Reality Check

I just returned home from a two week work assignment in Switzerland. The setting was about as utopic as it gets - the countryside set along crystal clear lakes against a backdrop of snow capped mountains. I stayed in a small tourist village that looked right out of a The Sound of Music. The weather was unseasonably warm and, of course, everything was pristine and organized. My husband flew out for the weekend and we visited some close friends currently living near Zurich. I couldn't have hoped for a better time, but it is still great to be home.

I keep waiting for it to really sink in that I am pregnant. People have told me that it is impossible to fully comprehend and that it may even be a natural defense mechanism that your mind doesn't try to fully grasp what will be happening to you during labor. We saw our little girl moving around during the 20 week sonogram and I feel her kicking and punching throughout the day, but I just have a mental disconnect. It just feels like I am mysteriously gaining weight and that there is this hard ball in my stomach.

My shirts are really starting to get tight. I have become one of those women constantly pulling their tee shirt down to cover my mid-section. I went into a baby store today that also carries maternity clothes. Walking through the baby clothes section on my way back to the maternity section, I felt the strangest sensation...nothing. I just cannot bring myself to get interested in buying baby clothes. For starters, I don't have the foggiest idea how big the baby is going to be nor do I have any clue how fast she will grow. I am so bad with proportions. I can't look at a woman in the street and tell her age more less guess the size of a 3 month old.

I didn't find any tee shirts in the end at that store or four others. I will rant about the lack of maternity clothes in The Netherlands in another post, though. As I was leaving the store, I forced myself to pause and try to form an opinion about the baby toys in the store. Then it dawned on me. Who is going to tell me what to buy and when? How am I going to figure all this stuff out? Sure toys have tags on them suggesting the age appropriateness and there is more literature out there than I could read in a lifetime, but who is going to teach me how to be a parent? When I am going to feel like a parent?

Thebump.com has some great customizable tickers. Here is my favorite...

I couldn't help, but add one to my blog too.

Pitter Patter

I'm pregnant!

I'm pregnant!

Surprise!

Hopefully that explains why I have been missing in action on my blog for the past few months. It is not that I didn't have anything to write about, I just wasn't ready to put the news out there. I am nearing the end of my fourth month of pregnancy. My husband and I are both starting to get really excited especially now that I am starting to show and, as a result, it is all getting a little more real. We have had two sonograms so far and have seen Peanut (he/she's name for now) and heard P's heartbeat. Everyone is healthy and on-track, thankfully. I must admit, though, it is still hard to make the connection on a daily basis.

Last week, my husband and I toured three daycare centers (creches) in our neighborhood. Just when I think I am getting integrated into the culture, bam! The shock hits me all over again. What has always fascinates me about travelling to other countries is experiencing how people in other cultures live their lives. It could be the littlest, most mundane things. I love going to a local grocery store or market and just roaming the aisles or stalls, respectively, for instance. I will walk around a residential neighborhood. That is all well and good until I try to visualize handing over my infant to strangers.

Waves of anger, fear, annoyance, sadness, and tears suddenly rolled through me throughout the day and during our three visits. For starters, reality set in just a little more that we are about to become parents to a completely helpless human. Our decisions, for better or for worse, will shape this person's life. As a control freak and planner by nature, the fact that no amount of research can prepare me for a child nor should I realistically expect to have a predictable schedule for much of the next two years brings out the worst in me. My defense mechanism is to withdraw mentally, emotionally and sometimes physically to the most nearby familiar place or, in extreme cases, women's clothing store. But there we were, touring day care centers. I willed myself to stay present in the situation which was made all the more difficult by a language barrier.

Did I mention everyone only spoke Dutch? I just finished an advanced Dutch language course so if I give each spoken word my undivided attention, I can follow along in a conversation. And, if allowed many periods of uncomfortable silence and some panomiming, I can respond in Dutch. Strangely, this has also inversely affected my ability to speak English, my mother tongue. During the tours, I would ask questions in English and the person would answer in Dutch. It worked well except that I could barely cobble together a question in understandable English so oftentimes the person didn't answer the question I was asking. They were incorrectly guessing what I was trying to ask and answering that question. To top it off, tears would rush to my eyes and surprise me mid-sentence. By the final visit, I would just start with the main word of my question, "Discipline", for instance, and follow it with, "How do you do that?" I also stopped telling people I was American in hopes that they would cut me a little more slack and guess that English in addition to Dutch was not my native language. I am sure they still came away with the impression, "The Dutch father seems really nice and put together, but that mother. Whoa! Nutjob!"

We live in a city center that, while a relatively small city, is still quite densely populated. The Netherlands, after all, is one of the most densely populated countries on Earth. As a result, the daycare centers occupy huge buildings by local standards, but are small compared to those in the U.S. Fortunately, they have each managed to carve out large landscaped play areas while being sandwiched in between apartment buildings. They are not the playgrounds and backyards of my youth, but at least they are not all completely paved. Our child will play under a tree and eat sand and dirt, but they will have to reach into a planter or pot to do so. He/she will have far more exposure to different cultures than either my husband or I have had and will speak Dutch better than me by his/her second birthday.

One cultural norm that my husband and I are still struggling with is how many days to put our child in daycare. The standard in the U.S. seems to be all or nothing - five days per week or not at all - for babies. The Dutch standard seems to be a maximum of three days per week. There are exceptions to every rule, but the onous tends to fall mainly on the mother to work a maximum of three days per week. It is just not economically feasible nor my wish to be a full-time stay-at-home-mom. Don't misunderstand me, please. I think it would probably be the hardest and most fulfilling job I would ever have, but it would also put a huge amount of stress on our current and potentially future finances and that would also impact our marriage and our child. There really is no perfect decision.

