In an attempt to escape the dreariness of the dormitory and the awful weather, Stefano, Joe and I decided to drive to London. It was great; I was proud of the precision with which we scanned and compared insurance documents and statistics about kilometers per meter. We first stopped in Antwerp--basically we just drove from one city to the next, looking for the city center and marvelling at every single beautiful thing that every town has to offer. Usually we were making fun of Catholocism. Gent had a castle with enough passages and fun stuff to climb on to bring out the scrappy eight year old in me. In one restaurant we started talking with a woman half sipping her coffee and half tending to her fat little dogs...she and her husband spend eight months of the year running a restaurant in Greece, and the rest of the time they pack their beagles into the car and visit friends all over Europe. The fat owner bumbled over and sliced us off big fat pieces of fatty chocolate cake made by his fat wife.

After wandering around on the jetties on the beach just before a storm, we coasted in to the Calais ferry crossing. Sadly enough, the ferry was 200 euro, not 19 like we thought. So we drove to Bolougne and slept on the beach under the stars, and climbed the cliffs the next morning. The rest of the time we drove from town to town in Belgium trying not to spend money. The equally poor Joseph filled himself with chocolate and beer, while Stefano and I were surviving on a diet of peanut-butter & mustard rice cakes. At night they scared me silly with stories about Belgian axe-murderers, cannibals, and freak truck drivers. As awkward and uncomfortable as that puny car was, we managed to sleep in until eleven on a random side street in a town we didn't know the name of. We had a picnic by the river in Namur, but our blankets and bottles of unidentified brown liquid (tea) led passers-by to think that we were runaway teens. It wasn't the first time someone has made that mistake about me, and I'm sure it won't be the last. The weather was unbelievably awful and matched the somber mood that ought to accompany a visit to Waterloo, I guess. The countryside was really gorgeous. At one point we thought we would drive to Luxembourg just for the novelty, but that was a stupid idea, and rumor has it that Luxembourg is a stupid country anyway. This morning I woke up late for the time we had to return the rental car, so I went in my pajamas. The study-abroad coordinator rode by on his bicycle as I emerged from a mechanic's garage in an old-lady night gown and a track jacket with a sleepy Italian on my arm. I may have managed to salvage a reputation after the Belgian male-roommate snafu, but now I'm sure Jorg thinks I'm completely insane.

I guess I was just more glad about spending time with such great people. It's wonderful to hang out with people who have all of their identity issues taken care of. It's all a done deal. No insecurities, no flip-flopping around, no excluding people, no nothing. It might have something to do with the language barrier, but Stefano is invariably happy-go-lucky, and if he ever judges people, he certainly doesn't make it apparent. Really, he inspires me to keep my door open and force people to eat my habitually disgusting bulgur wheat concoctions. And Joe is completely comfortable with himself and his quirks and unique habits. Stefano and I cursed his name for about forty minutes while we waited for him in driving wind on the top of one of the cliffs by the sea while he wandered around collecting shells in the tide pools below. Maintaining an adecquate sense of wonder is not to be underestimated.

I lent out my extra mattress to a Spanish girl this week, and I just found it in the room of an Estonian basketball champion. I also just met a guy who is the eighth fastest rubics-cube solver in the world. Walking superlatives are everywhere.

And, Serbia is cleared of genocide? What?

As I screw around in the Netherlands, life goes on.

Today we woke up late, ate from a giant block of parmesan cheese, wandered in the sunshine in cowboy hats, and made good use of a moon bounce in the back of a restaurant populated by senior citizens.

Carnaval is one of the most magnificent displays of humanity I've ever seen. It is sort of the equivalent of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but much, much better--everyone (and that means quite literally everyone from the cradle to the grave) dresses up from head to toe in costumes or neon colors or garbage bags and there is an enormous party on the streets of Maastricht for three days straight. I really love that demographics aren't held so sepearately here-- there are drunks wandering the streets from noon to night but they don't act so awful that people are afraid to bring their children along. I myself have been wearing an Austrian yodelling dress for about 36 hours straight. The apron has proven far more functional than it was intended to be and I have all sorts of festive foods on display on my front. I spent some time wandering around with Norwegians in plastic horns who stabbed strangers indiscriminately with plastic swords.

