more about a'dam and its many faces. gary went back to work last week and i've been on my own, which i suppose is good for me, although slightly lonely. i am getting oriented by walking a lot. the city is not all that big, it's just jam packed with stuff. and i'm getting better at reading a map which has never been one of my stronger points.
i am really feeling the actual transition from having a very actively structured life to finding a focus in my day. not used to having so many possibilites to choose from. in a way it's like choreographing, you have to pick something and go with it in order to start. so that's what i'm trying to do. i know it will help tremendously to move into our apt. next monday. we get to take a look at it tomorrow and i'm very much looking forward to it. as nice as the daily maid service is... i really need to have the option of cooking a meal at least once in awhile!
last thursday was g's bday and i bought him {and myself} a museum pass. it's such a great deal because it is good for a year and you can go to tons of different museums as many times as you want. on sat. i went to the joods historisch museum{jewish history} and i probably learned more in that afternoon than in all my time in sunday school! in other words, it's a great place to lose yourself. gary didn't get to go; he had to work. so he's taking this friday off and we're heading to paris. yeah! there is a high speed train that gets you there in less than four hours. we plan on staying in a quaint, not too expensive hotel and will be making those reservations tomorrow.
train travel is really convenient over here and although we may have the option to have a car on his company, we may not take it. there is no where to park it and i think i would be nervous about driving in this land of bicycles and pedestrians everywhere. sometimes crossing the street is a real challenge and don't think peds have the right of way over bikes.space is very different here and people are very pushy about claiming it. the concept of "excuse me" doesn't really exist as far as i can tell. also the amount of people who smoke here blows my mind. i'd love to see some stats on the rate of lung cancer !! not kidding about that one. we are definitely not in boulder anymore. these are some of the differences we're encountering, just thought i'd pass them along.
as i mentioned before, there are lots of dance performances and we saw a wonderful modern concert danced by 7 men and only 1 woman. that's a switch! it was very athletic but obvious that they were very well trained and the choreographer had something to say and said it very well. i love good modern!! then yesterday, on a whim, we took the train to a city called utrecht{very close to a'dam} and saw "chicago"!! it was in dutch but of course music and dance are international languages. it was really a good production and we had marvelous seats. i have to say the women didn't quite have the "fosse legs" that we had seen in the denver tour but the dancing, male and female was great. gary is complaining that we've only seen dance so far so i guess we're do for some music and shakespeare pretty soon.
one of my immediate goals is to start taking dutch classes. there are several options and tomorrow i have an interview at a university to look at that program. i may decide to go with a private teacher. in any case i will make a decision and start this week sometime. i'm anxious to get going on it and will go at least twice a week. i've been working out doing gyrotonics, which is done on machines with resistance and is geared towards dancers. my instructor is great and is an exdancer himself. he's only 34. i guess they retire earlier over here.my friend, raymond, who teaches dance here has asked my to sub some classes for him and of course i would love to but it is a sat. commitment which would cut into our travel time. maybe on a periodic basis i could do it, but i had to say no this time around. boo hoo.
well, i think that brings you all up to date. gary has been playing squash{no raquetball here} and i've been going to watch lately. people even smoke in the health clubs, i don't get it!
keep in touch,
tot ziens{later},
love, deb