Goedemorgen! (Good Morning)

It is 9: am my time, 3 am your time if you live in the Easter U.S. time zone. Good morning! Goedemorgen in Dutch (pronounced huda moorhen, except the h sound should be made in the back of your esophagus, like in Germany…) I have finished laundry, eaten breakfast, purchased the day’s food at the market, and am now seated in the library, finishing a paper, last minute for class.Beneath are the quotidian moments that comprise my morning, details that may interest you.

Breakfast: It is common here to make fresh-squeezed orange juice for breakfast. I still have to figure out where I can purchase oranges in bulk. Fresh-squeezed juice is a marathon ahead of the store bough variety. Once you have fresh-squeezed there is no going back! This past weekend I had breakfast at my friend Jitske’s house. Her breakfast spread epitomized the Dutch breakfast: simple, protein and fiber-rich and nutritious. Step 1: Start with a bowl of yogurt. Jitske had a great yogurt that tasted like a combination between marscapone cheese and yogurt. Rich stuff. Step 2: granola or muesli (a type of granola with fruit and nut nuggets in it.) There are no lucky charms. Sigh. Step 3: Toppings. Though I’m usually on the run and hurl a spoonful of jelly into my bowl, at Jitske’s there were dried raisins, and cranberries (in separate bowls), washed and cut strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and both Dutch syrup (molasses) and American-style pure maple syrup (nearly 12 euros a bottle here and hard to find.)

Laundry: I have a washing machine and no dryer (an electricity saver.) This is common here. Most people have a clothesline on their porch. I do, too. Today, it is raining. Though it does not rain here as much as it probably rains in England, we do get our share of showers—and keep biking through it. I’ll have to wait to dry my clothing...

Market: I have to get to the market before 8:30 so I can get to the library at 9--opening time--, so that I can snag a computer before anyone else, because I spilled water on my laptop yesterday, rendering it unusable for life. People buy food here daily; this is because the amount they can carry is determined by the size of their bike basket or backpack and because they want fresh food.

What I bought: Four types of cheese, which the cheese lady let me sample from her large white tent. (We have eleven varieties of cheese in our refrigerator right now. The we in this sentence is my Dutch roommate Lidy and I. Lidy is from the northern part of Holland, speaks excellent English and is a biology student at my university. Among the varieties that I know the names of are blue cheese, two types of goat's cheese, feta cheese, parmesan cheese, fresh mozzarella, old Dutch cheese and two types of gouda. Recently there was a lawsuit which made it so that only cheese of Dutch origin can be called gouda.Take that.hah. It is sort of like the way no wine except wine from the area of Champaigne in france can be called Champaigne. Pronounced shampahn here.) I digress. The cheese was then wrapped in paper for me. It now rests inside the cloth sidebags on the back of my bicycle. When we get a break during class I will use my paring knife (also stowed in my side bag) to whittle off a piece, which I pair with the yummy cluster of purple grapes I bought, and fresh rolls. I buy my rolls from a Russian lady that wears a scarf tied beneath her chin and mutters, 1 euro, 1 euro (in Dutch) as she shoves eight hot rolls of various sizes and types into people’s bike baskets. She pulls the rolls piping hot out of an oven that operates in the market square. Eight rolls for a euro, not bad. The problem is, they go stale in six hours. Guess I have to eat them all…I also bought lettuce and bell peppers.

Library: I am studying in Napoleon’s old palace. It is contemporary and white in the inside and looks a bit like Ikea (a Swedish-started chain furniture company that is absurdly popular here.) The library has a nice collection of English books and about thirty computers that are claimed within the first seven minutes the library opens. Except on Sundays, then you have a few more minutes to stake out a keyboard.And, then, off to class!