End of the year cleaning

Some tidbits from the last week or so I want to file away...

On Monday of last week my Dutch teacher started class by asking us if we knew what year WWII ended.  Instantly sobered by the idea of a lesson on the devastation in Belgium during the war, I was relieved and disappointed when the pertinent detail was that in 1945 they set the record for the most snowy days in December.  (Brutal timing, no?)  They had 16 days of snow that year.  That Monday was the 20^th, Winter had technically not even begun yet, and we had had 18 days of snow.  Since then it has kept snowing more often than not.  I am looking forward to hearing our total, and getting bragging rights that I was there in the winter of ’10 when it snowed all month.  Unless climate change makes that the new norm.  Gawd, climate change is such a killjoy.

A couple weeks ago we went up to Antwerp for the day (the picture above is downstairs in the train station and the last one is upstairs).  Katrien and her cousin went shopping, while I walked around from holiday music band to band, people watching, and occasionally taking (disappointing) pictures.  It was a tad below zero, and I went to heat up in my default favorite option for this, a massive bookstore…to find that it was a travel agency.  Turns out just the bottom level is a giant travel agency, packed with people buying package tours at desk after desk, while upstairs is the bookstore, which focuses on, surprise, travel books.

Fine by me, so I had just lowered a massive tome about South America when my phone rang, Katrien calling to say she was ready to meet up and head home.  I replaced the giant book and was hustling down the stairs, answering the call as I went.

On the other end Katrien heard me say hello, then I assume a moment of silence or maybe rushing wind, then a massive banging sound, silence for a second, and me saying “s’alright.”  Yeah, I had fallen down the stairs.  In front of the entire flat of travel agency.  The stairway, slick with melting slushy snow, was of course metal, so the acoustics on this thing as you can imagine were mighty.  The ratio of concern to hidden smiles was just about right, maybe 1:473.

Good thing that didn’t happen when I was younger and easily embarrassed, hey?

And today I applied for a job with Procter & Gamble, and in addition to sending a resume they have you answer an ethical and hypothetical questionnaire, then take a “reasoning test”.  That thing was hard!  I had to take one before they’d let me take the Dutch class (oddly enough), and the questions were along the lines of

What comes next in this sequence?  One dot, two dots, three dots, _____.

A: Four dots.  B: A triangle.  C: Turmeric  D: A circus monkey.

But not P&G!  Theirs were way more interesting.  Abstract shapes with surprising shading and indecipherable 3 dimensionality.  And you only have 2 and a half minutes to figure them out.  So if anyone here has access to those tests, send me a copy, I want to figure them all out!  Maybe on the plane to Edinburgh tomorrow…which reminds me, I should pack.

Festive Hogmanay and Happy New Year to all!

Holiday Progress

My first blog was going to be called “A Year Without Holidays” because I spent the holiday season of 2008 abroad, traveling away from home and family, and I felt like those holidays weren’t real ones, basically just more expensive hostel dorm rooms.  (Not exactly my real sentiment, but it’ll do for now.)

This year I am still abroad, but no longer travelling, and I found my holidays.

I spent Thanksgiving 2008 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and although it is still one of my favourite places, that day I was standing in a basement grocery store, deciding if splurging on goulash was worth it or whether to go with basic spaghetti again, when suddenly I realized I was far from home and family, surrounded by people who had no idea it was even a holiday (for me anyway) and I was choosing between shitty goulash and boring spaghetti on Thanksgiving.  And it sucked.  It was no longer fun.  I stood in front of that damn counter, fighting the water in my eyes while I ordered goulash I no longer wanted (and ended up forgetting in the hostel fridge).

It was one of the two lowest moments of my trip, I think of my adult life in general, and I was not looking forward to Christmas.  Life is a tricky bastard though, and that Christmas I met Katrien, the woman I now live with in a snow-buried studio apartment Belgium.

So this year, I spent Thanksgiving back in the States with my family.  And Christmas will be here with hers.  And although I still basically missed Halloween (it’s not very popular here…yet) I had my first Sinter Klaas, the Belgian tradition where an old white-bearded guy with elf helpers brings presents to kids.  Except he has nothing to do with Christmas, is rake thin, sails up from his home in Spain, and his elves would be inadmissible in America since they are basically in blackface, “Black Pete” being the chief among them, face blacked by the soot of your chimneys.  (I particularly like that he lives in Spain.  I have a mental image of when that detail was added, some kid asking “Daddy, where does Sinter Klaas live?”  The dad frowning for a second, “shit, I dunno…um…Spain?  Yeah, Sinter Klaas lives in Spain, son.”)

And New Years here involves carolling and something like trick-or-treating but without the tricks and costumes, going house to house singing and giving treats and hot drinks.