At the same time, even as I stood in each daycare center talking to friendly and I am sure completely competent caregivers about what still feels like a fictitious baby to me, it deeply pained me to imagine bringing Peanut there five days per week. What could my husband and I be doing in our careers that is SO important to warrant someone else raising our child 40 hours per week? What could be more important to me than experiencing our child reach his/her first milestones? Do I need to be physically present at every minute milestone (i.e. dirty diaper) ? Probably not. It would probably give me more appreciation of the ones I do get to experience. Once again, I just can't wrap my mind around it all.

The other option we are considering is hiring a nanny. Now, before you write me off as a poor little rich girl, hear me out. I am not referring to the live-in caregiver/au pair from "Nanny Diaries". Frankly, we don't have the appropriate number of bedrooms or bathrooms for that and the idea creeps me out. This would be a woman (not that I oppose men, but I have yet to meet a manny here in The Netherlands) that comes to our house eight to nine hours a day five days per week and also cleans our house and possibly does some errands. Dutch daycare is so expensive that hiring a nanny usually costs less - sometimes upto 40% less - than daycare. I have also heard of some situations in which the price of the nanny also includes two weekend nights per week of babysitting. Babysitters run EUR 10 per hour here! And did you catch the cleaning part? Cleaning! Errands! Date night! Can you hear the angels singing?!

(Cue the sound of a needle scratching across a vinyl record.) Yes, there are huge risks to consider when hiring a total stranger to care for your child in your house on a daily basis. In The Netherlands, there is also the high likelihood that the woman will speak limited Dutch or English. Dutch woman are usually far too expensive and English speaking woman are typically twenty-somethings only interested in being a live-in au pair. Additionally, nannies are usually found by word of mouth and we just don't have than many channels in which to search. Postings can be found at the local grocery store on their announcements board, but do I really want to risk it? Nevertheless, we are open to the possibility. We have also added our names to the waiting lists at the three daycare centers.

There are other things to consider like our work schedules. I travel for work 30% of the time and can be out of town for a week at a time. My husband drives at least an hour each way to work each day so cannot feasibly drop off our child and pick it up within the ridiculously strict opening hours at the daycare centers. While my parents would happily watch our baby from time to time to fill in where need be, they live across an ocean. Oh, what were we thinking getting pregnant? I remind myself that people do this everyday and, eventhough I can't see it now, we will be fine...more than just fine.

Oprah in Cambodia

Before I even knew I loved to travel, I loved to read. I also love music. Books and music intertwine themselves with memories throughout my life. Songs draw me back into rooms or cars and onto couches, benches, seats and even treadmills of a decade gone by. As I began traveling internationally in my late teens, music and books were always along for the ride. I mostly chose haphazardly based on bestsellers or what jumped off the shelf at me. It has created some strangely charged memories. Dave Matthews' solo album, for instance, will always remind me in equal parts of my early morning jogs along the river in Warsaw, Poland and breaking-up with my college sweetheart.

One book and place keep haunting me lately, though. This time last year, I was finishing a trip in Vietnam and heading to Cambodia where I would volunteer as a teacher in Phnom Penh. Prior to volunteering, I spent a week in Siem Reap and then took a six hour trip by bus to Phnom Penh. Other than the ridiculously simplistic Cambodian soap opera blaring from the bus's tv and speakers, the trip was thankfully uneventful. We had air conditioning, the bus was a relatively modern coach, and the road was pretty smooth. A few years ago, I started listening to books on my Ipod. It was far cheaper than buying books printed in English in The Netherlands and they could easily accompany me on public transport and walks. Oprah's unauthorized biography accompanied me throughout most of my time in Cambodia. Yes, it was a bizarre choice and, as a side note, I just couldn't finish it because I found it too negative.

Nevertheless, Oprah will always remind me of Cambodia. I must have been listening to a chapter about her childhood and adolescence when we stopped three hours into our cross country bus ride in Cambodia for a lunch break. I for some reason associate that bus stop with what the deep south must have been like in the 1940s. I am probably so ridiculously far off on this analogy that it only goes to show you how alien Cambodia seemed to me. I remember taking a wide step off the bus's last step over a open sewage streaming along the high concrete curb and over the orangish brown dirt road. Dust rolled off the wide dirt boulevard as motor bikes and the occasional decades old car drove by the row of six coach buses identical except for a small hand printed sign in English stating the destination.

The dust thickened the already hot air heavy with humidity. Sweat rolled down my back and I could feel drops forming on my shins. The stink and the heat squashed any hunger pangs. I followed the other travellers, some die hard backpackers, but mostly well to do Cambodians along what must have been the local version of Main Street. A two story restaurant occupied the corner. Voices rolled out the open windows and doors and people were packed inside slurping down steaming bowls of soup and hot lunches. I, on the other hand, would have paid $10 (okay, $5) for a cold Diet Pepsi.

Wearing ear buds and listening to an Ipod in the many situations similiar to this that I would come across on my travels throughout Asia, gave me an instant albeit false sense of security. Oftentimes I would wear the earbuds while playing nothing at all. I just didn't want to seem approachable, but I also didn't want to be vulnerable to people approaching me from behind or, more likely, the tuk tuk that comes driving out of nowhere as I cross the street. I suppose just the appearance of an Ipod gave me an appearance of status in such an impoverished country, but that was far from my consciousness. I already stood out so much and was so obviously western what did it matter?

