A Most Memorable Mother's Day

The last two weeks have been spent in luxurious sunshine!   Remarkably, the nice weather for once coincided with the children's holiday.  We've been spending time between the lake, our back yard, and various sites within our neck of the woods.  To end our adventures and excursions I requested we take the train down to Scheveningen beach for a Mother's Day treat.  It seemed the perfect way to finalize our May vacation and give the kids (and mom) a special time to remember.  The word "remember" doesn't seem to do the experience justice.

As any day on the beach should be we enjoyed hours in the sun, warm sand between our toes and bobbing up and down in the cool waves.  The children made sand castles and found crabs buried in the moist sand after the tide went out.  Lillian was wonderful and even napped on the beach wrapped in a towel under the shade of our umbrella.  It was one of the few naps she'd gotten the whole vacation.

I have described the beach from our brief encounter with it during our travels last August, but it worth it to mention a few things in detail again.  The beach has been frequented as the place to bathe since record can seem to recall.  The wealthy were often fond of visiting as is obvious from the exorbitant buildings lining the promenade.  Below the stone paved promenade is a boardwalk lined with one restaurant after another, each with their separate tables, couches, pillows, and whatnots to lounge on in the sun while sipping your cocktail or eating your treat.  Beyond this is the wide sandy beach and the ocean with a faint trace of a distant land on the opposite side.

Though most of our visit was spent under the shade of our own umbrella amongst the hundreds of sunbathers on the sand we soon determined it was time for a nice dinner before the long trip home.  My wonderful husband reserved a table overlooking the beach and under the shade of an umbrella with a menu befitting a Mother's Day gift dinner.  Once all of us had arrived at the table and began to settle in is when all havoc begin.  We'd run out of cash (you'll learn that not all places in Europe accept the card form of currency) so the leader of our small band dutifully sought out a cash machine while our order was being prepared.  It was during this time that 5-year-old Amara told me, "I have to go to the bathroom.  I know where it is."  Normally, this would not have been something to blink an eye at, but I should have been tipped off by the sentence she tagged on at the end.  As all the rest of us had recently used this bathroom and it was only a few visible paces behind me I had no doubt she knew where it was and I let her go.  Several minutes went by as I watched people play on the beach and sailboats glide by in the distance before that feeling arose in my mother's heart.  Something wasn't right, what was taking that girl so long?  I left the other two at the table and poked my head into the toilet room only to reveal no Amara present.  Just then her father rounded the corner and I asked him to have a look in the men's room.  He came back out and nonchalantly stated she wasn't there, but at the mention of that room he'd be right back.  In this time I suddenly became aware that she was nowhere within my line of sight and when he came out I manically stated she was gone and I must go find her.  His only choice was to stay at the table with the other children and wait to see if she'd come back.  I set a quick pace and checked the nearby restrooms which then led me to pace up and down the beach and back to the only restaurant I'd seen with a security guard.  It was a monumental moment for me to rationalize in my mind that my child was lost among a throng of beachcombers and vacationers and I was not going to be able to find her without the help of the authorities.  I remained calm throughout this decision and followed the path towards the beach police headquarters only to find it locked up and abandoned for the night.  It was at this precise moment that I felt my throat constrict and my heart rate exceed the quick breaths I needed to draw in order to keep my legs from collapsing.  It was adrenaline which raced my feet across the long spans of sand back to the table.

I knew it before he even had to say it, my child was lost.  She had still not come back to the table.  He met me on the sand and held me as I sobbed.  No, I did not sob.  According to him I "blubbered" and I will admit that from this moment on I was either blubbering or deferring into the basket case.  Instead of insisting that I sit down while he continue the search he rightly reasoned I needed to finish it, if not driven for the end product of finding our daughter, at least to give me something other to do besides wait with only the horrible thoughts that found their way into my subconscious.  I was sent with an escort, Catherine, to help me further my search and we came upon the same security guard as before and I interrupted to tell him the police station was closed and my daughter is lost.  He brings me into the depths of the bar and offers me a seat and some water while he calls the police for me.  I stare at him as if he must think I'm some incredibly insensitive woman who would sit and sip water while my daughter is out meeting who knows what fate.   In reality, I'm sure I looked like a needed a seat and some water.  The fateful call was made and I found myself spilling out the description of my daughter, what she was wearing, was she wearing shoes, how long had she been missing.  What had probably only been 20 minutes seemed like hours.  While waiting for the officers to meet me at the bar my eldest daughter makes the statement, "At least I've still got one sister left."  What was probably meant as a reassurance of some sort was taken as if biting into a lemon with mouth full of sores.  I bit down on it though and refused to puddle into a sobbing mess on the floor for the sake of this precious daughter whose had to witness more than she can comprehend already.

