Destination Unknown

It's that time of year when everybody resolves to eat better and exercise more. To be a better housekeeper, or keep a better lab journal (well, that's me, and that's a weekly resolution of mine). To go skydiving once, fly a glider, ski a black diamond, try a totally new food, go to church regularly. To lose those final 10 lbs (or start with losing 10 lbs), to become eco-conscious, to just be better people than we all were in 2011.

Behavioral experts, however, say that change only happens when you have a measurable metric with which to measure progress. If you resolve to spend less money, for instance, you'd be better off with a concrete goal along the lines of "not spending more than €20/week on lunch". Eating better would be rephrased to "having one vegetable with every meal" (broccoli for breakfast, anyone?). So in keeping with the science, my resolutions for this year don't include eating better and exercising more, though that is implicit in the first one, which is to run the 10k Marikenloop in May of this year. It's a 5k race with a 10k option, in case you're interested. It's also a women's only race (sorry, guys). It's no Zevenheuvelenloop, certainly not in terms of scale or grandeur, but it's a nice way to ease back into running, I think.

Another resolution of mine is to finish a rough draft of a book. I'd started writing a few bits and pieces of it while I was unemployed, but I couldn't get very far. I didn't have any plans as to how I wanted to structure it, which was problem number one. Problem number two was that, between my job hunt and my other little writing pets, it became more of a drag to work on, probably because of problem number one. My NaNoWriMo novel this year ran into the same problem. I am not a seat-of-my-pants writer--I really don't know why I keep acting like I am.

My final resolution this year is to improve my Dutch language skills. This will be awkward, but I think I should be able to get my lab mates on board, as far as the speaking bits go. Fear not, international readers: Outside Looking In will continue to be written in English, though perhaps I will introduce a "word of the week" column. That, however, is not a resolution. I've never been very good about weekly things, whether it's photos or posts or things like that.

But really, the goal is to make it through 2012. Beyond that--where we'll end up, what we'll be doing, who we'll be--the destination is beautifully vague. Enjoying the way there--that's the real treat.

Screwing

A few weeks ago, I saw a video on YouTube for something that, for better or worse, could be called "hair screws". I immediately wanted to try them, because any product that can hold my hair in place--never mind in an updo, which is my preferred method of wearing my hair, since long ponytails are also annoying to deal with--is worth its weight in gold. See, my hair is straight, thin, and smooth--meaning that any method of holding it in place is bound to slip and fail at some point. When I was eight or nine, I persuaded my mom to let me get a perm, which promptly fell out after a week. Hair products that purport to hold a style in place for hours at a time literally cannot get a grip on my hair. So hair screws, that promised not to fall out and hold my hair without slipping? Too good to be true.

It took me a while to hunt them down--they were hidden on the bottom shelf, behind some bobby pins, at the local Etos (slightly-more-upscale version of the Kruidvat), and they came in only one color, which was dark brown. Fine by me--my hair has only gotten lighter over the years, apparently--but I would have gotten the "blonde" color, because I was that curious, and since it gets buried in your hair anyway, I don't think anybody would have noticed.

I've since found that they don't work that well if my hair is dry--it really has to be damp for the pins to get the traction to hold them in place. If I put my hair up after I wash it, it stays in place for the rest of the day--the rest of the day. Revelation and glory! Most Dutch women either have short hair, or wear it long, so going out with a bun (or a chignon, in my case) seems to be a token of or extreme snobbiness. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn: fiddling with my hair only once--at most, twice--a day is a convenience I will always cherish.

Of course, that means I'll need something else to piddle around with when I have a writer's block. Tune in later to see what I've found...

"And then a hero comes along"

A few months ago I snarked about a show Hoe schoon is jouw huis? which was about as useful as nipples on a breastplate. I didn't realize at that time that it was a Dutch spin-off of the British show How Clean is Your House? And as strange as it may seem, I've become Kim and Aggie's self-declared biggest fan. Ever. I mean, come on--cleaning uncleanable windows is infinitely more useful than making sure your electric sockets are germ-free.