The audiobooks too helped me filtered what I was experiencing. Songs often makee me feel more and that is sometimes just too much to handle. Books have always transported me to somewhere else while music in many ways brings me home and further inside myself. I am such a sensitive and sometimes painfully empathetic person by nature that I found myself in SE Asia having to withdraw from situations just to keep myself from crying. I could only imagine a bystander thinking, "Look at the crazy white girl crying! What's she got to cry about?"

Looking as intentional as I could fake, I turned the corner in front of the busy restaurant and walked along one side of it and towards what looked to be the beginnings of a residential area. I don't remember much because I didn't get too far down the street before second guessing my decision and turning back for the bus. Eyes were following me constantly. Drivers slowed to watch me walk down the sidewalk. Thank God for sunglasses because they couldn't see my eyes struggling not to show fear or anger. There were rules, norms, expectations, ethnicities, and history here that I could not begin to understand or to even have a chance of fitting in with. It is one of those moments where I realized that it wasn't the time or my place to wonder about what was right or wrong about this culture. I wasn't even a minority. I was an outsider.

Not for one moment was I probably in any real danger, but the uncertainty of being is such a foreign place and the instant realization of being alone shot waves of fear through me just the same. Dignity seems simultaneously the most ridiculous goal and the only hope. Instinctually, I forced myself to not speed my step or swivel my head at gwacking passersby. I also made a point to walk as casual and as confident as possible in 104 degree heat. I met the gaze of men I passed and then immediately averted my glance without the faintest secret of a grin. I knew enough by then to know female smiles mean something differently and entirely more to Asian men.

I know I am from a different era and there are things like hatred and racism that I will never fully understand or come to bear. Walking those dusty, hot streets in Cambodia that day, though, I couldn't help but feel I understood the tiniest bit better what it felt like to live all those decades ago in the deep south walking to school with a fear and rage you couldn't understand shaking you to your core, but an equally natural impulse to demand dignity as sweat rolled down your back and into the waist band of your finely pressed skirt, your polished shoes collecting dust with each step.

Empty boxes

I passed a man this morning on the sidewalk. It was a windy and rainy yet unseasonably warm morning, but the first week of January malaise meant that the sidewalk and the rest of the street were empty for as far as the eye could see. Living in a city center of one of the most densely populated countries on Earth, this happens so infrequently that I caught myself watching the only other soul in sight making his way slowly towards me. When I quickly realized his back was hunched and his head was down, I was instinctively emboldened to opening stare at him. He was incredibly well dressed in a black three piece suit and dark dress shoes. The black skin on his face was drawn. The hand that glasped shut the front of his jacket looked so fragile. Other than the curve from his hunched back, the suit hung off his emaciated body as it would hanging in a closet. Looking closer, I realized the oversized suit coat was probably the man's only winter jacket and wondered how many more lifetimes and years it had seen than me.

He shuffled along the sidewalk holding a clear plastic container that at one time probably held a corsage. He held it so tenderly in his right hand, away from his body as so to not upset it's contents with his body movement and seemed so fully focused on it, that I doubted at first that it was empty. What special event was this man going to or coming from or, rather, did he think he was going to or coming from? Why was he treating this seemingly discarded yet pristine clear plastic packaging like a treasured possession?

I tried to imagine what treasure he was planning to put on display in it. I have seen my fair share of objects that seemed so worthless to me proudly displayed by another for it's supposed symbol of wealth or for it's sentimental value. We are all guilty of this at one time or another. Think of the first time a Starbucks opened up in your neighborhood. Do you remember how everyone proudly showed off their paper or plastic cups with the signature green logo? In a conservative Muslim area of Indonesia, I watched a middle aged man carry around the same bottle of Heineken all night swaying dramatically and laughing loudly as if drunk. Being able to afford the $2 Heineken was a major sign wealth and perhaps seeming to buck the conservative Muslim rules by appearing drunk in public was also a sign of his status. But I think even that Indonesian man wouldn't find much value in a plain plastic box.

Perhaps my fellow pedestrian is senile. Perhaps, in his mind, he was sixteen again going to pick up the beautiful girl that would years later be his wife and would, in reality, have passed away a few years ago. I was so intrigued, I nearly stopped to ask him. I am sure my inquiry would have been returned with the same pitying wide eyed quizzical look that I had on my own face. It got me thinking, though. What empty plastic box do each of us carry around? What illusions do we hold most dear? What belief or value or even possession do we hold so tightly that, if we voiced it aloud or showed it to a stranger, would they doubt our grasp on sanity? And, most signficantly, which of those things are propelling us forward and which are holding us back? How are we getting in our own way?

I have spent the past few months job hunting and, thankfully, I have found a job I am really excited about. I just finished my first week there and feel like I am right where I am supposed to be. It is a great company and I feel right at home with my colleagues. I remember, in my many interviews, I was often asked to describe a weakness that I need to work on. I am sure it is a question we have all faced. I honestly admitted that much of the feedback I had received from previous managers is that I lacked the confidence and abililty to convince people and 'win' them with my point of view.

I have known this about myself for years and had figured at some level it was just something I was going to have to accept about myself. I had also secretly believed that it was a trait everyone possessed and most of their personalities revolved around managing their waning self-confidence. Strangely, though, several of the people I interviewed with challenged my answer. Two went so far as to insist I was just making up a fault I did not actually possess which is sometimes what candidates are coached to do. At first I was indignant in my insistence that I was being honest...not exactly what one should do in an interview. Imagine saying, "No, really, I have alot of work to do in building my convincing skills!"

