Yom Kippur in the Red Light District

My internet’s back! To celebrate, here’s the post I wrote last weekend:

On Friday night, I headed back to Amsterdam with another intern (I found more Jews!) to attend Yom Kippur services at the historic Portuguese Synagogue. The synagogue was built in 1675 and was the largest shul in the world at that time. Services were held in the main sanctuary, which is kept in its original state, including no electricity or heating. This meant that the entire room was lit with thousands of candles, both hanging from massive chandeliers and affixed to the back to seats. I was certain that at some point someone’s hair would catch on fire from the candles, but we made it through the service incident free. No electricity also meant no microphone, so it was a little hard to follow at times, especially in the traditional Portuguese melodies. In fact, the Dutch men around me kept looking to me to find out what page we were on, but that’s probably because they were all talking nonstop throughout the service.

Thankfully, the sermon was in English. The rabbi welcomed the Dutch Minister of Justice and the Mayor of Amsterdam, who were both in attendance, and talked about how Amsterdam welcomed the Portuguese Jews after they were expelled 500 years ago. When I’m in these historic settings, I like to think about what it would have been like to attend services there in the past. In this case, it wasn’t hard to picture, since it looks like nothing has changed in the last 100 years – all the men were wearing top hats and tuxedos, chanting by candlelight in front of a massive ark. It was an amazing sight to see, and one that will be hard to match in any future Yom Kippur.

Afterwards, we ended up having to cut through the red light district on the way back from the synagogue. It was my first time seeing it at night, and it’s even more gaudy and ridiculous then – like one giant bachelor party. Perhaps Yom Kippur’s not the best time to stroll through, but what the heck. The rest of the holiday was fairly uneventful, and we even made it to a break fast at the end.

Work, meanwhile, has started to get pretty intense. This week is the last week before the closing brief is due, and I think that deadline is only now becoming real to people. Consequently, we’re going to be running around like crazy. I have had to opportunity to write paragraphs of the brief, but most of my assignments consist of “somewhere in the trial someone mentioned this, see if you can find the quote.” I think this week the whole team is mostly going to be checking cites to make sure our facts are correct. Since I basically spend all my time at UCLA cite checking, this should be relatively second nature...

Everything else is going well. I went to “trivia night” at a local bar for the first time this week. All the questions about US pop culture were absurdly easy (e.g. in what city was Rodney King beaten?), but it was a bit trickier when they asked about the rest of the world (e.g. who was the coach of the 1978 Argentinean football team?). Even though my team was mainly comprised of non-Americans, we still were pretty well walloped. We’ll have to try again another week...

I may have to kill something

Hi all-
My internet has been down since Thursday morning, so I am not yet able to blog nor have I had access to my internet phone. I'm on my roommate's computer, which just started working again today, where I discovered I have 16 unheard voicemails. So, if you tried to reach me, I am hoping that the internet situation will be resolved by the time this next holiday is over (i.e. this weekend). Argh! I'll post a real blog as soon as I am able,
Jordan

The Holiday Formerly Known as Prinsjesdag

Yesterday, I received a Dutch identity card, making my stay in the Netherlands official. (It even has a hologram of my face on it! Neat!) That same day, embracing my new adoptive country, I trekked to The Hague’s city center to see Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands ride through the streets in her golden carriage. All of the kids were out of school for “Prinsjesdag” (Prince’s Day), when the Queen rides from her palace to the parliament, where she addresses the government from her throne. Thousands of people lined the street, where we watched waves of soldiers in progressively fancier uniforms march by on horseback, interspersed with military marching bands. One band was actually on horseback as well, which was pretty impressive. Then came a number of carriages, including the golden carriage, which looked like they came straight out of the 17^th century. It was a sight to see. Interestingly, no one in the crowd clapped, cheered, or displayed any kind of enthusiasm. They merely took pictures and waived politely. If this were an American parade, I don’t think that ever would’ve happened. (And they would’ve been throwing candy...)

I also found the excursion notable because it was the first intern event that I initiated. I wanted to see the festivities, so I emailed a few other interns and suggested a time to meet. My email then kept getting forwarded, until eventually it was sent out to the entire intern email list. After inviting five people, thirty showed up. I was pretty happy with that.

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent Saturday night in Amsterdam with a group of intern friends, and had a great time. Some notes from that night:

- We started the night at Dam Square, which is at the heart of tourist Amsterdam. We knew all the pubs were expensive, so when drinks were listed at about $8 each, we weren’t surprised. Then we noticed that we’d all been charged an additional $4 for sodas, even though none of us ordered soda. Eventually, we put figured it out – a sneaky way for an expensive spritz of coke for my mixed drink. The next place (which was not a tourist place, but more of a Dutch dive) also charged separately for mixers – but there at least they handed me a full bottle of coke, which we could split among us. I had never heard of such a practice, but my European friends tell me it’s quite common.

