Friendly greetings,
Dutch classes don't start until January. I've managed to pick up a word or two from advertisements and movies. 50% minder suiker I assume means 50% less sugar. The subtitles say verdomme when someone says, "Damn," and jammer when someone says, "That's a shame," or something to that effect. I can occasionally get a laugh from my dutch friends by showing off my meager knowledge, but actual communication is impossible for me. Luckily, most people here know English. To some degree or another, but almost always enough to complete whatever exchange is on the table.
The exceptions, unfortunately, are the truly insane. I was riding my bright red Peugeot bicycle to the grocery store on a chilly evening after class. The store is close, so I ride my bike on the wrong side of the street, in the oncoming bike lane. The first few times I took the long way and crossed the street. But, when I saw other people breaking the law that I don't even know for sure exists to begin with, I felt better taking the shortcut. Besides, there's hardly ever anyone on the road when I go to the store. I saw a man, though, walking with some grocery bags on the sidewalk. He waved at me, vigorously, while I was still twenty meters away. Curious, I slowed down, straddled my bike, and waited. I knew the drill at this point. I say, "I'm sorry, do you speak English?" Other person says, "Oh, sorry, yes," and continues, in English. This time, though, he said something frenzied in Dutch. Frenzied in the way that Lassie might frenziedly bark if an ornery prospector had abducted Timmy. Like he was trying to tell me something was wrong. Like it was imperative his message get through. So, intrigued and determined to help, I leaned closer and said again, "I'm really sorry, I don't speak Dutch. Geen Nederlands. Spreekt u Engels?" He responded swiftly, with a glint of anger behind his eyes. His response was not verbal. Instead, he reached into some pocket, which one exactly I did not have time to discern, and pulled out an ovoid solid. About the size of the first two joints of an impossibly plump index finger. Streamlined like a harbor seal, with roughly the same coloration. He paused with the object suspended between our two faces for only a moment. Then, he stretched his hand out toward my mouth, and attempted to feed me his strange, exaggerated bean. As fast as my fencer's reflexes are, I could do no more than waddle a step or two away, the bike clumsily rolling with me between my legs. He insisted and stepped closer, his torso bent toward me sharply and his arm fully extended. By now, though, fueled by adrenalin, I had lifted my feet to the pedals, and slid, relieved, from his reach. He said something else in Dutch, shrugged his shoulders and his brow, popped the object into his mouth, turned, and sauntered off. From his tone, I can only assume he meant, "Suit yourself. I tried."
The next morning, still slightly disarmed, I was walking my bike out from my apartment building. One of the construction workers said, "Mooie fiets." I stared at him, straight-faced and emotionless, and continued walking. I gave no other response. It wasn't until I was twenty meters down the road that something in my brain clicked and I realized he had said "Beautiful bike." Oops.
Until the king needs more torches,
walter
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Friday, November 17, 2006
overstromen
geachte vrienden,
I don't live in Scotland anymore. I lived in Pittsburgh, but I don't live there anymore either. I know. You're wondering, "Where does that leave? Where could he be now?" Clearly: Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The Netherlands also means Holland to some. This is a place that happens to be in Europe. It's not in Scandinavia, nor does it border the Mediterranean Sea. People from here are Dutch and they speak Dutch, but they call themselves Nederlanders and their language Nederlands. They are not Danish, but I'm told the Danish are a proud people from which I partially descend. Netherlands means "low-lands". In Spanish, that's, Países Bajos.
Because there was nowhere else to live in Europe, the Nederlanders had to build their country on the ocean. It doesn't float, though. Sometimes, it actually sinks. Water is not always the friend of the Nederlanders.
I live here now, so I was of necessity indoctrinated into the hydrophobic cult. Please. Let me tell you how.