But the more I tried to explain myself and, later, the more I thought back on this past year of travelling, I realized, something has shifted in me. Maybe it is time to set that belief aside and see what happens. So, I guess, when inevitably someone asks me why I took a year off to travel, I can add to my list of reasons, "It helped me to get out of my own way."

I wanna, I need ta, IKEA

Saturday, November 20

I am currently stuck quite deeply in the middle of the interviewing phase of job hunting. My interview yesterday made #15, I think. There is only so much a person should be allowed to talk about themselves. And, yet, I was literally up all last night contemplating after I was asked in my interview yesterday, "Where do you see yourself in the immediate and and long term future." I guess there is no bottom to my need for self-reflection. My poor husband. Thank goodness we have a spare bedroom where I can stew in my own juices alone.

For some reason now, in the midst of interviewing, seems the crucial time to get some home improvement done. It could be because I see the light at the end of the tunnel and that I may be working very soon and, thus, will not have as much time for such things. Or it could be that I am optimistic about getting a job (cha ching) and feel confident enough to spend some money. Well, I feel confident enough to buy some shelves at IKEA. That is not exactly furniture I guess, but I did buy four sets of shelves.

Sometimes it amazes me how little my husband and I do on weekends. We both felt a major sense of accomplishment after arriving back home from IKEA at 11 am with our four flat packed bundles....so much so that we abruptly posited the flat pack bundles in the rooms where they will eventually be installed and haven't touched them since.

Did you know that IKEA has one euro breakfast deals? Did you know that they open their doors at 9am, but that the store itself is not accessible until 10am? Genius! We, of course, did not realize this until we arrived at IKEA at 9.20 am. We sat huddled around one of many child friendly nooks while strangers let their offspring run wild as they enjoyed cheap bakery rolls and slurped not half bad 75 cent cappuccinos.

Monday, 22 November

So, in record time, we have made progress on our IKEA purchases. On Sunday, I put together the new night stand/shelving for our bedroom and we got it properly installed and decorated. It still amazes me that, after a university degree, two accounting certifications and years of work, I get such a great feeling of accomplishment from using screws and what is essentially particle board that has been painted white to build a shelf. I am so proud, I feel like posting a picture of it. I can't say I have ever felt the same urge to take a picture of a report I've worked on for weeks.

Weather

(image from http://shooonline.blogspot.com)

My God it's been cold this week! Winter just came up and smacked us on the face it seems. I can just see my dad slap his hands together and start rubbing them together furiously while letting out a stream of expletives. This week, I was that sixty something year old man swearing like a truck driver. Someone up there was just f(#$ing with us this week. It hardly stopped raining.

When the sun came out for a brief flirt a few days ago, I figured I would get in some grocery shopping and walk to the big supermarket we have here about half a mile from the house. It was bitterly cold, but the sun was shining so I grabbed my gloves and hat and headed out the door. No sooner had I got to the end of the street and it starts hailing sideways. It was coming so hard that I had to hide behind a building waiting for it to pass. As if Mother Nature suddenly realized the sun was still out, it changed to rain. I waited a few minutes behind the building under the shelter of an overhang, said a few more expletives in my mind (Okay one aloud too, but no one heard me over the wind and rain) and headed for the grocery store.

This is how much I have grown to dread our local tiny grocery store and its lackluster inventory. I walked the half mile gladly to our big supermarket in pouring rain because I knew they would have the fresh baked bread that I have gotten hooked on here - it is a raisin walnut bread. I was so soaked upon arrival that people I thought looked wet's eyes widen in shock upon looking at me and my dripping wet hat and coat. Ah well! It was the middle of the day on a Wednesday. We are all obviously not at high points in our lives if we are at a supermarket at this time of day.

Trying to get centered

I tried out a new kind of yoga this morning. It has taken me this long - I have been home just over two months - to try out another type of yoga other than Bikram. There is still just this nagging procrastination and hesitancy to try something new. If practicing yoga in Bali and also taking Bikram has given me anything, it is the confidence that I can walk into pretty much any type of yoga class and physically make it through the class with out passing out or (which is almost more humiliating) being that one person in the class that is moving completely different than everyone else.

Bikram feels like a mind-body cleanse to me. I was looking for a type of yoga with perhaps a little less sweating and a little more meditation. Trying to hold one outstretched leg back (so far it will hopefully eventually touch the back of your head) while simultaneously leaning forward all while perched on the other locked leg in 104 F degrees surrounded by underweight scarcely dressed people doing the pose much better than you imagined possible has a way of completely wiping the palette of the mind clean and snapping off the mindless monkey chat in one's mind. I have seen and experienced what it looks like when a thought flashes through someone's head while in such a pose. It is usually those people falling on the ground. "Oh, my God! Look at the cellulite on my thigh!" "Bam! Owwww!"

The Centered Yoga class I took was definitely less sweaty. In fact, I left my long sleeved tee shirt on for the duration of the class because I was kind of cold. A lot of focus is put on elongating the back, twisting, and stretching out the hips. I could definitely feel all that. I think, though, that the lack of intense heat in the room probably intensified my awareness. Overall, it was a very relaxing class. The poses stretched me enough to release much of the tightness I hold in my neck, shoulders, and hamstrings. The class was relatively less structured so I felt like I could really push myself in a pose and then relax into it. Bikram is so austere and regimented. We have an hour and a half to get through two iterations of 26 poses. In the Centered Yoga class, we did at the most twelve poses in an hour and ten minutes.

