I'm in Ireland for a purpose, which I find much more enjoyable than being here as a tourist. Instead of staying in a hostel in the midst of loud, frenetic central Dublin, I'm living in a small, adorable house 15 minutes out of town. My room came with a bike, and I've been using it.
Biking on the left isn't difficult, at least after the first five minutes or so. What is difficult, actually, is walking. I generally try to do as the locals do, which means walking on the left side of the sidewalk. No tourists do this. As a result, the pedestrian arteries of Dublin are constantly clogged: a stumbling chaos of backpacks and underdressed Italians.
It's cool in Ireland, even in the summer, and no one seems to have anticipated this while packing. Tourists from warmer climes walk around, shivering, wearing two shirts and buying scarves on the street to wrap around their goosebumped necks. It's not really that cold, just much colder than most of the world at the moment. Now that I've been here a few weeks, I am acclimated enough to wear a skirt and sandals in temperatures around 60, but for the first few days I, too, huddled under my raincoat and wore only long pants.
For a while I kept thinking I'd just heard people speaking German or Dutch, or at the least maybe Gaelic, but each time it turned out to just be Irish people mumbling in English. I've also become accustomed to this, and can now usually understand people, but during my early errands, it caused some problems:
Me: I need to buy an ethernet cable.
Clerk: A whhhoth?
Me: I mean, an ethernet "lead."
Clerk: Ehhhrh! A lead. Noo, we'ven't got those. Try Mcgnnennds.
Me: Try - sorry, where?
Clerk: Margnehhns.
Me: I... what?
Clerk: [glaring]
Me: Can you just spell it for me?
But now, for whatever reason, people's accents are usually easier to understand. I have to remember to alter my own vocabulary a little: pants are trousers; elevators are lifts; awesome occurrences are grand, or deadly, or brilliant; that jumper looks "well" on you; 4:30 is half four.
As far as I can tell, about half the people here have red hair; most of these are also curly. Everyone is extremely charming, except for boys between the ages of 12 and 22: these are the most disrespectful, insolent of their age group in any country I've been to. I've gotten more guff from nice-looking Irish lads in three weeks than I did from youths the whole time I was in Amsterdam or the six weeks I've been in New York. Maybe it's the claustrophobia of living on an island where nothing is more than five hours away, or maybe it's frustration over the frequent rain; in any case, Irish boys are kind of jerks.
But every few blocks there's someone heating their house with a peat-burning stove. It smells so lovely, and so Irish.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
making the theatre
Six weeks after moving to New York, I left it to return, temporarily, to Europe. In February, Aoife approached me with a proposition. Remember when we used to do plays together? she asked. You were such a great producer, she said. Why don't you come produce a play I want to direct? We'll take it to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
This is the type of suggestion that normally I would respond to with a sad but dutiful, "I can't," but in this case, I could. So now I am.
In what was guaranteed to be a folly of gigantic proportions, at least monetarily, I made plans to come to Dublin for July, Edinburgh for August. So now I'm in Ireland for the fourth time in three years, producing a play. It's called All Dressed Up to Go Dreaming, and it is going to be fabulous.
I was scheduled to leave the night of July 4th, a great time to fly, I thought—maybe the plane wouldn't be horribly full. I had taken my last summer-school exam the day before, and was sitting in my room on the afternoon of the 4th, catching up on the old episodes of 30
Rock I coudn't access while in Europe and occasionally throwing a garment in the general direction of my suitcase. My flight was at 9:40pm; I was planning on leaving the house at about 6pm.
Then the airline called to say that my flight had been cancelled.
There was another flight at 9pm, the woman said, but it connected in Shannon, with about a four-hour layover. I had done the Shannon-layover thing before, and it resulted in me barfing on the plane for the first and, I can only hope, last time in my life; I wasn't about to sign up for that again. My other option was to try to catch the 5:40 direct flight. It was 2pm, and JFK is an optimistic 90 minutes from my apartment. And my suitcase was somewhere beneath a pile of unfolded clothes on my bed.
"You can check in as late as 4:30," the woman told me. "I'll see you there," I said.
