Day 2: Getting Lost on Purpose

Check out the view from my hotel room!


I had planned to take the train to Amersfoort today, and check out the Nieuwland site for my project. While I had all good intentions, I also knew I was really tired. I went to bed last night at 7:30pm Amsterdam time, and woke up at 12:30pm today - 17 hours of sleep! This is why I got here when I did, now I’m slowly waking up, but letting myself take my time so that I can settle into a routine, knowing that tomorrow morning I’m going to have to be up at coherent before 8am. I’ll have to figure out my alarm clock then, and just hope that it doesn’t get so far ahead I’m waking up more than an hour before I really want to. But if it does do that, I’ll have to figure out how early the Vondelpark opens, and maybe I just walk that every morning. I plan to at least do that today, since we are going to be doing so much walking, this will at least be a relaxing walk, and I’ll be able to see more of the neighborhood if I come around the other way. I also want to find the Last Minute Ticket Shop, if there’s something playing that I want to go see so I can figure out how to get there and get tickets. I also plan to mail the postcards I got so I can send those back to Matt, Rebecca, and my family. Whoo!

So, because its too late to make a full day of Amersfoort, I think I’ll go Monday afternoon, and then again on Saturday after we’ve had the closing meeting. That’ll give me some more time to attempt to contact some folks and arrange for more information to come to me. I’ve been given suggestions to talk to the US Embassy here, so I think I will try and find that information today, and possibly make a trip over.

I didn’t go to the embassy, but I did walk down to the Delight café - it was in the only direction I hadn’t explored yesterday, so that was a good exercise. I was very pleased with the phone call cost - .30 per minute, and so a 12 minute phone call to my boyfriend was only 3.60. Tomorrow, I may not talk as long to Matt, but maybe also give my family a call and let them know I am OK. Much more affordable than the 20 euro at the airport. Once I left the delight café, I kept walking to the right (not going to say east, I haven’t reset my internal direction clock yet) to the roundabout, and then crisscrossed back and forth walking through the residential streets, coming back up to Amstelveenseweg to and then going a block, down again. I always try to walk through first without my camera, and just enjoy the experience itself. I do want to go back and take pictures of some of the neighborhoods - there was a stretch that nearly every house had a pulley hook at the top, and some had memorable animal figureheads as well. There were some snack shops with customers coming in and out. When I get hungry again, I think I may end up choosing one of those places if I have to go alone - they will most likely be a little more cost affordable than a linen table restaurant. Now, the only question would remain of where this mysterious refrigerator that Dr. G talked about. I don’t want to be presumptuous and step on toes; otherwise this would be a very long week. I debated between stopping at a to go café, the cheese shop, and the Castro tapas restaurant. Instead, I came back to the hotel to drop off my day bag, see if anyone else was hanging out in the hotel, and then maybe go out for dinner a little later instead. So far I haven’t seen anyone from the class today. Apparently the other girls headed to Delft this morning instead of Brussels like they told me yesterday. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t traveling alone, but I think my experience is a lot more personal, and also more profound. The smallest things are making a difference, and there’s no one to distract me from the experience. Even when I feel lonely, it encourages me to blend in more, and at least try to smile as people go by. Maybe that is what makes people think I’m a tourist. I don’t know. But I’m going to keep smiling anyway. Maybe someone will smile back after a while.

I had thought about going to the Heineken brewery, but everything closes so much earlier here. It was 4:15pm by the time I had finished the first part of this entry, and wandered down for the Internet and the lounge. But Onno said everyone has checked in, so I think I will try the lounge again. Hannah was nice enough to let me borrow her coffee mug, so I will try having a cup of tea again - the smaller expresso cups just made for too strong of a cup. Maybe I can find a place and buy my own coffee mug from Amsterdam. I am sure I’ll run across a place like that eventually.