My (ex)country ‘tis of thee

A conversation with Peter’s Great Aunt Roselee last week raised the interesting question of why we’re referred to as expatriates. A sharp-as-a-tack lady in her 80s, she knew this somewhat trendy term because one of her sons had just returned from an expat assignment in Dubai. We both knew enough Latin to be dangerous and therefore grasped why it’s a technically correct way to refer to people living outside of their home country (“ex” meaning out of and “patria” meaning fatherland). At the same time, the “ex” part of it is a little disturbing, particularly when you consider the other “ex” words in our vocabulary, most of which indicate a permanent separation of one kind or another:  exhusbands … excommunication … extinct.

The dictionary definition of the verb expatriate is to drive a person from his or her native land or to withdraw oneself from one’s native land or from allegiance to it. As tempting as it would be right now to use our foreign address as a political statement, our temporary withdrawal from the United States has no such noble origins. We’re here for the purely selfish reasons of cultural enrichment and gastronomic adventure. And we have every intention of going back.

I propose we revisit our Latin dictionaries and find a bit more nuanced descriptor that’s suitable for today’s globally mobile society. How about “extra” patriates? If ET can be an extraterrestrial, why can’t I be an extrapatriate? After all, “extra” means “existing, taking place, or coming from outside the limits.” That works for me. And I’m sure our host countries would appreciate the reassurance that we’re not here to colonize. After all, as ET knows, home’s the most excellent place of all.

 

 

Going Going…

I’ve commented in the past about how being in Amsterdam has opened the door on a multitude of new relationships. Everyone in the family has met people from all over the world and developed wonderful new friendships. Ruth and I have repeatedly commented on much busier our social calendar has become since we arrived.

During the past few weeks, however, we’ve experienced a bit of the downside of the expat experience. People leave. Coming from Minnesota, where all but 23 citizens in the entire state were born there (and 14 of those were from one extended family from Iowa, so they don’t really count) and only 65 people have ever permanently left, having friends move far away comes as something of a shock.

Katie’s best friend and her family are returning this summer to their home in Melbourne Australia. Another friend was scheduled to go to Turkey, but got a one year reprieve at the last minute. One of Lizzie’s friends is off to her native Norway while another is moving to exotic California.

Then last weekend, we hosted a going away party for another expat family we’ve grown close to. It was a sad day for me as I said farewell to one of the closest friends I’ve had in a long long time. My double, one of the two Pieten, a fellow trailing spouse. I’m thrilled you’re going home Pete, but I will really miss you!

We know that new friends are on the way, acquaintances we’ve not yet are undoubtedly planning their move to Amsterdam or enrolling in the International School as we speak. The transient expat community is always changing. But we’ll always hold a place in our hearts for the ones that leave and wish we could have more time together. It’s hard to say goodbye.

The good thing about all these departures, other than having a very interesting Christmas card list, is the growing network of people we have to visit. I’ve always been interested in visiting Turkey. Norway is supposed to be pretty nice this time of year. As most readers of this blog would probably attest, proximity, while nice, is not a requirement for friendship.

See you in August, Pete.

 

Hup Holland Hup

The streets are silent. There are no tired bicycles creaking down the paths, cars are suspiciously absent. The usual chatter of distant voices is only a memory. The wind rattles the plastic orange banners draped over the narrow streets.

Suddenly joyous shouts and cheers erupt from every quarter. A portable air horn blares its wake-the-dead call. The staccato pop of fire crackers mingle with the distant rumbling of bottle rockets and even larger ordnance.

Holland 1 Italy 0.

It is the first game in the 2008 European Football Championship (that’s soccer for all you Americans out there). Sixteen countries playing thirty-one games in Switzerland and Austria (this year’s host countries). The format is similar to soccer’s world cup; teams are divided into four groups in a round-robin tournament. Each team playing the other three members of it’s group once.  The top two teams in each group advance to the quarter final, an elimination round the culminates with a single European champion.

Holland 2 Italy 0

In addition to the orange banners and red white and blue Dutch flags, the shops are chock-a-block full of soccer paraphernalia. Orange lion t-shirts (the national emblem), inflatable hats and hammers (one of which fell into our patio from an over-eager upstairs neighbor), car flags, orange air horns and even little red, white, blue and orange lions given away at the local grocery store. In offices throughout the country and probably throughout the continent pools are organized, everyone looking for the key upset that will propel them to the top while not abandoning the need to support the home team.  It’s like a combination of the NCAA basketball tourney and the Olympics.

Holland 3 Italy 0

More cheers, more blasts of the air horn. Holland has easily dispatched one of the better teams in the tournament. Italy was the World Cup champion only two years ago.  Next up is France, another powerhouse. The final there, Holland 4 France 1.  Tonight is Romania, a meaningless game because Holland is already assured of advancement to the next round.

The excitement is building.

Hup Holland Hup!

 

Nine Euros

High above the port of Agios Nikolas on the Eastern side of the island of Crete lies the village of Kritsa. A single narrow road winds up the mountain past dozens of small storefronts selling Greek handcrafts and locally produced foodstuffs.