By 4:15 I was waiting in the airport lounge, having spent about 15 minutes at check-in and security. The airport was quiet, and it was clear why my flight had been cancelled: no one else but me was on it. Even with all the other passengers bumped onto my new flight, the plane was only 1/3 full. If the lights above my side of the cabin hadn't been flickering on and off for about 4 of the 5 hours of the flight, it might actually have been pleasant.
I was supposed to get in to Dublin at 9am, and meet Aoife at Heuston Station at 10. I arrived at 4:40am, and even after holding out for the direct bus, found myself wandering, dripping, into the station only a little after 6am. It had started raining at about the time my plane touched down, but at this point I've come to expect that from Dublin. I took out my towel, spread it across my damp legs, and settled down to read.
A traditional Irish breakfast (bacon, cheese, and chicken panini) helped calibrate my internal clock, and as soon as the Butler's stand opened at 7, I allowed myself my first caffeinated drink in about a year and a half. (I say first, but that's probably a lie: more than once, after ordering a decaf mocha in what I knew to be correct Dutch, a familiar buzzy headache told me that someone had accidentally given me the real stuff.)
When Aoife found me at 8am (I had just enough credit left on my Dutch sim card to text her about my new schedule) I was dry, full, and wide awake. She managed to keep me moving and awake the whole day, no mean feat for a girl who had been up late herself, partying with the American ambassador and former Irish Prime Minister. Yes, Aoife knows everyone in Ireland.
This is the type of suggestion that normally I would respond to with a sad but dutiful, "I can't," but in this case, I could. So now I am.
In what was guaranteed to be a folly of gigantic proportions, at least monetarily, I made plans to come to Dublin for July, Edinburgh for August. So now I'm in Ireland for the fourth time in three years, producing a play. It's called All Dressed Up to Go Dreaming, and it is going to be fabulous.
I was scheduled to leave the night of July 4th, a great time to fly, I thought—maybe the plane wouldn't be horribly full. I had taken my last summer-school exam the day before, and was sitting in my room on the afternoon of the 4th, catching up on the old episodes of 30
Rock I coudn't access while in Europe and occasionally throwing a garment in the general direction of my suitcase. My flight was at 9:40pm; I was planning on leaving the house at about 6pm.
Then the airline called to say that my flight had been cancelled.
There was another flight at 9pm, the woman said, but it connected in Shannon, with about a four-hour layover. I had done the Shannon-layover thing before, and it resulted in me barfing on the plane for the first and, I can only hope, last time in my life; I wasn't about to sign up for that again. My other option was to try to catch the 5:40 direct flight. It was 2pm, and JFK is an optimistic 90 minutes from my apartment. And my suitcase was somewhere beneath a pile of unfolded clothes on my bed.
"You can check in as late as 4:30," the woman told me. "I'll see you there," I said.
By 4:15 I was waiting in the airport lounge, having spent about 15 minutes at check-in and security. The airport was quiet, and it was clear why my flight had been cancelled: no one else but me was on it. Even with all the other passengers bumped onto my new flight, the plane was only 1/3 full. If the lights above my side of the cabin hadn't been flickering on and off for about 4 of the 5 hours of the flight, it might actually have been pleasant.
I was supposed to get in to Dublin at 9am, and meet Aoife at Heuston Station at 10. I arrived at 4:40am, and even after holding out for the direct bus, found myself wandering, dripping, into the station only a little after 6am. It had started raining at about the time my plane touched down, but at this point I've come to expect that from Dublin. I took out my towel, spread it across my damp legs, and settled down to read.
A traditional Irish breakfast (bacon, cheese, and chicken panini) helped calibrate my internal clock, and as soon as the Butler's stand opened at 7, I allowed myself my first caffeinated drink in about a year and a half. (I say first, but that's probably a lie: more than once, after ordering a decaf mocha in what I knew to be correct Dutch, a familiar buzzy headache told me that someone had accidentally given me the real stuff.)
When Aoife found me at 8am (I had just enough credit left on my Dutch sim card to text her about my new schedule) I was dry, full, and wide awake. She managed to keep me moving and awake the whole day, no mean feat for a girl who had been up late herself, partying with the American ambassador and former Irish Prime Minister. Yes, Aoife knows everyone in Ireland.
in the barrio
I live in New York now, in an fairly amazingly cheap four-bedroom with three of the loveliest medical students there ever have been. One of them is Adrienne, Icky's other mommy, and the other two are natural cat lovers; this kitty now exists at pretty much a constant purr.