When I first arrived at the airport here, 1 October, 2006, the airline had forgotten to put one of my bags in the plane with me. This bag had my clothing and my rain gear, which, I'm sure you can imagine, was a slight problem. Only a slight drizzle, hardly a mist, nothing I couldn't deal with. The rain wasn't the problem. I wandered around the city center, waiting to move into my brand new apartment. It turned out, when I moved in the next day, it was so brand new that they hadn't even finished building it yet. There was no refrigerator. But, there was a washing machine, lost and alone, in the middle of the entryway. I felt sorry for it and hooked it up. How hard could it be? Power in the outlet, drain in the drain. Simple. Not simple. A side story:
Johnny van de Livedherebefore was a simple young gent, eagerly attending the technical university of eindhoven to learn about physics. Classes were starting off much more difficult than he was used to in his prior education. He felt like an outcast from his more alert classmates. He stayed in his apartment most nights and, frustrated by his homework, concentrated on his macramé. No one appreciated his key chains, woven with delicate care. His relationship with his girlfriend was falling apart. His parents were concerned about him. Eventually, he failed his course and was asked to leave. Rather than face his parents, he collected a plastic bag, walked sullenly to the drain for the washing machine, and set about attempting a complex and obscure suicide. He awoke the next morning feeling, to his dismay, rather healthy. He removed the plastic bag from his head, unhooked his toes from the drain pipe, and stood up. In a fit of rage, he crammed the plastic bag as far down the drain pipe as he could. Feeling better, he turned over a new leaf and walked off to pursue his parents approval for a career as a macramé artisan.
Having hooked up my spiffy new washing machine, I decided to do a test load and sat reading while the little bastard whirled and spun and rinsed. Poor thing. After all that spinning, it must have felt a bit of the nausea that all the mindlessly subservient feel at one time or another. As I sat on my bed, I heard it barfing all over the floor. I darted over to the plug, and with a quick flick of my wrist, put it out of its misery. It stopped barfing. Not before covering the entire hallway with foamy, black ooze. Now what? Luckily, one of my first acquisitions from a Dutch store was a tiny dish sponge for cleaning my apartment. I dropped the yellow and green square into the murky lake, and after about 837 years, managed to soak up and deposit the water in the sink. Take that, Terrible Trivium.
Such was my Dutch induction. When I fished out the responsible bag, it still contained, damp but intact, a receipt for plastic cord.
Tot ziens,
walter
I don't live in Scotland anymore. I lived in Pittsburgh, but I don't live there anymore either. I know. You're wondering, "Where does that leave? Where could he be now?" Clearly: Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The Netherlands also means Holland to some. This is a place that happens to be in Europe. It's not in Scandinavia, nor does it border the Mediterranean Sea. People from here are Dutch and they speak Dutch, but they call themselves Nederlanders and their language Nederlands. They are not Danish, but I'm told the Danish are a proud people from which I partially descend. Netherlands means "low-lands". In Spanish, that's, Países Bajos.
Because there was nowhere else to live in Europe, the Nederlanders had to build their country on the ocean. It doesn't float, though. Sometimes, it actually sinks. Water is not always the friend of the Nederlanders.
I live here now, so I was of necessity indoctrinated into the hydrophobic cult. Please. Let me tell you how.
When I first arrived at the airport here, 1 October, 2006, the airline had forgotten to put one of my bags in the plane with me. This bag had my clothing and my rain gear, which, I'm sure you can imagine, was a slight problem. Only a slight drizzle, hardly a mist, nothing I couldn't deal with. The rain wasn't the problem. I wandered around the city center, waiting to move into my brand new apartment. It turned out, when I moved in the next day, it was so brand new that they hadn't even finished building it yet. There was no refrigerator. But, there was a washing machine, lost and alone, in the middle of the entryway. I felt sorry for it and hooked it up. How hard could it be? Power in the outlet, drain in the drain. Simple. Not simple. A side story:
Johnny van de Livedherebefore was a simple young gent, eagerly attending the technical university of eindhoven to learn about physics. Classes were starting off much more difficult than he was used to in his prior education. He felt like an outcast from his more alert classmates. He stayed in his apartment most nights and, frustrated by his homework, concentrated on his macramé. No one appreciated his key chains, woven with delicate care. His relationship with his girlfriend was falling apart. His parents were concerned about him. Eventually, he failed his course and was asked to leave. Rather than face his parents, he collected a plastic bag, walked sullenly to the drain for the washing machine, and set about attempting a complex and obscure suicide. He awoke the next morning feeling, to his dismay, rather healthy. He removed the plastic bag from his head, unhooked his toes from the drain pipe, and stood up. In a fit of rage, he crammed the plastic bag as far down the drain pipe as he could. Feeling better, he turned over a new leaf and walked off to pursue his parents approval for a career as a macramé artisan.
