croatia

WELL.

We are BACK from travel break number two, and was it ever a doozy. Before I get to that, though, I think you need to know where we were.

We flew into Split, Croatia, and then took a bus along a sprawling seaside road, where gray cliffs jutted out into the sea which sparkled with sunlight, then effervesced in a luminescent yellow as the sun dipped down behind the horizon, a glowing peach against the cream colored sky. Most Emerson students slipped into a doze, but some stayed awake the whole time, noses pressed against the cool glass windows of the buses, breath fogging as we longed for more of the view before the sun dipped away entirely.

We pulled into Dubrovnik at night, and we were prevented from really seeing what it looked like. We awoke to the Adriatic Sea, wide and blue, directly across the street from our hotel, flanked by palm trees, tall and green. Moreover, there was sun, sun, sun, glorious and warm, and we turned to face it like turtles, eyes closing and faces pasty white shining in the glow. Our hotel was only a twenty minute walk from the walled old city of Dubrovnik, a fortress city where we spent most of our time. 

Let me get this straight for you: the old city of Dubrovnik is absolute magic, a city forgotten by modernization and left back in the times of Narnia and fantasy. It is all smooth white stone, pale orange roof tiles, and sun that gleams and glints over everything. It is worshipped at its feet by the Adriatic sea, hugging up against the city walls in all its cerulean blue glory. The sea is covered with twinkling stars of reflected sunlight. 

We found ourselves, when not carted around for academia, licking at gelato in a rainbow of flavors and collapsing onto a pebbled beach. The ocean thuds against the shore and when the waves slide out, a rain of pebbles cascades back down, making a sound identical to that of a rainstick. We spent days positively basking in the sun, soaking up the rays usually hidden behind a curtain of grey Dutch clouds. We wandered the streets of the old city, sipping on brightly colored drinks; everyone sported red faces and huge smiles. It was magic, magic, magic and no words can truly convey the pinpricks in our chests at such a wonderful place.

That said, this trip was packed to the brim, positively overflowing with unfortunate events; each one was a blow to our stomachs, and it just wouldn't stop.

One. Thirteen Emerson students, walking home from the old city, were jumped by a crew of unruly and angry Croatian teens; everyone turned out just fine, for those of you who will worry, and we rallied together as a group to prevent this from ruining the magic of the city around us. Total number of hospital visits: four.

Two. One student became violently ill; "I've never seen someone throw up so painfully before," one friend professed. She was carted off to the hospital (five), and on a bus ride to Bosnia the next day, three more people had to stop to throw up.

Three. Well - we were supposed to see Bosnia, and drove for two and a half hours to reach the concrete-and-iron gate that is the Bosnian border - only to find that four students had not brought their passports. Because, you know, I rarely bring my passport with me to BOSNIA. If i were going anywhere but BOSNIA I would have brought my passport, but it's only BOSNIA so no worries. We turned around with four "rejected from Bosnia" slips to sunbathe in a random Croatian town by a murky brown river before boarding the bus back to Dubrovnik.

Four. One girl fell over. Got a concussion. Spent two days (?) in the hospital. That's six.

Five. There was a small earthquake in the middle of the night. Scary for those who did not sleep through it like yours truly, but overall harmless.

Six. Several students rented scooters to zoom all around Dubrovnik; they had a very delightful day, or so I hear - until one scooter attempted to turn and instead crashed in a shower of plastic against the side of the road. Minor injuries, but a not-so-minor bill from the scooter place. No hospital visits, though.

Seven. We went to an arboretum, which was a positive labyrinth of green and yellow and purple, flowers and trees blooming and reaching petals and leaves up to the sky, soaking in the sun as much as we were. We decided it would be a good idea to swim in the Adriatic, which looked so disarmingly inviting that we all stripped to our skivvies (yeah, I said skivvies - deal with it) and leapt into the cool embrace of the water. Problem? Well, this grotto we were swimming in was flanked by stone walls we could climb out on - resulting in several students being attacked in the feet by prickly sea urchins that were clinging to the walls. Most of the spines were removed excruciatingly by a pair of tweezers and a sewing kit, but one person's foot was punctures so badly that he was carted off to the hospital to get them removed, bringing our total up to seven.

Eight. Meanwhile, during the sea urchin attacks, a few people decided they wanted to see what was on the other side of a wall - and as such, grabbed hold of a rusty old white ladder to vault themselves over the wall. The problem there? The ladder was electrified. No further explanation needed, I think.

