So. Where were we? Ah, yes...
We arrived in Amsterdam mid-day on the 28th to a swelteringly hot day. We took a $25 cab ride to our hotel (as mentioned previously, the gorgeous
Hotel Washington). The kind hotel staff carried our bags up the steepest staircase in the world:
A side note here- apparently, at some point in Amsterdam history, you were taxed according to the amount of footage (meterage, whatever) the building's facade occupied- so if you had ten linear feet across the front of your house, you would pay a rate based on that length. This is supposed to explain why the staircases are so narrow (because the houses are so narrow), thus if your rooms are also built with high ceilings (as they were in the 18-1900s), then your staircase ends up more like a ladder. This one wasn't the worst I saw, but when you got to the top where the staircase turned toward the upper landing, the stairs were no more than a few inches wide at points. Even on the lower steps, the treads were maybe six inches deep. I feel like I've said this all before. Have I? Oh, well. Regardless, it was just one of those quirky things that are common in the houses in Amsterdam, and I thought I'd share it with you.
Anyway, before we went out to see the city, I used the restroom to confirm that the reddish smears on the tissue that I'd seen earlier were, in fact, sweet Aunt Flo, coming all the way to Europe to find me. And I walked out of the restroom and told H that it looked like my period had arrived 4 days early, just in time for me to be crampy and nauseated and even more tired throughout our entire journey in Amsterdam AND for the plane ride home, too. YAY! And I tried to keep it light and focus on the whole "being-on-your-period-SUCKS" thing, but H interrupted me to say, "But you were hoping that you wouldn't get your period at all, right?" Oh, boy. Way to cut to the chase. I mean, even though I knew it was a slim-to-no possibility, there's still the hope that you might end up being the statistical outlier, and as tiny as that hope is, when it gets dashed, it roars just as loudly as a great big authentic hope.
Anyhow, we talked about what this meant for us and how I was feeling and how he was feeling and I could just tell that he was crushed. And I know that part of the reason he was crushed was because he knew that I was crushed and it just started to become this circle of "I-feel-bad-because-you-feel-bad"-- oh, what a mess. And so, I abruptly told him that I was just not going to cry about it right then, because I was in Amsterdam for the first time in my life and only for a few days, and I wanted to clear my head and enjoy myself as much as possible.
And so, we set out, wandered around the city for a bit, and ended up having a very overpriced dinner (as I understand is common in Amsterdam- eating out is expensive in Holland...) at a Tex-Mex place. Yeah, yeah. Who in their right mind eats Tex-Mex in the Netherlands? ME. I was just so interested to see what their take on it would be. And really, it was not terrible, but it was NOT Tex-Mex, not even close. The rice was just plain white rice, the beans were whole kidney beans, and the enchiladas were just-- off, somehow. But! The beer was cold and refreshing and served with a lime:
And clearly they had decent taste in hot sauce as well. Tabasco is the good.
As we were walking, H (who was trying to get his bearings) tried to point out several landmarks to me. We were quite turned around for a little bit there, and H pointed out to me, confidently, that the building ahead of us was the Heineken Experience. 'Big building for a beer museum,' I thought. And, of course, upon getting closer to the building, we discovered that it was actually the Rijksmuseum (the big state museum in Amsterdam). And I ribbed H about it, because yeah- mistaking a major art museum for a beer museum? Kind of funny. This lead to the running joke for the rest of the trip which was either one of us blatantly mislabeling some landmark we saw. Cathedral? Nope, it's a McDonalds. Canal? No, silly- that's the Gulf of Mexico. Statue? No, that's the Van Gogh museum!
The "Van Gogh Museum", according to H...