The police had arrived and assured me they already had men searching the beach and boardwalks.  A police officer has never looked so friendly in my entire life.  After getting through more description I reasoned to him that we had best get back to the table she was last seen at and where her father was probably waiting more than impatiently.   I had several photographs of her on my camera I was willing to show them and I thought of the photographs Madeline's parents had taken of her near the pool the day before she disappeared.  As I was pulling up the photographs he took a radio message, looks at me and says, "Sit down here.  We think we've found her."  And they left . . . left me to sit and to rest my mind and wonder . . . wonder just in what state had they found her.  I looked up and down the beach for clusters of paramedics huddled around a small lifeless body.  My husband looked up at the looming hotels with their many shaded windows.  The wait was immense and I busied myself by finding the best photograph I'd taken of her still on our flash card.  The tables around us shifted in their chairs with an overexerted attempt at silence.  It seemed hours until I watched the friendliest looking police officer carrying my small child in his arms towards me.  I leapt out of my chair and wrapped her up into my arms while we both began to blubber anew.  She unfolded her end of the story which, combined with the police version, involve her wandering quite a distance down the boardwalk until a "big man who made the food" found her crying.  He took her into the restaurant and fed her french fries with ketchup (her preferred meal) and told her that he was going to call the police ("but they weren't going to put you in jail he told me").  Supposedly the man who found her said he was the giant in the princess story and that seemed to endear him into her heart.  She told the police officers all of our names ("and middle names too but I couldn't remember mommy and daddy's"), but failed to mention our last name.  They'd asked her where she lived and she told them Minnesota.  We all had a hearty laugh over this which was sorely needed.  They'd asked her what language her mommy and daddy spoke and she replied "English" which was the first time she'd spoken English in the duration of her rescue.  Once done recalling the highlights of her ordeal she looked up out of tear-stained eyes and replied, "But, Mommy, I really need to go potty still."  I gladly escorted her to the toilet room this time and even joined her in the stall.

I wish I could end at this paragraph, but as my dear husband and father of my children stated, "Everything that could possibly happen to you as a mother happened to you on this one Mother's Day alone."  I will rest the poor grandparents hearts who have made it this far and tell them that, no, we did not visit the hospital.  Instead we experienced something that one could only experience in Europe.

