Ketchup and Fries

I have to figure out how to smile when I pitch.

I’ve got some catching up to do. Friday before last one of the members of the club who works for the trains here acted as my free pass and tour guide to and around Amsterdam. What a deal!

“I’ve heard you went to Amsterdam?” and look me in the eyes and grin.  I think they expect me to blush. My answer is honest and usually the same. “I really enjoyed the Van Gogh museum.” And to be clear, it is definitely not the “Van Go” museum. It is pronounced like the Spanish conjugation for “they go” and “Ho,” like Santa Clause except the “H,” in the beginning and end of the word is pronounced by closing you epiglottis slightly until there is some friction. This is one of the easier adjustments! But I digress.

“At 26, unemployed and at a complete loss,” begins one of the informational paragraphs at the ground floor of the museum, “Van Gogh decided he would become a painter.” There is hope for me yet!

As you walk through the museum you are taken though the periods of his life and his growth as an artist. It is amazing to see how his style, skill, and subject matter changed based on where he was living and how his life was. I noticed this especially when I turned a corner into a new gallery and thought to myself “God, that looks drastic.” The gallery was dedicated to the time he spent stuck in a hospital before epilepsy led to his ultimate end. It was in this room too that I had a pretty cool revelation. It is interesting sometimes to look at Van Gogh paintings from different distances and find out at which distance they look the best. While I was doing this, I stood four feet away from a painting of a man and a  women sitting and working in a candle lit evening and thought to myself, this is where Van Gogh once stood. That was unusual interactive experience.

After three hours there, it was well past time to eat. I had my mind made up before I left Meppel that I was going to try food from Suriname. We road bikes that we had rented to a huge market that extended probably 800 meters (that’s almost half a mile) down a street where we found a Indian/Suriname food place. The food was really tasty, chicken in some sort of curry, with potatoes, green beans and some kind of flat bread. I don’t how authentic the Suriname flavor was, in fact it just tasted like Indian food, but it was good and gave us the rest and fuel to move on. 

At the market I bought probably the one thing I miss the most from summers back home: a nectarine. It was good, slightly better than thinking you are drinking Sprite through a straw and finding out its just carbonated water. It did the job. From there it was on to the Dam, a central square in front of the royal palace where many people meet and sit on the steps below a big sculpture of something I forget.  But come on, it’s basically just the entrance to the Red Light District. 

(This is the part that puts the grin on the faces of my hosts when they ask me about Amsterdam.)

 The Red Light district during the day on a Friday is a funny thing. Walking down a cobblestone street between a canal and buildings that in their old age have started to lean over you, you hear several types of English being slurred or bellowed or both . On the ground level of these buildings there are three types of places:  “Coffee Shops,” windows/strip clubs, and businesses that cover all the other tourists’ needs: French fry vendors, hostel entrances, bars/restaurant/cafes, and French fry vendors.  Walking by a coffee shop is like walking though a bong. Imagine the smell of roasted beans at your local coffee shop, multiply that by ten and make it weed. Outside the dimly lit shops, there are loungy patios by the canal where I expected to hear wild philosophical conversations about nothing. What I heard was ruckus soccer chants and drawn out comparisons of the crazy stories from the night before. 

“I have never seen so many women that want to have sex with me,” is the second part of my reply when I am asked about going to Amsterdam.  But I’m sure they just as soon do jumping jacks and whistle the theme song to the A-team.  There are every different type of women there. Think about all the types that you can think of, now invent four more. It was an interesting time, but this was the PG tour with a member of my club.

After the Red Light District we headed back to the Dam where we were just in time to see some of the royal family entering the palace and to get selected to help with this street performer’s show:

After a long day it was brownie, train, lights out.

Honkball

After a especially ugly loss, I dressed up as a soccer player and played soccer with the guys before practice. Gotta keep things loose!

Ok, the garbled rant of my last post cleared my mind and now I can get into more stuff I have done. In the last couple weeks I have done three things that are worth commenting on. Obviously the first is baseball but the two others are things that everybody expected more of out of me: going to Amsterdam and going out.

Let me get baseball out of the way. Playing has been pretty unremarkable because the level of completion was lower that I have been playing and it rains all the time. This is the most unpredictable weather I have ever seen!  For the last few weeks, it seems every other day has been rainy or completely clear. At home, I know some decent amateur meteorologist. But come on, in Portland it’s easy and in Santa Rosa the weather creeps up slowly and you can see it miles away. Here the people have booked mark the most accurate weather radar on their internet browsers and have predicting the movement of weather patterns down to a science. One game I looked at the western sky and remarked, “We should be fine.” They promptly directed me to the club house to the computer and analyzed the image of the blue grey blog moving across some static blue and green. “You see that! It’s obvious!” 