Having hooked up my spiffy new washing machine, I decided to do a test load and sat reading while the little bastard whirled and spun and rinsed. Poor thing. After all that spinning, it must have felt a bit of the nausea that all the mindlessly subservient feel at one time or another. As I sat on my bed, I heard it barfing all over the floor. I darted over to the plug, and with a quick flick of my wrist, put it out of its misery. It stopped barfing. Not before covering the entire hallway with foamy, black ooze. Now what? Luckily, one of my first acquisitions from a Dutch store was a tiny dish sponge for cleaning my apartment. I dropped the yellow and green square into the murky lake, and after about 837 years, managed to soak up and deposit the water in the sink. Take that, Terrible Trivium.
Such was my Dutch induction. When I fished out the responsible bag, it still contained, damp but intact, a receipt for plastic cord.
Tot ziens,
walter
translate
Hello friends,
It is not without ponderous and lengthy deliberations that I disclose to you the fruits of my past several months. In the end, my excitement and, though I know it baseless, pride for what my efforts have brought to light persuade me to enter, confidently, the public forum.
On March 17th, while trudging across the tundra, mile after mile, I stopped for a quick drink from my canteen. My head ached from the cold: a deep throb behind my eyes. The thick gorse stretched a mottled canvas nearly to the horizon, which the blue of a seasonal alpine lake cut abruptly three hundred yards to the north. I hadn't planned on going much farther than the lake, but the last steps were, fortunately it turns out, too much for me without a break. As I crouched to conserve warmth, I noticed a discoloration in the grasses, and, spurred by my curiosity, gingerly wiped the mud from the cover of a partially-preserved, leather-bound manuscript. Rather than risk damaging such a strange find, I wrapped it carefully in my sleeping bag and did not examine it further until I had hastily returned to more controlled conditions.
Decay had claimed many pages of the tome, handwritten entirely in an Old Norse dialect and dating from the 13th century, but some remained intact. The translation of these extant passages has consumed my waking hours for the past months, and it is the longest and only intelligible section of the book that I will set down here. Any lilting sections of language, I can say without modesty, are entirely the fault of my limited translation skill. The Old Norse is poetic and beautiful, and I have tried my best to capture it here. I've inserted editorial comments in square brackets, but kept to a minimum. Enough now. The text.
Chapter The Fifth
In which Thrain and Fundin hold counsel of their advisers in the face of war.
Six silent nights passed, yet Thrain perched unmoving on his lofty balcony staring south across the wounded fen. Thrain's broad shoulders slouched under the weight of his exhaustion, which hung like a yoke around his neck. When the bright moon, sister of the earth, had risen in the clear sky, Fundin came again to Thrain's side and spoke, saying, "Great Thrain, all the wealth and pleasures of the kingdom would be no succor for you who have lost so much, but I beg you put off your watch and tend to your health lest you do yourself a grave injury." Three times Fundin beseeched, and three times Thrain withheld response, his gaze locked on the horizon.
Fundin turned back into the hall, gaze lowered, and sought his bed. He lay sleepless until the antlers of the day's fiery elk crested the mountains in the east, worry clouding his mind.
At last he arose, and his path brought him again to Thrain's balcony. His heart jumped, for Thrain no longer held his watch. Presently the horn sounded, and Fundin raced to the council chamber and took his seat beside Tor and Ymnod among the gathering assembly. Then Thrain spoke, his voice no weaker from his weariness.
"A traveler, who seeks shelter from a coming storm, must make a hastened step. Yet should fog cloud the path, the wise traveler will take care to keep his way. So with haste we must take care, and take care with our haste. Fair Baldr and his hordes of men will be upon us soon. Should we again prepare for war or hope for Baldr's
[several lines of text missing here]
And never would the beasts overrun our mighty castle's gates." Dulm finished his entreaty and returned to his seat. The assembly grumbled rough assent, but Fundin stood next, gazing at the floor as he spoke.
"True, no man has breached our outer wall. But we cannot count on Fjalar's aid. Lacking his strength we would surely fail, and he is not easy to convince."
Dulm again rose, saying, "Trust least the snake whose eyes you cannot see!" and the assembly again murmured approval. [I have no choice but to translate the idiom literally, lacking the proper cultural context to infer its true meaning]
Fundin, sensing impending defeat implored Thrain to reconsider. Thrain responded, "My friend, we have seen much together, but the council has spoken," and Dulm set the city to work.
The chapter's bulk ends here, with only shards of sentences filling out the remaining pages. Indeed, these words seem to indicate the cataloging, at great length and with meticulous detail, the citizenry of the city, the number of spears, horses, arable fields, able men, hectares of swampland, and the like within Thrain's reach.