- A friend got us into a major club, so long as we had a girl with us when we went in. Thankfully, there were a lot of girls in our group, so we didn’t have to worry about it. The basement of the club was pitch black, except for thousands of light bulbs lining the walls and ceiling that created pulsating waves of illumination along with the music. It was one of the hippest places I’ve ever been; I’m not quite sure how I ended up there. Still, I had a lot of fun, and even ended up dancing for a while.

The upstairs of the club had walls and floors that were all backlit, almost like a disco floor (but only one color). They had all these long red couches that were low to the ground, where I accidentally fell asleep for 20 minutes. But, thanks to that power nap, I managed to make it until the club closed down, at about 4:30 in the morning. (When all the lights came on, it was not a pretty sight...)

- On the way back to the train station, we stopped in a McDonalds. (We couldn’t resist the poster out front, advertising “a full menu and toilet!”) There were a surprising number of people wandering the streets at that hour, as well as a surprising number passed out cold in the McDonalds. We didn’t think there was another train to The Hague until 6:40, so we took our time eating, only to discover that we missed a 5:42 train by a minute. So, we hung out on the steps of the train station for about an hour, and headed on home. Unfortunately, the train we caught took us to a different station in The Hague, so I had to take a taxi back to the other station so I could retrieve my bike. And biking home, after not sleeping all night, was really not as much fun as it sounds. (I do still love my bike, though...) Anyway, it was a fun night, and now I’m hoping to head back to Amsterdam this weekend for Yom Kippur. I’m sure it’ll be a similar experience...

Rosj Hasjana

Well, my first ever yontif (holiday) outside of the US or Israel actually went pretty well. On the first night, I was invited to a large dinner at an Israeli family’s home, which was very nice though unfortunately not kosher (probably the first time that’s happened to me at a yontif meal). Besides the non-kosher food, the other odd thing was that the meal was videotaped by a cameraman for Dutch TV. Apparently, the local station is putting together a piece on the holiday and sent someone over to get footage of the meal (since they were denied access to film in the synagogue). Throughout the meal, the cameraman kept asking people to explain on camera what the holiday means to them. I politely declined to be interviewed, but I’m definitely in the background of a lot of shots. Someone please set their VCR...

I had already met many of the people at the dinner from the couple of times I’ve been to synagogue, and many of them were American or Israeli expats. I was the only 20-something at the dinner, and there were more little children then there were adults. Normally, I would find this scenario roughly equivalent to the third circle of hell, but it actually wasn’t bad. In fact, one of the kids – a three year old adopted from Ethiopia – kept calling me “Uncle Jordan” and asking me to read to him. It had been a while since I’d read to someone, but as long as he wasn’t picking the Dutch books, I was happy to oblige.

On Thursday, I went to services at the liberal temple; there were between 100-200 people there, so it was pretty packed. They did have a choir, but the members sat among the congregation and only sang a couple of songs. The service did leave out a couple parts, but it hit most of the important things, and I actually enjoyed it a great deal (except perhaps for the sermon in Dutch). I probably liked it because it’s surprisingly traditional for a liberal synagogue (it’s apparently the only non-egalitarian liberal synagogue in the world), so it pretty much felt like a Conservative service.

That afternoon, I went to Kijkduin, another beach in The Hague. It’s less commercial and less touristy, so I liked it immensely. There was almost no one there and the beach was quite clean, so it beats most LA beaches in that regard. And I was there almost a full hour before it started raining – very impressive for the Netherlands! That night, I was invited to a smaller dinner hosted by one of the lawyers at the ICTY. And most exciting of all – I ate meat for the first time in a month!!!! Yay! They served jambalaya, and it was wonderful. Apparently the only kosher butcher in The Hague is closing this week, and probably won’t be replaced until after I’m gone. Boo. But I was pretty happy that night – and after I ate meat and drank wine, port, and some kind of Kenyan liqueur, I could have curled up and fallen asleep in my chair. It was quite tempting.

On Friday, I tried the Orthodox shul for the first time. It’s in a chapel in the back of a nursing home in Scheveningen and was not the easiest to find. If I hadn’t run into someone outside the shul, I could’ve been wandering for quite a while. I was surprised to find that there were barely ten men there. (I couldn’t guess how many women were in the balcony.) The service was a lot of chanting, not much singing, and went on forever with both the cantor and the congregation repeating every single word out loud. I was not a particular fan of the experience. Plus, the men kept snorting tobacco during services, which did not look terribly appealing. Afterward, the rabbi (a Chabad rabbi) invited me back to his house for lunch. And there was more meat!!! Yay! The rabbi seemed like quiet man with a sense of humor, and it was one of my more enjoyable Chabad interactions. There were only a few people at lunch (besides the rabbi’s six small children), and the meal was over in about an hour. Such a thing is usually unheard of at a Chabad house, and I was quite happy to forgo the hubbub that often takes place. I probably won’t be back to Chabad very much, but it’s nice to know it’s there if I get another meat craving soon.

