Chronicles Continued

A bank with no cash available.  Dutch banks do not exchange foreign currency.  They do not take in and exchange bills.  There are no tellers.  There are only ATM machines.  Machines for bank customers.  Machine for other banks’ customers.  If you want change, or smaller bills, they don’t have it. They do have a daily newspaper that you can read while you wait to find all this out.

Your PCP- primary care physician. You ask for recommendations from people you have met and respect their opinion, you look the doctors addresses up google maps… and then you choose the one you can reach by bicycle. Having no car and imaging that one day i might not be well, a long bike ride when feeling under the weather did not bode well. So although this was not the universal #1 choice, it is the I can arrive at, on two wheels.

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Before I moved to the house I am now in, I was at a small hotel.  The room I slept in was a self-contained pond house.  Here you see the view from the window on the pond side.  This story is while I am there.

It is my second night in the cozy antique pond-house and after helping to get my next house ready for occupancy, I fall onto the bed and into sleep.  The fan and a floor lamp are running.  12:00 am a fire alarm goes off.  The fire alarm in my space.  Would not have thought I was able to do so, as the built in bed is quite difficult to navigate, but somehow I hop-pop effortlessly out.  Feet on the floor, trying to put it all together.  The alarm keeps ringing.  It sounds so loud.  I have no idea if it is connected to the fire house or the police or is ringing in the main house.  I unplug the fan, the lamp and unlock the door, reaching up from the bottom of the steep slant of stairs.  The alarm keeps ringing.  I smell no smoke see no flames. and no one reacts.  The alarm keeps ringing.  I utter a few non-helpful words out loud and grab a towel off the hook by the sink.  I put it over the alarm.  The alarm keeps ringing.  It suddenly disconnects from the wall and there it is, in the towel.  It has been hanging on a hook on the wall, attached to no wires, as if that is something I would check? I wrap it in the duvet on the bed, trying desperately to smother it, but it keeps ringing. and I can’t get it open, take the batteries out.  Of course there is nothing handy to pry the back off and pop the battery out. [you only need one]. Perhaps I willed it out. The batteries eject and the noise stops.  The next morning at breakfast – see photo- I asked the young woman who is managing the guests if she heard the alarm.  Nope.  Great. That’s reassuring.

And why the “not again!”  Perhaps you will remember that in the Upstate house I was also under siege by fire alarms that without provocation went off at 1 or 2 in the morning.

Writing, the proverbial pen-to-paper sort -though my preference is fingers-to-keyboard- is a way to clear my head and organize my thoughts. In my opinion, it is like music, universally accepted and a group activity. In the local paper I read that there is a writer’s group that meets once-a-month; at the end of the blurb was an email. I sent a note asking if I could join in. I was welcome. The email-answerer said they were usually a group of 4 and the cost involved was for tea/coffee during the 2 hour session. The meeting place is an elegant old world grand cafe. I showed up, this time, pen and paper in hand and found 14 participants. We were self- divided into groups of 4. What a delightful two hours. What a surprise. How good for my language skills. Can’t wait for the next one. Have asked the email person if we can also form a sub-group.

I’m in a city, but there are no early a.m. city sounds.  No honking horns, no yelling or noisy cars.  There is the occasional truck doing it’s recycling rounds, the whiz of a bicycle, the conversational voices of neighbors through the open window. but all is amazingly still

The first things: favorite foods: real tomatoes, kroepoek, ontbijtkoek, vla, yougart, pate, haring with ui -chopped onions,  applestroop, applekanjers, krentenbollen, to name but a few on a surprisingly long list.

The first things: burying the American accent on the Dutch language. Even i hear it now!

The first things: PLANTS AND FLOWERS:  purchase a pot of lavender for $1.19 or a bouquet of fresh cut flowers for $2.40. The choice is a green thumb’s paradise.

The first things: daily getting back on the bike to join the throngs going somewhere.

The first things: purchasing a room fan.  More than AC a fan makes my life wonderful in summer and winter; the City is sold out due to an unexpected long summer of hot!

When looking at the wall thermometer, 19 does not say anything to me.  66.2 does.  Have to learn to think in C’s all o er again.

That is when you go out and see if you can still ride a bike.  6:30 am on my first Sunday in residence. Picked the Bike ‘key’ off the hook, put the house key in my pocket and went out to the bike.  How do you unlock a bike with a key?  Took a moment to recall.  The street was empty, the town asleep.  I got on, the seat was a bit tall, but can’t be lowered and peddled my way through streets that are picture perfect.  There was not a soul to be seen.  At first I wasn’t quite able to keep it in a straight line, and then it started to come back.  The first little hill was a challenge. Am I going to join the throngs on Monday morning ‘spitsuur’? No.  But I will keep at it and before long I will be comfortable in the saddle.

There is something that draws me to sheep.  This one lives on a hill just outside of town.  I pass it on my way biking.

Twice I have made concerted effort to move to a water view, preferably the ocean.  Twice I have ended up in the mountains.  But third time is a charm.  A water view.  My new home.