Good night, and good luck

And so I am now signed out of the city of Amsterdam -- and (semi) settled in New York. (Last Fun Dutch Fact? Well, sadly this one isn't very fun, but certainly interesting. The Dutch keep extremely detailed records of where all its citizens -- and gastarbeider alike -- reside. You have to register with the city -- within 3 days of arrival -- and with your neighborhood "government." It does seem a little big brother-esque. But that's not the "not fun" part. The not-fun Dutch fact is that this registration system has been in place for a very long time. And, in 1941 when the Nazi's occupied the Netherlands, it was as easy as opening a few drawers to find out where all the Jews were. Okay, on that depressing note...).

A review of all the things I will miss about the city (and, by inference, things that already irk me about being back in America), the Netherlands and, in general, my time abroad:

• Trains
• Modern looking windmills
• Wine picnics
• Techno-tastic clubs and outdoor parties
• Dishwasher
• Washer and dryer in the apartment
• Not paying my own cell phone bill
• Getting snail mail
• Visiting places for the first time
• Meeting up with Barringer in the snow
• Not having to walk to work/train/etc. in the snow
• Long summer days (like, really long)
• Dogs in restaurants (though I will not miss stepping in dog shit...it's everywhere. When I was moving out of my apartment I stepped in two separate piles of it within 48 hours. That's just pure talent.)
• Imaginative tagging
• Living room dining
• Maoz
• Canals
• Cheap flowers
• Cheap beer (good cheap beer)
• Cheap tapas
• Cheap supermarkets
• Cheap whores (well, not really...easily accessible whores)
• Market shopping
• Mini breaks in [insert European city]
• T-Lo and the consultant crew
• Lack of Starbucks (maybe...)
• My "routine"
• Pikant fried peanuts (sounds gross, is awesome)
• Stroopwaffels
• Subsidized lunch/breakfast
• Subsidized borrel (read: free wine every Friday at 4:30pm...)
• No work on the weekends, no work after 6pm, no work before 9am (you get the picture...)
• 30% of my salary going un-taxed
• Being "short"
• Katsu
• Nespresso ("What else?")
• Biking (gasp! yes, it's true, I will miss this)
• Getting to host massive amounts of friends because hey, who doesn't want to go to Amsterdam?

On that note -- I will have a two-bedroom in Brooklyn, so lots of space for people to come visit. Also, look for more inane ramblings about NYC: http://steflivesbrooklyn.blogspot.com/ Nothing up as of yet, but soon my kiddies, soon.

Danke schoen, darling danke schoen. Thank you for all the joy and pain.

Het Weekend op Koln Karnival -- daily recap

Friday (still in Amsterdam): Going away party with work, rollllllllls into evening of madness. Thank god I set my alarm clock before going out.

Saturday: Wake up (hungover) and go to costume shop for last minute accouterments. Actually make train to Koln, but afraid to go to sleep b/c I don't want to miss the stop and end up in Frankfurt. A plastic pirate sword sticks out of my bag the whole ride, but no one gives me weird looks (approximately 50% of the train looked like Saturday Night Fever on acid). Arrive at the sweetest hotel ever (three cheers for consultants and Starwood points) and was promptly exposed to "Cuarenta y tres" also known as "Liquid Gold." Put on a blue wig and hit the streets. I look NORMAL compared to everyone else. One of our sidekicks was a viking lion man. Even weirder than that is we ran into, oh, 20 other people with the exact same costume. And there were a lot of white guys dressed up as Arabs which makes me feel a whole lot more PC about my life in general. Wander around to various bars which all have bad German folk music.

Sunday: Yar, pirate day. I look like a "good nazi" (not sure if we can call me that in Koln b/c there is still some sensitivity around that whole WW2 thing...). We have our hearts set on a breakfast of margaritas due to beer overload (we aren't German so it's tough, even if you aren't beerhatingstef, it's like all beer all the time). After being informed that Mexican restaurants don't exist in the city, we find one 2 blocks away from the hotel and are PSYCHED until the waitress tells us "no cocktails." Wassup bitches? So, we (and by "we" I mean "I") finish two litres of red wine. Then we go to a beer garden and listen to more rocking German folk songs -- though I didn't witness it, apparently we complain that the Germans give too much head...in their beer ("In America, we fill the glasses to the top"). Take a nap, more beer and German folk songs, nap, rolling around the floor in the lobby of our hotel, nap, etc.

Monday: We didn't leave the hotel because (drumroll) the hotel bar had margaritas! I need a life!

Tuesday: Biiiiittttttttttttttttte

I see Blue...he look's gloooooorious

This morning there was LIGHT when I left my apartment. The Netherlands has officially moved from the dark ages and I no longer can claim to have SAD (seasonal affective disorder -- ingenious acronym if I do say so myself). When it's summer, damn is it summer, but during the winter this place is darker than a David Lynch film. I understand the excessive fake-baking: I too would be weirdly orange if all my winters dark as this.

Speaking of David Lynch, I always feel like a second-rate movie connoisseur when I watch his stuff because 20-95% of it goes over my head. For example, can anyone tell me -- without the help of Google or IMDB -- the significance of the "derelict" who's emerges from behind the dumpster in the diner parking lot in Mulholland Drive? (fun L.A. fact: That diner is an empty diner that films rent out all the time for use in movies. If I remember correctly, the diner was also used in Swingers).

(I've been thinking a lot about David Lynch this week -- I have a cold and so have been taking Benadryl at night -- seriously folks, only Benadryl -- and have had the weirdest frickin dreams, which all remind me of his movies. Maybe that's his secret to story lines: I bet to write Twin Peaks he had to buy out a CVS's worth of the magical pink pills.)

