red light green light

One of my favorite parts about the Redlight District (besides the awkward British tourists in groufits): the swans that hang out in the canal outside the Casa Rosa, home to one of the most popular live sex shows in town. Reflected in the water are the neon lights from the shops and theaters.

night moves

life these days

Hanging on Den's roof, picnicing in the parks, drinking coffee canal-side... So. Good.

Spring is here. SPRING IS HEREEE! I want to get on my rooftop and shout to the world but I'd probably end up jinxing everyone and cause some sort of snowpocalypse.

I spent hours riding my bike today. The funny thing about this city is that it is so easy to get turned around yet so hard to get lost. Let me explain.  The streets run along the canals in a semi-circle, (picture onion layers)  so you can ride for half and hour and end up back where you started and legit not even know how you got there. For serious. And there are always about 8 more shortcuts than you know of (I still find myself going "so THIS is where this is??"). For someone who manages to get lost even with a GPS  — my dreams of the Amazing Race have been long forgotten —it’s magical. But it can be a little tricky because EVERY STREET, even alleys it seems, are named, and each name has about 13 vowels, so they tend to sound/look vaguely similar sometimes. You learn to get around here by feel.

(I'm distracted as I write this because there is a giant-ass horse fly buzzing around my head that I’ll on the verge of throwing a shoe, a book, a bottle of vitamins whatever the heck is in reach at. But at least the fly isn’t a mouse. Can we talk about the mouse I found in my LAUNDRY?? That happened. I shrieked, said a few words, hopped it had a good life and maybe found some good crumbs on my floor and then laid him to rest in the trash can. Outside. I hope it doesn’t have any relatives. /tangent)

But yes. Amsterdam spring = delicious. I roamed, found a quiet bench along the water in the old west part of town and had a delightful little picnic I had picked up, made my way back, rolled through major pleins (squares) and ended up doing some reading on a quiet dock a few blocks from my house  We’re gearing up for our mammoth research projects as we speak so I have a lot of these pages to get through.

Taking a stretch after a long day of training.

That being said, I’m super stoked about my project. I’ve been working with the Derby Dames (no blood mopped, but one ankle taped!) as a way to get to know the scene and see what they're all about. They’re having a few events as April/May going on, but the big thing I’ll be doing for them is a photo shoot series of them all derby-dolled up along the canals (!) I may (slash we may, because Lit is coming to play!) be going to Antwerp with them to shoot as well! Research-wise, I’ll be conducting interviews and gathering personal narrative. My topic? The running title as of today (when I had to turn in some semblance of a final proposal) reads “Blue is the New Black: How roller derby is re-shaping the socialization of the female athletic body, with a focus on injury.” In real people terms: war wounds and battle scars. My favorite. I want to know why the hell we, as ladies in hyper-contact sports, celebrate said nicks and scratches (because it’s only a bruise, duh). It's like Man Up? v. 2.0. I’m looking at the superficial — you know, the walk and talk of the women — but also some of the psychology behind said sport and the injury. In conjunction I’ll be looking at the socialization of the female body — essentially,  how we are traditionally allowed and not allowed to use our bodies (i.e. you know, going to the mall is okay but starting a maul is not. Ya dig?) and how these two concepts — being rough and tough while being a 'lady' — simply don’t match up...and how's that changing. Roller derby is super interesting because: it’s most recent revival is all about the blending of masculinities/femininities; there is no male derby comparison to which these women are upheld; and c) the Derby Dame group is made up of a pretty significant expat population. 

Exhaustion.

(And, speaking of badass ladies, as I write this my newsfeed is blowing up with MCWR’s crazy status updates and looking at a picture of JP’s ripped ear and Kelley in a neckbrace?? DammnnnGIRLS! Not that I'm in the market to get banged up at the moment — "behaving" — but I do miss it. I'll be doing some vicarious living from here, so all of you go get some good bruises will ya'? ;) ...)

To sum it all up: yay for the next few weeks. Things are looking goooood. :)

"And when I feel the breathe of spring on my face

 

I know the sudden sound of you won't be erased."

don't i know you from somewhere?

Cristina and Skips were in town for the first unofficial day of spring — part of our lovely afternoon was spent picnicing in Vondelpark with the Dutch and their dogs

greetings from sunny morocco!

There have been so many times this week where I’ve taken a mental snap-shot and filed them under the ‘wish you were here’ compartment in my brain. My favorite way to travel is solo — but there is something so… dare I say… romantic (not in my vocab) about this place that it’s a shame not to share. So, this is a shout-out for all of my favorite ramblers and favorite weird-food eating companions back home in the ole US of A.

A doorway in the medina

Rabat is the capital of Morocco, home to almost 650,000 folk and, as I sadly learned,  zero camels. I was surprised that it’s hardly touristy, with only one shop in the medina that sells postcards. And get this: it looks like the Morocco I had pictured. Pre-excursion, I had this mental picture drawn from the Epcot pavilion and Casablanca (I’ll admit that using Disney and Hollywood to base real-life ideas is usually poor form)… you know, the palm trees, the souks the stretch into a labyrinth of stalls, the men with moustaches in jalabas crouching on stoops drinking mint tea… but it’s all here.

