Amy's Global Mobilities

Eric and I treat ourselves to one really fine restaurant on each of our trips to Amsterdam. This year, I selected an Italian enoteca that was on the list of ten best restaurants in the city. I had to make the reservation before I left home a month ago.  Last week we traveled across town to arrive at the restaurant in time for our reservation. "Mi dispiace, signora" (I'm sorry, or it displeases me), says the owner, but he does not have our reservation. My face falls. We came all the way across town, and I looked forward this for weeks. Ah, I think as I pull out my phone to show the reservation  confirmation. He looks at it, sniffs, and says, "but that was last night." Evidently, after I entered the reservation, Outlook changed the time zone, and the reservation moved to the next day. The owner looked at me sadly, mystified or perhaps grieving that someone would squander an opportunity to dine at his fine restaurant. I look sadder and say "bouna sera"...

When I was a teenager, one of my favorite movies was Exodus (1960) with Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint. I watched it again a few years ago and was appalled by the film's treatment of relations between Jews and Muslims in Palestine and the nascent state of Israel. Today, I visited the National Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Amsterdam to see if there was anything on the Nazi's treatment of homosexuals. Nothing. The museum focused entirely on the lives of Dutch Jews. But a temporary exhibition titled Exodus 1947 focused on "illegal" Jewish migration to Palestine - including the British deportation and internment of emigrants who had only recently been released from camps and the ways in which Zionist activists worked around the British regulations. I had expected some interrogation of the term "illegal" because it's such a point of contention when referring to immigrants who come to the US now, but there was none. Nevertheless, the e...

  My first photograph today is of old Leiden. The seventeenth-century buildings in smaller towns are not as large as in Amsterdam, and this makes them even more charming. I can image Vermeer painting a woman inside one of these houses, the mild Dutch light falling across her face and the domestic interior. Such moments make it easy to romanticize the Netherlands and to accept the widely touted idea that the country is a haven for "tolerance" (is that ever enough?). But Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas) arrives on Sunday. He comes by boat along the canals in different cities, or even by coach. There is a grand parade with floats sponsored by various corporations, and Santa's assistants, who wear seventeenth-century style clothing, throw out candy or small gifts to the children. The most popular assistant for many years was Zwarte Piet, usually a white person in blackface. This tradition has been widely condemned in recent years and even banned in some places (for instance, P...

This is my street, which, like all of Amsterdam, seems to be under construction. The church at the end is Westerkerk, and it’s right next to Anne Frank’s house.  I’m really enjoying the new neighborhood, which is more residential and diverse than where I was last year. I keep finding treasures like little take-out shops with Algerian food or Turkish bakeries. I had a wonderful visit with my cousin Malinda from Brussels, and it was definitely a foodie visit. The first night we went to an Indonesian food, and I finally figured out how to order right – avoid the enormous rijstaffel, because everything starts to taste the same after the third little dish. and order a la carte. We had fragrant beef with creamy coconut sauce and eggplant with chili. The next night we went to my favorite Dutch restaurant for stamppot or stew; the restaurant is two tiny rooms crammed with bookshelves and board games. What’s not to like? Finally, yesterday, we went to the market and stopped at P...

Tonight I ate in a new restaurant which had concrete floors with peeling paint, folding tables, hard chairs, and no liquor license. All it offered was a choice of two salads (mista and caprese), a handful of homemade pasta dishes, bread with olive oil, and tiramisu. But the pasta! The dishes were just very fresh noodles, fragrant olive oil, a few grilled vegetables (I had artichokes) or some meat, and a smattering of grated Parmesan. Absolute evidence that perfectly fresh, simple food made with high quality ingredients is the best, most authentic version of Italian food!

Things that are trying to distract me from the election: a. a computer crash (it recovered) b. this year's washing machine/dryer combo. Many of you will recall that last year's washer was the bane of my existence, as it would refuse to start and lock up with my clothes in it. This year's washer spent two hours on rinse. Then, when I called my landlady and her husband came over, it decided to stop and open - presto! But now it's been saying it needs another 50 minutes of dryin g time for hours. The common motif seems to be the incarceration of my clothes. c. wondering if I can afford to send out all my laundry, linens and everything!

Today, I began my museum research in earnest. I returned first to the Amsterdam Museum, which has the mission of recording the city's history in all its diversity. The "city lab" for children, which was in its testing stage last year, is now open. It offers opportunities to think about how the city's geography functions, and young people can  identify problems and try to find solutions to them. Not surprisingly, Lego blocks were in abundance! I like the notion that the exhibit engages children in thinking about the place where they live and empowers them to consider ways of resolving problems. Most of my time, however, was spent in a special exhibition based on a book documenting the stories of 1000 Dutch women of the twentieth century (with a briefer coda including 80 twenty-first century women, which was mostly celebratory and short on objects). The obvious choices, such as Anne Frank, were in evidence, but also less well-known females, including Maria Montessori,...

Today I went to the Royal Dutch Ballet for the matinee of La Dame Aux Camelia s. Even though I've seen most famous classical ballets at least once, this one was new to me (it wasn't performed until the late twentieth century, though Chopin wrote the music, and the orchestra often sits back and lets a pianist take over). It's definitely Romantic with a capital R, alluding to its eighteenth-century predecessor Manon Lescaut frequently. If I were still teaching, I'd use it to illustrate the differences between eighteenth and nineteenth century European sensibilities! It's also romantic with a lower case r , featuring doomed love, parental intervention, jealousy, a prostitute with a heart of gold, and, of course, the dreaded illness tuberculosis. The clothes were resplendent, and I loved the fact that there were strong parts for male dancers, who too often stand around and support female ballerinas. You can see a preview here: https://youtu.be/-IrpOYo48ic . A fi...

Saturday mornings are my favorite time of the week in Amsterdam. Noordemarkt, a few blocks away, is the weekly organic and fresh food farmers' market, and there's something different every week. By now, I have my favorite stalls - the enormous mushroom stand with varieties I have never seen before, the cheese vendor where customers can buy from the front and back, the seemingly endless array at the herb stand, the bakery with multiple varieties of spelt bread, and the florist who offers advice on prolonging the lives of her flowers, which she treats like children she is sending out for adoption. Of course, there's also the fresh pasta stand with artichoke ravioli and the shop where everything is made with fresh raspberries. Around the corner is a more typical market for vegetables and fruit as well as housewares. I am laden with the week's bounty when I head home. But no stop at the market would be complete without Dutch apple pie for breakfast. Most Dutch peo...

 Strangers and Being Strange It's eight on a Saturday evening and a man just rang the doorbell. I couldn't understand him and didn't open the door, but I just looked up the logo on his badge and it's from a refugee organization. Now I wonder if I should have been welcoming and tried to help, but I'm alone and know nothing about the laws for immigrants in this country. Sad that I couldn't be of any help, sadder that we live in a world where we need to be suspicious of so many strangers. I have no idea why this post looks odd: one of the mysteries of technology!

Two typical Amsterdam views from behind my campus office building. My breath is still taken away by this city's beauty. The last two days have mostly been settling in - buying my first batch of ginger cheese (yum!), sorting out the details of a new campus ID (always a hassle, no matter where you go), making a new friend, and having dinner with friends from last year. I am amazed at how much Dutch I know, and getting around the city is easier than it was when I first arrived last fall. I walked six miles yesterday! And the bank took a cash deposit, which they insisted they couldn't last year. In retrospect, I believe we literally weren't speaking the same language. . . .