Also, I realized that I can officially call my movie watching/memorizing fetish a "collector's hobby" (aka compulsive obsession). I packed up all my DVDs and realized I have, oh, about 200. That's just fucked up -- like I'm ever going to sit down and watch Ghost Rider again (though, in my defense, I didn't actually buy that film; some dude lent it to me and it's asshole tax for never calling me back).

If they have a great personality and they're not great looking... then who fucking cares?

I wish I had three fairy godmother's, like Sleeping Beauty, who could shake their wands and make all my apartment stuff magically fit in suitcases. Or I wish I could use the Force. Or Voldemort. Whatever. Even a boyfriend to carry shit would be helpful, magic wand or not. When moving out of a mini Cambridge apartment, I sent the boyfriend running up and downstairs while I "packed" boxes (read: talked on the phone) and then shrieked like an 11 year old when I found a dead mouse in one of the kitchen drawers -- it was caught in a whisk. I remember being really thankful that LKP and I never did enough cooking to warrant actually opening that drawer before moving out...

Anyway, coming off the the Best Platonic Valentine's Day Ever: VK squeezed in a visit pre the final exit and even got to see my place before I started selling the furniture out from under us. We did most of the touristy things I wanted to squeeze in before departing -- one last round of Indo food, the Purse and Handbag Museum (uh, VK was THE perfect date for that), multiple club stops, multiple types of apple cake, etc.

On Friday, we threw a "going away" party, which actually turned into a "hang out with a handful of people I've never chilled with" party. The best lightweight to ever row heavyweight, Coogar, is out in Adam for a few months on company assignment -- though I miss most of her time out here, all I can say is it's better than Atlanta. And Houston.

Please let me know if you need a toaster. 12€.

This is pure snow! Do you have any idea what the street value of this mountain is?

How does one properly say "goodbye" to a blog? I never said "goodbye" to Stef Hates New York and now there is some cheesy post about grocery shopping etched in cyber space memory as the last inane thing I said about the city. That is no way to go out. I'm not quite ready to say adios to loving Amsterdam (I mean, I'm about to have a weekend in a German city dressed up like a pirate....if that's not blog-able, what is?), but I am at the point of worrying about moving. And what better way to procrastinate actually doing something than writing about worrying about it -- especially since my apartment looks like its had six squatters throwing ragers for the past week instead of being the pristine haven it should be for the next renter.

So yeah, for all you who don't know already, I'm headed back to NYC March 1.

Just returned from a mini Team Europe gathering in Geneva. Swiss Francs, by the way, give a whole new dimension to the term "Monopoly money." If it weren't the most expensive country in Europe, it would be funnier. We attempted to recruit new members to our team, but due to excessive mention of the "D-train" our membership remains "exclusive." I am still feeling ill from the fondue. And though it was too snowy to actually see the Alps, I did get the opportunity to roll around in them (apparently I make crappy snow angels). Ski towns make me want to learn how to ski. Sadly, the last think I need is a new expensive hobby. (At this age, dare I say all new hobbies are expensive? Even if I want to become a graffiti artist, I have to buy the paint, get myself a harness in order to hang of bridges/roofs, etc.).

Before the merriment of commencement commences, I hope that your years with us here at Rydell have prepared you for the challenges you face

Happy Inauguration Day -- also known as Big Sigh of Relief Day. Also, happy 2009. And happy holidays. Happiness all around to everyone. (This week marks the beginning of my personal "Stef does not hate New York...really, I swear" campaign. That's right folks, only 39 more days of soft drug laws and a washing machine on home premises. My "Stef hates New York...I swear" tirade officially ended midnight on Sunday. Only positive thoughts from here on out).

Oh, and happy stream of consciousness day. I have nothing interesting and/or thematic to talk about.

Please note for the record that I despise Beyonce's "Put a ring on it" and if I'm signing it, please slap me. Hard. Maybe twice.

Recently returned from home. It took me a week to recover. In fact, parts of me are still not recovered. Certain toes have maintained an "asleep" feeling since A&C's wedding (congratulations!) -- was it the dancing? was it the shoes? was it walking in the snow? Ten days later, I am considering medical attention.

Speaking of medical attention, I should probably get as much as possible before I have to go home and pay for it. Fun prescription comparison: Birth control in the U.S. is usually $20 a month -- even with insurance subsidies. Birth control in NL is €20 for 6 months and with insurance it's free. (gentleman: sorry if talking about birth control offends your sensitivities, but a) you are a grown man and if you have sex, you should be able to talk about BC -- someday it might be you taking it, and b) I'm not on anything else so can't compare.)

But get this, my dentist stabbed a coworker in her lip (correction: THROUGH her lip) while cleaning her teeth. Just cleaning her teeth! So I should go get a new dentist. But I'm lazy and leaving and excuse excuse excuse. Well, if she stabs me in the lip, I'm suing, American style (lesson learned from playing nice w/ bike accident people...).

I have no weekends left in the Netherlands. Team Feb 4 is having bdays in Geneva! Fondue!

I'm actually considering shipping my cruiser-esque bike home. How else can I integrate into [insert anti-hipster/hipster recently or not so recently gentrified neighborhood in Brooklyn here]?

When the hell is the Arrested Development movie going to become a reality?

There were about 80 good movies out while I was in the U.S. but I saw none of them because I (finally) developed an addiction to The Wire. TV series on DVD = best invention ever. Okay, maybe not ever (what would we do without fig newtons? fruit and cake? c'mon!), but pretty close.

Not surprisingly, The Wire is on this list.

A lot of frickin people are getting married in the remainder of 2009. I think I've pre-spent all my paychecks on wedding trips (thank god none of you are marrying hot Swedish chicks in Stockholm). Good news is, they are all in exotic places I've never been, like Beverly, Massachusetts. And that hotel where Travolta's son had a seizure.

I am going to Tanzania next week.

And I like marshmellows.