is anyone else?

It's coming to an end

on thursday i go home. i'm so excited, i can't wait. i'm going to miss europe a lot though. i hope that i can come back after i graduate. hopefully our economy will be stronger by then, but i doubt it.

more later

music: the good life

Switzerland Pictures

Switzerland Pictures

it's about time, these pictures are over a month old

Merry Christmas from the Netherlands

[image from here]

Today is Christmas in the Netherlands. Tonight we're supposed to put our shoes out for Santa, or Sinterklaas as they call him, to come around and put goodies in them. The Dutch Christmas tradition is pretty unique, so i'm going to share it with you.

It starts in November, when Santa arrives in the Netherlands from his home in Spain with his "Zwarte Piet" (Black Pete) (7- 8 black men dressed like medieval attire). Then throughout the month Sinterklaas visits every town or village in the Netherlands (he was living in our castle on Thursday and Friday, no joke). This is made possible by the "hulp-Sinterklazen" (people who help Sinterklaas by dressing up like him)

This website describes the next part better than i could and i enjoy his/ her witty comments:

"Sinterklaas goes on a tour through the village accompanied by several Zwarte Pieten, who throw different types of sweets around and on the ground for children to get tetanus. You can see children squirming about like maggots, trying to get hold of as much candy as their little hands can hold. The smart children, who know how diseases come about, then resort to throwing it back as hard as possible, causing multiple concussions to the Pieten. Wisened by experience, the Pieten now only deposit candy straight into the open hands of the weakest children. "

....

"Sinterklaas, the legendary man, looks like an old wise bloke with long white hair and similar beard. He is dressed like a bishop and has a golden (shepherd) staff in his hand. He also carries a large leather bound book, with gold print, in which it is written which children have been good and which have not. In the "good old days" kids used to be threatened to be whipped when they had been bad, with a bunch of twigs (a "roe"), after which they would be put in a burlap bag to be shipped to Sinterklaas' residence in Madrid, Spain. As parenting grew softer over the years, this valuable tradition was lost, except in some of the Sinterklaas songs. Also, people nowadays pay big money for holidays in Spain, and for whipping too for that matter. The kids are smart enough to know that, so the effectiveness of the punishment has decreased anyway."

On the night before December 5th (or on the 3rd, i'm sort of confused), the children place their shoes out with vegetables in them for santa and their christmas lists. in the morning they are replaced with candy.

"On December 5th Sinterklaas brings the large presents, which are left in large plastic trash-bags (the same ones that will be used to throw away all the broken toys in the coming weeks) on the front porch. Sometimes the parents hire a Sinterklaas from the "Sinterklaascentrale" (an organization providing assistant Sinterklazen) to present the presents. They might even dress up themselves, causing uncomfortable situations when the kids recognize those shoes, wrist watches, rings and glasses mentioned before. "Daddy is a transvestite" is a commonly heard and traumatising remark. The old, wise man utters some very wise words such as "Are there any naughty children here?" and "Have you been a good boy/girl this year?". Upon receiving the respective replies of "noooo!" and "yeees!", Sinterklaas proceeds to explain why that reply is incorrect. Loads of children are traumatised by Sinterklaas every year, especially when they are forced to sit on his lap and sing a Sinterklaas song.
Sinterklaas for grown-ups means a party of giving and receiving gifts, much like on Christmas, but now the presents are called "surprises" (pronounce as "sir-preeze-us"). A surprise is a gift hidden within a product of tinkering, aimed at giving the gift the appearance of something completely different, accompanied by a poem. It serves to embarrass the addressee by reminding him/her of some embarrassing moments in the past year, or to point out a general failure of character in a mocking way. It is the day to get even with anybody for anything, but it is mostly played with family and/or friends. The most cliched surprises are a gift:


in a bucket of shit;
wrapped in five thousand kilometres of sticky tape; or
which is only an empty box."


more info

Pretty interesting i think. i went to the city of Nijmegen (which is about an hour from Well [where i live]) and i saw dutch adults running around in medieval costumes with black face paint that remind me minstrel shows in the late 1800s and early 1900s. the black painted faces may seem very racist to the average american like myself, but the dutch just do things differently and race isn't really an issue here. at least this is what i have been told. either way, its good to keep an open mind about other cultures' traditions.

anyways, the situation is a pretty good deal for me, i get to celebrate christmas twice and i think i'm going to take advantage of the after christmas sales next weekend. mwahaha.

music: sunny day real estate, new bright eyes, death cab for cutie, self, the pixies, beck, belle and sebastian

Italy Pictures

Venice pictures

Piza pictures

Rome pictures

Cinque Terre Pictures

Florence Pictures

Switzerland, Bright Eyes in Koln, and Amsterdam

Hopefully I can get Switzerland pictures up tonight, I've been slacking big time. I think I'm starting to get senioritis half a year early.