Since the first game I played the third day I was here, every home game has been rained out. That is unfortunate because, without a stage on which to perform, the excitement of bringing an American “Baseball Player” to town has given way to the nuisance of bringing an American to town. I hit a homerun my first at-bat here and in my first start, I struck out 14. Unfortunately, these games were played about an hour away in front of a home town crowd of about four. Eventually I will get to play a home game and hopefully it will be soon enough that the novelty will not have worn off.

In the meantime my focus remains on my Junioren Honkball team. The boys are ages 15 to 19 and “honk” is the word for “base” here. (No wonder this game hasn’t caught on.) Last post I referred to them as the Bad News Bears. That analogy is perfect. We even have a kid who comes by motorcycle. It has been an “everything that can go wrong, will go wrong team.” But just like the Bad News Bears, I am determined to change this. (My favorite part about this is that the people who are reading this here have no idea what the Bad News Bears is. I’m sure that one never got published for European markets.)

Our efforts are paying off. I challenge the kids here way beyond their comfort level and it is a joy to see them respond. They are a determined bunch. Kids with this kind of determination play for championships back home but unfortunately here, they have such little experience that we have a safe hold on dead last place.

Right now there remains bitterness among them because “we should be tied for last!” I will recount this funny story but first let me explain something. There are a lot of intricacies of club baseball here and just like the winner of each European futbol league plays in the Champion’s League. The winner of each league is promoted to the next higher class the following year and likewise the last place team is demoted. This makes sense because it is great at establishing parity in competition.  Side note, it’s funny, but this is an ideal model for their income tax structure and their individual capital growth incentive. (See a future “That’s Dutch) 

Anyway, I must tell the story of last game. After being blown out our last few games by anywhere between 10 and 20 runs, I made it a goal that we play all nine innings. This would be the day that we did not fall prey to the mercy rule. Baby steps. Everything looked good by the fifth inning. We were up two runs during the second rain delay. When it cleared up my team wanted to play on. I was happy to hear this. I want them to want to play the game for the enjoyment of the game.

I pulled the mud out of the hole on the pitcher’s mound and at home plate and we resumed play. Over the next three innings we gave up our lead for a two run deficit. We were playing solid defense and had our best pitcher in. The other team however, was starting to look shaky and their pitcher was perfect for batting practice. There was a stop for thunder in the distance and a brief shower. When the weather had passed I spoke with the umpire and the opposing coach. I tried to convince them that it is only fair to allow us to play the bottom half of the 8^th inning. This is when the fun started. 

Two of the parents from the other team, one of them holding the scorebook, were now complaining that they were afraid their boys would be struck by lightning. Then as they argued much of the western sky cleared up and the sun came out. Their argument then changed to worries about their boys becoming sick playing in this weather. Finally, after a ten minute debate and the parent of the pitcher not allowing her son to play, the opposing team took the field with eight players. Unfortunately, my team made three quick outs. When my team took the field for the top of the ninth inning, opposing team just began to pack up and leave. Can you imagine a better way to suck the fun out of youth sports?

Needless to say, my players were very upset. I did not realize that this had been such an important game. I wanted the game to continue because 18 boys wanted to enjoy playing baseball on their one game day of the week. This was an “Aha!” moment that solidified some peripheral observations that I had made. 

I assumed that as long as we were on a baseball field, the often preached sportsmanship of youth sports and hearty American baseball culture would be present. Although much of the issue arose because of some poor sporting parents, I realize that Holland is happy to take the game but never at the expense of its own ways. The Dutch bring to the game the club structure and social component which they value very highly.  Back home we seek personal and team success, sometimes to a fault, but often without regard for things outside the game. These cultural effects on baseball are probably found everywhere the game is played. As an American, knowing it only as “America’s favorite pastime” it was hard to see it at first, but the game; the bat, the ball, and the bases, are just is just a medium. Depending on where you are and who has them, something entirely unique is going to appear.

Through American Eyes: Thats Dutch Part II/ Thats American Part II

moo.

