A'dam: Wereld Stad

Yesterday was wonderful! After three days of delightful but unknowlingly rather oppressive family, we escaped (thanks to Nederlanse Spoorwegen) to Amsterdam. First we wandered over canals to the Noord Kerk (north church), and ate apple pie (the best dutch kind) and coffee in an obviously popular cafe on the corner. We had to wait for a while with tray in hand for a space to become available. From there we walked to the Dam square (which houses the Grand Kransnapolski hotel, the Palace, the New Church, the Bijkorf, and Madam Tussads). We'd done it all before, so walked through the shopping streets to the Van Gogh Musem. We spent a few delightful hours there. Can you believe that in the two months before he killed himself, VG made 80 paintings? That's more than one a day! From there we wandered through a market, broodje kroket and patat in hand. On the other end we found a little bar from eons ago, and went on a bit of a pub crawl through all the oldest bars in A'dam. When we were feeling warm, we decided to check out Ocean's 12, and were very much pleased (especially since part of it takes place in Amsterdam). Finally, we got soarma and donerkebab for the way home (extra garlic sauce) and ran for the train.

The idea for today was to repeat in Rotterdam, but the conditions outside are slightly uncondusive to a day of wandering around the city. Instead, we'll stay inside with books and emails.

Arrived

After a three hour delay in the Toronto airport (well spent reading A House for Mr. Biswas by Naipaul), I found myself on the plane seated between to men, visible polar opposites. To my left was the tall skinny pale nervous guy, and to my right was the shorter squater darker sort of odorous guy. Turns out, from my conversations with each, that they were also internally polar opposites also. With one I spoke about the spectroscopic measurement of flames he was doing for his post doctoral research, and spoke French with him about everything else under the sun. With the other I talked about his flight squeemishness, and how he resolved it by his faith in Allah and by reading the Qu'ran during take off and landing, and later I helped him determine whether the cereal bar we were given was halal. It was interesting because both had such definite world views and hard set beliefs, but they came from extremely different places. I felt a bit like the middle ground, with my tendecy towards atheism, and my scientific skepticism.

Now I'm here in The Netherlands, reflecting on a delightful flight, and a delightful fish dinner, and a still more delightful breakfast, waiting for the rest of the delight that is in store for me.

Day One: Freedom

My first day post-exams: delightful, mixed with occassional bouts of stress due to the overwhelming feeling that there was something that I was supposed to be doing. Hope that this feeling will become less frequent as the christmas vacation progresses. In general, this freaks me out, because the level of stress I felt this semester is out of line.

Today:
-Woke up late (10am)
-Cleaned the house a bit
-Welcomed friend Kate who spent the semester in England
-Looked at photos and was filled in a bit
-Spent three hours traversing urbania with Kate in tow: Yorkville, Downtown, Zara, Capezio, the Munk Centre for International Studies, UofT, Red Room, China Town, The Annex, Honest Eds and back through Greektown and home again.
-Decorated the house with tacky Honest Eds and Chinatown decorations while watching Love Actually (freaked out on the couch a couple of times thinking I was supposed to be doing something.)
-Mel joined: Kraft dinner and Wolf Blass, followed by Shrek two and a small amount of arts and crafts.

And so begins my vacation.

notes

The semester from hell (well mostly, I learned a lot which is delightful) is now over. Holy mother Thank YOU!

Time to start the readings for next semester...I mean MAKE THINGS- it's like I've been waiting forever for this.

And Cheers to closer friends in Olivia. you're mask-tastic.

Gotta get through this

I struggle with 'getting through it' phases of life. I quite like life in general, and there are some really excessively great bits, but sometimes I find that I try, but can't seem to like what's going on. I mean, I can see technically that I shouldn't hate it, and there's lots of great things going on at the same time, but my emotions are just not responding favourably. Perhaps an example will be more illustrative. I am in my third year crunch: the past two weeks have been the hardest academically to get through so far in my uni career, and I can't wait for the next two to be over, because they're mental as well. But in my heart I feel that I shouldn't hate it- I like school, and I don't like having 'get through it' times because I feel that then all the normal (like school, work) bits of my life will be get throughs to the exceptionally good bits. Maybe what I'm asking of myself is to just enjoy everyday life more, and that's the problem. I used to like everyday life much better than I do right now, but I feel like I should right now also because the same things are going on. Also, I would like to be able to control my happiness...say that I'm going to be happy about this and then-ta da- I would be happy about it. And then eventually I wouldn't have to think about it, I would just be happy about everything (or most things). People suggest that I should pay attention to the good details more, but I don't think that's the issue- I see good things everywhere, my heart just doesn't see them. I suppose it's an issue of needing to be surprised by joy: one can't look for it. But how do I stop looking?