Thanks to two of my new friends, Melissa and Jurga, I am on my way to becoming World's Classiest Broad. I told them one evening when we were hanging out that, while I love going out to a good party every once in a while, I felt like last semester I didn't get to experience the vast spectrum of cultural life that Gothenburg has to offer. Going to the same student bars and clubs can get tiresome week after week, no matter how much fun they are, and I was ready to try new things. They felt the exact same way, and since then, we've been making an effort to switch up our activities as much as possible. Last week, we went to Nefertiti, Gothenburg's famous jazz club; it was a nice change of pace, and the venue was amazing. Tuesday night is "free play" night so to speak, so it was a collective of about seven people just jamming together. I'm usually pretty neutral-to-ehhhh on jazz, but I loved watching how these musicians could play together on the spot, almost like they were having a conversation with their instruments. Also, Swedes always seemed so stoic, so it was great to see them so passionate and expressive, especially about something so moving and rhythmic as jazz. We kind of felt like wine, and upon the encouragement of Jurga and Melissa, we ordered a semi-nice, semi-priced bottle to share. I thought I liked wine before, but turns out what I thought I liked is actually just grape juice with a kick because this wine was GOOD. Totally understand now how people can taste wine without just being like "this tastes fine? it's grapey? i like it" which is kind of my general reaction.
I definitely felt like I had moved up a few notches up on the Swank Scale by the end of the night.
Yesterday, Yuri, Melissa, and I went to the Världskulturmuseet; it was pretty small, only one exhibit, but still worth a visit. The current exhibit, Destination X, focused on traveling, both in regards to tourists and immigrants. One of the highlights was a wheel of fortune, if you will, with different travel opportunities; whatever you land on should be your next destination.
That sounds fun! Maybe Anthony, Zoe, and I can reunite our band from freshman year. Glockenspiel? Also, we could totally team up with Belle & Sebastian which would be way too cool.
The exhibit was also covered with pop-art quotes about traveling. Some hit home, some were eye-opening, and others were just well-said and interesting. Stand-outs to follow:
"There are no bad journeys, except for those that lead to the gallows."
"Why would you travel, travel so far away- wherever you travel you are always by yourself?"
I've met many people in hostels who had been traveling for as long as six months by themselves. Sounds miserable. I love having a friend next to me at all times, just to have someone with whom to share the experience. Good company is essential to good traveling.
Privilege
This guy wrote our Global Studies textbook!
This one struck me in particular. It's something I've been grappling with here, how much my traveling, my personal search leisure, company, and adventure, has affected the environment. Except for winter break, I've mostly been flying from country to country (train rides could take days), and I feel guilty every time I book a flight. I'm going to repress that guilt until next August, when I start taking environmental studies courses again. Excited for inevitable period of manic attempts to atone for my ecological sins.
Anyways, the Världskulturmuseet was great, and I can't wait to try to play Pokemon with the musuems in Gothenburg. You know, gotta catch 'em all. Continuing our efforts to explore the city we call home for the next four months, we're going SALSA DANCING tomorrow night. Excited! Pictures of me looking awkward to follow, I'm sure.
As part of my Get Out of Dodge-enburg campaign last week, I headed south-ish to Amsterdam to visit Claire. The trip there was quite stressful, to be honest. As previously mentioned, I got into Gothenburg from Stockholm at 1:30, and then had to unpack, do laundry, and repack before leaving at 9:30 the next morning. If you've spoken to me for more than two seconds, you know how much I dislike, nay, LOATHE packing; so, I was struggling with packing, and then I woke up early to get my laundry from the dryer only to find the dryer had never turned on and was in fact broken, which was a total bummer, and this combined with a lingering cold from Stockholm and the subsequent remedy of chugging paracetamol tea (actually drinking some right now- is this stuff addictive?) left me frazzled and extremely drowsy and loopy. All of the worries and the tea-daze disappeared as soon as I saw this smiling face:
CLAIRE!!!!!
The stay in Amsterdam was amazing. The city itself is extremely picturesque, and much quainter (gezellige in Dutch, as Claire taught me) than I expected. While there are quite a few bars and neon signs that line the busier parts of the streets, most of Amsterdam was canals lined with brick townhouses and cobblestone streets. No seediness at all; after spending three days there, I still hadn't been in the Red Light District. I think the homey feel I got from the city came from the fact we stayed in an actual home. Claire's abroad program arranges a home stay for them with a Dutch family, and her host parents, Erica and Viktor, were so great. Apparently they've been lamenting the fact that Claire has only cooked for them once during the semester (which she described as "disastrous"), so we whipped up some dinner one night, and chatted about Dutch culture and Sarah Palin over some mighty fine quiche and tomato soup.
