Amsterdam Dispatch

5/1/2007

So the Dutch charter flight wasn't too bad. We discovered that it stopped in Fortaleza on the way, making the trip 12 hours long. On the way back it flew directly from Amsterdam to Natal, a 9-hour trip. We recovered from the time difference and an all-night flight by eating and drinking wine in an outdoor café in Amsterdam all Saturday afternoon (had to move three times to follow the sun). We were next to the Albert Cuyper Market, so loved watching the happy mix of locals and tourists out on a beautiful day. Since people share your table if there are no more available, we had an interesting conversation with an older Dutch couple - he, half Chinese and she, originally from Suriname. He had recently published a book about a Dutch admiral, for which he illustrated every page!

In our usual manner, we almost missed dinner completely by napping till late. The city goes practically all night, but the kitchens only till 11:30. We walked and walked the wrong direction (a misunderstanding with the desk clerk), then finally found the crowded and active Leidseplein, where the streets were dominated by slurring and staggering youth by now. Beer was flowing everywhere without a bite to eat, until we found the all-night Arabic food joint which was populated only by the slurring and staggering, and the middle-aged, bourgeois, hungry us.

We spent Sunday wandering further around this very manageable city by foot, even though my right hip socket complained early on. I had the Van Gogh Museum and the canal house of the 15th century founder of the Dutch East India Company on my list, having seen the Rijksmuseum and the Anne Frank House previously. Newt had the Red Light District on his list. Our old friend from my textile days, Jean Cristobal, who married a Dutch man and lives nearby in Voorschoten, met us for a tour of the lovely canal house and more outdoor café sipping for the afternoon. This time we had to move into the shade, the sun was so hot! The Van Gogh museum was saved for our later return to Amsterdam before flying home. We walked and walked with Jean through lovely canal neighborhoods, where we found a place with a bird's eye view of the deep and narrow gardens that stretch out behind the houses; then the Red Light District. Prostitutes, old and new, scantily displayed themselves in large brothel windows and doorways amongst sex shops and sex museums.

We said good-bye to Jean and took a beautiful canal boat tour. The city seems so serene and calm in these neighborhoods, even though most all the boats usually parked along the canal sides were putt-putting along the canals on this sunny day (except the house boats, whose residents were out on roofs and decks). That infectious joy of a perfect spring day one recognizes from

Manhattan was palpable here, even though it

actually was much more like a summer day, for better or for worse. By this time it was 9:00pm and still daylight! (At 6:00pm darkness falls over Natal.) We rested briefly and limped to a lovely Italian restaurant beside a romantically lit canal. We got there just in time to order before the kitchen closed!

The clean-running trams and hordes of bicycles prevent the traffic choke of most cities, although the line between what is a street, a bicycle path and a sidewalk is very fuzzy for uninitiated tourists. One is struck by the order and beauty of the city, which evoke such a respect for life - until one is nearly actually struck by a bicycle whizzing by with an inch to spare, piloted at blurring speed by the young and the not-so-young. The Dutch are willing to answer questions and give directions in alarmingly correct American English (almost without a trace of accent), even if a certain latent hostility reveals itself in the bicycling habits. The cleanliness of the city is interrupted only by carpets of cigarette butts from the smoking-obsessed populace, a presence that affects the flavors of the cuisine, as well. We found this to be true everywhere we went in Europe. Apparently, new laws are forthcoming, but it looks like a lot of EU natives will be in shock.

You get the sense, even with the international tourists there, that Amsterdam really beloings to the Dutch - that their lives and routines are what give the city its orderly rhythm. We said good-bye via a 5:00am taxi ride to the train station, then a train to the airport. Off to Nice -more soon!

Love,

Sandy

Brazil Dispatch 9

March 22, 2007

Just hours after I sent the last dispatch, our dining room table developed three large cracks in the top. The local, rustic furniture company sent someone to fill in the cracks - a measure that only made the table look worse. They said they couldn't get any more wood until they got a license, so we ordered a marble top for the wood base. They came to remove the cracked top, damaging the base in the process. They took the base back, too, for sanding and re-varnishing. At last we had our marble and the table base was returned AND...the marble top is smaller than the base. Originally confusing our order with another, the furniture company had made a table base only, following the dimensions I had ordered for the table top. Once they corrected this mix-up and gave us a table top, I never re-measured. I just ordered the same dimensions for the marble. The corners of the wood base protrude beyond the marble corners. Sorry, but you can now count on yet another report about our beleaguered dining room table. (I hope just one!)