Oddly, I miss Bikram. It is addictive. Like a marathon is for a runner; like a cliff wall is to a rock climber - the intensity of having to be in each moment and the gratification of just finishing the class and maybe being able to do one more pose and go deeper into another feels great and can really be hard to come by so relatively easily for most people. I live in one of the flattest countries on the planet, for instance, and even if I enjoyed climbing or running, my joints and muscles just are not up for those challenges. For the price of the class and mat rental and a one mile bike ride, I can get a taste (the biggest bite I can handle, really) of the accomplishment super athletes must feel. From Bikram, I am so focused on my body that I literally go out of my mind. I get that stillness of mind so central to relaxation, personal growth, and spirituality that I have rarely felt before.

Oh, and there is the heat. Winter is setting in here quickly with what feels like constant rain showers and bone chilling dampness. I love that hour and a half of feeling like I am in the tropics. It is a chance for my feet, nose, and fingers to actually thaw.

A new yoga studio has opened up literally down the street from us. I can't wait to try it out this week. It offers classes in hatha and vinyasa yoga. I expect, though, that I will combining this new studio with trips to Bikram.

Stay Tuned

Stay tuned....I am working on a new website for my blog. I have been wanting something a bit more tailorable so I can add my own little flair to it. The name of the new website will be "Slightly Posh". What do you think?? Please let me know....I am always open to ideas.

Bonaire Bliss

My husband and I returned Tuesday from a two week vacation in Bonaire, an island that is part of the Dutch Antilles off the northern coast of Venezuela. The island holds special meaning for us because it is the first place I went diving after earning my certification and, three years ago, it was where my husband proposed to me...underwater.

I was really looking forward to enjoying the tropical weather and relaxing with my husband. I was also curious to dive in the location where I had my first experiences, but simultaneously slightly concerned that I would get bored of two weeks of diving in a location we'd already visited.

I equate my early diving to when I first started driving a car. I was so focused on the mechanics of diving and getting used to the sensations of being under the water, that I spent most of the dive watching my buddy, looking at my air and depth gauges, checking my buoyancy, and then repeating the above steps all again and again...and again. It is easy to imagine, then, that I remembered very little of what I saw under the water. With the help of pictures, I did manage to take away enough memories, though, to write a magazine article about our trip in a British magazine "Real Travel" and in the process of writing that article, conjured up certain scenes in pretty minute detail. My most fond memory being a school of purple wrasse fish raining down on me and engulfing me in their group.

Much to my surprise, the first few days felt like a prolonged spell of deja vu with all of it's familial, familiar, and eery pangs. By the end of the first week, the dives felt amazing...almost euphoric. Having finally gained enough experience and feeling so at home allowed my diving skills to become second nature to me and, as a result, I was so present in each dive. My spewing mind chatter had run its course by then and I was just left to enjoy the sound of my breathing and the colors and shapes all around me. I was so relaxed that I could just identify some object I'd like to get closer to and my breathing would easily adjust my buoyancy.

I have included some pictures from the trip. From left to right and top to bottom: a trumpetfish; a co-owner, Esther, and I; turbot.

Thank you!

Almost two years to the day, Theo and I found our wedding present. In lieu of a register, we asked for money to put towards a piece of art. We did not really need any of the household items that newlyweds traditionally ask for so we thought it would be nice to have a piece of art that we could look at and remind ourselves of our big day. Like all of our big (and even medium) ticket items, it can take quite awhile until we get to an agreement.

We found the piece of art at the Royal Delft porcelain factory on a visit with an out of town guest. Incidentally, we also found our new table setting which has been a decision about four years in the making. As my husband says, "You know you are getting old when Delftware starts to look cool." My response was that maybe, instead, it takes getting older for it to be in your price range.

So here it is. It looks like a vase that has been accidentally melted, but trust me, it is no mistake and it is beautiful. We saw a row of the unpainted vases sitting on a white-dusted shelf just after glazing while we were on the factory tour and it peeked both of our interests. But to see one finished after someone has hand painted it and done such an amazing job to give it the effect of looking melted...it is just...well, cool. It looks kind of like a tulip blowing in the wind. For me, it is quintessential Dutch with a modern twist. It looks great on our long, lacquered white entertainment center (a four month decision process) in our living room.

Thanks everyone!

R-e-j-e-c-t-i-o-n find out what it means to me

Wow! The past week has been quite the eye opener....like a good kick in the teeth. I think I have received more rejections for job applications in the past two weeks than I have ever received in my entire life. Granted, I have been making a point to apply only for jobs that interest me and those tend to be outside of my previous work history.

I keep telling myself that, after spending ten years on one career path, I cannot expect the same kind of success after just two weeks on a new career path. Nevertheless, I am a tightly wound ball of impatience and emotions. I want to switch out of finance compliance and audit in banking and it is really difficult to even get people to consider that most of the skills I have learned are transferable. It is not like I want to suddenly become a dolphin trainer or split atoms. I want a financial analysis, compliance, training, and/or process improvement role...preferably one that is all of the above.

Oh, yeah, and I want to work in The Hague. That last bit, the location, seems to be part of the issue. I am quickly coming to realize that working in The Hague requires fluency in Dutch. It may sound like a no-brainer, but in Amsterdam, where I worked previously, it is not always the case. Yes, I could just start looking in Amsterdam, but one of the things that I hated about my daily routine in the past was the commute. On a good day, I had a two hour round trip commute by train. On a bad day, it would take nearly four hours. By the time I got home, I had long since talked myself out of any evening activities like yoga or Dutch class.