After we parked our car on the edge of the village, we strolled down and started poking our noses into hand-made lace sellers, pottery shops, leather stores and olive purveyors. Outside the open doorways sit tiny old Greek grannies dressed in black, waiting patiently for a customer to wander in. They nod politely as you walk past, ignoring casual browsers and window shoppers, but gaze a little to long or pick something and they magically appear at your side. Ask a question, any question at all and any hope of leaving without a purchase is lost. These grannies are master sales consultants. They make the Moroccan rug merchant look like an amateur. And the older and more enfeebled they look, the better they are at it. Pay particular attention to anyone with a cane.

Their true genious lies in the final price negotiation. With a weak pathetic voice, they say “Ten euros, only ten euros.” You shake your head, and they lower the price, “Nine euros.” That’s when they have you, because while only two words come out of their mouth, the sadness they emote says:

“Oh, you must buy this. If you don’t spend this nine euros, I will have to close this shop and will lose everything. The bank will foreclose on our little house up in the mountains. We will have to cut down our olive tree and sell the wood to make aromatic toothpicks. Without the tree my family will starve. My sisters and their children and grandchildren will have nowhere to go. We will have nothing.”

“Nine Euros?”

Looks can be deceiving.

Resistance is futile.

What just happened here?

Run Away…

Celebrate getting through the village with some local home brew.  It’s kind of like ouzo or grappa, only stronger!

 

A Tale of Two Holidays

For Easter this year we went to France. For Easter this year we went to Greece.

Now, even with all the jet setting we’ve done in the past year —and I’ll admit we’ve gotten around—we haven’t been ambitious enough to visit two sides of the continent on the same day. No, the story behind our two Easters goes back about a thousand years. That’s when the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity split off and went their separate ways. Both branches celebrate Easter, but each has its own rather arcane formula for determining the exact date, something to do with ecclesiastical full moons, vernal equinoxes and the quantity of marshmallow Peeps sold over the past seven years.

Some years the two Easters happen to coincide, but this year the Western Easter was March 23 (a long weekend in Paris) and the Orthodox Easter was April 27 (spring break in Greece). So, much to our delight, we not only got to ooh la la over Parisian chocolate eggs, rabbits and fish; but also Opa! over Greek sweet breads and roasted lamb.

We arrived on the Greek island of Santorini Saturday night after a five hour layover in Athens, just shy of midnight and barely in time to see the fireworks announcing the end of lent. In the darkness we could see small churches decked out with strings of white lights but little else. Our taxi zipped up and down invisible roads, whisking us from the tiny airport to our tidy hotel in the village of Fira. After the friendly night manager muscled our luggage down the many steps to our room we collapsed into bed, hardly aware of where we were.

Come morning, I swung open the front door and gazed in amazement at the austere cliffs of the Santorini caldera, the inner rim of the ancient volcano that makes up the island. Bands of jet black, red and brown stone stretched down toward the clear blue water. Bright white-washed buildings clung to the top of the cliff like rock climbers cautiously checking every hand and foothold. Clouds and rain obscured the view for a moment until the sun punched through creating a rainbow over the far side of the island. Welcome to Greece.

 

Memorial Day

Yesterday, May 4th was Dodenherdenking, Remembrance of the Dead day here in The Netherlands. It commemorates all the Dutch who died in wars and conflicts since World War II. The occasion is marked by gatherings at monuments and important locations throughout the country. People of all ages lay sprays of flowers on the monuments and observe two minutes of silence at 8:00 p.m.

We left our house around 7:30 last night, joining a steady stream of people converging on a small memorial a few blocks away. Dutch flags hung outside every other house. Hundreds watched and listened to a quiet speech, then stilled themselves as the moment approached. Withered old men in dusty uniforms mixed with teenagers in blue jeans and short skirts. Young police officers stood at attention while children plucked wild daisies from the grass to add to the growing display around the the monument. No one made a sound.

After a trumpet played the Dutch national anthem, a low murmur worked its way through the crowd and people began to disperse. Some wandered back to their homes, others stepped forward to lay still more flowers and some gathered in small groups and talked.

The entire affair was over in less than half an hour. There were no fireworks or food vendors. The day is not even an official holiday. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the event was extremely moving.  The people really seemed to care and wanted to be there. Next year we’ll bring flowers.

 

At Least The Bread Was Good!

French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently attempted to get French food on the UNESCO World Heritage list. He believes that France has the best food in the world and that it should be recognized as a unique cultural heritage.

While many culinary experts would agree that France is the bee’s knees and cat’s pajamas when it comes to food, a certain nine year old would beg to differ. While crepes are indeed divine, the pig knuckles were… Well, just take a look at the picture and I think you’ll get the idea.

Mmmm!  Can’t we just get French Toast or French Fries?

 

Dutch Optimism

The merchandisers at our local grocery store either know something I don’t, or are quite the optimists. I was standing in line in the checkout aisle when I noticed a huge new display for a wide variety of sun tan lotions, creams and sprays in every SPF known to man. It took me a minute to figure out what all the plastic bottles were even for, it’s been so long since I’ve had a need for these products. The cardboard images of golden hued people cavorting in white sand and turquoise waters might as well have been of aliens from another world.