The apartment is up up up at the top of Manhattan, in Washington Heights. Until I got a bike I didn't really think about the implications of the toponym, but I am now in a position to tell you that the Heights was not named in the same way that Lakewood (no discernible body of water; all trees at least 20 feet apart from each other) apparently was.
From Broadway over to the Hudson, the neighborhood is populated by a mix of young Hispanic families and medical students; walk east of Broadway, and you're entering the northermost outpost of the Dominican Republic. This means color and chaos; bodegas selling plantains; take-out shops offering cheap, plentiful arroz con pollo and mofongo; and occasional boisterous, mystifying parades. It is a lovely neighborhood in many ways—surprisingly quiet, partially patrolled by Columbia Med School police at all times, possessed of a nice little park and ever-present ice cream truck.
The kitty, needless to say, was intrigued by these new surroundings.
He's always been interested in the outside world, but his interaction with it has mostly consisted of growling softly at birds cavorting on the roof opposite my window at Ellery Street, and gazing transfixed at squirrels climbing the drainpipes at Jesse's house. When once we had the idea to "take the kitty on a walk!," the result was decisive. Upon being placed on the walkway, safely strapped into his harness and leash, Icarus hunkered down as low to the ground as he could get, alert and frozen in terror. When a car sped by one street over, he panicked, running back up the steps so fast the line went taught and I had to lunge after him to open the front door before he ran headfirst into it. We never again tried to take him outside.
So I could, perhaps, be excused for thinking that even if he were able to fit through the child-safety grilles that adorn our New York windows, he never would slip himself between them. First of all, there would be nowhere for him to go after reaching the narrow ledge. Second, he would quickly realize that he was now Outside, and remember how much he doesn't actually like to be there.
Obviously, I was completely wrong.
One Sunday, an episode or two into an Arrested Development marathon, I wandered around looking for the cat. We sometimes like to wake him up in the evening in some vain hope that it will make him tired enough not to do horrible, noisy things in the night: this never works, but it's a hard habit to quit. But I couldn't find him under my bed, or under Adrienne's. Diana's door was closed, and Angela's room was open but devoid of cat. Her windows were open a couple of inches, so we closed them ("Just in case. But it's not like he could ever fit out them anyway.") and checked under the sinks, in cabinets, closets, on top of high bookcases. The cat was not in the apartment.
I hadn't actually started to panic yet by the time Angela thought to open one of her windows all the way and look out. I had done the same in the living room, where the windows with the biggest ledge are, and seen no cat on the sill or slinking around the courtyard below. When Angela stuck her head out, she saw green eyes glowing back at her from the fire escape, a few feet to the left of her window and a floor below.
It was a good test of how quickly I could open the safety grate on Adrienne's window, the one that leads to the fire escape. Icky had retreated another floor down in the meantime, but had the sense not to run away from us. We brought him back inside, closed all the windows, no matter how narrowly they had been open, and went online to research microchipping.
The kitty retreated under a bed and presumably slept soundly. He has since tried many times to squeeze his head out of barely open windows, but jumps away whenever he notices that I'm watching him. The one upside of New York summers is that the windows now all have air conditioners blocking them.
The apartment is up up up at the top of Manhattan, in Washington Heights. Until I got a bike I didn't really think about the implications of the toponym, but I am now in a position to tell you that the Heights was not named in the same way that Lakewood (no discernible body of water; all trees at least 20 feet apart from each other) apparently was.
From Broadway over to the Hudson, the neighborhood is populated by a mix of young Hispanic families and medical students; walk east of Broadway, and you're entering the northermost outpost of the Dominican Republic. This means color and chaos; bodegas selling plantains; take-out shops offering cheap, plentiful arroz con pollo and mofongo; and occasional boisterous, mystifying parades. It is a lovely neighborhood in many ways—surprisingly quiet, partially patrolled by Columbia Med School police at all times, possessed of a nice little park and ever-present ice cream truck.
The kitty, needless to say, was intrigued by these new surroundings.