And even more!  This year I will spend (weather permitting) New Years Eve in Scotland, where that day is Hogmanay, whose roots go back to Norse winter solstice rituals and incorporate Gaellic elements of Samhain, with local customs varying from throwing fireballs into the harbour in Stonehaven to carrying decorated herring (yes, the fish) in Dundee.  The most common tradition though is “first footing” also known by its more charistmatic Gaelic name “quaaltagh”, where the first person to cross a house’s threshold sets the luck for the year.  The first-footer (I’m not making that term up) often brings symbolic gifts like a coin (prosperity), salt (flavor), bread (food…not exactly symbolic, that one), coal (warmth), or alcohol (good cheer…cuz that’s how Scots roll) and is in turn given food and a hot drink.

So in 2008, Halloween was sadly forgotten, Valentine’s Day (happily) ignored, and Thanksgiving a new low of crapitude.  But in 2010 I got my Thanksgiving turkey, Sinter Klaas put gingerbread and marzipan in my shoe, and maybe I can first-foot our hostel on Hogmanay.  If two years ago was the year without holidays, then this is the year of twice as many.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

Fijne Kerstdagen en een Gelukkige Nieuwjaar!

And what the hell: Feliz Navidad y un Próspero Año Nuevo too!

Stop, heyey, what's that sound?

I heard a new sound last night.

The leaves of the grandfatherly tree were frozen, and when the breeze seeped through them it was a crackle of dry and cold.  Elsewhere leaves famously rustle, but here they sometimes crackle.

Then it started to...I don't know the word, I actually doubt English has the right word for it, I need one of those anecdotal Inuit languages with their 23 words for snow.  It wasn't snow, nor was it hail.  It was salt crystals of dry frozen water that decorated my jacket and sat like sleeper cells in my hair, waiting for body heat to melt them into unexpected cranial kisses as I took my seat in class.

I stood out in the dry precipitant salting, smiling up into the tree, listening to its skittering giggles.  Winter may be a sever old man, but he can still sometimes giggle.  The Belgians waiting for their classes may have thought I was a tad touched in the head.

The Romanians walked up, sleep-deprived eyes burning even more intensely than usual.  He gets up at 4:30 AM to go to work at the construction site.  He sets his Coke down next to him, and sometimes when he goes to drink it, it is frozen.  He does not blink while telling me about never having time to do anything beyond work and sleep.

"Sometimes I am want to look at the TV, and I am there 10 minute only and you hear me...""  He makes a snoring gesture and sound.  I cannot quite remember what a snoring gesture looks like, but I understood it clearly at the time.

The cold is punches, and I fear the Romanian's boss may soon hear what "all work and no play makes Traian a dull boy" sounds like in Romanian while axes chop down doors...but last night that cold gave me a gift.

I was riding home, cheekbones a broadening sting, nose (thankfully) not even communicating any more, and as an oncoming car drove by I made a screaming face at it.  And remembered!  That's me!  I do things like that!  I sing to myself on crowded streets, and dance on street corners (if the song is good) to the confusion of commuting Berliners.  Oh yeah!

Lately the prospect of building a life overseas and otherlinguistically has seemed daunting and impossible, and it has squeezed me in a bit.  I started going to temp agencies yesterday and was nearly mute with shyness.  But Father Winter reminded me last night that some crazy lives in me, which makes everything so much better.

So when I went temp-agency-trawling today I was still blushing and sweating, sure, but not nearly as profusely as yesterday.

Thank you Father Winter, you passively belligerent bastard!

Amurrika, funk yar!

I am getting too close to abandoning this blog to the dust, so I am going to sit here with a pack of chips and a 3 flavored wheel of hummus, and tell you about my trip back to the states.    The yellow hummus tastes like cinnamon.  Not really in a good way.

Our layovers this time were in Philadelphia, where my exuberance at speaking the local language led me to try and talk to airport staff.  I am not sure if they just didn't hear me, weren't expecting conversation, or whether smug jokes from a Giants fan about the Phillies were not a good idea.  (The prospect of the second one makes me sad...where people talk to each other amiably so infrequently that they stop even listening for the possibility.)  The airport is pretty normal, but they do have cool rocking chairs lining the hallways.  Here's Katrien relaxing.

The early part of the trip was fantastiliscious.  Friends and food and family and fun.  (This part of the trip is brought to you by the letter F.  I'm trying to remember if there was any flamboyant fabric...)

The old hometown of Santa Cruz was oddly offputting at first, perhaps because I couldn’t remember how to be there or what to do.  Enjoyed it though, a few precious old friends, a cookie factory, wandering around the downtown drag (did I really just use that expression?), and eating the nostalgic food; Santa Cruz is arguably the best place in the world for breakfast.

People-watched at the farmer’s market until the stomach flopped then got the hell out of town

Road trip to Santa Barbara to visit Grandma, who was never actually called Grandma.  She is an interesting woman who I feel I never really met before my grandfather died, their conjoined personality focusing on each other so much that outside dealings were diffused between the two, aquaintanceship the barrier.

She is still mostly sharp, and taking her to the dining hall the first night was enjoyable, though a busybody pain in the tookus bureaucrat lady impinged on it a bit, and I was not sure how much rascally disparagement of this was appropriate with Granny.