After finally finishing our cold meal we packed up our beach things and headed to the tram platform to catch tram 9 back to Den Haag Central.  Unfortunately it seems the rest of the beach decided to pack up at the same time as us.  Clusters of humans littered the platform and I found a pocket which fit our family comfortably as close to the front and track-side as possible.  As luck would have it the tram pulled up and opened one of its doors right in front of us but the rest of the clusters on either side were not so willing to give up the chance and pressed their way through the doors simultaneously.  In an effort to keep the family together I pushed Amara into her fathers legs and yelled to her to hang on as he was washed into the tram with the rest of the wave.  Again, a stroke of fortune slapped Amara across the face with a bag and she let out the most convincing howl of pain we couldn't have dragged out of her if we'd tried.  Suddenly the onslaught of humans became aware of this precious little person in their midst and echoes of sympathy spread throughout the crowd to make way for the kleine kind (little child).  And all it took for me from the back of the next wave was to say something to the effect of "hey, that's my kid" and I was pushed in along with our remaining offspring.  Once crammed into the old tram like a pack of sardines the old woman who had whacked my kid across the brow with her purse took it upon herself to caudle my eldest who had been swept a bit further from me while the tram jumbled along towards our next step of the journey.  People made an effort to ease the families needs and kicked a 20-something-cute-thing-in-a-bikini out of one of the few seats so I could sit down with the "baby" at which point I rescued my eldest from the smothering arms of the kindly grandma.  She then looks up at me with a pale face and tells me her tummy isn't feeling so good and I immediately began looking for possible spots to deposit her stomach contents other than my lap or on her little sister and pointed out a spot just behind her which only had thonged feet (easily washable was my thought).  The hot and packed tram continued to jostle this way and that down the tracks all the while I'm trying to convince her she's going to be just fine and blowing on the nape of her neck.  Shortly before arriving at the station my daughter turns rapidly aft and leans over hesitating just long enough for me to yell out a warning to those who might be the owners of the thonged feet.  Retching and splattering where soon followed by sounds of gagging and screaming as the passengers flung themselves from the vicinity of the vomiting child.  What space was barely capable of containing the crowd it had originated with was now vacant and held enough space for 10 more.  What happened to those extra ten I'm not sure, but I half wonder if they flung themselves out the open windows in an effort to escape the warm wafts drifting through the entire tram.  Her own father, a distance from us now, was amid the panicked throng of escapees and admits to a feeling of trying to blend in with the offended rather than admit he was related to the perpetrator of the disaster.  The final stop couldn't come soon enough and when the doors opened mass exodus ensued.  We retreated with the rest of the crowd undoubtedly leaving a very unhappy tram driver and his tram out of commission for the better half of and hour.  The child was approached by a nice young man who sympathized with her briefly, but her only concern was for her own sandals which had been splattered along with the rest.  Oh well, easily cleaned, right?  Along our path from tram to the train back to Amsterdam people pointed and stared at the family they'd welcomed onto that fateful tram who had spewed sickness along its aisles as a token of thanks in return.

When all was said and done we returned home much worse for the wear around 11pm and all hopped in the shower before crashing into our pillows to fall asleep from shear exhaustion and severed nerves.

Scheveningen.  That name will never bring me to recall the same peaceful images again.  In fact, my creative husband has decided we can one-up the Dutch pronunciation of the difficult word by adding a particular hurly-burly sound at the end: ScheveningEEEECH!

Recycling Day

No this is not the entry where I will recycle old material.  It just happens to be one of my many days out of the month that I will load my bicycle full of plastic bags (those bags which are so hard to come by in the Netherlands) and rattle my way down the brick paved streets to the various recycling points along my journey.  You may be wondering if the Dutch do not have roadside recycling service and I will assure you that they do, but it is not like that in the United States.  We have two different garbage bins that get set out on a weekly or biweekly basis.  The green bin is for all organic materials or anything that comes out of your garden.  Why this would include trellises or wiring is beyond my comprehension, but if I can dump something in the green bin I will as anything I put into the black bin I have to pay for in weight.  That is, I have to pay the regular fee for them to come and pick it up every other week and then extra for how much it weighs.  So, the amount in which we throw out I try to monitor with the strictness of a German nun.  Try to keep the amount in which a family of five can produce in two weeks into the compact size of a single garbage can in America and I will reward you with one of my sacred plastic grocery bags.

The other roadside service that we get is for boxes/paper and plastic bag materials (including but not limited to the wrapping around your toilet paper in or your multi-pack 2-liter bottles).  These things are picked up two Saturdays out of the month, but why they choose to pick them up on two Saturdays in a row is beyond me.  Believe me, the piles of folded up boxes and papers are towering by the time that first Saturday rolls around and you can trust me when I say that by the time that second Saturday arrives I find I have not used up a single box of cereal or even had a pizza night.  How we make up for it in the three weeks after that last Saturday pick up is beyond me.

On another note, there are quarterly (or somewhere there abouts) dates that you can set out your old furniture or appliances and they will pick them up for you.  If you can transport them yourself you can drop them off at centers on certain dates and times of the week as well.  Strangely enough, you do not have to pay for your appliances because they've already charged you the disposal fee at the time you purchased it new.

