A few days in Seattle

I’m in the US for a few days of corner to corner business meetings – Atlanta, Seattle, Jacksonville – mostly  planning for next steps with our surgical monitoring device.  The news is dominated by the Boston Marathon bombing, I kept one eye on developments while spending the wet weekend moving and re-provisioning.

It’s been a big milestone for my daughter, who has moved into a new apartment with her BFF and her hondje.  It’s really nice and they are gathering together the things that make it function and make it home.  There’s a knickknack shelf with souvenirs from their travels: Dam Square’s Darth Vader gets pride of place at the top of their UN.

  

I took a page from European life and ventured onto public transit for the first time in decades: into the city then on to the airport.  It was surprisingly good: fast, comfortable, cheap, well crowded.  Unfortunately a ride requires $2.75 exact change, but the driver let me on free when I got caught with only a $20 bill.  For all the moaning by the talking heads against electric buses and light rail, the busy usage and clean carriages speak overwhelmingly to the success of the project.

  

It was a rare sunny day along the waterfront, the sort of blue sky on blue water on green trees and white mountains that makes Seattle the best place on earth in good weather.  I wandered the Publi Market, sat in Olympic Park, taking care of a bit of business and enjoying the people and the views. 

   

That dark riffle just offshore indicated perfect sailing weather, but I had to fly instead.  ‘’beautiful day from any angle.

 

Florida signage

Part of the eternal fun of going to Florida is the  bright colors and cheezy signs.  It’s a vacation mindset, accenting the warm weather and blue skies, too long absent in Europe this winter, with light sayings and breezy ornamentation.

   

Wandering old haunts–Neighborhoods

I’m visiting Chicago this week, placing our device prototype into surgery at Evanston Hospital.   The facility is four blocks from Northwestern University where I earned my Masters (1979) and PhD (1982) in the department of Biomedical Engineering.

A long time ago, indeed.  But six years of my life, the same that I’ve been expat.

I wrote a couple of days ago about the tidy red brick row houses in Dutch villages.  Evanston also builds with red brick, but each to their own lot; same two or three stories, but with much larger trees.  It’s a style the British call detached, but in America that probably describes the social distance between neighbors more than the physical gap between their homes.

 

The wide streets are a notable change from Dutch villages, al is the profusion of huge, flowering trees, white and pink against the blue sky.  Spring is a bit more advanced in the Midwest, with bright green shoots luminous in the sun (very Hockney-esque).  The play of light and shadow along gardens and brick, was beautiful.

 

The other contrast was the silent emptiness of it all: no cars, bikes, pedestrians.  It was silent except for the birds: no pedestrians, no children, no shoppers.  It’s such a contrast to the constant hum of Maastricht.

I angled off along to the lakefront north of campus, the lighthouse and art center was still there, along with the stately homes that I used to think that I might move into some day.  The waters were whitecapped and turgid green, flags snapping in the cold northerly wind.  The edge of the campus was much as I remembered, the same gothic-letter signs, the industrial bulk of the Tech Institute, the orphan and emerging departments sequestered in neighborhood houses around the main campus.

Funny…the details that I forget after being away 30 years that are nonetheless absolutely familiar once I see them again.  It restores me faith that there is an objective reality that endures irrespective of what we think about it.

Katrina and Nola

Hurricane Katrina blew through the Gulf Coast six years ago.  I had recently attended a heart meeting in New Orleans and was transfixed by the scenes of homeless and desperate people filling the Convention Center.  I could trace my steps through the water on Canal Street, remembering a tour guide who warned that if the levees ever broke, water could reach second story windows across downtown.  It seemed fantastic; now it was real.

I’ve been to New Orleans many times, from band trips in college through business trips to Tulane.  The city is filled with memories, beignets from Café du Monde,  oysters from Acme, the voodoo shop at the end of Bourbon Street, riding streetcars to see where the lines end.  Karen had never been,so we decided to celebrate her birthday with a pilgrimage and and some fine dining (dinner at Bayona was superb).

Some cities were much worse hit – we stopped in Biloxi to find…nothing remaining.  There were city blocks along the waterfront, borders of trees and cracked driveway pads to mark addresses, but no buildings.  Not even “For Sale” signs. The casinos had returned, along with some of the shrimp boats, but, apart from a few damaged civic buildings, there was very little left.  It may not all be Katrina, I think that casinos exert toxic effects on the surrounding town economies, whatever the promise of new jobs and tourism.

The outskirts of New Orleans were still damaged, roofs and siding torn from houses, tarps covering window holes.  The downtown core is better, wash marks visible but the reconstruction complete.  Bourbon Street is unchanged.  The big news was that the Hyatt Hotel, blown out during the storm, was reopening after six years of renovation.

But the city retains a lot of charm and friendliness, the music playing late and the coffee served early.  From a base at the Royal Sonesta, we enjoyed two days of food, drinks, and music.  Krystal is still serving small, square classic gut bombs; Pat O’Briens pours bright pink Hurricanes (with no irony), the Café is still enveloped in a haze of chicory coffee and powdered sugar (we opted for a quiet bench in Jackson Square).  The Funky Pirate hosted wonderful blues, the superlative “Big” underestimates both Big Al’s size and his Blues Masters group’s music.