He's always been interested in the outside world, but his interaction with it has mostly consisted of growling softly at birds cavorting on the roof opposite my window at Ellery Street, and gazing transfixed at squirrels climbing the drainpipes at Jesse's house. When once we had the idea to "take the kitty on a walk!," the result was decisive. Upon being placed on the walkway, safely strapped into his harness and leash, Icarus hunkered down as low to the ground as he could get, alert and frozen in terror. When a car sped by one street over, he panicked, running back up the steps so fast the line went taught and I had to lunge after him to open the front door before he ran headfirst into it. We never again tried to take him outside.
So I could, perhaps, be excused for thinking that even if he were able to fit through the child-safety grilles that adorn our New York windows, he never would slip himself between them. First of all, there would be nowhere for him to go after reaching the narrow ledge. Second, he would quickly realize that he was now Outside, and remember how much he doesn't actually like to be there.
Obviously, I was completely wrong.
One Sunday, an episode or two into an Arrested Development marathon, I wandered around looking for the cat. We sometimes like to wake him up in the evening in some vain hope that it will make him tired enough not to do horrible, noisy things in the night: this never works, but it's a hard habit to quit. But I couldn't find him under my bed, or under Adrienne's. Diana's door was closed, and Angela's room was open but devoid of cat. Her windows were open a couple of inches, so we closed them ("Just in case. But it's not like he could ever fit out them anyway.") and checked under the sinks, in cabinets, closets, on top of high bookcases. The cat was not in the apartment.
I hadn't actually started to panic yet by the time Angela thought to open one of her windows all the way and look out. I had done the same in the living room, where the windows with the biggest ledge are, and seen no cat on the sill or slinking around the courtyard below. When Angela stuck her head out, she saw green eyes glowing back at her from the fire escape, a few feet to the left of her window and a floor below.
It was a good test of how quickly I could open the safety grate on Adrienne's window, the one that leads to the fire escape. Icky had retreated another floor down in the meantime, but had the sense not to run away from us. We brought him back inside, closed all the windows, no matter how narrowly they had been open, and went online to research microchipping.
The kitty retreated under a bed and presumably slept soundly. He has since tried many times to squeeze his head out of barely open windows, but jumps away whenever he notices that I'm watching him. The one upside of New York summers is that the windows now all have air conditioners blocking them.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
the audacity of spelling
While crashing in Boston until my apartment is ready in New York (I somehow have a claim on an affordable room right near Columbia Med School, thanks mostly to Adrienne), I've been passing the time with a lot of editing. And because I have a borrowed bike, a fantastic Australian messenger bag, and a fearlessness borne of cycling the streets of Amsterdam, I do much of that editing at Toscanini's in Central Square.
Perhaps the best way to describe the clientel of Tosc's is to relate this exchange, overheard today between a patient young mother and her ice cream-covered five-year-old:
Child (reading a poster on the wall): I... F... F...
Mother: Good! That stands for "International Film Festival." They show lots of movies from all over the world. What's that next word?
Child, haltingly: B... O... S... T... O... N.
Mother: Do you think you can you sound that word out, Abby? It's a word you know.
Child, at once, triumphantly: Barack Obama?!
Mother: Nnnnnnooo.
Perhaps the best way to describe the clientel of Tosc's is to relate this exchange, overheard today between a patient young mother and her ice cream-covered five-year-old:
Child (reading a poster on the wall): I... F... F...
Mother: Good! That stands for "International Film Festival." They show lots of movies from all over the world. What's that next word?
Child, haltingly: B... O... S... T... O... N.
Mother: Do you think you can you sound that word out, Abby? It's a word you know.
Child, at once, triumphantly: Barack Obama?!
Mother: Nnnnnnooo.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Io must have had powerful gams
The domestic cat would be, as a species, in big trouble if it weren't for humans. I base this assertion mostly on the behavior and weaknesses of my cat, who—I am perfectly willing to believe—is a particularly feeble-minded example of his kind. Icky is slow at adapting to new surroundings, terrified of benign objects like brooms, and pretty bad at balancing. He has only recently reached a grudging truce with the dustbuster; like a human toddler, he will attempt to eat any small-ish object he comes across on the ground, which means his snacks tend to be small scraps of paper and balls of his own hair mixed with dust.
