i am trying to pick up dutch, just enough to have a basic essential hi-how-are-you conversation and enough to understand what these damn warning signs are saying, but for some reason it's really hard. it is simply not sticking in my head. judith and hilde (whom i have renamed Mom and Mom II) taught me some dutch swear words but i immediately forgot them. on the other hand, i told them what a dutch oven was.
i hereby predict that this semester will not pass before i get hit by a bicycle here. i swear, the bicyclists here are MILITANT. they will not slow down or swerve to avoid hitting you. safely insulated from the cars in their bike paths, they are now the big fish in the proverbial small pond, at least against hapless pedestrians like me, and they act with a such a strong sense of entitlement that overcomes all sense of safety that it almost resembles the sense of entitlement found in, well, car drivers.
tonight we went to a club. then a bar. then another bar for karaoke. my feet are killing me.
if i could rewrite the playlist for karaoke tonight, i would have...
...the germans singing 99 Red Balloons (or Rammstein's Du Hast)...
...the scandinavians singing Dancing Queen...
...the spanish singing something by Bebe...
...the french singing l'amour ne dure pas toujours...
...the dutch singing something dutch, really, anything dutch, just to prove that the dutch have produced something worthwhile musically...
...and the canadians NOT singing celine dion.