Anyhow, like the old farts that we are, we ended up back at the hotel at around 7:00 p.m. We were just so beat. It was the end of the trip, it was hot, and we'd been lugging damn near 300 lbs of luggage around all day. Back in the hotel, we talked a bit more about what this failed cycle meant, and about seeing the RE at the end of the summer. There's nothing set in stone at this point, but I'm really encouraging H to read ALI blogs written by guys because he seems to feel really lost with this whole situation. I forget sometimes that I am a researcher by nature, and that I have this awesome community of people dealing with all kinds of situations- he doesn't. He's not an obsessive fact-finder. He's not the kind of person with twenty friends. He's not shy- he just prefers to talk one-to-one. So, I think he might find some value in reading other people's stories. Anyone have any advice for how they helped their (hypersensitive) husbands come to terms with infertility? I mean, he's a clever dude, but I just know that he's feeling really lost right now, and probably a little scared to take that first step with me. And I want him to feel as ready as possible when we walk in to that RE's office.
European Coca-Cola sucks, BTW. It's just not right without that punch of high-fructose corn syrup. I mean, it's probably much better for you than the American kind, but I consider myself a connoisseur of Coke, and this isn't it. It just doesn't satisfy the craving like the real stuff. God, I'm a total addict.
Also, just another observation- When I went to Scotland and England with my university orchestra back in 2000, I constantly felt like the fatty-fat-blob-o'-lard-tubby-tubberson type. I was probably right around the weight I'm at now (though maybe a bit heavier, but definitely not in as good shape as I am now), but seriously. Everyone around me was so
thin. And this was even pointed out to me by a dude from one of the colleges that we played a concert with (Leeds music school, I think...). Anyway, dude says to my friend, a 16 year old Mormon harpist who is away from mommy and daddy for the first time, who, dramatic as she was, had in those short days over there acquired a perfect native accent, who had been gabbing at dude all evening, "Your accent is great, but I would have known that you were American even if I met you on the street because, no offense, you're kind of
large." And then he looked toward me as if to say, "See? EVERYONE in America is large." And I acknowledged that he was right, because, yeah. From what I'd seen, I was much larger than the average Scot (or Brit, I guess is what I should say, right?). But then again, judging by the food I ate while over there, if I had stayed much longer, I, too, would have been quite thin.
And so, I don't know if it's just because we were in fairly large cities while over there (which tend to attract a younger, usually thinner, population), or if it's just changed that much in nine years, but I NEVER felt fat while I was in Germany or the Netherlands. Not. At. All. Maybe I'm fitter now. Maybe mainland Europe is vastly different than the British Isles. Maybe the people in Great Britain are vastly thinner than everyone else on that side of the ocean, regardless of trends. The point is that I was all prepared to feel like fatty-fatterson again, and I totally didn't. It was weird. The Germans are not a tiny sort of folk anyhow, but 200 lb me did not feel out of place whatsoever while walking the streets of Nordhorn. And Amsterdam was not much different.
Back to the narrative...
We woke up the next morning (I slept terribly, again.) and set out for the Rijksmuseum (aka the Heineken Experience- ha!). The Rijksmuseum is an enormous museum- E. NOR. MOUS. HUGE. VAST. But, unfortunately, it was largely closed for remodeling. They did have a special exhibit open that was just two small floors of stuff. The exhibit on the bottom floor was focused on the 17-19th century when the Dutch were quite the world power. They had models of ships, and various treasures that had been picked up throughout their conquests, and paintings all having to do with the time in history when the Dutch took center stage in world domination. While it was cool to see some of this stuff, I left that part of the exhibit feeling really, really offended. Because the thing is, the Dutch have a very different history with slavery than we do (they orchestrated the trade, but somehow felt that because they didn't
own slaves that they were somehow innocent in this process), and thus, the nation just feels differently about that part of history. And so, as I read description after description, unapologetically describing their role in slave trade, religious conversion, plundering/pillaging the East, and whaling (these just the most memorable among sins...), I just felt sick to my stomach. The entire exhibit was designed to glorify this part of Dutch history, which, yeah. Woohoo for being an economic superpower! Yay for your domination of shipping lines in the past! Look at all this cool shit you stole! But really? You're not talking about just some random killing here or there. You are unapologetically bragging about your role in
selling human beings. In setting up a system that has caused pain, misery, torture to countless people, that has resulted in a rift among a country that very well may never be healed. And you're
happy? I was just beyond words. Like I said, I understand the difference in our respective countries' histories, but without the Dutch, slavery would NEVER have been prevalent in the US, and so to be so callously flippant about the Dutch role in it, and to be so bald-face as to openly display such idiocy in a STATE art museum? Grr. Just made me mad.
