I'll do the dishes later
Meg wanted me to make it clear that we’re not spending all our vacation at the Rodeway mentioned in the previous post. So here’s the view from the Oceanside, Ore., condo she rented for a couple of nights — a huge improvement, right? The beach is fabulous, and we are planning a Tillamook cheese curd run this afternoon. It’s not the worst vacation ever, just to be clear.
Meg took a couple of days off immediately following Labor Day, so we decided to head for the Oregon coast for some r&r (not that an unemployed library school grad needs much more than a good book for that). Anyway, we decided to head out after church and stay in Portland for one night to cut down on travel time Monday. Since Meg brought her doggies along, we needed a pet-friendly hotel — preferably a cheap one. Meg found one online and reserved it, so we were all set. I don’t think the picture does the place justice, as you can’t tell that our room window is 10 feet from a strip club. Across the street there were two day cares, a booze shop and an off-track betting joint. Oh, and a really creepy guy met us at the entrance and tried to get extra friendly with Meg. I guess that’s what we get.
I’ve neglected my blog for quite a while, so I have some catching up to do. Now that I’m done with grad school and cousins camp, I’ll start doing some back-dated posts.
Usually I fly home to visit my family during the holidays, but because I’m going to be spending a few months with my parents, I decided to drive down so I could take more stuff and have my own car while I’m there. I left Seattle at about 1 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, and things went well for the first nine hours or so. There was a little bit of ice on the road outside La Grande, Oregon, but nothing too scary. I got to Boise around 10 p.m. and was feeling pretty alert, so I decided to drive a little farther.
Just outside of Glenn’s Ferry, Idaho, I saw a huge raccoon in the road. I swerved to go behind it, but the critter turned around and ran right in front of my car. THUNK! THUNKETY THUNK THUNK! Continue reading ‘Run-in with a raccoon’
One of the assignments for my storytelling class was to record two times that I told stories to a group. A few of my recordings didn’t turn out very well because of audio issues, so I got the chance to tell even more stories to members of my family. It was fun! Here are two videos that actually worked out.
Rainy Day
Woodcutter
This weekend was entirely free — no lectures, no transferring to different hotels, no suggested day trips, etc. — so I spent a couple of days exploring the area surrounding Rotterdam. Since I traveled mostly by train yesterday, today was a day for biking. The late summer weather was lovely, so it was a perfect day for it.
Poppy bought a bike in Hoenderloo (near Hoge Veluwe) and rode it back to Rotterdam last weekend, so she had the wheels to join Molly, Jonathan and me on an easy ride to Den Haag by way of Delft. Continue reading ‘Biking way more than necessary’
Trent left this weekend free for self-directed exploration, so a lot of people from the group here decided to go to Brugge, Belgium. A few of us stayed in Rotterdam to explore the surrounding area, though, and I am one of them. Today was kind of rainy, so I ditched my bike in favor of the train and went to Utrecht with Poppy and Jonathan. Trent has told us it is one of his favorite cities, and we could see why. The city isn’t too big, but there are a lot of interesting things to see and do. We actually ran out of time, so I’ll have to go back someday.
One of my favorite things to do when I travel is to climb towers, so I was delighted to discover that the tallest tower in the Netherlands is the Domtoren in Utrecht. Continue reading ‘Utrecht’
After lecture today we took the Metro to The Hague to tour the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands. It has more than 3.5 million items in its collection and adds more every day because it is required to keep a copy of every print item published in the Netherlands. It was very cool seeing the seemingly endless rows of books in the archive (there are more than 50 kilometers of books). Anyone can browse the library’s catalog, but it costs €15 annually for a library card that allows you to check out items.
I’m not quite sure how I feel about that €15 fee for a library card. Yes, libraries — 
especially archival libraries such as the National Library — are expensive to operate and maintain. And €15 a year is really cheap. However, the idea of limiting access with even so modest a fee kind of sticks. I’d really like for the National Library to be free. At least it’s free to look at the super-cool old books in the exhibition hall of the library.
Today was a much-needed day of rest. I went to church this morning and got a spiritual recharge — something I’ve been overlooking since coming to Europe three weeks ago. The members of the congregation were very friendly and welcoming, and a couple of them even translated the services for me. The only weird thing was trying to sing hymns in Dutch, but I did give it a go. I may have even learned a tiny bit of Dutch pronunciation from it. After church I did laundry, wrote postcards to my family, and went for a short bike ride. I think I may be ready for another intense week now.
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