California pining

Whew!  I am back from my conference in London and starting to feel a little more relaxed.  Well, I felt relaxed this morning, and then the panic about finishing chapter rewrites before the end of the month really set in.  All the members of my panel deemed the session a success, and it was fun to meet so many scholars and hear some great papers.  There were tons and tons of Nederlanders at the event, and I think I may have spoken more Dutch in London than English.
I would write about food in London, but considering the fact that I basically lived off of Pret a Manger sandwiches and Costa coffee for three days, there's very little for me to say on the matter this time around.  Instead, I will do a fluff post made up almost entirely of pictures of my time in SoCal.  Sadly, I didn't take that many pictures in California, I think because we were just busy having a good time with our friends...and oh yeah, getting ready for the conference.  Here are just a few things that made going back to the West Coast so great and just so different from my life in Amsterdam:

Beautiful views on a bright, sunny day at the Getty.  Regan still has a reader card for the Getty Research Institute, which means we got to park there for free!  Admission to the Getty is free, but there is a $15 parking charge, and it's pretty damn hard to get up there without a car.  That is why it pays every once in a while to be a graduate student.

Primo's Doughnuts.  Regan and James are regulars there.  Mrs. Primo even came out to give a goody bag of doughnuts to Regan's sister, who was leaving for Kansas after a visit out to L.A. I love a good doughnut.

Do not tell me that you wouldn't all do the same thing.  I look forward to getting a pedi before each and every visit.  Niek said he finally felt like he was on vacation after his pedi session.  The guy who did mine made a few comments about my runner's calluses, but he assured me that he had seen worse.  His words didn't seem to match with his facial expression, and I think we was relieved when I asked for the "extra" treatment.  God forbid my toes have calluses on them.

Ice cream isn't a food I really associate with L.A.; it's more of a frozen yogurt town these days.  However, if you're going to have ice cream, it will be fancy and made in small batches by cool hipsters somewhere near downtown.  I had some mocha Bailey's concoction and a scoop of a fancier version of cookies 'n cream.  The woman behind me in line asking which ice creams were vegan made it clear I was no longer in Europe.  Like the Dutch would ever consider a non-dairy based ice cream. 

Honestly, there is really nothing more to say about this.  Huevos Rancheros is an amazing dish!  Anything that combines breakfast with guacamole is a-okay in my book.  We went here twice for breakfast.  I miss you already, corn tortillas and avocados!

Last food picture, I swear.  Regan and James wanted to take us to a place in the Art District called, Wurstküche.  I love that the name of the place is in German but on the menu the sizes for the fries are written in Dutch, you know, because they're "Belgian" fries.  They actually weren't really Belgian style fries, but they were good with the handmade Bratwurst and the five kinds of mustard.
I laughed a little when I noticed the children's birthday party winding down in the private events room next to our table.  The cool parents were leaving with their little ones just as the younger crowd was showing up for happy hour.  I guarantee I never had a birthday party at a downtown hot spot when I was growing up.  I ate a lot of Usinger's Sasuage, though.  Does that count for something?




We did plenty of other things in between all the eating: Niek and I got to run up Runyon Canyon a few times, I went to a knitting store and spent too much on fancy types of yarn, we had plenty of good coffee, the conference presentation went fairly well, and so on and so forth.  A big highlight was the hike to a waterfall in the San Gabriel Mountains.

We hiked along the path of a 1920s camping resort.  The above sign was my favorite.  Regan is determined to rent the cottage pictured below for a weekend getaway.

James found a salamander, and then we proceeded to take about a million photos of the little guy before we let him slowly (ever so slowly, it was cold that day) take off for a more secluded spot.

I'll leave you with this slightly cheesy picture of me and Niek at the waterfall.  And before you start thinking, "Whoah, Diana, maybe you did have a few too many helpings of taco salads and french fries," I promise I have come by that little belly honestly.  It's only going to get bigger this summer, and hopefully in the fall I'll have a little person to show for all this gestating I'm doing.  L.A. was so much fun, and I miss all my friends so much already.  However, it's a good feeling to be home in Amsterdam.  I've got tons to get done in the next six months, and it's hard to write in L.A. on vacation.

The plural of conference is insanity

I have a piece of advice for graduate students:
Do not, under any circumstances think that presenting at two conferences in the span of one week is a good idea...ever.  This is especially true if you have to cross nine time zones to go to your first conference and then re-cross those time zones to go to your second.  If you find that you absolutely must present at multiple conferences, even though I have told you not to, at least don't be a procrastinator like me and make sure you finish both of your papers well in advance of the deadlines.
I was in L.A. last week giving a paper on a panel with Regan and our friend Naomi.  L.A. was awesome, and I can't wait to post lots of pictures of delicious food and one really fun hike to a waterfall.  The conference went pretty well, but it came at the end of our trip.  By the time we got back to Amsterdam on Monday morning, I was wiped out.  I have spent the last few days either sleeping off the exhaustion of jet-lag or freaking out about a paper for another conference that is so not near to being done.  I'm not sure I can put two coherent sentences together at this point, let alone an entire paper for a very important conference.  I'm terrified that I will embarrass myself and forever brand myself as "that woman who gave a shitty paper about intellectual networks in Asia."  Isn't that everyone's fear?
I have to get back to my paper now, even though I would prefer to be doing almost anything other than what needs to get done.  Stress makes me want to avoid that which I need to do most.
That was my advice to you for the day.  You are welcome.