All dates in between these roadside service days find me hauling our other garbage to the Retourette (a cute little recycling center equipped with coin deposit rides for the kids) and the diaper drop.  Stunning?  Yes.   They have devised the unbelievable and recycle disposable diapers here!  And if you've never hauled a single plastic garbage bag of used diapers around let me just tell you am I ever glad I don't have to pay the price per pound on those babies!  As it is I have a hard time lifting the huge metal garbage container lid with one hand and flinging the bag of smelly nasties into it with the other.  And the Retourette takes the rest: all colors of things glass, aluminum, paper, cartons, shoes, plastics, and will pay you for beer bottles/cans and the liter - 2 liter bottles of drinks.  The way they pay you for this is to give you a coupon which you can cash in with your next purchase at the affiliated store, but it's money nonetheless.

Though I think America has taken the best from all of it's ancestral cultures this is one thing which I am afraid they have lagged behind.  Though I do not much appreciate hauling my trash around by bike several times a week, I do appreciate that almost everything our family disposes of can be recycled.  That black bin can sometimes get set out with only one garbage bag in it and boy are they ever as light as I can make them.  So . . . now you know all my dirty little details.  Have a happy trash free day my dear American friends.

A Pirates Life Fer Me!

This last week I have been sailing the high seas, hoisting the Jolly Roger and pillaging with a crew of rowdy mateys.  I was just mindin' me own business and going about me daily routines until I went to track me 15lbs of weightloss on Spark People and a brilliant marketeer grabbed me by the wrist and drug me into the land of pirates and me haven't come back out since.  Me free time be spent rounding up pieces of eight and sword fighting, drinking games, and pillaging. 

My girls have their own Club Penguin memberships and I figured that to be a luxury.  Often I will hop on their accounts and waddle around with their penguins, sometimes even redecorating my youngest's igloo (her idea of decor is something atrocious).  I found it such great fun that I was willing to give Puzzle Pirates a try.  I was a little reluctant only because I noticed on their front page that you could pick up Puzzle Pirate cards at any Target store.  Bells started going off in my head that this is yet another internet money-grabber, but the games looked like all the similar games I used to love to play when I had the free time before my three little monkeys started swingin' the vines.  I love it!  My monkey man loves it!  When I am away he takes over (ssshhh, don't tell anyone I let me man pretend to be a sexy and daring lassie) and he even keeps up with my level of expertise.  I guess that is the real clincher: it isn't just the same game over and over again.  It's full of all the favorites (a pirate variety of them anyway), but the level gets harder as you progress.  Besides I can buy me own ships too!  In one week I've gone from a stowaway on the navy to an Officer of a Dutch crew ;)  I know these are not fine excuses to have been away for so long, but when does a pirate maiden ever need excuses anyway?

Where's the Golden Smurf?

We've got a Dutch store that really knows their marketing strategies!  Albert Hein is in constant competition with the other grocery stores and have been accused of having too high of prices in years past.  In an effort to draw more customers they've tried to prove that their just as thrifty-priced as the next guy by having cheap sales with special little gadgets to draw you in.  The year before we came Albert Hein created a sensation with the little fuzz balls with sticky feet, plastic eyes, and antennae.  For the life of me I cannot remember what they or even us call them.  If I were here during the craze I'm sure it would be a name I would never forget.  We've all played with them at one point in our lives, but the Dutch grocery store promotion took it to a whole new level.  With every euro you spent you got closer to receiving a free fuzz ball from the store and if you spent over a certain amount you could get this overgrown critter that was almost too big to put on your dashboard.  From what I hear people were putting them up for sale on the internet starting at 50 euros!

