all of a sudden i miss everyone

And again, I have taken far too long to post and thus forgot all the wonderful details.

A few days after I posted my last blog, me and the other volunteers took all fifteen kids to the park San Alegre in taxis. The night before, I had a dream that all the children were small turtles that had sticks of dynamite strapped to their shells, and I had to keep them all in one place. Fortunately, only one of the turtles exploded, Jhon. When I told my fellow volunteers, they thought that if one of the kids were to explode with a stick of dynamite it would have definitely been 3-year-old Jhon. The park went much better than it did in my dream, as no one exploded. The kids seemed to have a really good time and I got lots of good pictures.

The weekend after Colca Canyon was quite relaxed. I originally intended to travel to Puno, but the girl I was going to travel with had to wait for her bank to send a new card. So I hung out at the volunteer house with Carmen, my Spanish teacher.

During the week many more adventures at the funny farm/the orphanage were to be had. Once I got into another jovial debate about whether myself or James (a British volunteer) was better at Spanish. It was obvious to everyone that James is quite a bit better than I was. So when we were invited for dinner with the permanent tías, another volunteer, Claire, asked the kids who was better at Spanish and they all voted quite enthusiastically for me. Except for the ever-brilliant Joseph, who whispered indignantly to James later “YOU were the winner.”

Later in the week, I went to see Wall-E in Spanish at the theaters with Carmen and James and Anna. I was pleased to realize that I recognized most everything that was said, though that wasn’t saying much because I had already seen the movie in English. It was even better the second time.

Two weeks before the end of my trip, I begun to get concerned about two younger sisters, 1.5 years and 3 years old, Mari Cielo and Ana Maria respectively. They were utterly adorable and extremely friendly, but their language and cognitive development seemed quite a bit delayed from the typical milestones of young children. I did an extremely amateur assessment based on normal milestones, but they did not fulfill most of them. Thus, during the last few weeks, I was working very hard on a detailed supplemental education program to pass onto a future volunteer, as well as a behavioral advisory program for another one of the kids, Carlos. I wanted to talk to Lilia about getting a hearing test for Ana Maria, but I didn’t have time before I left, particularly since I needed the volunteer coordinator Sarah as a translator (the tías don’t speak any English at all). Additionally, I created profiles for all the kids with pictures and notes so future volunteers didn’t have to go through as much trial and error in determining habits of the kids and behaviors we were trying to discourage.

The last weekend I went to Puno and Lake Titicaca (the highest lake in the world!). We took a two-day tour of the islands, first visiting the Uros islands, which are made of reeds. The houses, ground, and magnificent boats were constructed entirely of an edible reed. The next island we stayed at, Amantani, was made up of roughly eight hundred indigenous people who spoke Quechua. We climbed a hill and watched the sunset from the vantage point of a Pacha Mama (Mother Earth) temple. That night we all dressed in traditional clothing and went dancing with our host families. The next day we went to Taquile, a slightly more-touristy island famous for their very detailed textiles. Both the islands were utterly silent—no police, no dogs, no cars.

On the overnight bus trip back to Arequipa from Puno, the bus hit a bicyclist. It was a very sad experience. Though the man was unconscious, he wasn’t killed. However, the bus wasn’t drivable so we had to wait an hour at two in the morning for another bus to come pick us up. That was my second to final night in Arequipa.

I was very sad to leave Carmen, as we had developed a bond over the five weeks. She seemed to have a bit of separation anxiety when I left. During the last five minutes of our last Spanish lesson, I spilled my tea all over her white tablecloth. I figured I’d end my Spanish lessons with a BANG, if you know what I mean. In regards to Spanish, I’m at a fairly good basic conversation level, but not that much further. I did make a lot of progress, but I continue to be a tad dense with languages. I’m going to persist at my Spanish studying when I go back to Hamilton next semester.

