you get up in the morning and put on your finest scungies (male audience: old-school name for lycra-style undies equal to colour of skirt) to counter bicycle-flashing (because you can ride a bicycle in any attire, and make the high-heeled practice of riding home from a club look like a breeze!) breakfast: consume healthy sunflower-embellished bread with margarine, or if of the not-so-healthy persuasion, hagelslag (dutch code for chocolate sprinkles on toast) departure: wrestle bicycle from heavy duty chains which you have so aptly tripled-locked to the rack last night and take ritual second-shower, because by this time it is raining and will only stop as soon as you arrive at your destination.
work….not really mine to comment on yet! (presumably one of bar job/Mexican restaurant/hostel options will have followed through enough to elaborate soon!)
dutch ladies appear to be outwardly practical, direct, if not a bit blunt, then lacking the ability to bullshit. i am trying to educate myself in the adaption of this quality, and ego-resilience that will assist my architectural professionalism (dutch medical student friends profess that a high degree of bullshit is necessary to be a respected member of society)
lunch for a respectful dutchess (i’ve always wanted to be a dutchess!) is a small affair, which may take the form of a roll picked up from your friendly Albert Heijn (supermarket shopping is quite revered, Albert quite conveniently always seems to be on the corner) which is probably pretty healthy, of seeded bread variation 2, and gouda/haring/salad/small deli extravagance. from a streetside vantage point, you are likely to have a large selection of entertainment from an array of highly intoxicated and enthusiastic tourists trying to ride bicycles/transvestites peeing in open-air urinals/road-rage and near-miss incidents, incited by the clash of such a diverse, multicultural, multilingual, multi-spiritual crowd. by the end of lunchtime, you are ready to go back to the practicality of your job with a respectful feeling of context, perspective and comparative calm.
as a dutchess you are liberal in your use of language, and are fully practiced in the use of english slander, to the extent that ‘shit’ is almost something you can use in the workplace. duco assures me that ‘shit’ is a very mild term in the netherlands which is to language as mayonnaise is to chips, spread thickly and easily consumed
(if the dutch have a fat problem, it seems to be averaged out by one’s daily cycling regime)
as a dutch woman, you might go home to cook, or your children, or to your lovely wife (same-sex marriage has been legal since 99) but I prefer my running group, which meets at amsterdamse bos (bos = forest), a training program for those committed to the ‘dam-to-dam’ (dutch are even blasphemous in their naming of cities) or for the aussie tourist who can’t get motivated enough to run 10ks in the rain without other crazy fools. a few laps of mud-splattered fitness makes you feel like a livid dutch Olympian, my soiled outfit takes on the appearance of an army uniform, and i feel ready for the ride home. shower no 3 ensues before meeting at a friends’ for dinner, where one dedicated member of the group is cooking falafels and pita bread for ten people. rose makes a regular appearance at such gatherings alongside a local variety of beer, which surprisingly doesn’t often include Heineken, one person drops the taziki, the naked wooden table is christened, the meal begins.
on a friday night the crew forms a cycling entourage at midnight headed towards the city, my favourite spot being ‘el cantinero’ a salsa bar which has a respectable old-style salsa room in front and reggaeton room out back, (packed with mildly perverse dancers led by the centrifugal force of their own rhythmical bottoms to not-so-intelligent lyrics)
3am day ends, hard life in the story of a dutchess, what can I say? will write more after my sailing holiday in freisland : )
ps. have contacted architectural office building dutch embassy in canberra, who are considering my application. if there is anyone out there with links to construction work in holland, please let me know. you might laugh but my dreams of neon shirts and hard hats are quite genuine. and i’m really quite a muscular person.