I don’t know if I’m sun-drunk, but I haven’t been this jazzed up to just be somewhere in a long while. I love Amsterdam, absolutely. But, the city does lack a certain joie de vivre sometimes. I was telling Kelly that it feels like I’m walking through the pages of National Geographic — the colors everywhere are so vibrant, the sun and shadows seem to fall just perfectly and there are so many people here with money-shot mugs. The city is rich in photo fodder. Being here reinforces how much I want (NEED!) the Fulbright so I can keep moving. I should be hearing anyyy dayyyyy nowwwww… until then, I’ll be biting my nails and sprouting grey hairs.

Our days have been jam-packed with lectures and stuffing ourselves silly with the local cuisine. We came at a really interesting time — with all of the social/political upheaval going on, Morocco has gone down the ‘evolution,’ not the ‘revolution’ route. Example: the two days ago the king surprised everyone by a) calling for a press conference out of the blue and b) announcing that he will be handing power over to the Parliament. People had be protesting (something not uncommon) for such change, but for him to actually up an do that without some sort of cataclysmic catalyst makes one kind of cock their head and go ‘huh…that was easy.’ Relatively speaking in comparison to other parts of Africa and the Middle East, of course.

I was trying to sum up my week in a wee nutshell because I’ve been lagging a bit behind here. So, a few happenings of note that left me either inspired, supa fresh or in a food coma:

Visit to Tidis

A woman selling her wares — live chickens — in Tidis

Our itinerary mentioned something about an ‘authentic’ Moroccan village. We all hopped a small bus and headed two hours out of town to the village of Tidis, a rural Berber settlement. One of our program directors grew up here, so for him it was no problem to bring us back. It was market day, a perfect time to see what life was like outside of the city. I was a bit wary. My thought process went as follows: Here we are, 11 loud American kids oddly wearing t-shirts in Moroccan winter, wielding cameras and being herded around. Was it really our place run around gawking and taking pictures with donkeys and the village grandmas for novelty sake? I’m all for interacting with the locales, but not just have them on display for us to consume for entertainment. Did we have any business being here? I was afraid it was going to feel like a field trip to the zoo. But, ohh how quickly those tables turned! As soon as we got there you could feel the eyes. People were pointing and talking, and, endearingly enough, a swarm of kids followed us around. They would follow a step behind and when you turned around, they would suddenly feign disinterest or ham it up for the camera (wish we had polaroids to give them!) I’ll admit that they warmed my heart a litttttle bit, but probably because I couldn’t understand what they were saying/they weren’t crying/throwing rocks, etc. Anyways. We involuntarily caused quite the commotion and, by the end, were being grabbed and embraced and smooched by an older woman and waved at by a pack of little girls who saw our bus off.

Market day in Tidis

I’m always very conscious how I wield my camera. You’ve gotta grab the shot when you see the shot, but there is something to be said for gently easing into a situation and forming a rapport with your subjects if you’re going to be somewhere for a while.  There’s an art to being incognito and stealthy, but I always feel way more satisfied with my frames when I’m engaged. I love portraits. I didn’t get any stellar ones this week, but maybe next time… 

It was a great visit, overall.

The Hamam

Before we came we were told YOU MUST GOT TO THE HAMAM. The public bathhouse is just that: no spa, just a place for people to go for a casual shampoo and naked socializing with guaranteed relaxation. Why not? We went to the market and grabbed the black sludgy soap and scrubbing mitts (i.e. BRILLO PADS) and buckets to wash with. There were a male and a female hamam (always separate, of course) located right around the corner from our center. As we walked into the place —three connecting open rooms of varying degrees of hot and cold — the ladies who worked there POUNCED on us. Before we knew it we were down to our skivvies in a big room of similarly naked bathers, getting buckets of water dumped on us and being violently scrubbed with said brillo pad. Flipping us around, bending us — someone described it as “being in a wrestling match that you knew you were losing.” Never the less, I am as smoooooth as a newborn baby. And, for being as au naturale as we were, it wasn’t an ounce awkward. Mostly because you didn’t have the time of where-with-all to be awkward while worrying if your nipples were going to be chaffed off. Check that one off my life bucket list.

Eats

Pastilla!