The things we carried (in our suitcases)

As I stood over my suitcase last week trying to figure out how we were going to pack everything without going over the weight limit, I started questioning my dependence on American goods.  As you can see, I brought back the every important essentials of life like cake flour and chocolate chips.  It really took more willpower than I thought it would not to buy the seven other varieties of King Arthur Flour at the local grocery store.  I'm pretty sure most people who visit the U.S. do not think to themselves, "I should really bring this rye flour back with me.  I might need it if I suddenly get the urge to make myself some bread.  Maybe I should go get some of that corned beef I saw on sale, too.  Then I could feel like I was at a deli anytime I want!"

It's all about what makes you feel at home...to a certain degree anyway.  I just keep wondering what I would find in other ex-pats' suitcases.  I have to believe anyone living abroad feels compelled to bring back little pieces of home when they return from a visit.  You should have seen the various products I pouted and fussed about leaving on the shelves of Trader Joe's in Chicago.  I also left a bunch of linens and family pieces that had belonged to my grandmother at my parents' house, much to the disappointment of my mother, who is working to downsize.  I regularly thwart her attempts as I continually ask her to hang on to stuff I know I'm going to need at some unassigned time in the future.  To my parents with a house larger than my apartment: what a storage facility I've made out of my childhood bedroom.  Sorry.

We did pretty well coming right in at the weight limit for our luggage.  We could have made it without borrowing a second suitcase from my parents if it hadn't been for these:

With a much greater selection and much better prices in America, our luggage coming back from the States will always have at least a few books.  I think I should be thanking Delta for restricting the weight limits this year even more.  I can't imagine what else I would have thought to bring back if I had had double the weight limit.

O, dear blog readers, the end is drawing near.  

I leave Nigeria for the United States in less than two weeks 

. . . and I still have so much to tell you about my life here! 

Let’s start with this: my housemates and I just returned from a trip to Calabar in eastern Nigeria.  It was beautiful.  Wonderful.  Awesome.  I am now wondering why I was smart enough to get into graduate school but not smart enough to choose the nice part of Nigeria to study.  JK, western Nigeria.  Kind of.  

I have to admit that it took a trip to the east to help me realize that 'interesting' is not the only positive adjective to describe Nigeria; it can also be beautiful, peaceful and relaxing.  Traveling home on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, it occurred to me how much the insane population density of western Nigeria effects how people live and move and relate to each other - in ways that ratchet up the intensity of day-to-day interactions.  And yet I like the challenge of living in Ibadan; it is endlessly fascinating to reflect on how both the remote and more recent past have shaped this society.  Also - you never run out of things to complain about.  How convenient for those of us who enjoy such a pastime!

Back to Calabar, where I traveled the Delta creeks by boat, swam in a waterfall, visited a drill monkey sanctuary and knocked back a few shots of locally-distilled gin . . . all in the name of research.  One of the fun things about visiting a new region was seeing the different foods it offered.  We ate delicious suya covered in a groundnut spice, tender chicken pepper soup and whole roasted fish, basted in a sweet pepper sauce.  We also found some new fruits that we can’t buy in the west: lychee and an ugly brown nut with velvety skin.  When you pry it open, you find that the flesh is a brilliant orange.  We couldn’t figure out the name of this fruit, so we call it orange nut fruit.  Creative, right?!

 

 

In conclusion:  Nigeria is beautiful.  The fruit is amazing.  Lychee tastes like candy.  Towns with trees and sidewalks are nice.  A lot of people live in this country.  They deserve to have a functioning government which can sustain an expanding economy and provide social services.  The end.

Mmmm, beer. Part 1.

Yikes!  I have seriously been slacking on the blog-writing front lately.  Maybe because I’m finally busy doing real research?  Or maybe because the Nigerian National Archives have finally crushed my spirit and I can only drag myself home at night to watch boot-legged Arrested Development on my laptop as I cry into my fried-fish-and-stew?  Well, maybe a bit of both. 

Newspapers are photocopied by slicing the pages out of the bound book and then shoving them back in haphazardly.  

Oh, the pain in my heart.

Anyway, before I had even left the Netherlands, Diana and I planned that I would write a post about beer.  Now, as I sit here nursing a cold bag of water, memories of deliciously-cozy beer drinking are fading fast, so I better get it all down quick.  (As a completely useless aside, lesson learned for next time you are kickin’ it in West Africa: don’t walk around carrying your water sachet clamped in your teeth or you will inevitably run into a coffee table, drop said sachet, soaking yourself and your unread books and leaving you with an enormous bruise across your shin.  Just a friendly tip.)

Demonstrating the water-breast hold.  Use at your own risk.

