here’s a picture from the sounds show at the melkweg (milky way) in amsterdam.

highlights of the show included midnight sun (the song), maja ivarsson spitting all over the crowd, and when the giant dutch guy in front of me left to get a beer.

so a friend recently emailed me “why’d you take that racist candy picture off of your blog? i wanted to show it to someone.” um, i will have you know that it is very un-PC to call the sinterklaas festivities racist. zwarte piets (black peters) are black because of the chimney soot. and they work for santa because they like it, not because they are forced to. and it’s just a coincidence that sinterklaas is the one who gives the good children candy and zwarte piet is the one who puts the bad children into a bag and takes them to spain (where they have to peel oranges all day).

okay, but seriously… the whole thing is quite weird. last week there was a parade through city center where hundreds of people were in blackface. i’m trying to keep an open mind and all that, but WHAT?! when is the last time you saw someone in blackface? probably never. when is the last time you saw a baby in blackface? definitely never.

david sedaris has a funny piece called six to eight black men, available here: http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ1202-DEC_SEDARIS

the albert heijn might want to re-think their strategy for selling apples…

the view from my window tells me that it’s fall here in tilburg.

beginning in mid-late december, i will own this renault twingo!

(thanks to my colleague maike for the photos. she is the one selling the car to me so that she can go have fantastic post-phd adventures in south africa.)

the best thing about ordering coffee in restaurants here is finding out what bonus sweet thing will come with it. there’s always something. sometimes it’s just a cookie or a wrapped piece of chocolate. but sometimes it will be something super great, like a tiny square of cheesecake, a small glass of chocolate mousse, or a little dish of belgian chocolate bits (shown here).

some pictures of the beach at de haan, belgium.

thank you, trash can, for clarifying how this is supposed to go.

my bicycle now has a basket and a compass-bell-combo.

accomplishing even small tasks is sort of hard when everything is different and in a language that i don’t speak. so my strategy is to put only one non-work item on my to-do list each day, then i don’t get overwhelmed and i feel great if i accomplish it.

this week had a major accomplishment - going to city hall to get a “nee nee” sticker. this sticker on my mailbox says that i do not want any free advertisements or newspapers. but why not? well, we’re not talking about a little bit of junk mail here and there, we’re talking about a stack of stuff 2.3 feet high in only three weeks of living in my apartment. and to top it off, most of the individual adverts are wrapped in plastic. i’ve never seen anything like it. but no more!