The last day in the orphanage I was invited to lunch with the kids and the tías. When I told each of the kids it was my last day, they all looked downcast and confused and asked when I was coming back. I think they get used to volunteers leaving since most volunteers only stay for a month or two, but it still must be difficult. Joseph tried to give me a large stuffed animal skunk, which I had to leave downstairs, as I couldn’t take it with me. Two of the older girls, Marisol and Yenifer, wrapped a small leather box in lined paper as a gift with a card.

The three flights back to America were unremarkable, except for the ten-hour layover in Fort Lauderdale. I attempted to sleep for a little of it but was woken up by a group of bratty girls. On the flights I intended to answer emails but found myself asleep before I could even bust out the computer.

And that was my trip to Peru. It’s bizarre to be back. The drivers here are much better, the tap water is drinkable, and people here don’t keep dogs on their roofs. Still, I miss the kids. I’ll miss the kids for a while.

on bearing resemblance to Dora the Explorer

I should be posting more often, because by the time I get around to posting things, I always forget all the little funny or extraordinary moments that make trips special.

Two weekends ago I left Arequipa with a few fellow volunteers and went to the seaside resort town, Camana, which is apparently a popular weekend tradition for Arequipans. Later, it was revealed that in Peru’s winter, no one goes to Camana. I’m fairly certain we were the only tourists there. Though the beach was a little disappointing, despite the mangy cows that perused the periphery of the sand and shrubbery, the ride out with the fisherman on their boats the following day was pretty incredible. The sea lions were promptly classified as ‘teases,’ given their tendency to follow the boat around, barking and laughing but diving back under the surface as soon as we lifted our cameras. The terrain near the coast was essentially a bizarre lunar surface, characterized by sandy craters and utter desolation.

Last week held my birthday on July 24^th. It took me forever to figure out what I wanted to do for my birthday; I think my fellow volunteers may have been a little discouraged at how horrible I was at making decisions. I finally made an ‘executive decision’ as we Halvorsens like to say, and announced that I was going to go to the nearby crêperie if anyone else wanted to come. It turned out that almost everyone came, excepting the people that were ill. I had no less than three crêpes, which were all delicious. On the way home, a little high from sugar, I accidentally poked a passing Peruvian in the eye while trying to hail a taxi. I could not stop convulsing in laughter for literally the next ten minutes.

The orphanage work is going wonderfully. I have finally memorized all the kids’ names, and I assume now they all know my name. I collaborated with the incredibly bright Joseph the other night making a car out of little parts, to great success and many high-fives. Marisol and I have become buddies on her math homework, as I give a little “ehhh” noise of dissent whenever she makes a mistake, so she ends up getting top-notch grades on the assignments I help her with. One of my fellow volunteers has been working a lot with Juandedíos (literally “John of Gods”—they come up with the weirdest names for these kids), so much so that he has been colloquially labeled as Juandedíos’s dad. My Spanish with the kids has been mediocre—I mis-asked one of the girls her age so extremely badly (what I said roughly translates to: how do you have years?) that another girl had to translate for her.

In other news, I’ve been affably arguing with the British volunteers about the correct pronunciations of words. Obviously it’s called jell-o, not jelly, and garAGE, not GARage. Though I have developed a slight British inflection in my speech, more so than in London, since I’m surrounded by these silly Brits.

Last weekend I went hiking in Colca Canyon, a famous canyon roughly a five-hour drive away from Arequipa. The guide was awesome and the scenery was beautiful. The first day I bounced happily into the canyon ahead of all the others, listening to my iPod and admiring the alternating light and dark patterns along the cliffs’ edges. I was told later that I bore a resemblance to Dora the Explorer, which is where the title of this blog emerges. The next day was much harder, with three hours of unvarying steepness. I got teased for bringing more than one book (obviously I had to—what if I finished the first one?!), and though I came in last, I didn’t regret bringing anything. Excepting perhaps my body lotion. In retrospect, I don’t think I really needed that.

Additionally this weekend, we bathed in the hot springs and saw huge condors fly in a canyon. Not at the same time.

I’m over halfway finished with my trip; how strange is that?