Anyway, that’s enough blogging for now – I didn’t get back from going out to Amsterdam last night until 7:30 this morning, so I’m a bit tired. I’ll definitely have to write about that night, though, so I’ll post again in a day or two.

The Other World Cup

Last night, I watched a professional rugby game for my first time, in an Irish pub in The Hague’s city center. It was the US vs. UK, so it was fun to have someone to cheer for – though since I didn’t know until yesterday that there was a Rugby World Cup or that we even had a national team, I can’t say that I was terribly emotionally invested. Still, it was a fun experience. I was amused how an injured American player would be dragged off the field every five minutes or so (yet it never happened to any British player) as well as by watching the commercials on Irish tv. The US never came close to winning (the sportscaster called the game “the world champions vs. one of the minnows of the tournament”), but they held up surprisingly well and lost by the lowest margin ever against England. Way to go, guys...
This week has been incredibly busy; it figures that I set up my phone numbers as soon as I’ve reached far enough in the semester where I’m never around to answer the phone. Still, it’s nice to have a phone available. This week included a few more trips to the bars (I’m really not sure why everyone loves beer so much; I have been hanging out with German/Scottish/Irish friends this week, maybe that’s part of it...), as well as attending a potluck thrown by some of the interns. Though I’ve been to potlucks almost every week since I moved to Los Angeles, apparently such a concept is not known in Europe. I heard them trying to explain it to each other: “Everyone comes together and brings some kind of pot...” (I intervened in the conversation before I found out if she was referring to drugs or cookery.) The meal appeared to come together pretty well in the end, so that was always nice.
I don’t have anything exciting to say about work, but it's going fine and hopefully I’ll be on a new case in a week or two. In any event, I’m missing half of this week anyway for Rosh Hashanah. This will be my first time experiencing the fall holidays abroad since 1988 (and that was in Israel, so that’s not quite the same). The current plan is to spend all the holidays in The Hague besides Yom Kippur, when I’m hoping to make it back to Amsterdam to go to the historic Portuguese Synagogue. We’ll see how it goes... Shanah tovah! (Happy New Year!)

Phone Numbers!

For anyone who wants to reach me, here's two big steps forward in my communicative abilities...
First, I have an American phone number: 310-594-3891. It's a Skype account, which means that it will only reach me when my computer is on, so your best bet is to try me in the evenings (6 hours ahead of the east coast). If you email me to let me know you plan to call, that would always be helpful.
Second, I now have a Dutch cell: 0031-061-769-7163. So if you want to be sure to get ahold of me, you can always call that number. (Unfortunately, the phone directions are all in Dutch, but I'll figure it out...) Be in touch!

Sunbathing on the North Sea...

I finally made it to the beach a couple times this week, which was a lot of fun. The North Sea is just a couple miles from me, so it was easy to bike down there with a couple of friends. (See, the bike is already coming in handy...) The beach near me is called Scheveningen ($10 to anyone who can pronounce it), and apparently it’s the most popular beach in the Netherlands. There are lots of open air restaurants, a casino, a pier, and other fun stuff. It’s not the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen, but it’s at least as nice as those in LA. The only downside is that it was only about 60 degrees when I was there (and occasionally drizzling), and this is about as good as it gets. Still, we had a nice brunch and walked along the water – very relaxing, and not too crowded.

When we went to the beach last week, we were all having trouble reading the menus and asked if the restaurant had English menus (many places here do). When they brought the English menus, I couldn't help but notice that all of the food was about three times more expensive than on the Dutch menu. So, I’m trying to get a little better at reading the menus in Dutch – mainly, I’m trying to learn the words for foods I have to avoid. In general, my Dutch skills have been progressing very, very slowly. Surprisingly, the language that’s been the most helpful to me so far has been Yiddish, since the few random words that I know are pretty much the same in Dutch (since Dutch is very similar to German). It’s been especially helpful with street signs (e.g. verboden = forbidden), so I’m grateful to have a few words I can read...

I also went to a few new bars this week, so I’m learning the city. I haven’t been feeling well lately, so all I drank at the bar was tea. (I’m just that cool.) I’m getting to know the other interns a little better, and there’s about 25 more people starting today, so it’ll be good to have some new people. (Many of the summer interns left on Friday – now I’m one of the more seasoned interns, after two weeks...) Not sure how much I can say online about work, but hopefully I’m getting transferred to a new team soon, where I’ll have a bit more to do.

Oh, and random note: For two days in a row, when I’ve told people that I’m from Ohio, they’ve asked me if I grew up near Des Moines. And twice now people have thought “Jordan” was a girl when I emailed them. Crazy Dutch...