And it is time to put my money where mouth is, so to speak, and finally learn Dutch. I am choosing to view this as the final push in the right direction. So, today, I go for an intake evaluation for an intensive intermediate language course....in New East India! Just kidding...well, sort of. That is name of the neighborhood in The Hague where the language school is. They offer a full immersion course in Spa, Belgium that is much more luxe, but it is also twelve times the price. The course will be every afternoon for three hours for two weeks and I will have five hours of homework each night. After that, I should be ready to take the first of two national fluency exams. After that, I plan to start twelve weeks of night courses to prepare to take the second fluency exam. So, the plan is to be fluent (at least by national guidelines) by the first half of 2011.

It feels good yet petrifying to have a new goal. If there is one thing I have learned about myself it is that I need a finish line for myself. I may go kicking and guilting myself every step of the way, but I need that sense of accomplishment that comes with completing all those incremental steps. What can I say? I am a born project manager.

Update after going to the language center..................

I'm in! Should I be so excited about getting into a course that I am paying to take? I think I am just relieved to finally have a place to get started with learning Dutch. It will also be nice to have a purpose and a structure to my days. I celebrated by doing something I have always meant to do. I went to one of the nicer department stores in The Hague (Bijenkorf), sat in their big picture window at their ground level cafe, and ate a ridiculously rich chocolate mousse dessert and washed it down with a cappuccino. Talk about a buzz to start the weekend off right!

Enjoy your weekend everybody!

Saturday snapshots

Here are some pictures from our Saturday in Delft and Den Haag. We really lucked out and had perfect fall weather. From top (l-r): Delftware factory - courtyard that used to double as a showroom for buyers of their building fixtures; example of tiles; inside the factory; (3rd row) View from inside Delft's Oude Kerk; lunch at the Belgian Beer cafe; fountain at Binnenhof in The Hague

Tourist at heart

I'd like to start this post with a big “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” to my dad. He turns 55 today (wink, nod)!

Today I finally got myself to the tailor. We have a great local tailor that I think fancies himself a bit of a ladies’ man, but he has the sweetest eyes and smile and patiently stumbles through Dutch with me (because he doesn’t speak a word of English). Three years ago I took in two pairs of Calvin Klein jeans that I had bought at an outlet mall on a visit to the U.S. I get SO much use out of them because they fit perfectly. I am wearing a pair right now, actually. This time I took in three pairs of jeans, two pairs of pants that my husband needed fixing (new belt loops and button), and a caramel colored leather jacket that I got for a song at JcPenney three years ago, but isn’t as fitted as I’d like it. I somehow managed to drop a few inches while travelling (probably from sweating my fanny off) and I am hoping a snugly fitting jacket and jeans will do the trick to encourage me to keep it off.

Tomorrow my husband and I are taking an American colleague of his sightseeing. I can’t tell you how much I like showing people around The Netherlands. We are taking her to Delft, the home of the famous Delftware pottery. They have a nice factory tour/museum complete with a huge gift shop of traditional Delftware (each piece hand painted and with prices that start at what most people spend on their monthly mortgage payments) and not so traditional Delftware (mass produced in China probably yet in a price range where you are comfortable using them). The town itself has a quaint town center complete with a great square full of shops and cafes with terraces great for eating lunch and people watching. The hundreds year old city hall is also in the square and is a popular place for weddings so it is highly likely we'll see a bride and groom (or several) on their big day.

It probably sounds a bit strange, but I really enjoy not only showing people around, but I also like the planning that goes into it. The prospect of visitors coming opens up a whole new perspective for me. I like to take long walks around The Hague to get some exercise and I can't help, but take more notice of the architecture or pay closer attention to what restaurants would be both fun for people watching and a good fit for whomever is coming for a visit. I also like to think about what streets would be most quintessentially Dutch to take a stroll along.

Delft's center is about as tradition as a Dutch city can get and yet it still has a modern charm about it that makes it one of the most sought after places to live and raise a family. I don't know the restaurants at all, but I do remember seeing a Belgian beer cafe on a prior visit and wanting to stop through. I know, it isn't typical Dutch food, but outside of taking someone to a pancake restaurant or sandwich cafe, there really aren't that many restaurants serving traditional Dutch food and there are many reasons for that. Namely that traditional food is pretty tasteless and that most Dutch people would much rather eat Indonesian or Chinese food. Belgian food (and beer), on the other hand, is wonderful! It still has some elements, french fries and beef, for instance, that are recognizable to Americans and the food is usually seasoned and prepared to perfection. They also have a wide variety of beers to choose from which I am guessing will be much more up our guest's (a Wisconsinite) alley.

Oh, and last, but not least...I like visitors because it gives me an excuse to serve Dutch chocolate and baked goods. I bought chocolate covered kruidnoten and am making a cinnamon apple cake. Don't gasp. It is from a mix. Contrary to the popular American saying, there are few things more Dutch than apple pie.

Back to basics

Well, hello there! It has been too long. I don't have any good excuses so please just accept my apologies. I have written several posts lately, but am not quite ready to put them out there. I guess I am still just processing it all.

My husband and I had dinner with two of our closest friends here in The Netherlands and one made the comment that, before she knew it, it was as if their three month long trip touring Italy had never happened. I find myself feeling the same way...and I have been home less than two weeks.