Most of the time spent in Amsterdam was in museums, trying to complete The Quest; students get a discount on museum cards, which give you free admission to 37 museums in Amsterdam, as well as museums outside the city. Claire had set a goal for herself to go to every single museum before she left, and I was more than happy to help her complete her task. Over the next few days, we hit eight museums which I think is pretty impressive. Included in that number are the canal houses, which are just old townhouses where wealthy Dutch families used to live, and everything has been preserved exactly as it was back in the day. The best part of those were the geriatric tour guides and desk workers who obviously didn't see a lot of visitors, and they were overly enthusiastic to show us around the place. The houses were quite a sight to see, though; if only I could live in a place with blue velvet wallpaper, fake cats, and French-inspired tranquility gardens:
Also great/confusing was hanging out with Claire's friends, all of whom are named Sarah. We went out to a Belgian bar the first night, and every time Claire said "Sarah," four people turned around. Yay, 1990.
By the third day, Claire had to buckle down and get to work on a 40-page research paper (yikes, whatever happened to abroad wonking?), so I hopped a train to Leiden to see Thomas for a few fabulous days. I loved biking along the snowy canals, watching Christmas movies and drinking white Russians with his friends, getting ambushed by snowballs, going to a hockey game (!!!!):
again, I didn't take this
See, people? Proof that I went to a sporting event! HYS Den Haag v. THE SMOKE EATERS. It was a bloodbath of epic proportions, 13-1. The players on the losing team lost hope and instead of trying to score goals, they just started brawls. I really felt like a bro, drinking beer out of a plastic cup while rooting on sports-related violence. Anyways, this brings me to what I wanted to say earlier. The Netherlands (and Belgium too, I think) separates their Christmas festivities; you celebrate the religious part of it on, well, Christmas, and then all of the secular going-ons occur on Sinter Klaas Day, December 6. Sinter Klaas is the Dutch Santa Claus, who comes in on a boat and fills children's shoes with candy if they're good and beats them and ships them to Spain if they're bad. Sounds pretty innocent, right? Oh, so, so not right. While Santa Claus comes armed with elves to help him with his toy delivery, Sinter Klaas has Zwart Piets, or Black Petes, for assistance. While the Dutch will tell you that Piet is zwart because he went down a chimney to deliver toys to kids and now he is covered in soot, there's no escaping the fact that everywhere you go, there are people in blackface dressed in jester's costumes walking around. It's terrifying. At the hockey game, there were Zwart Piets dancing on the zamboni (spellcheck does not recognize this as a word but I am calling bullshit). Michel, Tara (who are from the Netherlands and Belgium, respectively), and I had a discussion about this Christmas tradition last night, and they explained that, while Zwart Piet surely has some racist undertones, there's no historical context in their countries that would make blackface taboo. Fair enough. Claire showed me this video of David Sedaris' take on Zwart Piet, and it's definitely worth a watch. Begins at 0:30 mark:
So, seeing Claire was amazing, and seeing Thomas was fantastic, but seeing both of them AT THE SAME TIME was the best. We went up to Amsterdam for a bit and hit up the Dutch Resistance Museum and all hung out at a coffee shop for a while together. It was just like old times, awwww. Except, you know, in Europe instead of in Bender library or a frat house. Details, schmetails.
As mentioned a few posts ago, my trip to the MoMA was kind of SIKE absolutely a bust. That's because the MoMA does not have a Torpedo Tit Catsuit:
Last weekend, Laurie came into town and graced me with her presence, and we decided to hit up a place we had both been dying to visit, the Museum of Sex (we nicknamed it the Museum of Oh Wow, Who Knew?). This museum was a) fantastic and b) not for the faint of heart. The first exhibit, Action, featured the history of pornography, and was a small room that just played, well, porn. The screens were both on the walls and the floor, so the awkward option of walking around looking at your feet pretending you weren't interested did not present itself. Instead, it was a decision between gay sex or BDSM. Fortunately, Laurie and I are not shy when it comes to this sort of subject matter, and I can say that they only thing that made us raise an eyebrow was the people with balloon fetishes:
People who are turned on by balloons experience arousal both from the association with latex, which makes sense, but also the anticipation of the bursting of the balloon. There was video, shown above, of people just blowing up balloons, which seems harmlessly non-sexual, but to each their own. Also featured in the fetish section were feeders and gainers, in which the former becomes turned on by watching the latter eat, and will often keep the gainer around simply to watch them consume food and grow larger. I was thinking that if this whole "non-profit work" thing doesn't work out, I could make bank as a gainer. Are you kidding me? I can eat two Chipotle burritos in one sitting. Easiest. Job. Ever.
The best exhibit, though, was Rubbers: The Life, History, and Struggle of the Condom:
Yay, it's Laurie! Anyways, my first reaction was, "What condom struggle? The Thirty Years Condom War? The Condom Reformation? Condoms' Liberation?" Well, ask and ye shall receive:
Oh. Oh, wow. WOW. That looks...awful. How is that pleasant for either party? Swedish condoms look much more approachable, and dare I say, cute:
Korean condoms, we learned, in another Oh Wow, Who Knew Moment, are hopelessly lost in translation:
They sold them at the MOS store, which was awesome, by the way, but how can you expect something to prevent children when it can't even spell "melon" correctly, you know?
MOS has the right idea. Also, if you don't think Laurie and I went to Chipotle for a post-museum lunch, you have another think coming. Laurie, if I found out you recorded me eating a burrito to post on a feeders/gainers site, I'm going to be pissed. Anyways, here are some more Who Knew, Oh No, and Huh, Cool moments:
RealDolls kind of freak me out. There are pictures of Laurie and I getting...grabby, but they are available on a request-only basis/Facebook/not on this blog, sorry not sorry. We were gentle, though.
