owen lag

it's 5:07 in the evening, but in california. out here in amersfoort it's 2:07--in the morning. but as michael just said as he rolled over in bed--two is better than four. we started today with 1 am wake up call from owen then we all got up and watched telletubbies and ate cookies in bed until sometime after three 3. then we all slept gloriously until 1:30 in the afternoon. tonight owen fell asleep at dinner, around 8pm literally swaying in the fancy dutch highchair until we had to take him out and put him in his stroller for fear he'd fall asleep and knock his head on the table. our plan to keep him up until 10 was thwarted but we had an amazing italian dinner. it even felt like a date. so it's ok that when we got back and did our bedtime rituals that he only went back to sleep for 20 minutes. this time we all watched elmo's world until we got sleepy, or we minus owen, and he sang his way through everything he knows for about two hours rolling back and forth between "mama!!!" and "dadadadadaaaada!".

and i'm sure it's all because i screwed us up by letting him sleep on the way home from the airport and didn't implement a jet lag regiment. but owen lag is ok, even if it takes longer. because he's just soaking it all in. and really, so am i.

amsterdam didn't feel like much of a change. everything at the airport was in english and my biggest impression was that it was very clean and people queued up in very straight (and very long) lines. and getting into the country was easier than trying to get into disneyland--the passport guy (who couldn't have been more than fifteen) high-fived owen on our way into the country.

being in amersfoort is different, but in a familiar sort of way. perhaps in that freudian heimliech/uncanny kind of way.

partly because i'm mapping the city through the photographs and images michael's described. like when we walked to the hof, i knew exactly where the inn was that we were staying. they were breaking down the saturday market and the brood pirate was stashing away the last of the sweet buns. and i knew to expect that, and the remaining bits of paper and debris that were still remaining this morning all blown into a pile near the fountain.

but its also familiar because i'm remembering languages i thought i'd forgotten and just tapping into that adaptability we all have when confronted with the unfamiliar--which we all have, but it gets rusty i think because the unfamiliar so quickly becomes familiar (or if you live in a perfect little community you are never confronted with anything different that might disrupt its beauty). on our way to the inn we stopped at a grocery store to pick up some essentials--bananas, milk, yogurt and cookies. and everything was in dutch. but we deduced that stretchen or something like that was the sour milk we didn't want and halfvolle was like 2% so we wanted the volle. and we picked up pastries and tea for lunch at a french cafe, and i remembered ananas was pineapple and at dinner where the menu was in dutch and italian i had the most amazing rigatoni with zuchini and eggplant after recalling important words like melanzanne for eggplant and of course vino rosso for red wine. oh, and never forget grazie. or donkuevelle (not sure on the spelling on that one).

and finally it seems familiar because it just feels like where fairytales take place. we took a walk this afternoon around the city--between the brick wall and the river--and i felt like this, walking in the brisk air alongside the bicycles and dogs, was why we came here. owen stomping on leaves, michael pointing out trains, and me happily pushing an empty stroller. these are the pictures i wanted to share, but alas the camera's memory card was still in the computer. i'm hoping though not only to take some beautiful pictures soon but that this is a regular thing.

so my resolve here is to embrace this uncanny, this adventure and not give way into the absolute panic i had this morning when i was trying to unpack six suitcases so it didn't feel like we were living out of suitcases. or that tomorrow--rather a few hours--when michael leaves me and owen here in this room to go to work we'll face our day as one with possibilites and have many adventures to report on at the end of the day. even if it's just walking down long street and admiring the euroboots we're not allowed to spend 150euro on and buying brood instead. . .