And then, we went upstairs where they had pulled out most of the famous works from the museum's collection, including many, many Rembrandts. And let me tell you. In their description placards for these paintings, if there was some part of an artist's work that was missing from their collection, especially if that work was now in the US, they let you know. You could just tell from reading it that the museum was PISSED when there was some piece of art that they felt belonged to them (by virtue of having been painted by a Dutch person, or by some person who was in the Netherlands when they painted it, or that was at some point handled by a Dutch person, or that was thought of for any amount of time greater than 30 seconds by any Dutch citizen) was in anyone's hands other than theirs. Seriously. It was almost funny. We were viewing a pair of Rembrandt portraits, and apparently, there was originally a third portrait to complete the family. They explained the portraits, who they were, etc., and then abruptly explained that this
should be a threesome, but that the third was now in LOS ANGELES. Um, yeah. Bitter much?
Anyhow, I wish there had been more to see there. We saw some great art, but I hadn't realized when we bought our tickets that the exhibit would be so small. And so, after that, we needed to find something to do. We wanted to go to the Van Gogh museum, but we were a little "arted out" for the morning. So instead, we walked over to the Albert Cuyp street where there is a very large street market.
The vendors sell everything from clothes, to shoes, to produce and fish, to house goods. There's a little of everything. I found two shirts and a pair of shoes for altogether 10 euro. Not bad at all! Cheap, chintzy (sure!), but also cute. We looked at some restaurants for lunch, and as we had already found, the restaurants are expensive! So we wandered a bit further until we saw a sign for a soup restaurant. It was blazing fucking hot, so why on EARTH would I think a soup restaurant was a good idea??? Well, something about it just looked right, so we decided to check it out.
It turned out to be a really sweet little restaurant with (yes) soup, sandwiches, quiches, etc. After eating heavy food for weeks, I was so excited to see some vegetarian food and some somewhat lighter selections. We had the surliest waiter known to mankind (though actually, he was probably just your standard Dutch level of friendliness- the Amsterdamers are not necessarily a friendly sort of people, even if you speak Dutch), but the food? Oh, the food was out of sight! I had gazpacho (my favorite!), broccoli-goat cheese quiche, and perfect wheat bread. And the best part? All for around 7 euro! Score!
We decided that we HAD to come back the next day for this cheap, tasty lunch. After lunch, we went back to our room and took a nap (old farts! old fart alert!). When we woke up, we realized that we didn't have enough time to devote to the Van Gogh museum, and that it was too hot to take a boat tour. We decided instead to just walk around the city to see what we could find, and to hit a few bookstores that I had seen recommended online. And so, we walked. And walked. And walked. And walked some more. It was only about a mile and a half from our hotel, but with the afternoon sun beating down on us, it felt like a LOT more than it was. We hit three different bookstores. I spent ten euro on a fucking magazine, because I am an idiot. See, I saw the price in pounds on the cover and somehow, my tiny brain thought, 'Oh! Only 3.99 euro!', but in fact, the price to get the magazine from London to Amsterdam was, like, another 5 euro in addition to the base price of the magazine (plus conversion rates, etc.), so yeah. It cost ten effin' euro, and the sales clerk was practically gloating as she rang me up. She smugly said, 'Nine euro ninety nine. (smirk)' So I gave her ten, and she smirked at me again before shutting her register without giving me my penny change. I just rolled my eyes. I mean, it was like she was daring me to get shitty with her over a penny. And I almost did. But then, I thought better of it and just left. But what magazine was this that I had to spend $14 on (with the euro to dollar conversion, that is)? Why,
Jamie Magazine, the new project of adorable Mr. Jamie Oliver. I mean, I'm a sucker for food magazines anyhow, but a magazine produced by Mr. Cutie-Pants himself? Oh, yes. Call me a sucker if you want, but what a GREAT buy! I wish we could get it for a reasonable price here in the states. It's a great read, with great recipes and great photography. Sigh.
