http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/ en-us tortuga28@hotmail.com Wed, 01 Jan 2020 01:01:01 -0800 http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007631.shtml greetings from the future! this is the post from 2006 that floats magically atop the others so that i can be a controlling blogger and greet you all upon entry. hello. background: i'm living in amsterdam for six months. i... http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007947.shtml It’s four in the morning and I just can’t sleep. Last nite – which is rapidly becoming the nite before last – I went out with my language class to celebrate the course’s end. We spent a few hours at... http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007946.shtml Tonight I learned to play lacrosse. Natalie, Mariecarmen, Maria and I biked twenty minutes to the sports complex, where city teams can use public fields. All of these fields were uncharacteristically covered in snow, but no one seemed to mind.... http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007777.shtml It’s 2:30 on a Monday afternoon. Hoske down the hall just woke up; he’s watching Robin Williams stand up on his laptop. I can’t hear the routine, but I can hear him break out laughing every 2 – 3 minutes.... http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007776.shtml The first week was a week of disorientation. The second week was a week of exploration. The third week has been a week of working my ass off. My intensive Dutch class happens every weekday morning from nine until one.... http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007629.shtml it’s 2:30 a.m. and you’re sitting in a room in amsterdam with a guy cutting his sixth line of coke with a mastercard on an imposter delftware plate and a girl obsessively twisting her hair to the sounds of the... http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007628.shtml I got home ten minutes ago from five hours in a bar with a South African, a Russian (from Kazakstan), a Hungarian (who grew up in Transylvania), and a Peruvian. Then a Polish boy walked me home. Between the six... http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007627.shtml This week has brought lots of changes. For example, I am no longer the only person living at Plantage Muidergracht 20. I now share the six-story, fifty-flat building with Natalie from Venezuela and Hoske from Iceland. I don’t see them... http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007630.shtml Let me start by saying that the Netherlands is, unquestionably, a nation of designers. More design hours have been invested in the average Dutch child’s sock than are spent in the design of a typical American art museum. This reality... http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007626.shtml My alarm – which is actually my cell phone, since I have no clock – goes off at 7:45: a synthesizer-swing melody that, when accompanied by the rattling of the vibrating phone on my night table, jolts me awake. Even... http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007625.shtml I sat down to write about the New Year’s Eve fireworks display, which was full of acrid smoke, falling debris, smashing bottles, and general merriment. I found it all delightful and also funny. These people are crazy! I was thinking... http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007624.shtml Well, you know what they say about the cycle of the years: Out like a lion, in like a bureaucratic nightmare. The fun of December 31 has past, and the reality of paperwork has arrived. Is there a country without... http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007623.shtml I’m sure that sooner or later I will stop waking up alert and ready to start my day at three a.m., but that time has not come yet. Take the normal jet lag, immediately follow it with an all night... http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007622.shtml So there I was riding sidesaddle on the back rack of Nikki’s bike, holding on to the seat for dear life as we careened down the wet street on the way to the windmill pub (yes, the windmill pub) for... http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/tortuga/archives/007621.shtml That tram ride was all I needed. It’s beautiful here. It’s nothing like the U.S.. The buildings are hundreds of years old, the lights reflect off the water in the canals. There is no Gap. Oh, hooray....