I cannot dream of a more thrilling discovery, and I hope that, by sharing it with you, you have some greater appreciation for the work I do. If you have questions on the remainders of the textual fragments, or would like to see the original (supervised by myself of course, and by this I mean you no offense), please do not hesitate to contact me at my office.
In pursuit of Truth,
Mortimer Fairweather
It is not without ponderous and lengthy deliberations that I disclose to you the fruits of my past several months. In the end, my excitement and, though I know it baseless, pride for what my efforts have brought to light persuade me to enter, confidently, the public forum.
On March 17th, while trudging across the tundra, mile after mile, I stopped for a quick drink from my canteen. My head ached from the cold: a deep throb behind my eyes. The thick gorse stretched a mottled canvas nearly to the horizon, which the blue of a seasonal alpine lake cut abruptly three hundred yards to the north. I hadn't planned on going much farther than the lake, but the last steps were, fortunately it turns out, too much for me without a break. As I crouched to conserve warmth, I noticed a discoloration in the grasses, and, spurred by my curiosity, gingerly wiped the mud from the cover of a partially-preserved, leather-bound manuscript. Rather than risk damaging such a strange find, I wrapped it carefully in my sleeping bag and did not examine it further until I had hastily returned to more controlled conditions.
Decay had claimed many pages of the tome, handwritten entirely in an Old Norse dialect and dating from the 13th century, but some remained intact. The translation of these extant passages has consumed my waking hours for the past months, and it is the longest and only intelligible section of the book that I will set down here. Any lilting sections of language, I can say without modesty, are entirely the fault of my limited translation skill. The Old Norse is poetic and beautiful, and I have tried my best to capture it here. I've inserted editorial comments in square brackets, but kept to a minimum. Enough now. The text.
Chapter The Fifth
In which Thrain and Fundin hold counsel of their advisers in the face of war.
Six silent nights passed, yet Thrain perched unmoving on his lofty balcony staring south across the wounded fen. Thrain's broad shoulders slouched under the weight of his exhaustion, which hung like a yoke around his neck. When the bright moon, sister of the earth, had risen in the clear sky, Fundin came again to Thrain's side and spoke, saying, "Great Thrain, all the wealth and pleasures of the kingdom would be no succor for you who have lost so much, but I beg you put off your watch and tend to your health lest you do yourself a grave injury." Three times Fundin beseeched, and three times Thrain withheld response, his gaze locked on the horizon.
Fundin turned back into the hall, gaze lowered, and sought his bed. He lay sleepless until the antlers of the day's fiery elk crested the mountains in the east, worry clouding his mind.
At last he arose, and his path brought him again to Thrain's balcony. His heart jumped, for Thrain no longer held his watch. Presently the horn sounded, and Fundin raced to the council chamber and took his seat beside Tor and Ymnod among the gathering assembly. Then Thrain spoke, his voice no weaker from his weariness.
"A traveler, who seeks shelter from a coming storm, must make a hastened step. Yet should fog cloud the path, the wise traveler will take care to keep his way. So with haste we must take care, and take care with our haste. Fair Baldr and his hordes of men will be upon us soon. Should we again prepare for war or hope for Baldr's
[several lines of text missing here]
And never would the beasts overrun our mighty castle's gates." Dulm finished his entreaty and returned to his seat. The assembly grumbled rough assent, but Fundin stood next, gazing at the floor as he spoke.
"True, no man has breached our outer wall. But we cannot count on Fjalar's aid. Lacking his strength we would surely fail, and he is not easy to convince."
Dulm again rose, saying, "Trust least the snake whose eyes you cannot see!" and the assembly again murmured approval. [I have no choice but to translate the idiom literally, lacking the proper cultural context to infer its true meaning]
Fundin, sensing impending defeat implored Thrain to reconsider. Thrain responded, "My friend, we have seen much together, but the council has spoken," and Dulm set the city to work.
The chapter's bulk ends here, with only shards of sentences filling out the remaining pages. Indeed, these words seem to indicate the cataloging, at great length and with meticulous detail, the citizenry of the city, the number of spears, horses, arable fields, able men, hectares of swampland, and the like within Thrain's reach.
I cannot dream of a more thrilling discovery, and I hope that, by sharing it with you, you have some greater appreciation for the work I do. If you have questions on the remainders of the textual fragments, or would like to see the original (supervised by myself of course, and by this I mean you no offense), please do not hesitate to contact me at my office.
In pursuit of Truth,
Mortimer Fairweather
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)