Continued from “Why it is Hard to Write”

This means, unfortunately, that you are missing out on all the summaries of the great conversations I have about cultural comparisons. As soon as post an observation about what is “Dutch,” I am at the risk of offending my gracious hosts.  But what I learned is, over many coffees, beers, and dinners, and car and train rides, that you must draw the distinction between the person and the culture.  I learned this from two perspectives: (Prepare yourself for a long drawn out deductive argument.)

I often steer many conversations I have into political theory. From these conversations, I have derived the hypothesis that it is easier to govern the Netherlands because it is easier to generalize its people. (Hold your retort!) From what I see:  The area is much smaller, you can cross the country top to bottom in a few hours by train, and there is much less geographic variation. Therefore issues that the people face as far as climate, land, resources, and immigration have less variation. The media consumption also has little variation. Most broadcast media can reach all parts of the country.

There are also strong vertical and horizontal interconnectivity among the people.  The vertical ties are through time. The majority of people living here can be traced back to the same 41,818 sq km for a number of generations that an American cannot conceive of.  Due to a strongly social culture, the people have strong horizontal ties to one another. I have seen this by the willingness to talk to complete strangers or their complete lack of fear of each other outside the big city centers. 

So my initial conclusion was that the people, place and perspective are so homogeneous here that it makes it easier to make statements about the whole of Holland. The problem is that when I express these things that seem to me to be self evident, they insist that I don’t know what I am talking about that what I say is not true. (and yes, it is a curse to think of everything in these terms)

 Now, let’s look at the other side of the coin.

To illustrate my point I recall being asked the question, “Is America like the sitcoms we see on TV?” Immediately I replied “Nooo. Well, yes, but no…Wait, yeah” 

“Nooo.” - Sitcoms are designed and written by people to appeal to segments of people to fill space between advertisements directed at those segments.  They are designed to keep people’s attention and they do this by creating a world where people are pretty and their lives are funny, nice, and dramatic but resolvable in 30 minutes. Is this what America is like? No, definitely not.

“Well, yes,” – I take a second look at what I see on TV. Are there people on sitcoms that crazy in America? Yes. Do people live in big houses and drive two big cars? Yes. Are the issues that arise in sitcoms the same as the ones that Americans care about? Yes. Do they really have the freedom to be and do all these things? Yes. So the claims that the people here make about everything in America being big (including the people) and some people being crazy are true.

“but no”- I’ll be dammed if I am represented by characters from CSI, Friends, or How I Met Your Mother. My friends and I are healthy and educated. We are active and aware. We have worldly perspectives and we know and respect culture and diversity. I am different.

“Wait, yeah”- Being, realistic, many people are more concerned with income and possessions than anything else. There are people who watch these shows, laugh at them, absorb them, and relive them. These sitcoms are glorified American life in hi-def or else no one would watch them. We watch them and we buy into them. They mirror our lives and we mirror our shows. Despite the great geographic size, cultural diversity, freedom of choice, action, and expression, we are homogenized. They affect many of us more than, our religion, our parents, and our roots.

So am I a happy that the people who hear me speaking English in the town see me as being molded from the same lump of material that is “American?” No. Is it accurate? Yes and No. Is it fair for me to make a claim about what is Dutch? No. Is it funny? Yes and No.

So in conclusion, the devil is in the details. The Dutch are few but have political parties that are formed on everything from animal rights to religious fundamentalism whereas our great diversity is masked by two political parties. In nearly every town in America there is a McDonalds but you can also choose from at least four different regional or ethnic restaurants. The Dutch have conquered half the world but you can only buy about four spices in an Aldi. I know this kind of conclusion is lame but I think it is also important to state. It is easy to sit from afar and pass judgments as I had done with my conclusion about the Dutch but when I see the same conclusions are made about Americans I find that the defense is natural. In America the diversities are so big they are evident. In Holland the diversities are much more subtle but carry the same weight. While Every American should be proud to be American and the same is true for the Dutch, no person is defined by their country just as no person can define their country.

Why It Is Hard to Write

First off, hello to all the people from "Santa Rosa's Original"

It has become harder to write this blog. In the beginning, with every new experience, I would write down notes on my hand or in my little journal/team practice plan/workout plan/post-game notes notebook that I keep with me and think in my head how I could phrase them in their most honest and funny essence. But then a couple things happened. I got comfortable and I got busy.

For a few weeks, all I wanted to do was rest catch up after a crazy last month at home. That gave me a lot of time to write. Then, more and more, I got settled here and comfortable with the people. I started accepted offers from my hosts to do this and go there. Although I enjoy it, it takes me a lot of time to write what I think. With lots of activities and really trying to make my Bad News Bears into a real baseball team, my time diminished. 