So I went to Switzerland by myself two weekends ago. It was definitely an experience. The weather was really crappy, and I wasn't dressed appropriately at all, but I could still tell that Interlaken was beautiful. The fog covered half of the mountains (most of them I couldn't even see the tops of). I got to Switzerland Friday night (after train hopping all day because all of my trains were late). I didn't really know what to do at that point because it was 7:30 pm, I was all settled in at my hostel, but it was far too early to go to bed. So I decided to go for a walk around the town. The people were really nice; this cute old woman came up to me when I was looking at a map and said "may I help?" and then she showed me were to go. It was so sweet. I continued walking, and then all of a sudden I saw a mountain, right in front of me. And I actually jumped. interlaken is situated between two lakes in the middle of the mountains. It's also known as the extreme sports center of the world (sadly everything was too expensive for me). After that I came back to my hostel, and did something out of character. I went to a bar by myself. It wasn't too bad either. Being a 19 year old American girl in the middle of the German- speaking area of Switzerland isn't that big of a deal, I guess. I met some interesting local men and had a good time.

the next day I woke up and it was cloudy and drizzling and miserable. I walked around and realized that there were mountains everywhere. Being in the middle of the mountains actually made me feel really claustrophobic. It was cool though. Since I was by myself I didn't really know what to do, so I just walked around interlaken. I took a bus to one of the lakes and was chased by some swans and ducks. Then I went back into town and took a little tour around the city. I saw the castle of interlaken and the Japanese gardens. There is a train that takes you to the highest point in Europe from interlaken but it is very expensive (about $100), so needless to say, I didn't go on that. Especially because the weather was crappy, I knew that I wouldn't be able to see anything. After killing time all day I got on my train. I slept through my alarm on the train and almost missed my stop. Someone actually woke me up to ask me what class we were in, and that's when I realized that we were at my stop. So I ran off the train, dragging my scarf and ran down the stairs. Then I fell down the stairs. Luckily I made all of my trains. It was not a good night though.

last thursday I went to see bright eyes in Koln. Casey and I traveled all the way to Germany (ok it was only an hour and a half on the train, haha) to see him play. We had issues finding the place because everything I found online was in German, and the name of the club was also the name of a square in koln. Finally we got to the show (after walking through everyone enjoying karnival, which was awesome) and it was sold out. We were really disappointed. But we didn't give up. We tried smooth talking the bouncer and the merch guy and the ticket lady. But nothing worked. Everyone there knew what we were trying to do too, which made it more embarrassing. Finally we went outside and stood by this glass door, which we knew that if we could get in we would be able to get into the show. After standing for a little while we were pretty cold, but then we saw conor walk by. So we decided to stay by the door longer, and be sketchy. The ticket lady that we had pestered before was guarding the door and kept turning around and looking at us. conor walked by a few more times, and saw us, but I think he was too drunk to care or just didn't really care anyways. Finally this man comes out and asks us what we are doing and Casey and I start mumbling about how we came from the Netherlands and it was sold out and he's like ''ok come with me''. And he got us in for free. So that was awesome. conor played by himself with an acoustic guitar. I was excited because in the past I've seen him with the band and I'd always wanted to see him alone. And the crowd was very polite and well- behaved (except for one drunk guy behind us who kept shouting ''amsterdam'' for no apparent reason). And he did two encores. But then Casey and I had to stay up all night to make trains back to the Netherlands. Even though it's only an hour and a half train ride. All and all it was a good time. And he played motion sickness, which is one of my favorite songs of his.

then on Saturday Casey, Bruce, and I went to Amsterdam. I wanted to get some gifts for my parents that were from Holland, and we really didn't want to stay in the castle anymore. The castle gives you serious cabin fever after a few days. So we just went to Amsterdam and hung out the whole day.

tomorrow I leave for Florence. Then I go to cinque terre, Rome, piza, and Venice. I'll be back Sunday sometime. (two Sundays from now) I'm so excited to go to Italy! I'm going to eat so much. It's going to be such a change from horrible Dutch food. I'm just sad because after this I'm basically done. I have a week and a half of classes and finals. It's bittersweet. I am ready to go home though, or at least I think I will be.

Switzerland rating: A-, I think it would have been an A+ if the weather was right

Happy Lodge Inn: A-, I really like this hostel. I stayed in a six person room but I was the only one that was there.

new cds (yay I finally got new cds): talking heads- remain in light, the smiths- meat is murder, the future soundtrack for America