There was a lot of glass dildo (spellcheck does not recognize "dildo" as a word, bizarre) art at the MOS, but the title of this one kind of made me squirm. "Ham Blossom." Ham is really gross. Now I'm thinking of like, sandwich meat, and it's no good.
Yesterday was my first weekend alone in quite a few weeks, and I wanted to make sure I at least tried to get out in the city and do something fun. Even though I'm technically living here, as stated on my lease, I am still kind of operating in tourist mode; there are so many things I haven't seen, and the city doesn't feel familiar yet. So, I decided to have a campy tourist day (CTD, abbreviations, my one true love). First stop: Rockefeller Center.
Despite avidly watching 30 Rock for the past four seasons, I still didn't really know what Rockefeller Center even was. A brief search online showed it to be a weird amalgamation of high-end chain retailers and bourgeoise fast food, but there had to be more to it; tourists wouldn't flock from all corners of the world just to go to the mall, right? If I was going to have a CTD, I had to adopt the tourist mentality: no holds barred (is that the correct idiom?) Tourists are obvious, over-the-top, and do everything with gusto, which are great qualities in my opinion. I had to do something equally enthusiastic.
Inspiration struck from my latest blogging obsession, pop culture immersion blogs, where people follow the advice that media outlets give them to a tee. My favorites so far have been 30 Days of GOOP and The Seventeen Magazine Project, both of which are hilarious, spot-on, and a delightful intersection of my favorite things: pop culture, blogs, and novelties. Anyways, I decided to give it a shot with my own adaptation of a character:
"Those shoes are definitely bi-curious."
Liz Lemon, played by Tina Fey. If someone told me I would grow up to Tina Fey, I would not be able to feign displeasure. According to many friends and family members, Liz Lemon is my doppleganger in both body, spirit, and awkwardness; I take this as a compliment, even though Lemon is infamous for her high intake of simple starches and ability to perform stripteases in flannel pajamas and a retainer (Tina Fey stated in an interview that Liz Lemon is based on herself in the earlier stages of her career; Fey was also known throughout college as being notoriously awful at detecting the sexual orientation of others, a quality I too share, and which has made me the butt of many a joke, thanks suitemates) . So, I donned my Lemoniest and hopped on the F Train!
Rockefeller was disappointing, because it really was just a giant mall, but with a lot more people. The NBC store was pretty cool. It simply does not get better than a MILF Island t-shirt:
I was honestly more entertained by the recycle-picker-uppers (I live on the same block as a can/bottle center, so there are always people milling about picking up discarded goods and making noise either a) at 7 AM or b) in my general direction) catcalling me. HAHA you have a Liz Lemon fetish.
Other than that, there wasn't much to see, unless you wanted to shell out quite a bit of money to go to the top of the observation deck. I kind of ambled around, hoping someone would mistake me for Tina Fey and let me in to NBC Studios, but no dice. Bored, I headed to MoMA for Free Fridays, hoping to be entertained by modern art and blah blah blah whatever.
As soon as I walked inside, I remembered that I am not good at art. It's not that I think it's stupid, or that I don't like it, but I just can't understand it. I stare it like it's an acid-base equation that needs to be solved, and when I can't figure it out I get frustrated and just kind of slink away. So, after a few minutes spent with Picassos and some photographer whose name escapes me and OH MY GOD so many little children, I headed back to Brooklyn. Lame, I know, but it was a hopeless cause. Instead, I hunkered down with David Foster Wallace's Oblivion, and had a very relaxing night with a good book and an even better cup of tea.
Today has been equally quiet. I spent some time in the Botanical Gardens, but I've found that when I'm left to my own devices, my attention span is even shorter than usual, so I left after only a little while. One can only look at plants by oneself for so long. Also, so many children. Now I'm just killing some time before heading to the library for the We Won't Be Shushed 24-Hour-Read-a-thon; to raise money and awareness in the face of budget cuts, the Brooklyn Public Library is staying open from 5 PM Saturday to 5 PM Sunday and holding continuous readings throughout the night. This evening, I'll be roving around collecting signatures on petitions, and hanging out at a postcarding table. It sounds (really, really) dorky, but I missed the service and community involvement that APO offered/mandated, and even though I've only been here for a month, it feels good to be able to be a part, at least a little bit, of this neighborhood. Volunteering at a Read-a-Thon in Brooklyn to save a library is one of the most stereotypical SHaack events around, so I decided to cap the night off with something more predictable: ice cream at Blue Marble, a local ice cream place that serves organic products from upstate New York, and, again, a hot date with David Foster Wallace BOW CHICKA WOW WOW
I'm on an adventure! Follow me to Brooklyn, New York this summer and then to Gothenburg, Sweden for the school year. It'll be like we're on the F train together, eating lutefisk and jamming to Biggie and Ace of Base. BIGGIE BIGGIE BIGGIE, CAN'T YOU SEE? I SAW THE SIGN AND IT HYPNOTIZED ME.