My lack of a roommate has actually made me far less lonely--it's kind of my own space where I can serve pots of lentils, play Ace of Base, and wear cowboy hats at four in the morning. All of our little dinner-parties have helped me discover not only that I can, in fact, cook--I actually like to; and now I'm dreaming of starting some sort of organic bed-and-breakfast someday. It's been kind of a hotel. Olivier took refuge from his horrifyingly patriotic American roommate for a little while, Kata the German debutante blessed me with her presence for a few days and then sweet sweet Patricia came from Paris. It's really wonderful; sometimes the Europeans flatter me by saying I don't look or act American like the 90 or so of my compatriots running around the dorm because I've made an effort to get to know them. But it's just human nature, even They tend to hang out in nationalistically homogenous cliques. It's pretty easy to meet new people because everyone wants to practice their English with a native speaker. I've been hanging out with a hoard of Italians that meet every stereotype known to man. They are extremely welcoming, always, always invite dozens of people to eat pasta, never make it out the door before midnight because they're waiting for someone to decide which shoes to wear, and always stop to talk to you on the sidewalk. It's kind of funny how much of a difference little cultural differences like that make--in the US it is acceptable to just smile and wave (or even ignore your friends) about 90% of the time. It seems like the Italians go to great lengths to make everyone feel appreciated and to ensure that no one feels like they were the last one picked for the football match. It's a great quality that I've tried to pick up--sometimes a little awkwardly--but for the most part it makes this place feel a lot more like home.

Classes are pretty intense, with plenty of frustrating group work to suck the hours out of the day. It's a little funny because my life here consists of school, going running around harbors full of house boats, cooking, and dancing til the cows come home. It's a happy routine I'm starting to find monotonous, but I think anything can seem monotonous when the weather is so gray. Jessica and I made an effort to seek out the campus Amnesty International, but it seems like all of the activist groups just have one meeting a month for 'discussion' at the nearest pub. It's really easy to let weeks roll by without any sort of thoughtful reflection. When I think about it I really miss everyone from home. I'm starting to crave my genuine friendships in the face of so much general pandemonium.

On a related note, the time has come to decide whether or not to answer the eternal siren-song of camp this summer. If I don't, I'd get to travel around, attend a summer institute at the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva, and maaayyybe see a friend or two in the Balkans. If I do, I get to bask in the glow one of the only communities and places that feels consistent in my life before the dramatic exit from liberal arts la-la land into the great and probably not-so-exciting unknown of (un?)employment.

People are starting to write proposals for honors theses and fellowships for after graduation and applying for scholarships for masters' degrees. Shit. For some of us, walking the stage is like walking the plank. Others continue to float along on waves of fellowships and programs and internships that convince twenty-somethings that they are important, always "preparing" to do something for the world. In India Khemraj resented all of the coferences to which he was invited to speak, because he was always asked to talk to academics and others who talk about development like it's football. It would be easy enough to keep pursuing things like that--it seems like a lot of people manage to talk the talk until the day they die. For some reason I feel like I will have to actually do something after I graduate in order to justify all of the 'preparation' I have had thus far, but I guess what I should really be preparing myself for is the possibility that I could soon be joining the ranks of philosophically frustrated youth preparing mocha lattes in San Francisco. I think they coud form an army powerful enough to dismantle...something, if they could only figure out what it is.

I had a lot of really interesting conversations with Professor Samatar, who is absolutely notorious for being rigorously academic, strict, and set in his opinions. I actually had the gumption to mention my doubts about higher education to him at a casual dinner, and he has been surprisingly enough very respectful of my hippy-dippy remarks since then. He is the kind of man who wears a suit to school because it commands respect, and it conveys respect for his students. He really believes in people demonstrating that they are serious about things--in general, things and people and endeavors should be taken very seriously, papers should be handed in with the proper format, etc. He resents sloppiness. He has somehow realized (I guess it isn't exactly a secret) that I fall somewhat on the other side of the debate. He showed me a passage in a book he was reading about the ways of the Samurai, saying that the samurai always has his hair combed, a disposition of perfect grace, always composed and clean, because he never knows when his death is coming and he wants to die with honor. It's a good point--you always want to make a good impression. I agree with him in a way--I do think that dressing neatly shows respect for a situation/audience, that being thorough and careful with your reports conveys motivation, that perfect diction is what is needed to articulate a point. My response to him, though, was that the problem with this mindset is that it will automatically discount a lot of very valid knowledge. I think it is awfully arrogant and immature to disregard someone's perspective because he had a ketchup stain on his tie, the report wasn't stapled, the speaker didn't have a good grip on parallel structure, or she did not knows English good.

