life update

ok then. yesterday i told my boss at the bakery that i want to quit. my first month was a probationary period, and i'm taking advantage of the opportunity to end it at that. its just not worth it to me to work so hard, for so many hours, for so little pay. so ive been looking into other possibilities that pay better and schedule their employees for more humane hours. but i'm still scheduled for another week and a half at the bakery, unless she's able to find someone to cover my shifts sooner.

but, ive made a decision on where i'll be living next! my good friend, iris, whom i studied with, just got a great apartment through the social housing system in place here, (check out this story in the NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03european-t.html ) and she gets to move in on june 1st. that just so happens to be when i need to move out of my place now. her boyfriend is eventually going to move in with her, but he's still doing an internship in new york for another 6 months, so she asked me to live with her until then. its a recently renovated apartment on the top floor of a building right in the center of the city, with an attic and a terrace/balcony. i think it'll be great, although since its recently renovated, its also completely empty and will take some investing on her part to make it nice. but i look forward to the months ahead there.

gesneden?

i went to visit my boyfriend a couple weeks ago. he lives in another city near the german border, about an hour and a half away from here. he just started his phd there so we're trying the long distance thing, and so far so good. he actually lives outside of the city, among some nature reserve. its great, there's even a beach that you can walk to from his house in 5 minutes. and all around there are wild horses, and wooly cows that the dutch call bison. one of his roommates has this little black dog, kenny. he's surprisingly adorable for a little dog. but the day i went out there, he swallowed a fish hook while daniel was fishing at the beach. he baited the hook with chicken (i still dont know why), and was busy baiting the other hook with cheese, or something else more suited to fishing, while kenny decided to eat the piece of chicken sitting on the hook. daniel noticed the predicament and naturally started to freak out a little. he looked in kenny's mouth, but he had swallowed the chicken and hook completely, and just had the fishing line coming out of his mouth. well, he went to the house to look up what to do, and i urged him to call a vet right away. but this was a sunday, in a small town, and apparently its hard to find a vet who works on sundays within 50 km. he spoke to a vet who said he could either call a pet ambulance (cycling to another city with the dog didnt seem like a good option) who would then take it back to the vet, take x-rays, and if needed, perform sugery, or else he could just wait to see if it passes. she said to feed him lots of bread and check his poops for either the hook or blood. so, thats what we did. she said it could take up to 2 days. which it did. and those were a nerve-wracking two days for all of us, but little kenny was blissfully unaware of anything, except for all the bread he got to eat without even having to do tricks. but on tuesday night he successfully pooped out the hook and fishing line without even a wince or a yelp. we were all amazed and relieved. so, there you go - apparently its quite common for this to happen. good to know.

in other news, ive spent the last 3 days working at a bakery in the neighborhood. i was walking by a couple weeks ago and noticed a sign in the window asking for help. i stopped and, in my best dutch, asked if i needed to speak good dutch to work there. the girl hummed and hawed and said, in dutch, yeah, most of our customers are dutch, blah blah blah... anyway, i threw out some of my most practiced dutch phrases, and told her i live nearby and have a totally open schedule, so she took my name and number and said she'd think about it. well, a couple days later she called, made an appointment for an interview, and the day after that i started working there. my shifts are from 7am-5pm, 4 days a week. that first day was tough, lemme tell you. i havent stood on my feet for that long in years; not to mention getting up that early. and my brain was fried, too, from focusing so much on understanding and thinking in dutch. but yesterday was a little better, and today better still. i didnt mention that i will have to quit in a few months at the most, but i got a 6-month contract anyway. the pay is minimum wage, but its better than nothing. but minimum here is 8.42 euros/hour. not bad, although i guess i'm out of touch with what it is back in california nowadays. last i remember it was $6.75.

anyway, i see the situation as a way for me to make some money, and most importantly, practice my dutch for 10 hours a day. i'm hoping maybe in a couple months my dutch will be good enough to apply for a 'real' job that requires dutch knowledge. maybe? we'll see. its also an interesting insight into dutch people, their habits - both social and dietary. i think dutch people are much friendlier than most of the customers i ever helped in the states. everyone is so cheery and polite, and there's only about 1 or 2 people a day that come in while on their cell phone.

i was hoping to get to play around with the baking equipment, but unfortunately there isnt any in the store. they have a main bakery location that bakes everything for all the stores, and its delivered daily. we just reheat the bread in the ovens in our store. so i slice bread, make sandwiches and coffee drinks, and clean and sweep and sweep and sweep. the bread crumbs just dont stop. the girl i work for is 23, and owns the place. she owns 4 stores actually. her great grandfather started the company back in the day, and now its a franchise with close to 20 locations, i guess. but she's fun, and patient with my struggling dutch, but is very good about speaking to me in dutch most of the time. im actually pretty surprised at how well i can get by with the customers.

alright, tonight i finally have the strength to cook a proper dinner, so steak and risotto it is. then its back to the bakery at 7am tomorrow.