Although I seem to be spending a lot of time talking about beer, I am not a huge fan of the drink myself.  I prefer champagne or gin and tonics.  But my husband loooooooooves beer.  The fancy-pants kinds.  I might even call him a “beer snob” but I know he hates that because “(exasperated sigh) Regan! Beer snobs only drink one kind of beer – I’ll drink anything.”  Oh, ok.  He’ll drink any of the $8 beers on tap at Father’s Office; he’s a man of the people.  (I kid, honey!  Love you!!)  So, a trip to the Netherlands and Belgium must involve some tasting of beer.  Our first and most important stop:  Gollem, a tiny bar in central Amsterdam.  I love that 1) the bar is un-ironically named after a Lord of the Rings character and 2) when Dutch people say the name, it sounds just like Gollem himself would pronounce it  - you know, super evil because the Ring has destroyed his human-ness and therefore he has to speak like he’s clearing his throat all of the time. 

This little place has recently hit the big-time and now has two other locations, diluting its charm somewhat because, you know, we’re Americans and we think everything in Europe should be tiny and there should only be one.  Except for Ikea.

Ikea hotdogs.  Yum-o.

Nevertheless, we love the Gollem and sitting in an ancient and steamy bar with friends and family while the snow falls outside is a wonderful thing.  Try it!  Gollem has an overwhelming selection, so populist-beer-drinker-James got to try some new ones and I confirmed the fact that I love sour beers.  The more sour, the better.  Which is weird, since you’d think that I wouldn’t like odd-tasting beers because I think most beer tastes like rotten (rhymes-with-kiss).  (By the way, I’ve been giggling to myself for the past two minutes because thinking about how to describe most beers reminded me of the time that James was sitting at our kitchen table and he called some guy from school a ‘prick’ and my mom got all wide-eyed and gasped “James!” and I couldn’t breathe because I was laughing so hard, especially when James told me that he thought it would be ok to use that word because my mom said “pissed off” all the time.  Ahh, the good ole days.)

One of the best beer shops in the entire world is located directly across from Gollem.  It’s run by two Irish guys who begrudgingly answer questions and have a fat cat that stalks the street, making sure everyone is behaving.  We dropped by this shop at least three times, first for stocking stuffers, then for beer to take back to LA, then for more beer to take back to LA.

Lest you think that all we did is shop for and/or drink beer, here are some pictures of our walk to the beer store:

In case you’re wondering, James is making that face because I insisted on re-taking the picture 

after I saw that my scarf had not covered my double chin in the first shot.  Maybe he needed a drink . . . 

See, we meandered, we admired the views, we caught snow on our tongues.  Such lovely times.

Mmmm, beer. Part 2.

Wow!  I was just flipping through the iPhoto album of our trip to look for pictures of beer and I realized that I completely forgot about our long weekend in Germany.  See, drink enough water sachets and your past begins to fade until all you can remember is what it’s like to be hot and dusty and in need of a bucket bath.  But look!  James, Ashlyn, Chad and I took a post-Christmas trip along Germany’s “Fairytale Road.”  We drove, saw old things and ate/drank.  It was awesome.  (Please note in the following pictures that my younger brother came to Europe in late December without a coat.  Even though we had this conversation before he arrived:  Me:  “Chaddy, you still have a coat, right?”  Chad:  “Yeah, that puffy one.”  Me:  “Oh good, that’s a warm coat and it is really cold in the Netherlands right now.”  Chad:  “Cool.”  Message not received, apparently.)

Because my family is cool and thought that seeing a statue of Gauss was pretty exciting.  

I made James take this picture because I have an obsession with small doors and stairways . . . I hope that someday one of them will lead me to a magical world where I’m a witch who is at least as smart as Hermione Granger.  Or where I become Anne Shirley before she gave up writing to raise Gilbert-Blythe-babies.

And then there was the romantic vacation-within-a-vacation that James and I took to Antwerp.  We’ve decided that Scotland and Belgium are our ‘go-to’ Europe countries.  Scotland because it has an interesting history and isles and lots of space with no people and Belgium because it has old buildings and beer and waffles.  (Although James, being a good African-historian-husband, is made uncomfortable by Belgium’s colonial past.)

Most importantly, after all of this beer-drinking in good company, I decided that my drink-with-a-pizza-on-a-Wednesday-night beer is Rodenbach.  It is sour and delicious – almost as good as a cold bottle of Coke.  I know, Important Decisions must be made.  After all, I’m nearly 30 and I need to know these things!

The moral of the story?  Delicious beer is easy to find in Europe.  Also, it is waaaay cheaper there, making you think that it is ok to drink a lot more.

A toast to all seven of our dear readers and to great memories!

(And now all of this blogging has made me punchy and I'm about to share way too much information: this picture made me think about the time that Diana sent me a video of a German woman giving birth to cheer me up.  We’re weird, I know: but the man in the video was wearing black socks and orange pants and the woman only had on a flannel shirt, which we found hilarious in all of its German-ness.  And when I described this video to my sister, she said that I would probably wear my gray cashmere cardigan while giving birth.  Which might be true, but ewww – now my favorite cardigan is known as “the birth cardigan.”  I think I need a new one.)