People, Place, Beer, Language

 Team management having post-post-game beer in town square. 

(Now you understand why I write rather than post pictures)

Tuesday

The climate here is very comfortable, at least for the summer. It reminds me somewhat of a mix between Minnesota and Kentucky but cooler.  It is right between cool and warm but the humidity from being close to water. The climate makes everything green. It is mostly deciduous trees and the grass on the fields is in great shape. 

The people have been very welcoming.  They speak English almost all the time around me and when they don’t, one of them will usually fill me in. Their English is very good from their formal school learning and from UK and US television with subtitles. I am very lucky because Dutch is haard. (pun intended) I started my Rosetta Stone courses today and I realized its harder than I thought. Nothing is written the same way as English, there are sounds I have never made in my life and the spelling isn’t even similar to English. There are consonants that make vowel sounds, silent letters, and some of their nouns are like five syllables long just to say something like paint or paper. I think it is an accurate comparison to say, in comparison to English, learning Spanish is like learning to ride a bike but learning to speak Dutch is like learning to ride a bike while juggling and whistle Dixie. 

Being a “real American” baseball player is serious currency here. I have been invited to eat and of course drink every day except yesterday. Monday seems to be taken as time out where you might drink slightly less to rest and catch up from every four day party that finally climaxes on Sunday. I tried to keep up this weekend but my liver is out of practice. It is also hard to get used to being outside having a drink after nine and the sun hasn’t set yet. It makes for long nights. As a side note, my team starts its practice around seven tonight. 

That’s all for now. The team I coach lost on Saturday 20 to 10 (offensive game here) and the team I play for “won” on Sunday and I pitched four innings. I’ll save the details for later. I have some great baseball commentary in store so if you read this far I will make it up to you with my next post. 

Duij for now!

Three Things I Learned In London

I learned three things from the two British gentlemen I drank a beer with on my excursion to a genuine pub in the Westminster area of London. It was quite a strange but lucky coincidence to run into these two in the pub I chose at random. Childhood friends, one had worked as a diplomat in the US and in Holland and they both had ended up living in the Bay Area for parts of their lives.

They told me these things: First, the true British ales are served warm and so and so was the best and blah blah blah, I was tired. Second, I did listen to their suggestions about going to the board walk of the Hague during the summer and to the Rockerij (Rockery) “Coffee Shop” in Amsterdam, where the play really “loungie” music and the big fans on the ceiling turn very slowly so you can lay back on the overstuffed couches just…chill, I guess. Third, they told me that my flight was leaving London City Airport which was about an hour away in 45 minutes.

I figured I had earned the chance to kick back and have a beer. It had been a long day. I had just received my passport in the mail about 15 hours before that. 14 hours before that, because my passport was late, I was chasing the airport bus down Interstate 101. 12 hours before that I boarded a plane at SFO. Shortly after that my two checked bags sat safely in the San Francisco airport as my flight departed for Heathrow Airport. So by the time my sore butt had made it to Heathrow, I was ready to enjoy a beer and put my bad luck behind me.

To be honest, at the time, I wasn’t upset that my bags didn’t arrive in London. It seemed like this freed me up to take the Tube through downtown London on my way to London City airport to catch my connecting flight to Amsterdam that evening. I saw Westminster Abbey and got to drink at a real pub. As it turned out I would have plenty more time to sight-see around London after that beer.

When I finally arrived at London City Airport my flight had left and the only other flight that evening was full. I spent the night in a Hostel near Kensington Park, which I hear is beautiful, but I guess you need daylight to see it. That evening I was definitely ready for a beer so I dragged a hungover Kentuckian out of bed and teamed up with a German girl who, needless to say, was glad to drink with us to two more pubs. I had no trouble sleeping that night with three snorers in a nine bed room.

This morning I arrived in Holland and finally to the beautiful city of Meppel. So much has happened today and there is so much to describe about this place that I have plenty for my next post. As for now, I am too tired and as one of my Dutch hosts said, “I have too many thinks.” Until next time and don’t forget to eat your vegetables.