But the days have been getting longer, or at least there’s more gray and less black than there used to be. And the advent of Daylight Saving Time(a few weeks later than in the states just to make us confused about the time difference) has allowed us to eat dinner without using the overhead light. I began to wonder if our grocer might have access to a good long term forecast.

Indeed last Sunday turned out bright and sunny, not necessarily warm mind you, but sunny.  We headed out for the first family bike ride of the year. Touring the Amsterdamse Bos, a huge local park, we watched rowing teams go through their paces and fishermen casting their lines. We were wearing winter coats, hats and gloves and had to stop halfway through to fill up on hot chocolate, but it was lovely nonetheless.

I went to bed with high hopes, dreaming of golden hued people, white sand and turquoise waters. I woke up to ashen skies, near freezing temperature and sloppy wet snowflakes.  My only consolation; I hadn’t succumbed and bought any of that sunscreen.

 

Easter in Paris

Paris takes it role as one of the great cities of the world very seriously. Its broad sweeping avenues provide grand vistas of impressive monuments like the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. Many buildings and bridges are decorated and ornamented to remind viewers either of their regal and imperial heritage or just for the sheer fun of it. Elaborate statues and sculptures can be found on nearly every street. So elaborate, in fact that a certain five year old asked if the giant bronze figure astride his towering steed was God.

“No, you’re close, but that’s Charlemagne.”

“Who?”

“He was a king of France about a thousand years ago.”

“Oh.”

It was Easter Sunday and we were strolling along the Seine counting gargoyles on the Cathedral of Notre Dame (I stopped around 43–one website says there are 5,000), taking advantage of a four day weekend –Good Friday and Easter Monday are both national holiday in The Netherlands. While Paris may sound a bit extravagant for a long weekend, it’s only a four hour train trip from Amsterdam. Compare that to home, where four hours will get you to Des Moines and it doesn’t seem quite so over the top.

While in Paris, we visited Euro Disneyland. We can now officially cross that to do off the list of parental obligations and rites of passage that every American child must go through or risk being scarred for life. I will admit, however, that riding the Mad Hatter’s teacups, Space Mountain and the Pirates of the Caribbean in the blustery, on again, off again rain and hail of a French March is a bit different experience than it would be in the Florida sunshine. Please, just nobody tell the girls that they’ve missed anything. I don’t want to recreate that to do list.

The highlight of the trip was our tour of the Louvre (Lizzie would argue that Disneyland was the highlight, but she’s not writing this so nevermind). We signed up with an art expert who specialized in children’s tours. For two and half hours she showed us the highlights (Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo), as well as a number of lesser known works. Part art history lesson, part scavenger hunt, we left wanting more. Katie even suggested making a return trip! Seeing the actual Mona Lisa really inspired her.

After the museum, we made a pilgrimage to another Parisian icon, a crepe stand. Lizzie quickly gobbled down her sugar crepe and pleaded for another. Katie savored her Nutella and whipped cream version a bit longer, but also looked thrilled at the idea of a second. We held off and had dinner in a lovely country French restaurant instead. The girls would likely have preferred the second crepes, but did manage to make their chocolate pyramid dessert vanish.

The only downside to the trip was the cold and rainy weather. But even that turned magical when we walked back to our hotel one evening and watched tour boats on the Seine shine spotlights on the shore, illuminating the raindrops and a few big fluffy snowflakes as if they were glitter from a Disney parade. And given how easy it is to get there, we all decided that we’d have to come back when it gets warmer. Funny, I don’t ever remember saying that about Des Moines.

 

Let It Snow?

It wasn’t the Swiss Alps or the pistes of Austria, but the brochure promised gentle snow clad hills in a beautiful setting and family friendly accommodation all within a three and half hour drive from Amsterdam. Perfect for a long weekend with our family of ski neophytes. We didn’t need inches of fresh powder, moguls or black diamond runs, just a place to get our show pants wet, take a few lessons and get the feel of wondering around the lodge wearing ski boots.

What we didn’t anticipate, is that the only snow we would see would be on the previous weekend when we went to SnoPlanet, an indoor ski facility a few miles out of Amsterdam. Rain and unseasonably warm weather had left Willigen Germany, our destination, with only a few patches of icy snow, suitable only for sledding and mud baths. How ironic that the only skiing we’ve done this year has been in the snow free, flat-as-a-pancake Netherlands.

Despite the lack of snow, we found ways to enjoy ourselves in Willigen. A giant indoor skating rink, a water park complete with multiple water slides and an indoor/outdoor pool, and a steel lined toboggan run helped us pass the time.

Willigen and the surrounding towns and villages are full of half-timbered white and slate gray houses —and in this case that doesn’t refer to a shade of gray, but to the actual building material. Almost every building was shingled and occasionally even sided with slabs of the slate that is mined from the region. The villages are nestled in sharply rolling tree-lined hills highly reminiscent of parts of Wisconsin. It’s easy to see why many German immigrants ended up settling there. It must have felt almost like home.