I've never been a fan of harsh chemical cleaners. Not only are they terrible for you--nothing like aerosolized SDS to destroy your lungs--but it's known that phenols are toxic for cats. Much more pleasant, to me, anyway, to slice open a lemon. Vinegar is a little strong, admittedly, but it's merely unpleasant, rather than toxic. We still keep a single bottle of Uber-Strong-Like-Bull cleaner in our cupboard, for the truly irremedial spots, but overall it's amazing what vinegar and baking soda ("By our powers, combined!") will do. Therefore, any show that shows you clever new ways to use things like cornstarch and ketchup is awesome by me.

There's been a slight paradigm shift in the content and marketing of cleaning product adverts recently: Stuff-That-Puts-Sarin-Gas-To-Shame is being marketed as "something so simple even a man can think of it, and so easy he might even help you clean!" And indeed, whether it's hot 'n hunky men, goofy guys, or procrastinating dads (I cannot find that particular advertisement anywhere, sorry), men are taking a front-and-center role in cleaning. At least, as the advertisers would have you think. I wouldn't know whether to be charmed at the thoughtfulness if Karel ever bought a bottle of Toxic-Purple-Stuff, or offended on his behalf...

The simplicity of "one-bottle-everything-cleaner (while the fumes melt your face)" is, I must confess, an appealing one. And it's a whole lot less intricate than figuring out when to use a lemon, or how much salt to sprinkle on a red wine stain (note, this only works with the cheaper reds). I have to wonder, though, whether guys--who are presumably the ones buying stuff like that--actually like using them, or if they just don't know about homemade fixes. I mean, when was the last time you saw any advice on how to clean your bachelor pad in Men's Health?

If I Had a Hammer...

One of the things that continually frustrates me about life in the Netherlands (at least, the corner of the Netherlands I live in--maybe it's different in the Randstad) is the lack of baking soda in the supermarkets. Baking powder is sold in little handy-dandy packets, but soda is conspicuously absent from the shelves. I typically have to go to a toko to get some, and even then there's no guarantee that they won't be out.

I have to wonder if this is the reason why Dutch cookies and cakes all taste the same. Besides speculaas, all Dutch cookies and cakes are the same buttery, sweetened confection, in different shapes. Some might have pink icing on it. Some might be decorated with sugar crystals. But for the most part, once you've tasted one, you've tasted them all, and that's a huge part of the reason why Karel's been pestering me to make him more chocolate chip cookies.

Baking soda is how you achieve the phenomenal levels of fluff in American-style pancakes, the secret to getting cookies to crumble properly, and clearing slow drains (carefully dump some soda down the drain, and flush with vinegar, followed by a kettle or two of boiling water). It neutralizes and bleaches armpit sweat stains from white t-shirts (don't ask how I know this), and keeps our litter boxes smell-free. It cakes and takes off baked-on-goodness from the inside of our oven, and when we had a porcelain stove-top, it cleared off the the mess from that. Combined with aluminum foil, it cleans silver. It is so useful, so innocuous, and so cheap, it's strange that it's not everywhere.

I have a theory that the coporations--Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, Proctor & Gamble--have entered into some kind of agreement with the major retailers in the Netherlands to never carry baking soda, in order to drive up sales of the next Super-Cleaning-Oxygen-Bubbly-Antibacterial-Chemical Crap. The loss to Dutch food is, apparently, not a concern.

"Most Precarious"

As a follow-up to the last post, I thought it'd be a good idea to share some tips on how to ride your bike in spite of the snow. In general, I'm probably not the best person in the world to take advice from--you want to ask the person who hasn't been hit by a car to elaborate on the rules of the road--but when there's as much snow, slush, ice, and crap on the roads as there is now (at least 5 cm in places, and counting) all bets are off.

Proper footwear: In this case, I mean boots. Yes, it makes peddling a bit awkward, but it beats stepping into an ankle-deep puddle of slush and getting that one trickle of icy water down your shoe and into your socks.