Anyhow, we then went in to the actual bookstore (the newsstand had a separate entrance), and found hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books, many of which I was convinced that I could NOT live without! But, like everything, books are expensive over there, especially English-language books (though English-language books are cheaper in the Netherlands than they are in Germany, probably because there are lots of Dutch who speak English, too.), and so I only bought a few. Of course, I had also bought a few at an earlier (less remarkable chain-ish) store. And H bought one or two as well. And so H was lugging three bags of books with us as we walked the streets. We got a tiny bit lost (not lost so much as GAH-WHY-THE-HELL-DON'T-THE-DUTCH-BELIEVE-IN-STREET-SIGNS-I'M-SO-TURNED-AROUND-GAH!!!!), but ended up deciding to go toward the Royal Palace to see the monument in the Dam square in front of it. It was still (and even more, perhaps) blazing effin' hot, and so sitting in the very sun-exposed square with the monument didn't seem like a lot of fun. So we decided to sit at one of the cafes surrounding the square and have a beer. We had our first (what felt like) fleecing there, with two large beers costing FOURTEEN euro. But ultimately, that price was almost worth it because it was while sitting there that I saw this (now-)infamous advertisement:
Yeah. Fun.
Anyhow, we then went across the street to an enormous souvenir shop where we bought a bunch of tchotchke crap, further burdening the awesome H. We (again) went back to the hotel to drop our pile of stuff off, and then set out to find dinner, ending up at a substandard Turkish place. H really wanted to eat Indonesian food while we were there, but we couldn't find a place that was open in the area where we were. So, sad Turkish dinner, followed by beer at a corner cafe (where I was laughed at by a group of snotty twadults in knockoff clothes because, as H said he overheard, I was speaking American english... um, really? Don't get me started, sister.)
It got to be really confusing at points, because the sun sets really late there, and so, you're having a beer in the evening by the canal, and the sun is starting to set, but it's still totally light outside, but you look at your watch and it's, like, 9:45 p.m. Very disorienting, even after being in it for a month.
So the next morning, we went to the Van Gogh museum. Even though we were there just before the museum opened (on a Tuesday), we were two among a MASSIVE crowd. But we made our way inside and spent most of the morning browsing the incredible collection of art housed at this museum. And again, notably absent was Starry Night, which they were quick to tell you SHOULD be here, but alas, is not. It is SOMEWHERE ELSE. Some OTHER PERSON owns this DUTCH TREASURE. Yeah. Not bitter at all.
Though I love Van Gogh, my favorite part of the museum was a large collection of etchings/lithographs by
Odilon Redon. I have become obsessed with finding prints or a book or some sort of display of these works of his, because there were maybe 3 postcards of his work to choose from in the museum store, none of which were the etchings. I have found plenty of prints of his work in color, but none of these gorgeous black and white renderings.
Anyhow, we spent the morning there, then hit the museum store for more souvenirs and then started looking for lunch. I decided that even though it was delicious, I didn't want to walk back to the soup restaurant where we had gone the previous day. After a long walk searching for a place recommended to us by the museum store clerk, we ended up having a sandwich from one of the stands on the Museumplein (the plaza bordered by the Van Gogh and the Rijksmuseum). Again, unremarkable, except that I broke down and had an ice cream after lunch from the same stand, and I may NEVER think of ice cream the same way again. Delicious, perfect, custardy soft-serve in a crispy cone. Yum! After lunch, we went to the Vondelpark, a large park in central Amsterdam. It's kind of like Central Park, I suppose (though certainly smaller), with people just wandering about on breaks from work, with a canal running through, and nice wide bike paths and big gorgeous old trees. Very pretty indeed:
I think we went to nap again after that (it was just SO. DAMN. HOT.), but then, in the afternoon, we met up with the lovely
Rachel and JD and Fusspot. We had several beers (why is it that beer #4 always seems like such a good idea after beer #3?? At least they were the smaller 0,3 size beers... or were they 0,5? It's a bad sign that I don't remember). The irony was not lost on me that as a pair of infertile couples sat drinking beer, a stork decided to drop by to visit us:
(on the blue "P" sign)
Oh, it was just so nice to be able to speak infertility with someone. I mean, as long as we've been trying (and thinking, and pondering and fussing, etc.), we're still newbies. But yet, I know far more than I should about various ARTs, considering I haven't really participated in any. The point is, it was nice to talk to someone who just *got it*. I mean, I know that we all see this in the scope of blogging, of posting and commenting and getting support in this way. But it's a whole different thing to be able to speak to someone in person, to see the result of those technologies banging her toy against the table, grabbing for Rachel's water glass. Before I get all gushy and weird (well, weirdER, that is...), it's just nice to talk with someone where I don't feel like I have to explain myself or guard my comments.