And then I will have these completely random flashbacks or space out and my mind will wander to a cooking class in Chiang Mai or the tailor's shop in Hoi An. Today it wandered to Phonm Penh, Cambodia. I was riding my bike home from Bikram yoga. (Yes, I have gone back...more on that later.) It is just the strangest feeling to have images of the busy Phonm Penh streets rolling through my mind as my eyes see a group of five preteen Muslim children playing and flirting on the sidewalk just down from my street or I move out of the way of our local mechanic backing a car out of his tiny repair garage. The smells briefly come back to my noise and the heat even momentarily flushes my body. It is like being awake during a dream. I love it. And I commit myself today to trying to hold on to that and cherish it as long as it continues to happen.

The pictures posted above are moments caught in Phonm Penh. The hundreds of ceramics clung perilously to wires and hooks at a stall in the local market. The slums were a ghastly reminder just around the corner from our school of just how far Cambodia still needs to go. And the fruit which I have already forgotten the name of was actually pretty delicious. I finally got the nerve up to try it in Indonesia when another guest explained what it all was to me and how it should taste. My favorite has to be lizard skin fruit. That is the fruit in the first picture. It all reminds me that there are more kinds of food and people and families and lifestyles out there than anyone can imagine...and some of them are pretty sweet.

Today I had my first interview. Sitting there with a finance headhunter, it was all a bit too much to take seriously. We walked through my career history, breezing over my 'holiday' abroad. I want to stop him and point out that I did most of that trip on my own. It is something I am very proud of and still quite can't believe.

If I have to answer what I got out of it all, I guess I could say that, today, sitting in that interview, it gave me a cool, quiet confidence like I have never had in an interview. I was always one of those people that wants to put my best face forward and treated the interview like a performance. I said what I knew they wanted to hear. There were a few times where I had to consciously not do that, but the nervousness was gone. I could, with a straight face and conviction not only talk about myself, but also say that it was really important to me to work for a socially responsible company.

And, for the first time in a job interview, I told someone that I want to work for a micro financing institution and, if that is not possible for a non or for profit company that takes social responsibility seriously and has stayed committed even when it isn't convenient. There were a few things I didn't say or didn't quite say correctly, but I know that's okay. I am pretty sure he felt the same way. Don't we all? So that, today, those are the things my trip has given me.

A San Francisco Treat

Hi Everyone! I didn't forget about my blog. The family and friends' visits have kept me pretty busy these past two weeks....that and getting in as much shopping as I can manage. I had to ship three boxes of stuff home! Some of it is thanks to the great new restrictions and additional fees for taking more than one piece of luggage on an international flight. Some of it is because I went a bit overboard.

Here is a shot of me hopping off a cable car in San Francisco. I think my mom and I were on our way to Ghiradelli square to get some of their great chocolate. It was freakishly cold there! I have on a fleece jacket under that corduroy blazer. It was perfect weather to try out clam chowder at nearly every restaurant we stopped through, though, so I didn't really mind.

It is just too surreal for me to comprehend that I am now sitting in the airport on my way back home. My trip of a lifetime to SE Asia is already almost over! Where did the seven months go?

Flying through the U.S. has been a culture shock all its own especially with visiting California, Wisconsin and Illinois. The three states couldn't be more different in terms of geography, economies, and people. It was a great way to transition back into the western world by seeing family and American friends. I can only imagine what culture shock lies ahead of me, though, as I return back to The Netherlands.

I haven't really had time to digest the past three weeks in the U.S. I'll have plenty of time on my flight to London Heathrow so I will try to post another blog from there during my layover.

I'm Coming to America

I can hardly believe it, but I have only three weeks remaining in my seven month round-the-world trip. I am both ready to get back to the creature comforts the U.S. has at every turn and also looking forward to seeing friends and family. Simultaneously, though, I am really looking forward to getting back to The Netherlands, to my husband, and the ease only found at home. I can't say I am enjoying the prospect of job hunting, but I am starting to get excited about getting back to a job and regaining a daily direction in my life. I wish I could tell you what that direction will be. I am trying the best I can to quell the panic this uncertainty is giving rise to and just enjoy my last weeks of vacation.

I have started to think about what I will take away from this trip, but I think it is only fair to wait awhile to draw any deep conclusions else they will be hasty and superficial. I need the emotional distance that is only possible for me with the passage of time so I can cull through my experiences - to turn them over and over and examine them from time to time.

I set out to do many things on this trip and have done most. I haven't written the articles for travel magazines, though, for instance, that I talked about doing nor started the website that was supposed to partially offset my expenses. Through this blog, though, I have been writing and, more importantly, I have started to share my writing which is a big step for me. (I hope all of you have enjoyed it too!) In doing so, it has catalyzed me to get into the habit of writing which is something I have always meant to do. So, in that way, the trip has been a success. Like so many, my hope is to one day write a book (or ten) and the thought was to use the trip for material. We'll see. It just seems so large a goal.

I fly out tomorrow morning from Vava'u, Tonga to begin what will surely be the longest day on record. I will take three flights, the longest nearly 13 hours, and still manage to arrive in San Francisco the same day as I departed Tonga. Time zones are funny that way. There my mom will pick me up from the airport and we will begin a week long whirlwind road trip to Muir Woods, wine country (Napa & Sonoma), and Big Sur amongst other places. Then we'll fly to IL together where I will spend two weeks catching up with friends and family. Ready or not, here I come! :)

Whale watching

It has taken me a full 24 hours to calm down after the whale watching trip I went on yesterday afternoon...and writing about it will probably get me excited all over again. It was AMAZING!!

