Caliban – Opinion and Righteous Anger

Whereas in Mountain View, it would take me until 11:30 to get out of the house and bike in to work, we can’t seem to leave the house until some time after noon over here. The day is half-gone before we even get out the door; we’ve definitely go to work on that.

We had lunch at Greenwood’s today, a recommendation from a woman we recently met just outside our house at the Thai restaurant next door. You can get scones with jam and cream there, but I didn’t sample them on this first visit.

We then walked up to Centraal Station to buy a voordeelurenkaart for both of us. This will give us a 40% discount on Dutch trains for a whole year. Sarah has been nagging me to take her somewhere exciting before I return to California for a week to see Dead Can Dance later this month, so this was part of that plan. You need a voordeelurenkaart to be able to purchase and use a RailPlus card, which you can use to get 25% off international tickets.

Anyway, these turned out to be useless in combination with the Thalys train that we wanted to take to Paris, so we didn’t buy any of them. Instead, we just bought a couple of first class tickets to Paris for a train departing on Wednesday, the 14th. We’ll spend four nights in the French capital and return on Sunday, giving me just one day to run any errands before I hop on a plane back to San Francisco for the first of four Dead Can Dance concerts along the Californian coast.

I’ve travelled quite extensively, but I’ve rather surprisingly never actually been to France before, so that will add another country to my list. We got a good deal on the first class tickets, thanks to Eloïse. She travels for free, but rather unusually, her very presence reduces the price of our adult tickets. It’s strange, but we’re not complaining.

Anyway, we always said that we would start to travel around Europe when we got here, and Sarah is making me put my money where my mouth is. It’ll be fun to hurtle along the track at 300km per hour next week, making it to Paris in just four hours. One of the Thalys trains has WiFi on board, too, but sadly not the one we’ll be taking that day.

So now we have to read the Lonely Planet Paris book as soon as possible and try to remember our school French. It’ll be nice to get away for a few days and, in so doing, seal the first rather difficult chapter of our new life in Amsterdam. We’ve actually accomplished quite a lot in the last few weeks, even though it hasn’t really felt like it.

Eloïse will get to visit her third country, too; not bad for someone just about to turn four months old.

At the end of the afternoon, we rode our bikes down to the Vondelpark, which turned out to be absolutely packed with people: cyclists, skaters, people lying on the grass; everyone was having a good time.

After giving Sarah some time to practice on the bakfiets, we went to Café Vertigo, next to the Film Museum. This is inside the Vondelpark at a very scenic spot.

There wasn’t much space on the terrace, so we joined a woman and her eleven week old baby boy at their table. When we struck up a conversation with her, we realised we had a lot in common and hit it off really well. She has an Irish boyfriend and he joined us a little later. What was meant to be a quick drink turned into a meal and lasted a couple of hours. It was great to speak to some new people in more than a superficial way; it makes me realise just how much I’m missing our friends. Anyway, perhaps something lasting will come of this crossing of paths. We exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses, leaving only when Eloïse started to become weary of her parents not having moved their arses for way too long.

The temperature was about 27°C today; very, very warm. It’s as if we’d never left California. If only it could continue for a few more weeks; then our friends and family could really see the city at its best when they visit.

Sarah and I took Wiesje out in the Bugaboo today. She’s become very accustomed to her sling and doesn’t care much for the pram, so it was a bit of a risk to take her out in it, but I thought that it had been long enough that we should give it a go. Surprisingly, she immediately went to sleep and we had a good experience, pushing her around town.

After lunch at Bagels & Beans, we walked around the Sarphatipark and then on down to the Concertgebouw, where Sarah made enquiries about concert tickets for her folks when they visit later this month. We then continued into the Vondelpark, which was really crowded with people enjoying this very warm late summer’s day. The last couple of days have been absolutely beautiful, with temperatures around 25°C. It’s been real shorts and sandals weather.

Today was a nice, relaxing family day. It was nice to walk such a long distance, taking it easy and strolling at our own pace. Wiesje was in the best of moods, too, fussing very little throughout the day. The canals were scenic with small boats; cyclists were abundant; the cafés had full terraces of people eating and drinking the day away; the parks were full of people relaxing and enjoying life, skating, cycling, picnicing, chatting, drinking, etc., etc.

Yes, today was Amsterdam at its summer best and it felt good to be here again. There were so many scenes of life to be enjoyed, a far cry from anything we were able to witness back in the suburban hell that is Silicon Valley. Today provided a hint of the truth behind many of the reasons why I wanted to move back here. It’s just going to take a little while to build a life here, but there’s nothing new in that realisation.