Another side effect from all the interaction with these nice people was that my perspective began to change. The thoughts in my head were no longer that objective or original. Add to that the fact that more people here started read the blog here than back home. I had to worry about accuracy (pff whatever!) The goal was no longer being honest and funny. And since I really have no desire to write and would have no desire to read a narrative account of what I do every day, I only write introductions and outlines and save them.

Continued on next post…

Tilburg & Hertogenbosch/ That's American Part I

The blog has missed some love lately. I stopped it and deleted my last post after I found that the site address had been shared with all the member of the baseball/softball club. I hope I can still make things funny and honest even though there is an almost equal audience on both sides of the pond. Here is one of the posts I decided to finish. 

Friday

I’m sitting on the train back to Meppel.  I’m tired but chocolate is keeping my eyes are wide open. My hands smell like Haring and Onions with a little bit of garlic still in my fingernails. My body has the hollow feeling of still processing the beer from last night.  My stomach aches and my mouth feels like heavy whipping cream residue. I had a great time.

Yesterday I visited the family of one of my dad’s high school classmates. I took a train from Meppel in northern Holland to Tilburg, near the southern border. It took two and a half hours. With a little luck, I was unable to sabotage my efforts to travel.

They asked what I wanted for dinner and the answer was obvious. “I’ll cook.” I said. I chose my favorite dinner; an American classic: fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans. I was inspired by my grandmother’s classic cooking but since living here I am out of practice. The chicken got to the table cold and needed more garlic and pepper and the mashed potatoes and gravy where both lumpy. It was delicious. I had forgotten how happy my stomach could be.

After dinner I got a chance to practice with their local club. It is funny to see reactions of the people here when they see me play. By professional measures in the US my arm strength is about average. Here it is almost never seen. I got to throw a bullpen and at first they told me a 13 year old catch would catch me. After two warm up throws I switched for the brave kids safety. I continued to throw with a different catcher. I felt pretty good and actually knocked his glove off. He was frustrated but afterwards he told me how much fun it had been.

Practice concluded, as it often does, with a beer. The evening continued that way as I checked out the nightlife of Tilburg with Eddy, the son of the woman my dad knows. After sometime standing shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of 16 to 21 year old kids in a bar listening to a dj  butcher American pop songs, I persuaded him to change scenes. We sat on the patio in cobblestone street of one of the Café/Pub places. Two comments about the last sentence: every street is cobble stone if it is not a major thoroughfare and there were eight of these establishments in a row, nearly identical to each other, but they were all full. I asked how they are different and how people chose. Apparently they just go to the same place every time. 

Can you imagine this happening in America! That is like having a McDonalds, Burger King, Jack in the Box, Carl’s Junior, Sonic, and three others on the sharing walls on the same street. All have the same product and price. In America, one company would offer free fries with a burger and the rest would lose their business and have to follow suit until every last detail was fought over tooth and nail. Labor cost is cut. Quality is forgotten. Marketing takes a hold. Customers pay 20 cents for a tasty TV commercial and four cents for an “all beef” patty that cost 25 cents. The workers, low on income and short on time, buy the burgers and go home fat and…fat. By the time they get home, three of the places have a golden M and two are abandoned and the last three are a Walmart.

As an American I love my freedom. But I hate our ignorance.

That tangent was irresistible. Anyway, we sat down and had a beer at Walmart and watched people stumble in an out. The girls were nothing to take a second look at so we made fun convincing a kid that I was here as prize fighter. 

The next morning I went with my hosts to Hertogenbosch. It is a beautiful city dating back to the 8^th century it think. There are remnants of the cities outer walls. The cathedrals outside was astonishing. (see pictures) The inside was beyond words. I have never stepped into a place so immense and yet so silent. I felt minimal in space in time. Every aspect, EVERY last bit of the place was created with the care that can only be found in those seeking to please God. It is like if you opened a door and you were alone in the Grand Canyon, Yosemite Valley or Crater Lake. I was loving the complete loss of self-awareness until someone said to me. “This church was built in….” Damn it! It was gone.

