Yes, this is the best I could come up with for Halloween; I was never very good at this stuff. Interestingly, I did not see a single other person in costume outside of my friend’s party, so I got a lot of strange looks when I went out last night. I would have thought there’d be more celebrations in a city with 40,000 expats, but apparently not so much. After the party, we tried to go out on the town, but we were rejected from all the clubs because my Dutch friends’ water-polo uniforms didn’t meet the dress code. Even on Halloween, the bouncers had no sense of humor... ah well.
I’ve spent most of this week recovering from my brief trip back to the United States. My journey to the states didn’t start so well, but it got better from there. First, while I was waiting for my flight in the Amsterdam airport, the brakes broke on my plane, and I was placed on a different flight three hours later. Then my delayed connection in Detroit was kept in a holding pattern for so long, the pilot actually started flying back to Detroit because he was afraid of running out of fuel. Eventually I made it to Chicago, only to get trapped on the metro between stations due to a mechanical problem. Later on, I got stuck in a rainstorm while waiting for a cab, as well as a freak hailstorm with ice the size of marbles that sent everyone running in panic. Chicago seems like a lovely town.
Anyway, things picked up from there – I was in Chicago for a job interview, which hopefully went pretty well. (I’ll find out in a week or two.) I interviewed with four sets of people (for one job), and each time, the first question was “Are you in the Netherlands right now?” So, I think my flying in from abroad scored me some points. Still, it was only my first interview of the year, so we’ll see. I stayed with a friend near the University of Chicago, and it was good to catch up. It was also kind of fun to look out on Lake Michigan from my friend’s apartment, after looking out on the North Sea from my office the day before. Life is strange sometimes.
After my day in Chicago, I headed up to Minnesota to be in my friend’s wedding. (Congrats, Joel!) The wedding was a lot of fun – everyone was genuinely excited, and kept up dancing for much longer than is probably physically advisable. I even jump-roped with a person as the rope, something I don’t normally get to do. Being back in the states to celebrate with my friend reminded me that my life is over there (or in Israel), and that I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again when I return. I even saw some old Camp Ramah friends and ate lots of Kosher meat – all in all, a successful weekend, and I’m very glad I was able to make it back.
This week thankfully hasn’t been too crazy, as I’m just trying to get back on Netherlands time before I fly off again this week (to England). We just changed our clocks this week, and I know that change hasn’t happened in the states yet, so that’s going to mess me up. I made it back to shul this week, though pathetically few people were there. (It took us until 10:30 to get enough people to start services.) In fact, the Jews were outnumbered by all the Sufi guests who came to observe us. I talked to one of them for a while about Sufism, which I don’t really know anything about; it focuses on embracing the similarities between religions, or something along those lines.
Just now, I returned from an afternoon in the city of Delft, which was quite nice. The center of town is full of canals and a historic square, and it’s just a pleasant place to spend a day. (It feels like a mini-Bruges...) At any rate, I’m fairly exhausted from the day, so I think it’s time to sign off...
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