The latest craze has not only reached the adult population but also the children.  I've seen children waiting at the end of each aisle begging the customers leaving for a piece of the pie.  And I've also seen grandmas grab their cherished prize to their chest and deny these innocent little faces the joy of the game.  The Belgian created Smurfs are celebrating their 50th anniversary and now every Dutch person knows about it!   With every 15 euros spent the cashier hands you over a little package with a toy smurf hidden inside.  They've got all the most popular smurfs and you can "collect them all"!  With each package you get a zegel (coupon) which you can paste onto a form.  After filling in the total spaces with your zegels you can purchase a nice-sized stuffed smurf for the total of 4 euros.  Zegels or air miles are nothing new for the Dutch, as it is something you are asked every time you check out.  If you are one of the many people who collect these sticky squares you'll let them know you'd like them and they'll add it onto your final total and hand them over to you with your receipt for you to post into coupon books.  Once filled the books are returned for discounted prices or tickets for various museums or amusement parks.

In America I clipped coupons, but would not be distracted towards an item which wasn't on my shopping list just because I had a coupon for it.  I have never bought a lottery ticket in my life.  But the smurfs have captured me!  I've already gotten three stuffed Smurfettes for my girls to put in their Easter basket and they have collected every available tiny toy smurf except Gargamel's cat, Azrael (see, I can remember all these names from Brilsmurf (Brainy) to Smurfin (Smurfette), but Albert Hein was genius and planted 50 golden smurfs in those bags of smurfs.  They will not say what you'll get if you open up one of these packages and happen to find a golden smurf, but it's got to be good!  I'm thinking as good as a free year of groceries or a even 50% off for a year.  This delusion actually puts excuses into my mind to do shopping at Albert Hein rather than my regular and cheaper store, Dirk van de Broek.  I have found sales which my menu just happens to fit around at Albert Hein and I find myself lingering between cash registers debating which line is most likely to dish out a golden smurf!  I've gone blueming mad!  I know my chances are very slim when they've put out 27 million of the little blue buggers, but for some reason I can vividly imagine watching my kids tear into one of those packages to reveal a shiny golden smurf.  Genius, I tell you . . . genius!

Cultural Design

Something about my perception has recently changed.  Within the first year of this cultural journey I went from viewing the Dutch culture out of something similar to amazed alien eyes to the drastic difference of seeing it through a sophisticated know-it-all American's eyes.  Somehow it went from innocent amazement to criticism of a Cro-Magnon civilization.  Personally I think it was more an instinctive self-preservation reaction than a judgmental one, but nonetheless it wasn't pretty and it didn't feel right.  There were moments when it seemed I was being judged by individuals around every corner and at some point I decided to turn the finger on them, innocent or not.  It is hard to explain the adjustments which I've gone through during this international transition, the good ones or the bad, but I've once again reached another corner.

You know it when you pass by a non familiar bridge standing steady over the lapping water of a small canal and get a sudden urge to snap a photo just because you know one day you'll miss it.  And instead of seeking out the store with the limited supply of American pudding mixes you pick up a different carton of vla just to see if it happens to be different from the last failed attempt.  Even better is when you realize that you actually like the concept of buying pudding in a carton and being able to pour it into a bowl . . . or even liking the taste.

For so long I'd concentrated on what I was missing from the states, how things tasted differently, and why would anyone want to do this or that differently.  Like the time I finally tracked down cheddar cheese and it only came in a 6oz paper wrapped package and I almost cursed the best cheese makers on planet earth for not stocking my cheese.  Just how was I going to garnish my tacos now?!?  Strangely, what I thought was an open-mindedness mentality began to reveal it's layers upon layers of discrimination.  I grudgingly shredded young Belgian cheese over my tacos and, over time, put away the thought of making tacos before someday returning to the states and began relishing the different variety of dishes I could make with this limited amount of glorious cheese.

It is still amazing to me to see a culture of people who look so much like us but do things so differently.  "Different" is a word I've used often since our move and I've used it in (pardon the overuse) different ways.  But once I stopped accusing the differences as being absurd and started looking for their purpose I found I could look at this world around me in a new light.  Yes, there are still things which I think the Americans have perfected, but I have also figured out that not all which is different is wrong.

It has been a while since I've shared stories about the Dutch, their customs and country.  It probably stopped about the time the newness rubbed off and started tearing at me with its jagged edges.  There are several things I'd like to introduce my non-Dutch readers to.  I hope you'll see the differences from the weather-worn expatriates' view and not the cynical better-than-you Americans'.