We had to pack a lot into a short tour of the city so I could catch my train.  Trying to see such a great city in such a short time makes me understand the phrase “(see) your cake and eat it too.” (see picture below) By this time, hold you back your astonishment, I was hungry.  I asked as I usually do if we could get some typical Dutch food…

I was warned by my American connection about this Dutch specialty. As it turns out “new Haring” is the freshest and most delicious sushi I have ever had. It was caught probably the day before and served with chopped onions. It was so good. You can taste the fat that has not deteriorated yet and it doesn’t taste fishy at all. As long as you get past the fact that the fishes tail feels as slippery as if it were alive and you just watched a guy scale and gut it, it’s fantastic.  Thanks for the warning Greg.

To round out the meal we sat down for a “Den Bol” which is named after the cities abbreviated name “Den Bosch.” (old Dutch for “the forest.”) It is the definition of indulgence. Covered in riiiiich Belgian milk chocolate, a thin layer of puff pastry encases a filling of riiiich sweet whipped real cream. I my mouth is watering thinking about it but my stomach is already beginning to hurt.

I didn’t have enough time to wash my hands in one of the pay bathrooms so. I pissed in one of the four-way outdoor pissers. (I need to get a picture of one of these.) Finally, I made it to my train with three minutes to spare.

The trip was a great success in the experience to time ratio measure. It feels like it took me as long to write this as it did to do it. Have a nice day.

"Thats Dutch"

The view from the bridge on my way into down town. The windmills were  originally used as mills for grain to pump water through canals like this one.

Disclaimer

Disclaimer: On more than one occasion, after several pints, I have told of or written down and given the web address of my blog to members of the baseball club here. Content of my posts has then made its way back to me in the form of a player I coach telling me he would no longer smoke on game days and a player I play with telling me I got detail of the bench clearing brawl wrong. (His nickname is Choy. He is my third baseman and I promised I would refer to him.) I wanted to do this so I could record my experience for myself but also communicate with friends and family back home. I want to keep most details and opinions accurate (unless it makes for a better story) but I don’t want to make things awkward between my host and me. So I will try to walk that line but also be clear that nothing I write here is intended to change the relationships I have here on anywhere else.

--

Tuesday

The honeymoon has yet to wear off. I thought that after a short time, the peoples' welcome to me would fade. But after another long weekend I realize that it is partly the small community that I am living in but mostly it is deep seeded cultural norm. Last night I learned that they call it gezzelig. It lacks any literal translation I am becoming familiar with its meaning through my experience. I commented on this type of hospitality to one of my new friends I met at pub on Sunday and she simple replied, "That's Dutch." It’s as Dutch as windmills and wooden shoes.

My least favorite part of their hospitality is the toll that it takes on my liver. Their warm welcome is almost always accompanied by a cold, freshly poured Amstel topped with a perfect two fingers height of frothy “shuim.” It's a sacrifice I am willing to make. And besides, I wouldn’t want be rude.

My favorite part is that not only do they invite you into conversation, but these conversations are about real life. Not once have I had a conversation about the weather unless we were about how the wind blows across the baseball field. Most often people will invite me into conversation by asking me “How have I like my stay in Holland so far?” I answer honestly and tell them I have truly enjoyed it and then usually remark on the differences between here and the places I have lived. This usually sparks plenty of conversation in them. I have enjoyed conversations about tax, religion, personal freedom, wars, race, jobs, rights, space (not outer), and of course food, music, and culture. You may now be thinking that there would be considerable discomfort between my hosts and me. Well, if there is, they do not show it. (See Disclaimer Above)

The beauty of all this is what makes it work. They are not afraid to be honest and discuss or disagree and yet they do it politely. I have conversed with people who have recalled their experience here during world WWII and with some who are young and just starting to learn English. With me and among themselves they are very respectful and give everybody a fair listen. Their conversation turn taking is like nothing I have ever seen. In addition, every activity is accompanied by a social encore. For example, I was at the field yesterday because one of the Juniors asked me to help him become a better hitter. (Save your disbelief. I can teach hitting to those who have never hit before.) When his hands were raw we began to pick up to balls and return it all to the shed. As I picked up my backpack and headed towards my bike he asked me, "Are you just going to leave now?" How naive could I be? I took a seat at the picnic table where my backpack had sat. He sat down across from me and lit up a cigarette. I politely declined and we talked about his job as a retirement investment call center representative. "You just have to convince them that they are going to have problems," the 19 year old explained to me.  I am learning something new every day.

I have had many such conversations but I liked one in particular. On Sunday I ran into a new friend at a “Coffee Shop” and we began talking as when he helped translate my order. We continued talking for quite some time, because that’s what happens when you sit down in a “Coffee Shop.”