Cheers.

The Further Adventures of Tia Lala

It sounds like a magic schoolbus adventure, doesn’t it? Sometimes I think this whole thing is just a trip on the magic schoolbus.

It’s about a week into my journey, and I already like it much better than I thought I would. I got into the groove of things around the second or third day, shockingly, and haven’t been homesick at all. Arequipa has developed a certain cautious, yet intense, charm, though I still have yet to go into town and take pictures. I thought I would have all the time in the world to explore, but it turns out that fours hours of volunteering at the orphanage and four hours of Spanish (two hours of lesson, two hours of homework) per day is exhausting. Not that my Spanish is improving at all. I think I’m just second-language-impaired, but Carmen (my teacher) insists that I am good. I’m pretty sure she’s just trying to make me feel better.

I’ve also become a great deal more comfortable with the other volunteers here. Last week I went with the orphanage director’s friend (who was wearing a wonderful sombrero), and three other volunteers, to Toro Muerto, which basically is a desert of ancient cave paintings (petroglyphs) on big rocks. I have to admit, it was pretty awesome. Afterwards, we went to see some dinosaur footprints in clay, and went to a river that is famous for its shrimp (we ate lunch in a restaurant near there where I had Spanish-style tortilla with shrimp and it was the most delicious thing ever). This coming weekend I may be going to the west coast beach with some other volunteers.

I’m getting more familiar with the workings of the orphanage. So far I’ve just done morning shifts, which is mainly working with the little babies and doing chores. Today will be my first afternoon shift, which I am looking forward to with some trepidation (seventeen hyper kids and five volunteers ahhh). Maricio actually remembered my name yesterday, which is a major step because I think it’s really hard for them to remember volunteers’ names, as evidenced by the fact that they just… don’t. They’re quite affectionate and resilient kids, and they don’t seem to mind that I don’t understand most of what they say, heh.

Tia Lala out.

Arequipa

Flight from Boston to Fort Lauderdale. Layover for eight hours while researching career paths (PsyD programs = pretty damn attractive). Fort Lauderdale to Lima, Peru in the earliest hours of the morning. Lima to Arequipa, Peru. The views were breathtaking; too bad I wasn’t in much of a state to fully appreciate them. Waiting outside of the airport, while Spanish-speaking men bombard me with taxi offers. No thanks, I’m waiting for someone. (Is that someone ever coming?)

After twenty-four hours of traveling, I was picked up at the airport by the nicest lady anyone could ever imagine, named Carmen, who is later to be my Spanish teacher. I slept for several hours once I got to the volunteer house, accompanied by bizarre REM-rebound dreams and a very strange sense of disorientation when I got up. All the other volunteers were at the house that day because there was a riot in city center (everyone hates the government here). The other volunteers are nice, polite, and funny, but still I feel somewhat separated from them. Perhaps meeting new people just takes some getting used to, but I suppose it’s all right if I never get used to it—I’m only here for five weeks, after all.

Peru is a very interesting country. I haven’t seen much of Arequipa yet, though the city center at night is strangely alluring. The houses and tiendas (stores) are almost comically short and multicolored in various sandy pastels. Peruvians keep their dogs on their roofs, which bark all day and night (the dogs, not the roofs). The city is frigid at night and hot during the day, always sunny and forever dry. The sky in the morning is the color of blue clay, given the dust constantly suspended in the azure abyss.

The work at the orphanage this morning passed quickly–laundry, sweeping, mopping, smile at the kids, more laundry, ironing. Apparently one of the boys might have brain damage, so they’re taking him to get an EEG. The orphanage director asked if I wanted to look at the results—I told her I would love to, but I couldn’t guarantee I could offer anything useful. I’m not trained for that sort of thing, but it would be nice to look at anyways. And if he does have a learning disability, it might be a good side project for me to develop some kind of alternate curriculum for him.

I’m going into town tonight to a traditional Peruvian restaurant, and seeing some Petroglyphs this weekend. I still don’t really believe I’m here.