Leaving the peculiar silvered world of the retirement community, with its blazing exhortation to enjoy life while it’s flexible, we headed down to Santa Barbara’s (in)famous State Street, which I remember as a promenade of SoCal mass-produced and unimaginative “beauty.”  This time however it was pretty darn cold, and Sunday night to boot, so there was nay a swollen and precarious ego or carefully copied image to be seen, just some steadfast hippies with their nag champa.

We retreated to the hotel room, which was ill equipped for the chill, with enthusiastically noisy but ineffectual heater and one thin blanket.  It was like Malibu’s version of a gulag.

The next morning we headed back to take Grandma to lunch, but she was heavily depleted by a fever the night before and kept falling asleep.  Instead of heading to the main dining room, we tried the smaller one in the “Health Center” (the more intensive care facility…i.e. Hell-th Center).  Bureaucracy had an even tighter grip there though, so when we sat down and filled out the little menu on the table it threw an arthritic wrench in their machine and we were kicked out, but not before the man who normally sits at that table peered at his filled out menu and yelled “who the hell is Virginia Tendick?”

Relegated to the “TV room” in the hallway, Grandma fell asleep, I read the paper, and the flatscreen plasma played endless classic Hollywood movies with their clipped speech, folksyness, and static close-mouthed kisses.  I did enjoy listening with half an ear to their quaintly out of date discussions of ridiculous morality.  The Australian woman swimmer (with a light British accent) went on the beach with her legs showing!  Gasp!

A denizen from across the hall painfully wheeled herself closer, inch by inch, conversation generally inaudible but relentless, though we did pick out occasional moments such as when she was jabbing a gnarled finger at Katrien and demanding “Does she speak?  Can this one speak?  Why doesn’t this one speak?”  Then nightmarishly pointing at the back of my grandma’s head and saying “We don’t like it when they come out like that one.”  We tried valiantly to interact politely and keep from condescending, but I was inundated with gratitude when one of the staff came and wheeled her away.

After saying goodbye to Grandma, with all the morbid overtones of finality that that always entails, we headed up to San Luis Obispo, where we enjoyed the recommendations of my brother, particularly with regards to the sashimi.  I normally go with sushi rolls over sashimi, enjoying the combination of flavours, but he strenuously recommended the albacore tataki, and dear lordie in the great big blue sky above, was he ever right.

So if you are ever in San Luis, go to Goshi, at the corner of Higuera and Nipomo.  My God.  Okay, I can’t think about it anymore or I’ll go crazy.  Then I won’t be able to speak, and we hate it when they come out like that.

We were staying in a greasy little hotel just off the highway and were woken up at 3:00 AM by the fire trucks and ambulances as the Ramada across the street burned.  We couldn’t see actual flames from our perpendicular window, but the world stank of smoke.  Greasy getting greasier.

Then back up the coast to Capitola, where we watched the sun set from the pier and listened to the exuberant crunches of a sea otter next to us cheerily eating his dinner.  Those animals are way cuter than necessary, thank goodness.

A quick burrito with another good friend, then up the coast to the Pigeon Point lighthouse.  I dunno if you’ve ever driven Highway 1 between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay, but if you have, this is the lighthouse halfway between them where you should have stopped.  There is a hostel run out of the four little white cottages, though you can no longer go in the actual lighthouse, which is rusting away in solemn nobility.

Recommendation number two (you didn't forget the sashimi already, did you?): stay at this hostel.  They have a hot tub.  It’s right on the edge of the cliff over the godly waves of the Pacific Ocean.  You sign up for a half hour slot, and that half hour encompassed a fair portion of my soul.  The night was clear, calm, and cold.  (This Face of the Divine moment is brought to you by the letter C.)  The stars were riotous and reckless, despite San Francisco and the Bay Area lurking just beyond the hills, with the Milky Way in sacred full frontal overhead.

My two favorite places in the world right now are Chefchaouen, Morocco, and the Pigeon Point Lighthouse just south of Pescadero, California.

(My beloved Highway 1 between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz.)

 

One more night in San Francisco, Indian food, a bar with a peculiar female denizen brazenly asking a friend for sex (awwwkward), and caught a morning flight back across the Atlantic.  Homes sweet homes.

Peaceful anxiety

I just spent a couple hours looking through job postings, and was well under the cold thick water of discouragement, frustration, and anxiety regarding my chances at successful living here.  Then I looked outside and saw snowflakes.

There is a unique stillness to snow.

Passing on bicycle under a highway overpass Monday morning, the sound of relentless and self-important semi trucks of shipping empires overhead was just the murmur of a television turned down a couple rooms away, and the modest whir of my tires was humbled and self-effacing between snow-covered fields.

Maybe my awe at the uncaring and intimate (it’s like a zombie that wants to snuggle) whiteness reveals that I am a nooby to this stuff.  Maybe one who has lived at mountainous altitude or monstrous latitude for awhile finds it simply something to deal with, but for me it is still magic.

So I still feel sick to my stomach at the barrier of finding employment here, but in the meantime the gentle drifts are slowly growing on the balcony, and this cup of tea sounds better and better.