Much of this may be particular to this cat, but cats in general are still in a pretty bad way. They clean their outsides by removing all dirt to their insides, a process that is not helped by the weakness of their stomachs. Anyone who has heard the dreadful hrrrrruk-ing sounds of a hairball on its way up has had occasion to marvel that cats have survived so many millennia of evolution despite being poisonous to their own selves.
These were my ideas about cats, but I discovered how wrong they actually were during my last week in Amsterdam, which I spent mostly in Istanbul. (I've left Amsterdam, by the way. More on that, possibly, later.) Istanbul, besides being the fourth largest city in the world in terms of human population, is probably the first or second in terms of feral cat numbers. Istanbul has cats like Trafalgar Square has pigeons and Harvard Square has squirrels: they are bold, they are hungry, and they would overwhelm you in a fight with swiftness and ease, if it came to that.
There was a lot to Istanbul besides the cats, and I may get to the monuments and mosques and museums later. But my first and most striking impression was of a feline city incidentally inhabited by humans; the cats there, on the whole, are doing pretty well for themselves. With a few notable (and gross) exceptions, they are thin but not emaciated, hungry but not starving. Sometimes shopkeepers seem to put out bowls of water for them, but mostly they seem to be able to fend for themselves. Turkey must have the lowest population of rodents and small birds of any European city.
The cats in the western half of the city probably have no idea about the equally scrappy population on the Asian side: the two halves of the city are connected by a couple of bridges and several ferries, neither of which is a favored transport route for kitties. The Bosphorus Strait is much wider than I had been lead to believe by the myths. I don't think even an enchanted cow could cross it under her own power.
Much of this may be particular to this cat, but cats in general are still in a pretty bad way. They clean their outsides by removing all dirt to their insides, a process that is not helped by the weakness of their stomachs. Anyone who has heard the dreadful hrrrrruk-ing sounds of a hairball on its way up has had occasion to marvel that cats have survived so many millennia of evolution despite being poisonous to their own selves.
These were my ideas about cats, but I discovered how wrong they actually were during my last week in Amsterdam, which I spent mostly in Istanbul. (I've left Amsterdam, by the way. More on that, possibly, later.) Istanbul, besides being the fourth largest city in the world in terms of human population, is probably the first or second in terms of feral cat numbers. Istanbul has cats like Trafalgar Square has pigeons and Harvard Square has squirrels: they are bold, they are hungry, and they would overwhelm you in a fight with swiftness and ease, if it came to that.
There was a lot to Istanbul besides the cats, and I may get to the monuments and mosques and museums later. But my first and most striking impression was of a feline city incidentally inhabited by humans; the cats there, on the whole, are doing pretty well for themselves. With a few notable (and gross) exceptions, they are thin but not emaciated, hungry but not starving. Sometimes shopkeepers seem to put out bowls of water for them, but mostly they seem to be able to fend for themselves. Turkey must have the lowest population of rodents and small birds of any European city.
The cats in the western half of the city probably have no idea about the equally scrappy population on the Asian side: the two halves of the city are connected by a couple of bridges and several ferries, neither of which is a favored transport route for kitties. The Bosphorus Strait is much wider than I had been lead to believe by the myths. I don't think even an enchanted cow could cross it under her own power.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Easier to overhear than to converse
Most of the Dutch speak English, to the extent that they pretty much categorically refuse to let me practice my Dutch by about a half-sentence into any given conversation. And by "most of the Dutch" I of course mean "students and shopkeepers."
Blue-collar workers, however, don't generally have any need to keep up their Engels skills.
On the one hand, this is cool, as it forces me to really dig into my vocabulary and hone my listening comprehension skills whenever a repairman crosses my path. On the other, it makes me sound like a fool.
Especially over the phone.
Usually, my Dutch phone conversations are limited to me saying "he's not here" or "I'll go get him," since no one ever calls for me. But today a plumber phoned up—let's call him Henk—and launched into a lengthy, mostly one-sided conversation that went something like this:
me: hallo.
Henk: grble scharben Sarphatistraat 674 hartshmink walls -
me: uh, this is Sarphatistraat 682.
Henk: kolachedm smifften under-neighbors itsje water on the ceiling gijdesch korble come upstairs -
me: uh huh...
Henk: brijter kerbing op niedepor take a look at prijstenk rarster -
me: uh. huh.