Yesterday, I had the opportunity of a lifetime to swim with a mother humpback whale, her (approximately) one month old calf and an adult male (serving as bodyguard/escort). As part of a group of twelve customers, we went out on a twelve foot covered speed boat to search for signs of whales breaching the surface of the waters around Vava'u, Tonga. I think the owners of Beluga Diving had been tracking the mother, calf, and escort via the town's short wave radio station because they seemed to know exactly where to look. (To digress, this town in so many ways reminds me of a tropical version of the Alaskan village in "Northern Exposure". Remember the local radio station on that t.v. show? Vava'u's commentary is much the same and just as colorful. One boat's call sign is the little blue boat with big red balls, for instance.)

For the next five hours we followed the three whales around the open water and, when they seemed to be surfacing in relatively the same area for a few minutes at a time, a group of four snorkelers would be directed to jump in. We would then follow a guide to ensure that we approached the whales appropriately. For instance, it is dangerous to get between a calf and it's mother. I found this out accidentally when the calf decided to come check me out and left it's mother's side and seemed to be making its way towards me at the surface. Other than knowing that no underwater creature should be touched, I had no idea what to do. It is impossible to anticipate the movements of a baby about three times your length and weighing thousands of pounds. I just froze.

I was so simultaneously excited and in awe that I was completely surprised to feel this force move suddenly beneath me. The mother, a fifty foot, 70,000 pound shiny black mass changed directions and wooshed beneath me like a fish the size of a ship. I really can't tell you how close she was, but I probably could have touched her with my snorkeling fin if I weren't trying to pin myself to the surface to the water and remain as flat and as still as possible.

The mother surfaced on the side of the baby opposite of us and order was preserved, thankfully, with no one coming to blows...literally. They flicked their tales a few times and were off into the deep blue and we were all left speechless with hearts racing. All I could finally managed was, "Oh my God!"

In encounters later in the day, the mother and baby were so peacefully interacting and so seemingly oblivious of us that when they turned their attention on to us, their size immediately switches from fascinating to a potential force that is heart stopping and frightening. We tended to be swimming after them kicking as hard as our legs would allow. They obviously didn't mind us around because they not only did not disappear into the depths below, but they seemed to stop every minute or so as if waiting for us to catch up to them. Expecting them to shortly continue moving, we sometimes briefly overcame the mother's tail. She was usually many feet below the water with the baby floating above her practicing its surfacing and tail flukes. The mother, though, would gracefully begin to move her tail upwards and it was all we could do to back peddle to get out of her way. Her tail never really came close to us since she was well aware of our exact proximity to her, but it definitely got my heart racing.

In another instance of us catching up to the tail of the male escort, he began to dive deep to get away from us which is amazing because it allowed us to see him on an angle and, thus, gave us a much better perspective of his size. Just as our attention was waning expecting him to disappear, he made a U-turn and started back towards us vertically with his belly facing us. I thought he would breech and do a spectacular back flop for us, but he barely broke the surface and then was off again.

The mother and calf both seemed to make eye contact with us at one point in the day. At those moments, I was suddenly deeply aware of just how intelligent these beings are. It seemed as if the mother was trying to communicate to us, "I see you. I mean you no harm and you are welcome as long as you allow my child to just be." She was obviously in control of the situation and she was fully aware of that.

I didn't get any pictures, but others did and, hopefully, they will e-mail them to me. Two of the local whale watching operations, though, have great pictures on their websites. Have a look: Dolphin Pacific (whom I will go whale watching with next Monday) and Dive Vava'u (make sure to look at the whale watching and guest photos links). The pictures on these websites are great depictions of what I saw at close range. It is really hard to convey how deeply impressive and exciting this experience was and why. Maybe it is the unique situation of being in the presence of another mammal that is so many times larger than us humans. Maybe it is the experience of being in the presence of another intelligent being and realizing, through watching a mother with her calf, just how similar we are all at times. Maybe, like the silent view of the peaks of a mountain range, it is the awareness of the majesty and vastness of nature. Right now it feels like all of this and more...

Vava'u, Tonga

I will be the first to admit that I haven't gotten very many great pictures yet in Vava'u, Tonga. Nonetheless, I thought people might be curious to see what this little South Pacific port town looks like. It is cuter, better organized, and bigger than I expected, thankfully. It is a popular destination for yachts and other sailing craft making long distance trips because it has a naturally protected harbor and the surrounding islands are also relatively sheltered from the tumultuous ocean so they are fun to hop around to. It is also relatively big and westernized with nearly a dozen restaurants, several mom & pop grocery stores, and internet connection.

I have come here to swim with whales - humpback whales to be more specific. I have been lucky enough in the past two days to see two whales and a calf surface the water (as well as two pods of dolphins) and could hear them 'singing' to each other during my two dives yesterday, but I haven't seen them yet up close. Hopefully, I will have the opportunity this afternoon on a five hour whale watching tour that allows customers, four at a time, to snorkel with whales. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Bligh Blah

Hi All,

I haven't forgotten about you. My internet connections at the hotels in Fiji have been ridiculously expensive and slow. I also haven't had a lot to say lately either. My trip up to Raki Raki to dive the world renowned Bligh Strait fell flat. The weather and currents were too rough to dive. We ended up only able to dive close to the resort in sheltered waters. While the diving was nice, the dive shop wasn't all that professional and, for the price, I preferred not to do repeat dives at dive sites. So, instead of doing the planned 12 dives, I only did four.

Well, let's hope Tonga is better. I am writing you from there now. I plan to go diving and on a whale watching boat trip.

If you want to see pictures of my husband and my diving trips within Indonesia, they are now posted on Facebook. I am tagged in his photo albums so, if we are friends, you can have a look.

Pictures next time...