Cheers.

seaon finale

School is over. My nutrition exam took place with little notable difficulty, and though I got worked up a bit for my Practice of Medicine presentation (the one about all the opioids), it wasn’t bad. I had to present to my teacher, the head honcho of the Lambeth surgery (British word for clinic, basically) in London, and another random guy. I don’t care that much what kind of grade I get–as long as I didn’t outright humiliate myself, which I don’t think I did. The grades for Practice of Medicine don’t transfer anyways.

The presentation took place (and thus school officially finished, since that’s my last school-related activity) last Wednesday, the day after my cousins left. Since then I have been reading, writing, and generally engaging in all manner of non-school related activity. I have been awkwardly bidding goodbye to some of my friends here. I don’t do well with goodbyes. I’d rather just have my last meeting with them as if we were meeting again the following week.

I’ve visited Rye for a day, another one of those damned cute English towns. I came to Oxford a few days ago to visit Rachel (and am still here), and have been reading Crime and Punishment avidly for the second time. We were going to go to Dover and the famous white cliffs yesterday but that didn’t end up happening because while the train ride from London to Dover is only two hours, from Oxford it’s four hours, so it would have made for a difficult day journey. Today we ventured to some Cotswolds towns: Moreton-in-Marsh and Stow-on-the-Wold. These are typical examples of the absurdity of English-town naming. Unfortunately it was pouring rain, so we didn’t get to see as much as we would have liked to, and what we did see made us uncomfortable, hypothermic, and very wet. Suffice to say we spent more time reading in tearooms than we did actively exploring. But if it had been sunny… it would have been quite adorable and English. All the more reason to come back some day to England, I suppose, to see everything I didn’t get to see.
I’m going home in two days, and thus, this is my last post regarding my time in England. I will probably pick up writing here when I go to Peru on July 7th, but until then, I will not bore people talking about all my luxurious time spent sleeping and reading at home, eating mom’s homemade bran blueberry pancakes with powdered sugar.

Until then!

I didn’t realize the Danish were so dune-ish

Last week I went to Denmark with my cousin Mary (now fondly nicknamed Molenkade), my grandma, and my mom. The first few days I felt a bit dissociated and detached; I was very ‘into’ the book I was reading, so part of me just wanted to go and sit and read all day long. However, I finished that book a few days into the trip, late at night sneaking some reading in the bathroom while everyone else slept, so luckily the whole trip didn’t feel that way. I had a good time in Denmark altogether; we visited some white cliffs and wispy sand dunes, and a town called Ribe with houses as warped and crooked (not to mention as colorful) as a Picasso painting. My favorite point was when I was waving at some budgies in a window, and the old Danish woman inside saw me and invited me in. She let me hold some baby budgies in my hand. I kind of wanted to take them home with me.

 

We drove a lot in our rental car but that’s okay because I was able to sleep and read and watch the vivid yellow fields of rapeseed beneath the cerulean sky. My other favorite place was Skagen; besides a beach and a town full of mellow yellow houses, there was a lighthouse by the coast in the middle of vast dunes that moved and rolled like a living beast. It was so windy that even a week later, I am still finding sand in the crevices of my camera and iPod. We concluded the trip with a few days at Copenhagen, which was extremely fun, and where we met Molenkade’s friend, Colin, nicknamed Jimskies. Molenkade and Benskies (Mary and Ben) are now in London for the week, touring around and cooking dinner in my flat. It is really nice to have them here.

 

On the work front, I handed in my paper on opioids the day that I flew to Denmark, though I had to cut a good five pages off because I am a beast and went well over the word limit. Today I had my last exam, Human Nutrition, which I overstudied for (of course). The only thing I have left is my presentation on opioid prescription patterns (accompanying the paper) next week.

 

I realize this entry is disjointed and a little vague. I feel very weary.

 

Cheers.