Edited to add: AND, this is why I am SO EXCITED about August's NC blogger meetup! If you are in the area on August 1st, you should check out the
group page and come meet some of your fellow IFers! And if you don't live in the area but you want to come, I have an extra bedroom or two that could host someone, since we're meeting up at JJ's place, which is in the next town over from me...). And I'm convinced this is a lucky group, too. Since we last met up, of the six who were there, FIVE have become parents! Talk about some great odds!
Ahem. Yes, I like to meet fellow IFers in person...
And also, just one more example of "GOOD-GOD-THIS-WORLD-IS-SMALL!", the summer that I met H, he left for a month to go to the Netherlands to study the Dutch language through this program put on by the Dutch government. He was going to be teaching Dutch in the fall at UT, and even though he knew a lot of Dutch (having grown up on the border to the Netherlands), he needed to brush up a bit, which he did during this month-long study. Well, it turns out that a year or two after H went there, Rachel went there, too! They only accept a fairly small number of people from all over the world to participate in this program each year, so it was just really interesting that there was that random connection of two people that attended the same program. Maybe it's really not so random that two people who both had an academic interest in Dutch ended up attending an academic Dutch program, but still. To find yourself sitting across from one of them, one who you made a connection with through infertility blogging- well, I'm just going to call that one rare.
And so, we dashed from beers with the Long Distance Infertility family to our evening canal boat tour. The tour left at 9 p.m., and returned at 10:30 p.m., so we spent a good long time floating around on the canals and out in to the harbor. I almost wish we had done this tour on our first night there, because I learned a lot about the city and it would have been nice to have had that knowledge at the start. Amsterdam is a lot of things, but my most fond impression of the city is that it is a very pretty city.
Seven bridges.
Pretty facades on the buildings.
Sunset on the harbor.
And so, we stumbled back to the hotel, stopping to take a few last shots of this beautiful city:
Tracks by the museums.
The next morning, we rose early, finished packing the last of our stuff, and went to wait for the taxi (who showed up 30 minutes late, and then proceeded to drop us off at the wrong terminal...). It was a hectic morning, scrambling with the luggage, and scrambling to the ticket counter, and scrambling to the gate (did you know that at Schipol they don't send you through security check until you are boarding the plane? So you go to the gate to wait for your flight, and
then they scan your bags. And they interview you-- 'are these your bags?', 'do you have any battery-operated devices with you?', 'are you going to perform any act of terror while on the plane?', etc. Interesting.), and then getting ourselves onto the plane. And then, if you land an international flight in a city that is not your destination, you have to go through the Transfer customs area, where you walk through with your form, then pick up your bags from a separate baggage carousel, then walk them past the customs agent, then put them
back in the baggage belt thingy. Again, other people probably know this sort of thing, but since my last international flight was Heathrow to Houston, I didn't have any weird customs situation- we just walked through with our bags after collecting them from the normal carousel.
