RICK'S BIG TRIP
Ah! I’ve finally gotten a few things figured out. First thing I had to do was figure out how to load my pictures onto Busse and Sanne’s computer – what a hassle! I thought I could just plug my camera into the back of the computer, like I do at home…well it wasn’t that simple – I had to install the freaking driver software, that is, the one disk I didn’t think to bring with me. So I tried to find the software available somewhere on the internet – what a waste of time! I found and loaded up two programs which were “supposed to” work with my camera, but NO! I finally e-mailed back to Anneke in Idyllwild and asked her to go through my disks and find the one that I needed – and mail it to me (regular old-fashioned mail)! When I finally got that, even that didn’t work…But after much effort, with another friend’s computer, I was able to load that software from the disk: it turned out I had to read the instructions, which I did find (in Dutch) on a Dutch Fuji website. Back at Busse’s computer, optimistic, I tried the same thing – but the software installation window wouldn’t come up…this time because the computer “thought” it already had camera software loaded – that is, the software I previously loaded off the internet that didn’t help. FINALLY after doinking around with that problem for an entire afternoon (they tell me it was beautiful weather outside that day), I figured out how to override the automatic software loading program that wasn’t working and load it “by hand.” The first time that didn’t work either…but it worked the second time.	little Ricky in the Big Computer world
Thank you for indulging me in that little introductory rant. This here is the story of my summer trip out to the far ancient reaches of Europe. I’ve only been in Europe once before (Summer 1999), so I’m back for more intercultural excitement and reconnection with the roots of Western Civilization. Our story begins with a plane trip. Here, at the right, you see me heading out over the Pacific Ocean – that’s the California coast as seen from my window seat, seat 1A in fact, the foremost and leftmost seat on the plane. That means I sat in a little corner facing a wall. An old fellow was sitting next to me and we passed some of the 10 ½ hour journey with friendly stories. He was a nice enough old guy, heading for the land of his forbearers, Norway, with plenty of good old fashion ignorant redneck conservative American political opinions. Made me glad I was heading to Holland.
The flight from LAX to Schiphol lasts one brief night, crossing the northern regions of the Atlantic. You lose 9 hours in the process, so that makes the one night brief indeed. The sun very gradually went down, but the sky never got dark. We were told to put our widow shades down to create more of the night effect. In a couple of hours, the sun was coming back up again. This picture, taken from my window, is the sun rising, already high above the clouds Of course, on the flight I was entertained by dinner, breakfast, and a couple of horrible Hollywood B-movies. Nice thing about watching movies on KLM though is that they come with Dutch subtitles. I could watch the films without listening to their annoying soundtracks, and practice my Dutch at the same time. You see, I’ve been studying Dutch for 4 years, not steadily but intensively at times. That puts me in a very rare category: Americans who’ve studied Dutch, and it puts me in a ridiculous social situation of speaking the language of a place where I know very little of the customs. (I’ll tell you more about that later.)
This is the man who’s, more than anyone, making my trip possible. I met Busse (that’s “u” as in “push” and “e” sounding like “uh”, “Buss-uh”) on my last trip and, well, I guess he took a liking to me because he set me up with a place to stay for the entire summer – what a guy! He’s the singer-songwriter of that Dutch CD you might have heard me playing non-stop for a few months; he’s also a painter and collector of pictures of dead cars – you may have seen me taking some pictures for his collection…At the moment his big accomplishment and excitement in his life is that he’s become a Daddy…for the first time in 50 years. In fact, the day I flew into the Netherlands was his 50^th birthday. What an honor – don’t you think? His baby, Tjomme, was just 2 months old. Say “Chum-uh.” It’s a Fries name. You know Friesland? That’s the northern part of Holland – well, they’re part of Holland but they have their own national identity. Sort of like the English and the Irish but no bloodshed (lately). Anyway Busse and Sanne liked the name.
Sanne (say “Sah-nuh”), of course, is little Tjomme’s mom. Here she is giving him the finger. That’s what Dutch people do with their babies, let them suck on the pinkie finger. Dads can do it too. We probably wouldn’t do that in the States because we find it unsanitary – but how’s the kid supposed to build up his immune system anyway? Anyway, I like it because it’s kind of intimate: fingers and mouths. Baby knows what Mommy’s and Daddy’s fingers taste like. A very nice family. Sanne is also an artist: she’s got a children’s book coming out in August – it’ll be available in the U.S. too. It’s about a little Chinese boy who dreams about flying kites. By the way, I didn’t take these lovely pictures of Busse, Sanne and little Tjomme. They were taped up to the cabinet and I took pictures of the pictures. Aren’t digital cameras wonderful?
This is the street where I live, Luit Blomstraat. A very typical Dutch street, houses and street both are made of brick. The Dutch are used to living like this: rijsjes wooningen means dwellings all in a row. They think of them as houses, although together they constitute one long building divided into separate apartments. I live on the left side. The flag you see above the white car, that’s the flag of Zuilen, an old municipality on the north end of the modern city of Utrecht. It’s got its own castle and everything. (I visited the castle later)
And this is where I lay my head. You see, Busse and Sanne use this place on Luit Blomstraat as their studio. Busse uses the upstairs (there’s oil paint everywhere!) and Sanne uses the downstairs (there’s a drawing table on the other side of this room). There’s no bed in the place, but they acquired this mattress for me, a nice down comforter, and a bit of shelf space for my belongings. I also get one of Busse’s closets upstairs for my clothes and all that bulky stuff. In the lower left of the picture you see an armchair. On one arm, a cup of tea; on the other my Dutch/English dictionary. Everything I need. See that thing on the wall up there between the 2^nd and 3^rd window? That’s a geiser, the traditional Dutch instant hot water heater. It runs on gas and keeps lit with a pilot light. When you turn on the hot water, it flares up inside, and heats the water instantly. I think it’s pretty neat – and it must be more economical than those hot water heaters we use that keep gallons and gallons of water hot all the time.
Next day, I started out my European experience on a bicycle. Once again Busse and Sanne helped me out – I actually borrowed an “extra” bicycle belonging to Sanne’s grandmother. Everyone rides bicycles everywhere in Holland. Bicycle traffic is the most-used means of transportation around town, and the streets are a complex mixture of pedestrian, bike and auto routes. It took me a while to get used to looking all directions at once for bicycles, mopeds (yikes!) cars and busses (and trolleys in Amsterdam) – I’m still getting used to it! So far I had only one accident where I cut somebody off and ended up tumbling along the concrete. Just a scraped elbow. On the first day of my bike riding, I went out to the countryside, saw windmills, cows, and lots of green grass. I came across this immaculately tended lawn, and who should be standing in the center but our own Lady Liberty herself. I took this as a good omen. Foreigners welcome.
The city I’m staying in is ancient, older than Amsterdam. The canals were originally built by the Romans (does that mean they were built by the Dutch under Roman supervision?). And this is the great landmark of Utrecht: the Dom Toren, which means Cathedral Tower. It stands some 112 meters above the ground, the biggest old tower in the Netherlands. All around the tower are the old roadways and canals. Canals go everywhere here, it was the standard for transportation of goods for centuries. Now the canals are used mostly for tourism. The cellars that once took in goods from the wharves are converted into every sort of studio, living quarters, café, restaurant or discotheque.
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