Henk:
me:
Henk: sortgrap eenarm -
me: i, um. i don't speak a whole lot of Dutch.
Henk: your under neighbors, in 674, they have a laaking so i will come up to take a look.
me: that sounds. that would be great. yeah.
Henk: ok see you soon!
me: yeah. bye!
Henk popped round a few minutes later, covered in plaster and exceedingly interested in our floors. I was able to tell him that "it hasn't been wet," and that "a plumber should be coming here but i don't know why or when," but he didn't seem very impressed with my information. I called my roommate and offered to put him on the phone with Henk, who looked doubtful.
"He speaks Nederlands?" Henk asked.
"Ja," I said. Their conversation was, from what I could follow, about 40% about me and my communication skills.
"Your floor is not wet," Henk told me as he collected his tools.
"Nope," I agreed.
"You don't have a leak," he assured me.
"Great!" I said, and he left.
We have someone coming to look at the oven later this week. Maybe I should study or something.
Blue-collar workers, however, don't generally have any need to keep up their Engels skills.
On the one hand, this is cool, as it forces me to really dig into my vocabulary and hone my listening comprehension skills whenever a repairman crosses my path. On the other, it makes me sound like a fool.
Especially over the phone.
Usually, my Dutch phone conversations are limited to me saying "he's not here" or "I'll go get him," since no one ever calls for me. But today a plumber phoned up—let's call him Henk—and launched into a lengthy, mostly one-sided conversation that went something like this:
me: hallo.
Henk: grble scharben Sarphatistraat 674 hartshmink walls -
me: uh, this is Sarphatistraat 682.
Henk: kolachedm smifften under-neighbors itsje water on the ceiling gijdesch korble come upstairs -
me: uh huh...
Henk: brijter kerbing op niedepor take a look at prijstenk rarster -
me: uh. huh.
Henk:
me:
Henk: sortgrap eenarm -
me: i, um. i don't speak a whole lot of Dutch.
Henk: your under neighbors, in 674, they have a laaking so i will come up to take a look.
me: that sounds. that would be great. yeah.
Henk: ok see you soon!
me: yeah. bye!
Henk popped round a few minutes later, covered in plaster and exceedingly interested in our floors. I was able to tell him that "it hasn't been wet," and that "a plumber should be coming here but i don't know why or when," but he didn't seem very impressed with my information. I called my roommate and offered to put him on the phone with Henk, who looked doubtful.
"He speaks Nederlands?" Henk asked.
"Ja," I said. Their conversation was, from what I could follow, about 40% about me and my communication skills.
"Your floor is not wet," Henk told me as he collected his tools.
"Nope," I agreed.
"You don't have a leak," he assured me.
"Great!" I said, and he left.
We have someone coming to look at the oven later this week. Maybe I should study or something.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The Big Not-As-Easy-As-It-Looks
I love seeing pictures of NBA players doing things—anything, really—in street clothes. On the court, their sheer size and gangliness is usually obscured by their baggy uniforms and similarly large teammates; it's easier to assume that the league hires midget referees than it is to grasp the hugeness of these ballers.
So I've been enjoying all the pictures from NBA All-Star weekend in New Orleans, when a bunch of the league's hottest players took some time off to help with the rebuilding effort. My favorite link is, a video of highlights from the NBA Cares day. What you can learn from this video:
So I've been enjoying all the pictures from NBA All-Star weekend in New Orleans, when a bunch of the league's hottest players took some time off to help with the rebuilding effort. My favorite link is, a video of highlights from the NBA Cares day. What you can learn from this video:
- NBA players are fragile, so you must encase them in plastic.
- NBA players basically all could have backup careers as painters. These guys don't need ladders at all—watch Dirk Nowitzki paint an entire room without even having to stetch!
- BUT, NBA players appear to be generally horrible at painting. I had to avert my eyes when watching Steve Nash and Jason Kidd slap paint on a door. Dad, actually, please just avoid this video entirely.
- And, there's always the danger that a reporter will come along and disctract your player/worker at a photogenic moment, which will both waste time and result in him scratching the hell out of the window he's supposed to be cleaning.
- Still, I might not mind living in a patchily painted house, as long as I got to tell visitors, "See that dent in the top of the doorframe? That's where LeBron James banged his head while carrying a bucket of caulk."