And nine, most academic pretenses had to be abandoned in the face of Dubrovnik's ever-closing museums; we would approach a museum or an exhibit only to find ourselves facing a closed sign. In the middle of the day. This happened about six times, and by the end of the trip, Rob Duckers and Dulcia were practically pulling their hair out, puzzled and frustrated by the lack of quality art combined with the lack of open museums -and the Duke needs all the hair he can hold onto! (love ya, Rob!)

It was the most ridiculous, painful, frightening, unifying and positively unreal trip I have ever taken.

After which time, we got to go to Barcelona.

But that's a story in and of itself.

amsterdam

Amsterdam has a reputation. We all know this. We have all heard of the Dam.

To emphasize, this is what happened when I would tell people I was coming to The Netherlands to study.

Brian: I'm going to The Netherlands.

Stoner Kid from High School at a Party: Where?

Brian: The Netherlands. Like.. Holland.

SKFHSAAP: Where?

Brian: ...Amsterdam.

SKFHSATP: All riiiiiight.

Brian: I'm going to The Netherlands.

A Friend of my Mother's: Where?

Brian: Kind of near Amsterdam.

AFOMM: [eyes widen] Oh. Well, you be careful.

And then when I got back...

Bonnie: So did you go to Amsterdam?

Brian: Yeah, it was great.

Bonnie: So... did you get stoned?

THAT'S MY MOTHER TALKING TO ME. COME ON, GUYS.

But I hit the streets of the Dam this weekend, and let me say it both defied and lived up to my expectations. First of all, when I pictured Amsterdam, I pictured something like New York, large and loud and with noise everywhere - tall buildings and bright lights and, let's face it, sex drugs and more sex.

Well - remember how I said Maastricht was like a blend of modern and antique, separated by a large bridge? Amsterdam was like that - bricks, bricks, bricks everywhere. The streets themselves were paved with warm rust-colored brick, and the buildings were all old and some of them crumbly, stone facades and tiny cramped gray sidewalks. It was surprisingly familiar at this point, speckled and dotted with churches decorated with puffy blue-and-red orbs of concrete, Corinthian pillars framing the windows, and with belltowers rising above us, shining gold gilt highlights on doorframes and corners. Canals criss-crossed the city, deep brown waters churning sluggishly by. 

At the same time, Amsterdam was the first city that really sounded like a city, even if when you looked at it, it didn't quite mesh with the sound. Car horns honked, crowds of people chattered like parrots roosting in trees, talking nonsensically and at an impressively loud volume. Trams of blue and white chug on lines through the streets, such new creations slithering through the brick. At night, the bricks and stones were illuminated by flashing rainbows of neon yellow, green, red. The city was like antiquity gone modern, without losing any of its antique charm.  

Collin said it best when he postulated that "Amsterdam is like Bruges's grandson. You know, it's thirteen and has all the genetics but already has all these tattoos and peircings, and they have to see each other at family reunions but, you know, it's awkward."

We arrived on Friday, and spent the first half of the day with Rob Duckers at a museum containing a replica of the gorgeous Arena Chapel in Padua. The walls are quite literally covered in art, scenes from the life of Mary and Jesus in large blocks, beautiful and tragic stories splayed out in crude but evolving art, bright colors, bordered by overwhelming cobalt blue. 

After the sun went down, a red moon had rose heavily over Amsterdam, the infamously named Red Light District glowing with buzzing crimson bulbs of all shapes and sizes. We went to the Moulin Rouge - a sex show. The front of the building featured neon red outlines of very buxom young ladies in all sorts of poses; we went through the door, black plastic tokens to be exchanged for drinks pressed into our hands. We had to clamber up a tight staircase to make it into the showroom, small stage surrounded by benches that were reminiscent of pews in a church gone horribly degenerate.

Act one: a woman danced around with a candle in certain places. Act two: a woman wrote on a man, a marker clenched in her nether region - impeccable handwriting. Act three: four members of the audience invited on stage - including our own Allie and Rachel - to dance with the performer, and then eat a banana off of her body. ("It was a really good banana," one of them said afterwards.) Act four: a man in a monk's robe gets up on stage - so does the scantily clad performer. One thing leads to another and they have sex for fifteen minutes, and then get up and leave the room to scattered applause. All this amongst bright strobe lights and deep fog. Wow.

The Red Light District, let me tell you. It was such a.. strange experience, because there were the sex workers, separated from me only by a window of glass. Their expressions were of desire, longing, even happiness, but it must have been a mask. They were bathed in the dim red light that hung above their doors. Crowds of onlookers gathered at a safe distance, chattering in languages other than Dutch: English, French, German. It was a bizarre human zoo, and it made me feel mildly uncomfortable, a knot of dehumanization growing and tugging at my insides. 