 

 

cream tea and exmoor ponies

Last week I took my exam for endocrinology of diabetes. It was deceptively easy, and I finished in a little over half the time allotted. The proctor thought I was crazy, but I assured her I just take tests quickly. I prefer Hamilton testing halls to King’s… it was crowded, chaotic, and overwhelming. But at least it’s done and over with. I finished my paper for Practice of Medicine on opioid prescription patterns soon after that, and it was almost a thousand and five hundred words over the limit, words that I somehow have to find it in my heart to slice off the paper. Which I’m terrible at, because there’s just so much to say. I’m handing that in tomorrow, and then I just have the corresponding presentation to the paper, and my nutrition exam.

I got back late last night from Exmoor National Park, specifically the little sister towns Lynton and Lynmouth on the west coast. Near the highest cliffs in England and home to an indigenous herd of Exmoor ponies, of which there are only 1000 left. They are rarer than the giant panda! When Rachel and I arrived in the train station of Barnstaple intending on taking a bus to Lynton, we realized we landed after the last bus and had to ask an incredulous taxi driver to take us there at ten o’clock at night for 20 quid each. So, the trip was off to a wonderful start. The next day we took the coastal path to Valley of the Rocks, which is a smattering of prehistoric looking rock formations, which such names as “Mother Meldrum’s Cave” and “Devil’s Cheesering” (we never figured out what a cheesering was). We took occasional breaks to sit on rocky outcroppnings of cliff, watching the seagulls fly and listening to ‘The Last Song on Earth.’ When we got back to town, I had my first cream tea, which I realized was not simply tea with cream in it, but actually tea with scones and jam and clotted cream.

The next day we hiked down to the famous Watersmeet (I insisted it was pronounced ‘Water smeet’ but Rachel vehemently disagreed), exploring leafy, dappled glades next to the river. At that point, I realized I was running out of books, which is one of the worst things that can happen to me on a vacation. When we got back to town, we bought fudge and ice cream made in Exmoor and sat on the riverbank until the bus came to pick us up. The bus back to Taunton was almost the best part of the trip–it was a double-decker, but the top part did not have a roof/ceiling. So we bustled down the narrow roads past the misty coastland and rolling moorland with fields of indifferent sheep. We drove through some of the most English towns I’ve ever seen, the houses smelling of the lilacs in their gardens, my unfortunate hair whipping into my hair for the entirety of two hours. It didn’t even matter that I was cold. It was like a disneyworld ride on steroids.

Now I’m back, a little fatter and a lot more sunburnt, and attempting to organize my massive quantities of Exmoor photographs before I leave tomorrow for Denmark with my cousin Mary, grandma, and mom.

Parisian Pastries and Other Nonsense

Well, I went to Paris last weekend with Shelly, which was quite a lot of fun (besides the fact that we had to wake up at 4:30am to catch our train). Shelly was very enamored with the Eiffel Tower, and we also visited the Louvre courtyard, Notre Dame, St. Sulpice, and the Musee Rodin. And of course, we sustained ourselves on crepes and pastries (whic look more like art than food), which may be the best part of Paris. The weather was insanely beautiful, if a bit warm, but the breeze felt good. It was a little surreal to be there without my mom, whom I had been with during my last two visits to Paris, but it still was like visiting a beloved childhood home. Only Paris didn’t get heinously redecorated, as beloved childhood homes so often (sadly) are.

So now Shelly is back in the US because her school is over, and I’m still in London, slaving away. I have an Endocrinology of Diabetes exam next Tuesday, so I’ve been studying frantically for that. I can’t convince myself that I’m not going to fail, so I’m trying to work toward accepting the fact instead. It doesn’t really matter because my grades don’t transfer to my Hamilton GPA, but I still like to do well. I suppose it’s natural to want to be rewarded for our efforts, and a nice A is always reward enough for me.

I’m also working on my paper for Practice of Medicine on opioid prescription patterns in the US and Denmark. The paper is due, ironically, right before I leave for a week in Denmark, so I’m steadily chipping away at that project in between studying. The weather lately has been abysmal (on my way to the library today, it was cloudy, then thundered, then rained, then hailed, then was sunny while continuing to drizzle, all under the span of 20 minutes), so my studying is aided by the reality that it wouldn’t be much fun to tour London or go on any number of day trips I have planned in the rain. Oh well, I can wait.