Saturday, February 16, 2008
a hint of llama
I kind of love the Artis, the Amsterdam Zoo. Maybe I love all zoos but don't think to visit them unless I'm actively exploring a new city, or maybe it's just an especially nice example. Maybe my proximity to it—my building is across the street from the zoo's southeast corner—gives me more of a sense of fraternity or ownership.
Whatever the reason, I love the Artis. It's somehow comforting to know that all those mischevious otters, sleepy monkeys, exuberant sea lions, and fearless butterflies are there, across the canal and beyond the fence I bike past every day, going about their artificial yet seemingly carefree lives.
What's less good about those little guys is their aroma.
It's only been really noticeable in the past week or so (when, incidentally, the weather has turned clear but cold), but the Artis smells like the cages of a thousand chinchillas, plus the swiftly decomposing bodies of a million fish. It's a smell that the wind seems unable to carry: once you pass the far corner of the zoo the air is fresh and springy again, but for that one block, the scent is overwhelming.
One of the gorillas has a blog, which I'm currently trolling for answers to this redolent mystery.
Whatever the reason, I love the Artis. It's somehow comforting to know that all those mischevious otters, sleepy monkeys, exuberant sea lions, and fearless butterflies are there, across the canal and beyond the fence I bike past every day, going about their artificial yet seemingly carefree lives.
What's less good about those little guys is their aroma.
It's only been really noticeable in the past week or so (when, incidentally, the weather has turned clear but cold), but the Artis smells like the cages of a thousand chinchillas, plus the swiftly decomposing bodies of a million fish. It's a smell that the wind seems unable to carry: once you pass the far corner of the zoo the air is fresh and springy again, but for that one block, the scent is overwhelming.
One of the gorillas has a blog, which I'm currently trolling for answers to this redolent mystery.
Friday, February 15, 2008
the customer isn't right if you don't realize you have customers
Once, when my mom and I were in a market in Turkey, we met a very persistent merchant. Actually we met many; actually, every merchant in Turkey, as far as I can tell, is pushy to the point of nearly assaulting his customers. This one stands out in my memory, though, because he impressed me.
"You would like a necklace for your pretty daughter?" he asked my mother. "I don't speak English," Mom answered in German. "I speak only Deutsch."
"No you don't," countered the man, correctly, and fluently, also in German.
He had her number—that was his job, to see through excuses and communicate with everyone he could. He and his bretheren accost you as soon as you're in range and don't let go until they've made a sale or you've somehow scampered away. Being aggressive salesmen is how they make their living, which is not to say I particularly enjoy either having products pushed on me or soliciting dontations myself.
Anywhere there are salespeople in the world, there will be an attempt to greet potential customers, tempt them with products, close the deal.
Except in the Netherlands.
Here, the stallkeepers at the street markets go out of their way not to hassle you. It took me 15 minutes to buy 100g of shiitake mushrooms today: after I finally got the man's attention long enough to ask the price, he immediately turned away to fiddle with his stock of beets; eventually I snagged him again long enough to weigh my order; it took a while longer before he remembered I should be getting some change.
Honestly, I like this way much better.
In stores here, no one rushes up to you within three seconds of your entrance to cheerily ask if you're looking for anything in particular and give you a name you'll invariably forget by the time the cashier asks who was helping you. The salesgirls will never "[pick] out a few other skirts [they] think might look really cute on you." Here, you'd be lucky to find someone willing to look in the back for another size.
This can be great—I love not having to repeat "I'm just looking" seven times during a wander through a too-expensive clothing store. And it's relaxing to know that no matter how long I sit reading over an empty cup at my favorite cafe, no one will come over to hurry me on my way on the pretext of asking me if I want anything else. But this breezy neglect cuts both ways: it can often take upwards of 20 mintues to get the attention of a waiter at all, first to get the menus, then to place an order, and finally to get the check.
I once made eye contact three times with the waitress at the cafe where I am a regular, the first time nodding a little as if to say, "yes, I'm ready to order." She nodded back and went on stacking cups. The next time she looked my way, I smiled and waved a little, in that (nearly) universal way that means "I'd like you to come over here so I can give you my drink order." She smiled and waved back.
The third time, I gave her a stare that (to most of the world) clearly says "hello? do you not see me sitting here? the girl who looks thirsty and kind of irritated?"