The cheapest drinks along the strip are shots, delivered in test tubes and running about $2.  Beers ran up towards $5 and mixed were above that, hustlers promised ever bigger glasses and higher proofs for half-price or less.  Our running favorite was Everclear, served with a cherry and cheerfully illegal in 19 states.

The Louisiana State Museum has a good exhibit remembering Katrina – it’s frank about the scale of the disaster and the inadequacy of the response.  The overriding theme is  We can do better next time. Upstairs is a history of Carnival, interesting to contrast it with the Maastricht equivalent (nowhere mentioned on the list of worldwide celebrations).  The musical organization and heritage is different; there is an emphasis to floats over costumes.  But the spirit is the same (and the beads, still flying overhead even out-of-season).

I don’t think New Orleans will ever “come back”; it will endure and move on.  I compared it to Yellowstone Park after the fires: The landmarks are still there, but it is otherwise smaller and humbler than it was, yet more rooted to its unique characteristics and heritage.  With the tourists going elsewhere, there’s less need to be what people expect, more of a chance to be who you are.  New Orleans is small discoveries in restaurants and shops, a slightly skewed French heritage jumbled with Southern gentility, and authentic music and relaxation.

Dutch events in the US

I wanted to step back from expat experiences today to share a few links to Dutch events that are coming up in the US.

There’s an active cultural exchange between the Netherlands and America, so a taste of Dutch culture doesn’t just have to come from visits to Holland MI or the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. Both are good, but other sources to keep an eye on include:

Orange Alert: The Cultural Department of the Dutch Embassy in New York maintains a blog with announcements of artists, architects, and designers presenting work throughout the US.

SICA:  A joint project of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Stichting Internationale Culturele Activiteiten organization lists cultural event.  These include art installations, theater performances, concerts, and events featuring Dutch artists and themes. Embassies also keep track of local events.

Bicycling events:  Inevitably, the Dutch embassies also sponsor biking events across the US, often in association with Queen’s Day.

Dutch Performing Arts Events: This blog tracks theater and dance groups from the Netherlands that are making US tours.

CODART: An international network for museum curators of Dutch and Flanders artworks, their site highlights events and installations worldwide.

Dutch Days festivals:  These are ethnic festivals in communities claiming strong Dutch heritage: besides Holland MI, examples can be found in Fulton IL (probably the best known except for Holland MI), Denver CO,  Lynden WA (and many communities throughout Washington and Oregon), and Burlington ON (celebrating Canadian Netherlands Friendship days).

Local Dutch Expat groups:  An up-to-date list of Dutch-in-America groups, with links to their various regional websites.  This can often lead to one-off events (or to opportunities to mingle with native speakers for an evening).  And, yes, several are having Queens Day celebrations this weekend (although likely without the rafts of drinking singers).  Dutch in America also has a Facebook group that updates regularly.

And, for folks in (or visiting) the Netherlands, the ‘home Dutch’ festival list is here.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with any of these organizations or events, and have neither been asked nor compensated to list these links.

Warm days among the magnolias

I’m in the southeastern US his week, enjoying the warmth and hospitality of the “other” Low Country.  This seashore is rich with rivers, mud, and marshlands; barrier islands, beaches, and abundant birds and wildlife – I expect that the deltas of the grote rivieren were similar before the land was drained and made habitable by the Dutch.

The weather is picture-perfect, 75 deg F sunny days, cool nights, a bit of breeze, no humidity.  People are friendly everywhere; the regional food is excellent.  Since it’s off-season (pre-SpringBreak) bargains on lodging are everywhere so it’s possible to just hopscotch with the wind and whim day by day.

I attended university at Vanderbilt and became accustomed to springs’ arrival on March 1.  The sun would come out, the weather would warm, and the magnolias would bloom.  I never got used to losing that when I moved back north for grad school.  This week, it all came rushing back – there is no question that this is where I belong at winter’s end.

I did plant a magnolia in the back yard for my 40th birthday, and it bravely brings huge white flowers every April.  But it struggles with the winter and the lack of sunlight in the forests of Seattle.  In 17 years, branches have collapsed under the snow, and it’s branches have straggled trying to find their light.  Here, there are magnificent trees everywhere, and, while the blooms are dogwood and cherry at the moment, the sense is still of the seasons turning a page from winter.

With daily movements and full schedules, computer time has been (blissfully) scarce.  ‘lots of things that I want to catch up with though, spilling lines of car-jiggled text across my notebook for now.  And there’s news and progress (and one setback) to share, so I feel like I’m falling behind here.

But, for now, the evening light is still glowing through the Spanish moss and the music of frogs and crickets are filling the evening air.  There’s something about having the time and the inclination to just sit and soak in it.

There’s (still) something splendid about the antebellum Old South.