That’s about it for now; I may not update again until my weekend trip to Exmoor (coastal South West England) in a week and a half.

Cheers!

‘this is NO good day for experiments’

So yes, I’m a magnificent slacker for not posting more often, since I’ve been doing quite a lot of things since I last updated this–so I’ll have to give the somewhat abbreviated version.

After the last update from your heroine (I can never figure out how to differentiate the spelling from the super female warrior from the street drug), I was in Ameland in the Netherlands. After Ameland, Rachel and I moved on to Delft, where we were in some of our sweetest digs since starting the trip. The beds were in a loft up a staircase. And there was free tea. Yeah, that cool. We saw all the tulips at Keukenhof and all the windmills in Kinderdijk, and still had time to come home in the evenings and watch copious amounts of The Office. Which are like potato chips, because once you watch one, you just can’t stop. Onward after that to Bruges, where we just ate chocolate and waffles, and in the evening we decided… hell, we have a free day of train rides and the best part of the trips are the train rides. So we walked to the train station and got on the first train–going to a place called Inglemunster (monster?). We then took an hour train to Brussels, got off for fifteen minutes, had a few free chocolate samples, got back on and went back to Bruges.

Once back in London, Rachel and I stayed up all night watching my brand new third season of The Office after having dinner with Anne and dad, who had just arrived in the city. 0 hours of sleep? Not one of my best decisions I’ve ever made, but it seems to be a tradition before vacations with dad and Anne, since I also pulled an all-nighter before we went to Ireland a few years ago.

The next morning we drove Rachel back to Oxford, ate a rawkin’ lunch in a garden with a killer milkshake, and then drove onward to Northern England. Thus commences the “Scotland” part of my spring break. We hit up York with all its ruins (and the highlight of the area–the best sticky toffee pudding I’ve ever had) and then Durham, before romping about the ruins of an old Roman fort with the sheep and the rolling fields. Dad was getting so excited about the remains of the latrines that he made us stay out in the sleet.

Finally hitting the Scottish border, somehow the decision came to be that we were on a mission to find the location of the very best sticky toffee pudding in the UK. As aforementioned, York won, but it was still a good haul trying to decide. It’s not like it’s easy to make a bad sticky toffee pudding or anything. Anyways, our bed and breakfast in Edinbugh had two kitties, Garth and Morgan–by then I was so kitty-deprived that that was the highlight of Edinburgh for me. Still an awesome area with the coolest castle ever. We also took day trips around the area to St. Andrews, Stirling (umm it really burst my bubble that the ‘Last Unicorn’ tapestries in the castle were actually copies and they were fixing the real ones), and the Border abbeys (of course, most of that day was spent tooling around in a cafe for four hours while dad had a genealogy meeting, or as I fondly call it, a ‘gathering the clans’ meeting).

We drove to Glencoe in the highlands after that, and the scenery was stark and fantastical, with snow-capped mountains beckoning us up the steep slopes. We slept in Oban, with sunsets after seafood dinners and fat seagulls looking for their next meal. The following morning we drove to Loch Lomond and explored Rob Roy’s cave (except there were about three caves on the way that my dad and I both took pictures of and claimed excitedly was the cave, only to be crushingly disappointed when Anne pointed out that no, it was not, in fact, Rob Roy’s real cave). We then hiked Ben A’an in the Trossachs, where I was defeated by the wilderness by off-roading it straight into a puddle of mud, soaking my trainers up the ankle in detritus. But that never stopped me before, so we climbed to the peak where someone quite Scottish called me ‘a bit cheeky’ to his wife, and an obstreperous kid shouted the title of this blog. Chocolates were had by all, followed by a picnic on a rock.