Incidentally, we had a sex worker come into one of our classes last week and talk about how it's NOT ALL BAD for sex workers, prostitutes, whatever you call them. Some of them choose it as a line of work. Some of them ENJOY the work, for that matter. 

It was still very strange.

The next day, on an educational note, we hit up the Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh museum. The former was... an experience. Small, cramped, with crumbling red and yellow wallpaper. I don't know what I can say about it that hasn't been said a million times before, and more eloquently to boot. Anne Frank has become such a martyr, such a face for the millions, and being there, in the place she lived for two years, was strange, suffocating but relieving.

The Van Gogh Museum was art. Lots of it. My favorite things were the scribbles, immaculate doodles on letters and menus, pencil lines over and over creating things far more beautiful than I could ever possibly do. Such talent. You get close to a painting, and it's small dabs of color, messy little lines that, when you step back and take in the whole canvas, are insane blends of color and texture, portraits and landscapes. I never feel as though I can entirely appreciate art. But here, I came pretty close.

That night was bar-hopping, glowing green shots and sweet yellow drinks, ice clacking against the glasses, big smiles and loud laughter and hot, hot pizza and french fries late at night. It is a thudding in my head, a street populated by sex shops with instruments in the windows I couldn't possibly imagine being used by anyone, and when I try to picture it, I feel phantom pain for the people who stick those things ANYWHERE on their body. It is clamoring down dark alleys and bright streets and phallic monuments and dark canals lit by buzzing fireflies of streetlights.

"Dear Amsterdam," Greg said. "STOP IT."

Nice summary.

(Also, for any of you who may care, the above was said specifically in reference to the large population of attractive women who take to the streets of Amsterdam in comparison to the other towns in the Netherlands. Fun fact.)

This weekend is our first travel break: London, Dublin and Paris. When she went to London and Paris in Baby-Sitter's Club Super Special #15: Baby-Sitters European Vacation, Mallory Pike discovered she was related to Shakespeare. What mysteries await me? Time will tell.

carnival

You all know what Lent is, I assume. The Christian holiday in which those participating give something up - a vice, a habit, a person - for forty days and forty nights. It was the subject of a mediocre movie starring Josh Hartnett. He gave up sex or something. I don't know, it was a pretty terrible movie.

So let's talk about Lent. Let's say you're about to give something up for Lent. This is a big deal. You're going to give up your vices, give up ice cream or beer or sugar or caffeine. And you'll be all penant and everything. Whoa. Big deal. 

So some European guy, hundreds of years ago, decided he wanted to have a little party before Lent. And he invited all of his friends. And they invited all of their friends. And they invited all of their friends. And everyone brought a CD of the loudest music they could. And lots of beer.

Thus, Carnival was born.

Carnival swept its way across Europe last weekend, crashing on the castle like a tidal wave. Beware - this one's a long one.

We went to Maastricht last Friday for an academic excursion with Rob Duckers, assistant director of the castle program and generally The Man. It was another of those cities that looked as though it belonged in a different century - or at least half of it did. You cross a bridge held up by long white pillars; on one side is a quiet town, streets of stone and houses of brick. On the other side is a city evoking an industrial sort of atmosphere - not quiet modern, but more square and neutral, washed out in whites and tans. It was, overall, an interesting excursion - churches built up several stories; clambering up a spiral stone staircase, my hands rubbing against the rough blocks making up the walls, I tried to find myself back in the tenth, eleventh centuries, when these buildings were first erected. How they were built is beyond me - I picture people like ants, scurrying back and forth from stone quarries, clambering over half-built gray structures, and I simply cannot picture these spires and towers emerging from the rubble.

The sun set, and the city exploded into red and yellow and green, bars spilling out into streets, and people, people, people everywhere. We walked out of a bar where we had been having a lovely drink or three with Rob Duckers, and found ourselves awash in a sea of reckless abandon. The Duke left us to our own devices, and we immersed ourselves in Carnival.

There were six of us that night in Maastricht, bounding from bar to bar, table to table. Round one. We stand, leaning against a soaked table, cardboard coasters blending into mush in front of our eyes. Round two. We dance, pressed up against each other, neon lights flashing and fog steaming, spurting from a machine we can't see. Round three. There are balloons in rows stretching from building to building. The darkness of the city opens up hidden alleys full of revelers, clothes screaming the Carnival colors. Round four. Sticky waffles coated in chocolate. Urinals standing like warped statues in the middle of the streets. Round five. Catchy tunes in Dutch and English echo down the alleyways, the cramped space amplifying the sounds tenfold. Round six. We collapse into warm hostel beds, bright orange decor and sheets in rainbow stripes fading like the music.

