Disappearing glue sticks

But so far they're still here.

Chicago: just another foreign country

We've just returned from a 3-day stay in a foriegn land less than 3 miles from our house: the home of our daughter, son-in-law, and three grandchildren. In many ways, it was exactly like a visit to a different country.

First of all, there is the time difference. Although their home is officially in the same time zone as ours, there was a definite jet-lag quality, with the usual sleep disruptions, to our days there. I got up at 4 AM to give the baby her pacifier; ditto at 5 AM; a bottle (milk, for the baby, although a bottle of something harder might have helped me sleep) at 6 AM; at 6:20 the 4-year-old crawled into bed with me; at 6:45 I had to get up to take a shower because the 6-year-old would be up by 7 and his carpool would arrive at 8.

Then there was the language barrier. It turns out that a 14-month-old child has a language of very few words (approximately three, in this case) and since two of those words have specific meanings ("bobby" for "pacifier"--don't ask--and "hi"--self-explanatory), the remaining word, "Meh-meh" by default refers to everything else. We spent the entire 3 days trying to figure out what this little person was saying to us, the same way I attempted to communicate with taxi drivers on a trip to Paris last year. I knew just about as many words in French as I do in Baby, and thus had pretty much the same results. Oh, and she also knows a sign-language sign which means "more." But good luck figuring out what she wants more OF.

Then, of course, as there are in any foreign place, there are the unfamiliar foods. I usually have a pretty good idea of what all of those foil-wrapped items in my own refrigerator are. Or at least what they used to be, several weeks ago when I put them in there and then ignored them. But other people's leftovers are a mystery. My daughter's leftovers were actually only a day old, and she's a terrific cook, so I wasn't dealing with weird or moldy stuff; it's just that I don't know her recipes or even her ingredients, so some things are just different; even familiar things taste different in someone else's house. And they come in different and unfamiliar packaging: in Europe, it's the 8-ounce cans of Coke; at my daughter's house, it's the sippy cups. (My daughter has her own sippy cup--at least that's what the kids call her travel coffee mug.

Finally, there are the strange customs of the youth who live in this place. Do they always leave the water running in the bathroom sink after they brush their teeth, so that when I go upstairs to put the baby down for her nap three hours later, it's still running? Is it customary to take off your pajamas and stand naked in front of the picture window in the living room while getting dressed? And is it a normal dining convention to methodically and purposely drop all of your grapes, crackers, and pieces of cheese on the floor, and then sit on the floor and eat them?

All in all, was an interesting visit. As susual, we returned home tired, and eager to get back to our normal routines. But we are already looking forward to our next stay--because what made this place really special was the fact that the "natives," in spite of their strange customs, are extremely friendly and affectionate, and I think they really want us to come back!

A message for the President-elect

I know how to jump-start the global economy.

It’s quite simple:

In every airport I’ve visited since September 11, 2001 (about 9 or 10 different airports), the security screening procedures are completely different.

In Chicago, you have to take off your shoes, have all of your liquids and gels (no more than 3 ounces, of course), in a 1-quart Ziploc bag, and remove your laptop from its case. In other airports, you may or may not have to do any of these things, in any combination. This is ridiculous. What good is it to make sure a terrorist isn’t smuggling a bomb on board the plane I take from Chicago to Madrid, but when flying the return route, they don’t check any of those things? Obviously, it’s just as I’ve suspected all along: the government has no idea how to protect us from another terrorist attack, and all of these procedures are just a smoke screen to pacify us and keep us from rioting or overthrowing the government or attacking innocent dark-skinned people, or, G-d forbid, not flying.

This reminds me of a picture I saw at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Entitled “The Perfect Traveler,” it was a drawing of a naked man carrying a Ziploc bag.

And recalling that this morning, I had a brainstorm:

Under a new, global policy, you have to fly completely naked. And you can’t take anything with you. No carry-ons. No checked luggage. Nothing. Nada. Zippo. Zilch. No luggage, no reading material, no snacks, not even a Ziploc bag. Snacks and newspapers, even reading glasses if you need them, would be given to you on the plane; the cost would be built into the price of your ticket. The flight attendant would collect your credit card and passport at the gate and return them to you when you get off the plane (so don’t even think about using the old Exploding Passport trick.) Since you can’t bring any cash, you’d have to get money from an ATM when you get there.

And, of course, buy clothes.

And here’s where the global economy comes in: imagine millions of travelers, every day, buying clothes and shoes and coats and toothbrushes and deodorant, in cities all over the world. We’d need hundreds of new businesses, thousands of new factories, millions of new workers. Economies all over the world would rapidly grow.

I really think this could work.

The only thing I haven’t figured out yet is what to do with all the clothing travelers are leaving behind in cities around the world. Flea markets, perhaps? Or clothing the poor and the homeless?

But I’ll let our new President worry about the details. I’ve already done all the hard work.

Yikes- bikes!

RUSH HOUR IN AMSTERDAM

There are surprisingly few cars on the streets of central Amsterdam. Everyone rides bikes. There are literally thousands of bikes. Every block has a hundred or so bikes parked in front of the houses, stores, and restaurants, and in the center of the city there are massive bicycle parking garages, with thousands and thousands of bikes.

Since most people don't have cars, they do all of their errands, shopping, and taking their kids to school by bicycle. It's not unusual to see people with 4 or 5 shopping bags dangling from their handlebars, or piled into large wooden boxes that sit above the front wheel of the bike.

Some bikes have a small front wheel, in order to accommodate an even larger wooden box, in which 2 (or 3 small) children can ride: sort of like a Dutch minivan.

The streets have designated bicycle lanes: not just a white stripe and a picture of a bike painted on the street, like in Chicago, but separate lanes with raised curbs. So far we haven't been involved in any collisions, but since I am not used to looking both ways for bikes when I cross the street, we've had a number of close calls.

Go figure

Shabbos afternoon we went to the Jewish Historical Museum, which lets you in for free on Shabbos if you're Shomer Shabbos. The museum has an extensive exhibit on the history of the Jews in Holland. It explains how the Dutch were relatively welcoming to the Jews who were fleeing the Spanish Inquisition and the pogroms for centuries, and even treated the Jews better than most other European countries in the 19th and 20th centuries--and then completely looked the other way when 80,000 Jews were deported and murdered by the Nazi's. Go figure.

Snow?

As we landed here in Amsterdam and our plane was taxiing to the terminal, we saw about 50 airport snowplows, with their lights flashing, lining up.
I hope that's not a bad sign.

Dutch

It's a really good thing that everyone here in Amsterdam seems to speak English, because Dutch is not one of those languages that seems to share enough words with English so that you can more or less figure out what it means. And most of us know how to say basic words like "Hello" and "goodbye" and "thank you" in Spanish and French and maybe even Japanese or Russian, but until today I didn't know a single word in Dutch. Now I know one: "Gracht." It means "canal." Which is not especilly useful for a tourist, since the canals are everywhere, sort of like alleys in Chicago, but you don't really need to refer to them.

And also, Dutch seems to have a lot of extra vowels, as in "Reguilerstraat" (the street where our hotel is.) I am not sure how to pronounce the street names, or names of museums, etc. Vanna, I'd like to buy a consonant...