Anyway, so we rushed through Dulles, trying to get to our next gate after having dealt with customs. It's so great that we rushed because as it turned out, our flight had a TWO HOUR DELAY! Yay! And so we ate dinner (Five Guys burger. God Bless America! Though it would have been better with an ice-cold German beer from the tap. Sigh. You can't have it all...), then settled in at our gate, just in time for them to announce a gate change. So we changed gates and settled in there. Only to be told that our departure time had been moved up and we needed to hurry back to the original gate (which we did). And we were then informed that, NO, we weren't going to be leaving that soon, that it was actually going to be 8:00 p.m. before we departed. So we settled in further, only to be interrupted again to be told that we were switching back to the other gate. Which we did. And then, (you guessed it) we were ONCE AGAIN told to go back to the second gate to get a plane there. I had just sat down when an airline worker said, "boarding ALL ROWS to Greensboro." And I was all, HUH? because it was still six something, and I thought we still had a couple of hours. So she hurries us on board, though half of the passengers were still at the other gate. Anyhow, eventually, they got us all on the plane, began to taxi, when there was some sort of electrical malfunction of the plane. So we pulled back in the gate. Half an hour later, they got the plane started again, just in time to be told that due to major storms to the south of us, all traffic departing southward would be delayed. And so we sat there on the tarmac, waiting, waiting, waiting. And finally, at 8:00 p.m. (YES, we sat in the plane for that long!), we took off. The delay sucked. I mean SUCKED. We were still on Amsterdam time, which means that it was, like, 2 a.m. to us when we took off. Which means that we landed at 3 a.m., got home at almost 4 a.m., after having an extremely unnecessarily stressful day of travel.
Of course, the delay was (in part) worth it because I managed to be in the right seat to get some AWESOME out-the-window sunset shots (which you've seen before, in
this post, but here is another for you anyway...):
So lovely.
There are a couple more at
my flickr page.
So, the awesome Ms. J from Asheville rode over to pick us up (THAT is friendship, people. Driving almost three hours to pick me up from the airport, sitting there for
three hours waiting for the delayed flight to arrive? I am so lucky.). It was so good to see her and so great to get a chance to catch up for a little bit. I definitely have to go visit her soon.
Anyhow, and so ends the saga of the Germany (and Netherlands, too!) Tour 2009.
Barring tragedy (which, due to a root canal I get to have performed on me tomorrow morning, isn't an impossibility) I hope to resume regularly scheduled posting soon. I've got some ideas in the works for some things I want to talk about (like what blogs we all read with regularity- I'm always so excited to find out that one of my readers also reads someone else that I read, and I'd love to know how our various must-read lists crossover, you know? but that is or another post. I also need to post about a delicious thai-style shrimp scampi I came up with the other night- so, so, so good. And a few other things.), but I also had some other dental work done this morning (just a filling today, but a metal filling, so my mouth tastes like aluminum foil. It was too big to be a resin/epoxy/whatever-its-called-tooth-colored-stuff, so I get the metal. Ick.), so I think I'm done for now.
I keep going along all normal, and then I suddenly feel all sad that I'm not over there anymore. The actual physical part of travel was so stressful for me, but now I keep being randomly reminded of some thing that happened while over there, or of some landmark we saw or some trip we took, and I get plunged into heartsickness. I miss it. I really, really miss it. I know that it would be a huge adjustment, but I could seriously see myself living there. And I know I would miss the US (and shoot, even part of me would miss NC, what with our mountains and our bears*...), but I think I could see myself being happy being over there. My German still sucks, but it grew by leaps and bounds during that short month we were there. Anyway, I just hope we get the chance to go back there soon.
Anyway. So that's it for now. Summary:
The last leg of the travel, Amsterdam-style. Anyone know tricks for dealing with the husband half of the newbie infertile? Pretty pictures. Crazy flights. Mouth under attack this week! And oh, how I miss Germany.
Sigh. And you?
*Oh, sad. I just saw the report that they killed one of the bears. Of course,
this happened around three miles from our house. And H went out this morning and found that our garbage had not only been knocked over, but the bag had been absolutely ripped to shreds, much different from the usual damage done by raccoons... sad that a bear lost it's life, but scary that there was likely a bear (A BEAR!) rooting through our trash, about six feet below the window under which we sleep and neither of us heard a thing. Weird stuff...
