St. Nicholas swoops down over the Netherlands tonight and leaves a bag full of presents for eager little Dutch kids dreaming of opening them first thing tomorrow. Sinterklaas is much like our Christmas except that it has nothing to do with Christ’s birth and makes one wonder what a fat white man from the North Pole riding around the world in a sleigh has to do with the coming of an Israeli messiah in the first place. Aaah, cultural substitution in an attempt to rub out history.
For not having been here (for more than half a day) since 2004, I remember a lot about public transportation and the general layout of things in the northwest part of the Netherlands. Den Haag has been fine to me so far, mostly because I’m up to my ears in coursework every day and socializing each night. All the way from the Zoeppritz equations to eating gumbo at the home of an expat from New Orleans and from reviewing geophysical papers to meeting a young woman from Wisconsin in a local jazz bar whose brother is a German professor at Tulane, let’s just say I’m not suffering from a lack of stimulus and coincidence.
What’s real fun is Law & Order and CSI reruns with Dutch subtitles – what a great way to learn the language!
The only American in my class and immediate surroundings, I’ve been asked a lot about New Orleans and how we’re recovering. They don’t find anything about our comeback surprising as they would expect the bureaucracy, douchebaggery, trips and tribulations of their own nation or area in the same situation (remind me to tell you tales of Dutch red tape and service delays some time). The unanimous objection, however, is to our crime rate; they just can’t believe it and recommend that everything else is small potatoes compared with crime control.
Time to hit the hay after a long day. I will leave you with the fact that Senator Larry Craig would never have got into trouble in Holland; the walls between bathroom stalls here run from floor to ceiling.