Her gaze slipped past me, over to the window, and she walked over to the bagel oven to check on the current batch.
"You would like a necklace for your pretty daughter?" he asked my mother. "I don't speak English," Mom answered in German. "I speak only Deutsch."
"No you don't," countered the man, correctly, and fluently, also in German.
He had her number—that was his job, to see through excuses and communicate with everyone he could. He and his bretheren accost you as soon as you're in range and don't let go until they've made a sale or you've somehow scampered away. Being aggressive salesmen is how they make their living, which is not to say I particularly enjoy either having products pushed on me or soliciting dontations myself.
Anywhere there are salespeople in the world, there will be an attempt to greet potential customers, tempt them with products, close the deal.
Except in the Netherlands.
Here, the stallkeepers at the street markets go out of their way not to hassle you. It took me 15 minutes to buy 100g of shiitake mushrooms today: after I finally got the man's attention long enough to ask the price, he immediately turned away to fiddle with his stock of beets; eventually I snagged him again long enough to weigh my order; it took a while longer before he remembered I should be getting some change.
Honestly, I like this way much better.
In stores here, no one rushes up to you within three seconds of your entrance to cheerily ask if you're looking for anything in particular and give you a name you'll invariably forget by the time the cashier asks who was helping you. The salesgirls will never "[pick] out a few other skirts [they] think might look really cute on you." Here, you'd be lucky to find someone willing to look in the back for another size.
This can be great—I love not having to repeat "I'm just looking" seven times during a wander through a too-expensive clothing store. And it's relaxing to know that no matter how long I sit reading over an empty cup at my favorite cafe, no one will come over to hurry me on my way on the pretext of asking me if I want anything else. But this breezy neglect cuts both ways: it can often take upwards of 20 mintues to get the attention of a waiter at all, first to get the menus, then to place an order, and finally to get the check.
I once made eye contact three times with the waitress at the cafe where I am a regular, the first time nodding a little as if to say, "yes, I'm ready to order." She nodded back and went on stacking cups. The next time she looked my way, I smiled and waved a little, in that (nearly) universal way that means "I'd like you to come over here so I can give you my drink order." She smiled and waved back.
The third time, I gave her a stare that (to most of the world) clearly says "hello? do you not see me sitting here? the girl who looks thirsty and kind of irritated?"
Her gaze slipped past me, over to the window, and she walked over to the bagel oven to check on the current batch.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
the wheels of democracy
I voted in the Democratic primary. Which means, yes, that I've finally chosen to participate in the American political process... now that I no longer live in that country. But there are finally Democratic candidates to get excited about, so for the first time I actually care about the pre-national election part of the system.
Who did I cast my ballot for? Well, I'm in the category of young, well-educated people, and voted accordingly.
How did I vote, from Amsterdam, if I've been a resident of Massachusetts for a while but still might possibly be on the California census? It seems the Democratic Party is aware that many of its constituents have fled the country in recent years for places where government is about policy and progress, rather than legislating morality. So the Democratic Party set up Democrats Abroad, which has 23 delegates (!!!) dedicated to it, and allows anyone with a passport to sign up and get civic.
There is not currently a Republicans Abroad, possibly because too many Republicans dislike that which is foreign to make up a significant expat community. Or because they don't have as many missing Michigan and Florida delegates to make up for.
In any case, here's to change, if only so the Europeans will stop sniggering whenever they hear the phrase "American foreign policy."
Who did I cast my ballot for? Well, I'm in the category of young, well-educated people, and voted accordingly.
How did I vote, from Amsterdam, if I've been a resident of Massachusetts for a while but still might possibly be on the California census? It seems the Democratic Party is aware that many of its constituents have fled the country in recent years for places where government is about policy and progress, rather than legislating morality. So the Democratic Party set up Democrats Abroad, which has 23 delegates (!!!) dedicated to it, and allows anyone with a passport to sign up and get civic.
There is not currently a Republicans Abroad, possibly because too many Republicans dislike that which is foreign to make up a significant expat community. Or because they don't have as many missing Michigan and Florida delegates to make up for.
In any case, here's to change, if only so the Europeans will stop sniggering whenever they hear the phrase "American foreign policy."
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