I guess this kind of reflects something that I've been trying to work on in general this year...really interacting with the part of the person that matters. If I stop listening to someone because they have an irking nasal quality to their voice, because they are wearing a Nike t-shirt, because they like George Bush, I'm the one who is missing out. It isn't always the intuitive thing to do, but life seems to be a lot more worthwhile when you really listen to what people are trying to say, or at least try to understand what they are about. It reminds me of the attitude of those truly brilliant music aficionados who recognize great songs when they hear them; whether they are modern country or old jazz singers or Indian drummers. I love people who can have that attitude--it would never even occur to me to enjoy certain things in life until someone I respect gestures towards them, like wine or cheese or Woody Guthrie or the way that tea bags spin when you lift them out of your cup.

I finally am connected to the internet and it's a little strange! I guess I haven't really had that since about May or so...I've gotten used to not having a cell phone or the internet or a watch. It has helped me to keep my head in the present moment instead of always worrying about where I have to be next and what still have to do and who is waiting for me to call on the other side of the world. Now that I have it, though, I'm realizing just how much I miss everyone and how easy it is for friendships to slip through my fingers like sand through a sieve. It's an erie feeling; it's making me realize how easily people come and go, or how easily I slip in and out of their lives and make new friends and then turn around and forget them a few fleeting weeks later. What does any of that mean in the first place? I'd really like to be better about it in all. I've barely gotten to talk about India with anyone, and it really feels like a dream.

I see that blogger lists "scooters" as a suggestion for a subject for this post--I really wish I could have a life that leads me to put scooters as the subject of my posts. Sadly enough, that is far from the case. I just got a bike, however, which is apparently going to rocket me into productivity instead of taking a whole forty minutes out of my day to and from school--to tell the truth though, I love it..I've been running around the lake and the forts and old limestone caves near the river..there is even a petting zoo in the middle of town with all sorts of unprecedented mammals. I just went out with the Erasmus student organization to a "Cantus," an old Dutch tradition that involves singing the Spice Girls and holding wooden shoes in your hands. Women's issues manage to socially paralyze me at certain moments, but really this place is great. The Belgians and Italians and Spaniards all had a big potluck the other night with paella and polenta and p-waffles. I ended up talking with someone who knew about the Indian origin of Sufism and to a Nigerian about what he actually thinks about Shell. There are impressive people to meet everywhere I look. I feel like a kid in a candy store. I actually used that phrase when I was talking to one of the Belgians and now he repeats it to everyone else who is learning English as one of the best English idiomes of all time.

Last weekend I went to visit Emily in Berlin, which was pretty great. It is reputably one of the hippest cities around, but it was so freezing cold that i think the cool cats were freezing their asses off. Somehow I managed to hurt my foot so that it was swollen up and a little purple on Saturday monring; and one of the pre-med students who was staying in my dorm at the hostel told me I needed an x-ray. Unfortunately I didn't really see museums, but instead opted to ride around on the impressively scenic and efficient lite-rail system to see the city. It's a really great display of humanity. I sat next to a couple of girls dressed all in black with black jackets and black sunglasses with a ridiculous sheep dog on the tram. A guy with a guitar waltzed into our car, and the dog started howling along with him when he hit the high notes. Also made it to the German state fair, which, (surprise surprise) included a lot of wurst, beer, cheese, and renewable energy.

I am also impressed when I see windmills on the countryside. However, all of the shops keep their doors wide open and the heat on full blast. No one seem to have any qualms about energy costs there. I do tend to answer for George Bush's energy policies all the time, as though I had been the one that told him to hock a big fat loogie on the Kyoto Protocol. I really like it when people are curious about my views and actually ask me about them and find that I actually am not the American that they imagine--and I really hate it when they ignore me anyway and confront me with statistics about September 11th or quotes about how Bush thought that Nigeria was in Africa. Occasionally I get to impress them by knowing where Oslo is, but when people are really mean I find myself muttering "no, actually, I don't think I can name a single president of Slovakia." I am ashamed of my ignorance, but I think I take it a little too hard because it is impossible for me to reciprocate every nation's knowledge about the US.