"Carnival," I wrote, my handwriting large and loopy, "is perfection."

We traipsed back to Well in time for four days of dancing and parades. The Linden seemed like it exploded too. The back room, hidden like Narnia, opened wide for us, the wardrobe doors turning into a walk-in closet, and we stormed our way through it. The walls back there looked pastel, baby blue and baby pink smeared across the wood. Portraits of past Carnival Princes hung like plaques from the ceiling, in some cases only barely resembling a real human being. It was as loud back there as it was in Maastricht, sometimes louder, the sound bouncing around in the cramped space. We would leave with our ears ringing.

A horde of Emerson students marched in the day parade on Sunday, our costumes a bizarre amalgam of colored facepaint, bright boas and scarves, hats of all sorts and - in Greg's case - a sculpted plastic mask scarier than anything I've ever seen, slightly resembling current President George Bush. It was cold, and most of us weren't aptly dressed. We shivered and shimmied our way through Well, constantly moving to keep warm.

Monday night, a parade of lights trekked down the streets. Floats decked out in the scariest creations you've ever seen - papier mache lions and tigers and people (I'm not making a Wizard of Oz joke; I'm above that) with tongues painted bloodred hanging from their mouths. Each float was also overflowing with lights - some stagnant, some flashing. It was a techno dance party out in the cold, lasting for two hours of cheers and pink and green and blue and yellow and white, each color having its fifteen minutes of lashing our eyeballs. The floats themselves were laden with Dutch adolescents tipping back beers, bored expressions flitting from face to face.

Speaking of drunk Dutch adolescents, Greg and Collin and I stumbled upon a group of them standing on the bridge to the castle on Saturday night. Lights that had been illuminating the arms of the bridge were tipped into the moat like some flourescent Titanic, rear end sticking up into the air. They smelled of too much bad beer, but were all smiles when we came their way.

"We're your new best friends," they told us, trailing behind like wisps as we crossed into the castle courtyard. We didn't let them into the castle, of course, and they fled before RA Kevin Overshiner, beacon of social justice, ran out onto the grounds looking for them. They did manage to ask us for a blowjob before we parted ways - laughter with accents, if that's even possible, rang out through the VB courtyard. Greg and I raised our eyebrows at each other, not bothering to suppress our grins.

Pretty typical.

Carnival has since ended, the only remnants being shattered bits of glass and torn streamers littering the roads on Wednesday morning. It's mostly all been swept away, tumbled into the trash. At least until next year.

"Take your vitamins and have fun," a Dutch woman told me the second day of Carnival as I purchased my brightly colored effects, scarf and gloves to proclaim my Carnival pride. I don't know what vitamins had to do with it, but... fun? Yeah. This was fun.

linden

Having the drinking age in The Netherlands be sixteen is cool, I guess, for a lot of reasons, not the last being that we can go to bars and hang out and have drinks and everything. We went to the Linden last night, which for those of you reading this who don't know, is one of the bars in Well. It was our first real night here, so a lot of the castle kids headed down to legally purchase some beer, wine, or other assorted drink - but as we all speak only English and quite a lot of these Dutch people speak only Dutch (go figure), it was a little difficult to order anything but 'beer' or 'wine.'

(One of the problems, incidentally, with the low drinking age, at least according to straight men like Greg, is that "you can't feel safe checking out any of the girls because they might be sixteen!")

I'll tell the truth - I don't usually like beer. The taste just doesn't appeal to me - too tart, toosomething, I'm not quite sure. I think, though, beer tastes like whatever color it is. The lighter the beer, the lighter the taste - not in terms of... heaviness, but in terms of taste. Does that make sense? A very light beer tastes yellow. I had my first really dark beer last night and OH MY GOD. It didn't taste at all like any beer I'd ever had, It was sweet, tasted browner, like iced tea. Delectable.

The bartenders were all women last night, women with crooked teeth, huge smiles, and short spiky hair. Actually, come to think of it, a lot of these Dutch people have short, spiky hair. I tell you, the amount of hair product collectively in that room could probably grease... I actually don't know. What kinds of machines need grease? Printing presses? A lot of hair gel, is the point. That whole 'hair flat but flipped up in front' that caught on in fifth grade is apparently still cool in the Netherlands, especially with young boys.