We have been loving our life in our new place: Newton working with a relatively cooperative internet connection, me painting furniture, attending to the plants in a luxurious, unhurried way, getting to know my way around the city better buying groceries, paint, glass, marble, ceiling fans, etc. I am proud to say that I am not afraid to drive here now, although I am not the most popular motorist on crowded downtown streets.


We are working on getting our US drivers licenses converted to Brazilian ones. This begins with a translation of the licenses into Portuguese, which we had already done up in Fortaleza - BUT when we finally got to the right desk at the appropriate department of the appropriate bureau (all the doors are unmarked), we found out we had to get a new translation from this state (note: same language). Now that we finally located an official translator AGAIN and returned to the government office, we have been scheduled for the eye test and the psychological test (no kidding) to get the new licenses. I think they want to establish that I am certifiably crazy enough to drive in Brazil.

We have a pretty good routine established for the week: Wednesday night is discounted movie night, Saturday night is out, we visit our little local outdoor bar an early evening or two, Saturday and Sunday are beach days, and usually one day per week is devoted to some bureaucratic nightmare. (This will be more or less finished soon.) Newt goes to the beach for a swim and/or run several times a week now, and I read every day after lunch.

I'm reading a 'Lincoln Prize' book on Lincoln's political life now- by Carwadine, an Oxford professor and 19th century American scholar. This is right after finishing the gigantic bio of Benjamin Franklin, but I must say both works are thrilling. Grabbing my hammock in this foreign land with these American history books (and the Puritan/Enlightenment blend in these men that is so familiar to my own background) is not without irony!

I've already made arrangements with Newton's partner to bring my Amazon book order to France next month. Our next business trip is to Nice, mid-April. We are flying to Amsterdam direct from Natal on a Dutch charter, then flying to Nice; after the trade show we're catching a train to Barcelona for a week at the "Bohemia Hostel," then returning home from Amsterdam.

The front porch continues to be the coolest and most entertaining spot in the house. The mailman arrives on a bright yellow and blue motor cycle, wearing a yellow and blue Star Trek outfit, and delivers the mail anonymously from behind a Star Wars helmet! I heard American rap for the first time blasting from a passing bull dozer. The giant black and white bull and his cohorts are herded by almost daily - terrifying. A woman stopped to ask me a question, but when I said "não intendo," she just gave up and said, "OK, buenos dias." People most often assume I am Spanish or Argentine here when they see I speak some Portuguese, but incorrectly! I didn't try to get into the explanation about being the only American around here (we did meet some Canadians the other day!), I just said, "Adios."

Our meals are getting better and better, so I promise not to complain about Cornelia again. Once a week we buy fresh fish if the vendor is there by the produce market, and Cornelia cooks it whole, stuffed with chopped tomatoes, onions and peppers and decorated with peeled lime slices and olives. It is a work of visual and culinary art! Cornelia just told me that her Mother's oldest child is 36 and her youngest is 6 (of ten). Marcos is the biggest character we know of ever stuffed into 4 feet and 9 inches.

This photo happens to show a giant iguana who lodged himself in our car engine:

Life as an endless summer here just has such a delicious flavor to it (it may not be 'endless' - the rainy season is coming up and we haven't seen "winter" yet). I love driving the road from Pium to Parnamirim. It winds through green fields and trees, past boys bareback on horses, the sun burning my arm and the breeze blowing across my head. I drive barefoot so my flip-flops won't catch on the clutch and I usually have on my paint-splattered shorts. I stop to buy lettuce and parsley, following a man to the end of his garden, where he cuts them from the ground. Maybe it's the barefoot part or the not being in a rush...I get some incredible sense of well-being I can only liken to summers when I was growing up.

We hope, by the way, that winter makes a timely retreat up north!