We flew home from Glasgow, and dad and Anne stayed a few days in London. We saw a few classic London sites– Tower of London, some cathedrals, museums… yeah. On the last night they were in London, Shelly came to dinner with us, except I told her the wrong address because I’m just that good a friend and direction-giver. That was last night.

So now here I am. I should be studying but I’m not, and I just finished watching every single episode of The Office that ever was aired. I’ll hand in my paper tomorrow and sleep over and Shelly’s flat because we’re going to Paris absurdly early on Saturday morning.

Until then. Cheers.

slagroom

Spain was amazing. I went to Granada and Seville and Marbella and a national park in the middle of random pueblos blancos, little white towns clinging to the sides of desolate hills, above aquamarine pools of glacier milk but below crumbling Moorish castles on craggy cliff sides with cactus and shrubbery underneath the clear sun. My mom and I stayed in the coolest places, where it smelled like flower blossoms everywhere because orange trees neatly lines all the main streets. Horses and carriages loitered indefinitely in Seville. There were completely unexplored mountain hikes on the edges of outdoor museums in Granada. The use of stone in roads and plazas in Andalucia was uniquely artistic. We ate copious amounts of Spanish flan and gelato everywhere we went. Unfortunately the respiratory infection I got right before the trip killed a lot of my lactase enzymes, so I was temporarily lactose intolerant, but I refused to let that stop me from eating sugary dairy desserts. Mostly because I have a sugar problem. There was lots of reading in gardens and cafes. My mom absolutely killed me in our ongoing backgammon tournament.

When I flew to Amsterdam, I felt at first completely heartsick for leaving Andalucia, which I had somewhat fallen in love with—or at least the routine. There were a few moments where I just wanted to go home and have my mom make me blueberry whole grain pancakes with powdered sugar, but I sucked it up because I had to. It was much better once Rachel arrived the following day, and we explored Amsterdam (particularly the old Jordaan region) and a neighboring canal town, Amersfoort. Going from hotels to hostels was an adjustment, but I got used to it after a few days. What I did not get used to was the absence of my iPod Piccadilly, which was believed to have gone missing in the Ritz Carleton in Marbella.

No, we did not smoke in Amsterdam, but we did visit the Red Light District (very briefly) and went to a hemp museum.

After that we took the train to Meppel (should I say, took the wrong train to Meppel, but we eventually got there anyways—it was ok because Rachel and I agreed the best part of the trip was the train travel. That and the slagroom, but that’s a different story). We stayed at a comfy inn, where we rented bikes to go to Giethoorn, a tiny town twelve kilometers away. Unfortunately, it started pouring on the way, but that has never deterred us from our unending adventures before. Soaking wet and blinded, we pulled off the main roads and onto bike paths (ummm and they do not either wear or rent out helmets with their bikes because apparently the Netherlands follows different laws of physics so I was freaking out a little). The sky turned very pink and surreal. It was a bit like a dream, racing past waterlogged fields with crying birds, where the orange sun peeled back the layers of velvet-blanketed clouds to cast visible rays on the horizon, and Norwegian fjords (the small horses, not the land masses) eyed us indifferently on the way. Giethoorn was a fake town, with a single bike path, no streets, impeccably kept gardens, and arched bridges. That was where I dropped into the canal the earth marble that Josh Simpson, the glassblower, had awarded me for the Infinity Project, where little glass models of the world are left all over the world just for the purpose of confounding future archeologists as to their function or reason for existence.

After Meppel we took the ferry to Ameland and walked on the cold beaches with quivering foam (it looked like the brains of the Netherlands), where the wind threatened to topple us over and dry sand skirted over the dunes while we sang Porcupine Tree songs aloud. There was no one there but us and the wind and the sand and the murky sky and the trembling brains. At one point I sat down on the beach, having every intention of becoming a sand dune. I almost succeeded. Afterwards our shoes were full of sand and I got a pancake with mushrooms and pepper (paprika rood) for dinner.

Ameland is a ghost island. There is no one here but us. And I like it that way.