An Australian ice-cream rounded out the afternoon nicely.

Dinner this evening was at Casa Peru. We met an Argentinian woman there and exchanged baby stories. Her latest child had a rash on his cheeks; it turns out he’s allergic to her breastmilk. Imagine that!

I bought Eloïse her first bedtime story book today: Over een kleine mol die wil weten wie er op zijn kop gepoept heeft by Werner Holzwarth & Wolf Erlbruch. It’s actually originally a German book, with the title Vom kleinen Maulwurf, der wissen wollte, wer ihm auf den kopf gemacht hat or, if you prefer, ‘About a small mole who wants to know who pooped on his head’. It’s a fun book and I’m going to enjoy reading it to her, but she wasn’t in the mood during my first attempt this evening.

Sarah and I viewed our first houses on Wednesday. That was a very interesting experience, as the four houses we looked at were very different to each other. I liked a couple of them, but Sarah only liked one of them. At least it was one of the two that I liked. We’ll keep on looking, but at least the ball is now rolling. We’ll hopefully view a few more places next week.

A letter of receipt arrived today, concerning Sarah’s application for a residence permit. She’s in the system, at least, which is good.

Another letter confirmed that the three of us have had our application for health insurance accepted. That’s another important concern taken care of.

We didn’t do much today. A visit to that most pretigious of retail establishments, Blokker, saw us pick up some exciting items, such as a ball of string, some drinking glasses, a mixing bowl, a four Euro clock for the living room, and a digital clock-radio for the bedroom. Ooh!

We also went to Prénatal in the Kalverstraat. This branch is closing, so they have a sale of their children’s clothing with 70% off the original price. We picked up about half a dozen items for Eloïse, costing a total of €18. That satisifed Sarah’s acutely honed sense of having found a bargain.

Wow. I can’t go on typing this blog entry. Our life here is even more boring than it was in Mountain View, if that’s even possible. That’s what happens when you have neither a job nor many friends in a city where you’ve lived for precisely three weeks. I just can’t bare to tell you about the items that comprised my dinner and what we watched on TV this evening.

Oh, before I forget, I met up with Simon, an old colleague of mine from Linuxcare the other day. We had dinner and strolled down memory lane. Simon occasionally works in The Hague, but lives in Munich.

I think the three of us are going to have to go on a trip pretty soon. Sarah and I are both getting itchy feet and living in this shitty house is doing us no good.

Well, it’s not really her bike, but it’s for her, as you’ll see.

We bought a second bike today, this time a bakfiets, our second purchase from the Fietsfabriek. A bakfiets is a bike with a large trough or box at the front, traditionally for transporting goods, but these days more fashionably for transporting one’s children. It feels a bit long and unwieldy to ride, but Eloïse’s car seat can be belted into the trough, allowing us to carry her all over town.

Even if the bike were to jackknife, the idea is that Wiesje would remain snugly secured in her car seat. That’s the theory, anyway. Let’s hope it never comes to a field test.

Wiesje also had her first visit to the consultatiebureau today. This is roughly equivalent to visiting a paediatrician in the US, but in the same way that healthy pregnant women in The Netherlands see only a midwife and visit an obstetrician only if referred to one in the event of a complication, young babies see only a district nurse (wijkverpleegkundige), visiting a paediatrician only if a problem is found and a referral is issued.

The nurse didn’t agree with our decision not to vaccinate Wiesje against the usual suspect diseases, but we were prepared for that. Happily, though, she didn’t try to convince us to change our minds.

We had the opportunity to weigh her, which was a welcome event, as she hadn’t been weighed for some time. She tipped the scales at 5820g and measured 60cm. Her head circumference is quite large at 41cm. She gets that from me, I’m afraid; I have a bloody big head.

Anyway, the happy conclusion is that she’s growing nicely and is close to the 50th percentile for her age, which is interesting, since this measurement is by Dutch standards. In the US, too, she was close to the 50th percentile and people aren’t as tall there. Whatever, the main thing is that there’s no cause for concern.

We’re going back to the consultatiebureau tomorrow, where Wiesje will visit the doctor. I’m not sure what tests will be done, but all will be revealed in about ten hours. The consultatiebureau gave us this lovely little growth book, which is full of handy information and advice about child development. It also has space to note down what happens at each appointment. There are growth charts, dental charts for marking down the new teeth as they arrive, eye tests, etc. I wish we’d been given one of these back in the US.