Maggie and Kathleen in the souk

Quoth another student studying in Rabat, “I miss what it feels like to be hungry.”  While I certainly do not, I can understand where they (that poor, poor soul…) is coming from. The first thing we smelled stepping off the bus was a thick, sweetly musky odor that hung over the sidewalks. Sidewalk escargot. People stood outside of a stall where the snails were being steamed, sipping on the classic OJ and snail snack combo. Along the sidewalks you’ll find stands and carts of vendors hawking their edible wares — everything from massive oranges to cow feet. While we were warned it probably wasn’t a good idea to drink the snail/snail water, we got to feast upon other local delights. Besides the couscous platters and tajines, my favorite dish had to be the pastilla. Imagine baklava, less syrupy by filled with spiced chicken. What we’re looking at is a chicken, phyla dough, and nutty crunch nibble topped with cinnamon and powdered sugar. A meal and dessert in one. #2 had to be cactus fruit. In the medina center there are huge carts of these little purple bulbs. For a dirham, about 8.6 cents, the man working will slice one out of its bristly skin and hand it to you with a toothpick. It looks exactly like a beet but tastes like a mild pomegranate, seeds and all, with the texture of a watermelon. It turned our mouths a pretty stellar shade of fuchsia to boot. My third fav. treat was an avocado-honey smoothie. Since boozing is frowned upon in the Muslim culture, Friday night in Rabat often consists of hanging at the juice bar. Around the corner from us was a cute place filled with hoards of produce, green fluorescent lights and a few tables for standing room only.  It faintly reminded me of a sweet, drinkable guacamole. I swear, it was a lot better than it sounds!

So, off we go. We're packing (and by packing, I mean sitting in the hall and getting internet) and listening to bed intruder and Barbie Girl. We're out in about 14 minutes, ish. So, until next time — ciaocito!

Brenner and Stephen enjoying the view

 

lack of color?

Zagreb, Croatia:

A daily market for all of your veggie needs

Grayer than Amsterdam in weather and demeanor, this place appears to be downright somber. The city is so…for lack of a better word, silent. Inanimate. People amble down the street, stone-faced. No one seems to be chatting to each other or on their cell phones. No music plays. Smiles aren't returned. At the street corners and crosswalks, it feels like even daring to speak is going to elicit a glare from your fellow jaywalker. I swear I got hexed by this disgruntled woman on the tram, but all limbs are here and I haven’t sprouted any boils, so that’s cool. There’s just — so many furrowed brows and puckered lips. Kathleen got told off by a man with no legs who was shouting what a terrible place this is to live.  In an anecdote: we headed in to the city center a few hours before our lecture to plod around, maybe warm a bit and grab a cappuccino. We came upon some tented tables off of the main square — “Flowers!” Finally, we found some color and cheer. Then we realized… they were all funeral arrangements. A whole. market. of funeral. arrangements. You can almost feel a lingering, palpable sadness hanging over this place. (Which reminds me: a must read)

But during our class sessions, learning about the societal shifts in the post-war era has been intriguing. For being one of the most Catholic countries in the world — little old ladies selling rosaries on the street corners and all — it seems to be pretty progressive at points. I was surprised to learn that the national queer organization faced no opposition from the government when advertising it’s yearly festival all over the city (one of the largest in Europe). We’ve had a series of lecturers, among them a member of the Parliament, a woman who worked as a counselor with victims of war rape and the president of this super-conservative sex “ed.” organization that is taught in the school systems (tangent: among other things, we learned that premarital sex will cause low-self esteem/guilt complexes in adolescent girls; will lead to the inability to love; will lead to drug abuse… Said educator was all about the procreation and not the recreation. He was armed and dangerous with untranslatable analogies involving pants, pasta and tennis rackets ready to prove his point).

Our floppy spinich/garlic/onion cheesy ravs

We've been cooking up family din for the past few nights in order to hoard our kunas for more important things, i.e pop rock chocolate (!!). There's been SO much chocolate to the face this week (and fun fact: our hostel is next door to a chocolate factory) and there's no sign of slowing. Carbs have also been a central theme of our lives, rounding out this week’s dinner selection with homemade spinach raviolis that, though they may have had the consistency of wet napkins, had bomb filling. And nothing burned, nothing went up in flames and there was no smoke to be seen… so we’ll chalk that up to a small success. Speaking of small successes...  thumbs up for the Rolling Stones on the speakers at this hidden underground club and hearing new REM single coming on at this quaint, smoke-filled café. Loves it.

As for our current status — it’s been snowing which nbd, but our plans of leaving tomorrow have been put on hold. A nasty storm is coming and the one road we need to hop on to get out of here will be closed. Kevin, our academic director, is pretty tense. We are supposed to head a bit north of here until our flight to Casablanca on Saturday, so we’ve got a bit of time. You can't bitch about the weather, right? It's like being in New York — throw on an extra layer or six, roll out, and worry when the time comes. But, truth be told, as dandy as my current concrete jungle is I'm definitely looking forward to Morocco and being a biiittt warmer. And maybe petting a camel. And getting scrubbed in a hamam (have mercy on the soul who touches these feet). Etc. Etc. Etc.

On the new itinerary for tomorrow: a visit to the Museum of Broken Relationships (really, REALLY Zagreb?). Should be a real pick-me-up, eh? I look forward more rambling around here before our time is through though. In the past I've very much enjoyed eastern Europe — I've found that really do tend to run into interesting characters along the way... And if you can get past that icy exterior, those interactions can be really incredible...

But, if all else fails... more chocolate can't hurt.