Love,

Sandy

Brazil Dispatch 8

March 1, 2007

In no time the treasure trove of items we had stuffed into our suitcases in New York became dispersed into our rather empty house, seeming just drops in the bucket. But we finally did get delivery on chairs, dining room table and - most memorably - Newton's desk. You know those little ships built inside bottles? Well, we had ordered a large desk for a smallish office with a tiny door. They got the thing through the front door, then demolished it in the living room. They brought the parts through to the office, returned with a new part to replace a damaged one and the electric sander, and rebuilt the desk inside the office:

After years of diving under all our guests' glasses with coasters to protect our oiled teak furniture (one second too late, and we had a ring on the table forever), we decided to finish the desk and the dining table with marine varnish. Unfortunately, polyurethane does not exist here. Who knew I would come to have such respect for the toxic stuff. Our dining table stood akimbo in the dining room for eight days of trying to get that varnish on evenly. The caretaker actually asked us if we were planning to leave the table there hanging diagonally across the room! I finally came to terms with the fact that I could count on seeing brush strokes in shiny patches forever, moved the damn table into place and put the chairs around it, which provide a reasonable distraction from the surface.

Which brings me to a recent observation: I believe the quickest road to neurosis is to have help in the house. When the caretaker, Marcos, painted the first coat of varnish on the table, I realized I would have to continue with subsequent coats to get those shiny patches of brush strokes outta there. Now I see I am able to tolerate those patches because they are my patches! His paint jobs all over the inside and the outside of the house look good until you take a closer look. And I cannot stop looking until I have gone back and covered the errant strokes, completed all the corners, and painted the rest of each switch plate. I spend hours doing this so I can STOP taking a closer look. And the cooking. The best way to describe our attempts to keep the communication as clear as possible with Cornelia would be Cornelia Bedelia. And what is this rearranging of all the objects? I don't think I actually can describe the principles of Ikebana to her. I can only try to emphasize that I like it this way. I am not prepared to try to maintain a house by the ocean myself, with the maresia (sand/salt-laden matter that blows in) covering everything; I have never enjoyed cooking; I do not wish to put these two fine people - Marcos and Cornelia - out of a job, BUT there are days I know I should feel a lot more grateful and a little less crazy. We keep working on the communication. Truth is, the meals have greatly improved in the past week!

The house is looking beautiful and like a real house now. I kept most of the color schemes, elaborate texture painting and stenciled flowers that I loved here the first day we walked in. The impression that day was so compelling for me (and for the owner Fidel) that this was to be OUR house! We have our own humming bird ('beija-flor') every morning by the red flowering bush, and up to three large black and yellow butterflies on the porch at a time (Marcos says that means rain). I love our little town, Pium, just on the way to Natal, with its produce market, little bodegas, and our neighborhood bar across from the gas station. It is peopled strictly with locals. We just discovered a new nightlife section in Ponta Negra that was right next to us those months we were in hotels! We spent a great Valentines evening there - not that they celebrate Valentines here, but that particular night just ahead of Carnaval they had a big street band playing Carnaval music for hours. The street was packed with revelers, and we had so much fun dancing. Once Carnaval began, Newton was disappointed to see that actual Carnaval music was scarce. We went to the big celebration in the next beach town, where the crowded streets had a friendly and festive feel, but on stage they played Brazilian rap, for instance, through deafening speakers - not samba. Rio it ain't.

The ocean breeze that cooled our days and nights has become erratic in February, leaving intervals of heat. Sundays are our beach day, whether here on Cotovelo with few bathers and fewer vendors, or on Ponta Negra - always lively with both. There is sufficient shade cast by the rocks here in the afternoon to leave our flimsy umbrella, which usually blows away, at home. We had a wide beach with low tide on Fat Tuesday, but were in for a big surprise after eating at the barraca at the end of Cotovelo: we made our way back home hip-high in crashing waves. It's that ol' devil moon!

A man came yesterday to take down a huge cashew tree that was choking up our pavement and sending out a trail of termites. He dug a hole around it and hacked away in the heat with his axe. Six hours and $35 later every trace had rounded the bend in a horse-drawn wagon, including the stump.

We do share our lives with plenty of creatures here. Newt wears the fly swatter at all times. He wants to nuke the house, but I'm putting my foot down, and I do mean putting my foot down - in a kind of 'eradicate the ants' dance as I move about the house. I would miss the lizards too much. Looking up from my sewing on the front porch was the startling sight pictured here in the coconut grove across the road. And I was wearing red.

Fidel is in town for what we hope is the finalization of the house purchase. Please don't tell the bureaucrats what I've been saying about them!

Love,
Sandy