The path not taken: Don't be a pioneer. Follow the treads left by cars (best) and other cyclists. A thin layer of powder is the easiest to pedal through but you don't want to be the one churning through inches-deep fluff only to find that you are completely unable to gain any traction. Stick with the routes that others have carved before you, but be careful when the slush is deeper than 3-4 cm. At that level, and at temperatures right around freezing, you'll find that the ruts left by others will have hardened into ridges that redirect your wheels. There are two ways to deal with this:

1. Go really really really slowly. Advantage is that you'll have time to correct yourself in case you get into a rut you don't want. Disadvantage is that you might as well walk.
2. Go really relaly really fast. With enough momentum, you can power yourself through the slush-ridges. Disadvantage is that you might die of terror, if not from a fall.

Bars, not banks: If the roads are in the least bit icy, don't turn by leaning into the turns. Turn your handlebars and try to remain upright inasmuch as you can. I've slipped and fallen on far less ice than there is now, and while it wasn't painful, I can say that, had I been on a busier road, or one with cars, I could have easily ended badly.

Stick a leg out: Right now, the biggest obstacle to making turns is the slush-piles at the corners, more resembling a Jackson Pollack painting than anything cohesive. In these cases, if you don't want to get off your bike, putting a foot down so that you don't go slip-sliding away as you make the turn could be prudent. Get off the seat, if you need to.

Leg up: Don't be bashful about getting off your bike and walking it. Trust your own instincts as to how well you can handle the road conditions. Just because some Dutch dude is texting with one hand, holding three vlaaien stacked on top of each other with the other, and whistling as he cruises down a slush-and-ice-filled street doesn't mean that it's a good idea to ride.

Hopefully your winter cycling will be less precarious than mine!

Bad coke no more

Thursday night is Maastricht's koopavond, the one night of the week that stores are open later so that you can get stuff like shampoo and shower gel if you've run out that week but have been working late. I sometimes like to get myself a waffle from the Pinky's by the HEMA while I get my stuff--there may be many Pinky's but that one makes by far the best ones, with a thick crispy-chewy coating of melted sugar and a fluffy yet dense middle. For the BESTEST WAFFLES EVER you have to go when the grumpy middle-aged guy with glasses is there, because he makes the penultimate waffle, perfectly burning the sugar coating and always asking if you want powdered sugar on top.

The first time I had a waffle from Pinky's, I agreed to the powdered sugar. This was before I knew anything about powdered sugar: I took a bite and ended up looking like I'd just snorted a bad line. It got worse with every subsequent bite I took, and what was worse, I was wearing a dark coat. I'm fairly certain that Maastrichtites have conceived the powdered sugar as some kind of litmus test to weed out the Maastrichtites from the rest of the Dutch people--if you can eat a waffle coated with powdered sugar without looking like Frosty the Snowman, you're not a tourist.

Ever since then I've always refused the powdered sugar, because the strange looks you get when you wander into a high-end store looking like a coke junkie just aren't worth the extra bit of sweet. Until yesterday, that is:

See, they make these waffles fresh--you can watch them come out of the griddle, and while they always have a small pile of them sitting in front, the waffle-maker will give you one hot off the griddle if your timing is right. If your order comes next to orders from another group's, then they might just take all of them at once--and if your order comes without powdered sugar they might not hear it.

Either way, I was left with a waffle covered with powdered sugar. And I was still wearing a dark jacket. Never one to be defeated by baking ingredients, I became determined to eat my waffle without spraying myself with a white aerosol of powder.

And now, I bequeath to you, dear reader, the Technique: so that you might walk down the streets not looking like a powder-sugared tourista clod.

1) Angle of incidence: This is critical. You must hold your waffle at such an angle so that the powdered sugar which isn't stuck to it is trapped in one of the corners of the square, and keep it at that angle, even as you bring it to your mouth.

2) Angle of consumption: You need to be very careful about eating only one square at a time, and make sure that your teeth pass through the middle of the "wall" around reach square. This ensures that the powdered sugar in the surrounding squares does not escape.

Good luck!

ETA: I've just been informed that Outside Looking In is being featured as one of Go Overseas top blogs, which is pretty cool, considering that it's only been a few months since I made this public. Fame and fortune, here I come! (well...maybe just fame....15 seconds?)