Oh, yes, that's right, there were tons of children running around the bar.

That's because the people in Well are all preparing for Carnival - yes, that Carnival. (I think.) They take these things VERY seriously. They tell us they've been rehearsing for this thing for weeks. And we saw firsthand just how intense Carnival will be.

Let me back up a little.

So, we get there, and it appears to be a very normal bar - or at least it fits my mental image of a bar. Everything is made of smooth wood; a rich, deep brown, pockmarked with spots of darker brown. There is a light haze of cigarette smoke in the air, and the lights are dim and swinging from the ceiling; a bright, jarring yellow slot machine dings in the corner. It's nice, sure, and the bartenders are pleasant.

Then a man wearing a long blonde wig, purple lipstick, and a black skirt falling just below indecent wandered out of the bathroom.

It took just a second for us to double-take.

In the Linden, there is a door marked "Toilette," and going through it leads to a short hallway; two open doors lead to bathrooms on your right. Further down the hallway is a closed door. From behind the door was a muffled thump-thump of music. Like Harry Potter drawn to the door of the Department of Mysteries, so were we drawn to this closed mystery door.

We peeped, we peeked, and I don't think I can articulate in words what was going on behind that door.

It was a thudding in our ears and children with red and black facepaint running around in blue jumpsuits. Flashing rainbow lights and men in huge costumes and towering, shimmering hats. Screaming, yelling, singing along in Dutch -  oh my lord, was it ridiculous. Every so often, someone would wander out of the super secret rehearsal, bedecked in sparkles and streamers, would yammer in Dutch for a little while, then turn back to Narnia.

We weren't allowed in. A very large Dutch woman told Greg, my roommate, that he couldn't come in.

"No," she said, "you not in here. Back to your cafe."

Greg backed off quickly, or so I hear.

Those Dutch people sure are crazy.

In the bathroom, I was spoken to twice in Dutch by middle-aged men. The first asked me a question - while I was peeing, mind you, and I know that might be TMI, but deal with it because I'm not changing it. I looked at him for a second, and then tried to say "English" in Dutch - "Engles" - and he laughed. I must have succeeded, because he switched to English for the rest of our conversation. This is how that went:

Drunk Dutch Gentleman: "Ohhh - how are you?"

Brian: "???!!!??!?"

DDG: "You sleeping?"

Brian: (attempt at casual laughter) "No, not really."

DDG: "Carnival, ehhh?" (gestures in the direction of the Narnia party)

Brian: "Yeah, it sounds like fun."

DDG: "You no have Carnival, yes?"

Brian: "No, we don't."

DDG: "Ah. You will enjoy!"

Brian: "I'm sure I will!"

He then departed the bathroom and returned to the party. I paused to regain my bearings, then returned to the rainbow-light-less part of the bar.

A second time, I walked into the bathroom and it was a little more crowded, and a balding gentleman started garbling at me in Dutch, and didn't stop. I think he might have been trying to tell me all the toilets were taken, but he just. didn't. stop. So, awkwardly, I left.

I returned to a table where several friends were deep in conversation about Carnival with a jolly Dutch man named Oro. He was wearing a pointy periwinkle blue hat sequined with darker blue sparkles and decorated with blue and white tassels. It glittered and waved whenever he moved his head. Gold and silver medals danced and clacked on the lapels of his blue suit coat. He was, as we found out, the emcee of Carnival - a very big deal.

All around Well, we've been seeing this neon bird symbol, and one of us asked Oro what the deal was. He explained that every town has its own symbol for Carnival, and Well has the bird. Oro gestured to a carved wooden bird hanging around his neck.

Curious, Collin asked what the symbol for Venlo, a nearby city, is.

"Oh," said Oro. "You know. It is... the chicken, but... not the chicken with the wings." He flapped his arms here for effect. "The chicken... with the balls," he said, struggling for the word. "The one that... that fucks the chicken," he finished, thrusting his hips.

We all stared, slackjawed, laughing, and then Collin burst out, "A rooster?!"

"Yes!" cried Oro, hitting Collin on the arm. "Rooster!"

The one that fucks the chicken.

Chicken fuckers.

I mean, seriously.

Whoa. Okay.

I start class tomorrow, which blows my mind. It feels like such a vacation here.

I think I ought to peel back and give those of you who haven't been to the castle a better visual, so we'll talk more about that in a little bit.

Meanwhile..

We've (still) got the party with us.