Daedalian Adventures

The road ahead is rarely straight…

By Lynelle Barrett

Happily Ever After Is Just One Click Away

When I set up the profile on my Facebook webpage last spring, one of the pieces of information requested was my relationship status. Since my boyfriend was also on Facebook, he needed to “confirm” the relationship. So at first, my profile said “in a relationship with Bas Linders (awaiting confirmation)”. I also received a message to confirm our relationship for his profile. My options were “confirm relationship” and “cancel relationship”. These things seem so simple on the internet.

In my brick-and-mortar life, however, things have been very hectic. The decision to confirm your relationship in real life involves more than the click of a mouse. First, we had to deal with all the paperwork at the Stadhuis (City Hall). All weddings in the Netherlands are done by City Hall. Even if you intend to get married in a church, you still have to be married by City Hall for the union to be acknowledged by the Dutch government. This means there is a lot of competition for appointments at City Hall and it’s very expensive to have the ceremony on a Friday or Saturday. Since some of our guests would be travelling to the wedding, we decided to get married on a Monday morning and make a long weekend of the festivities. We planned the party for Sunday at our apartment. This meant that I had to shop for TWO wedding outfits, one for Sunday and one for Monday. Oh, the sacrifices we make for love….

A few weeks before the ceremony, the wedding official visited our apartment. Over tea and cookies, she asked us questions about our relationship and told us what would happen in the ceremony. Since there would be people at the ceremony who understood Dutch, but no English and people who understood English, but no Dutch, she would ask Bas to take his vows in Dutch and I would take my vows in English. I would respond with “I do”. Bas was warned to say “Ja” (yes) and not “Ik wil”, which is not “I will” but “I want to”. The official said that wanting to was not good enough, he needed to make a promise.

When the big weekend arrived, so did the relatives. This was my mother’s first visit to Holland and Bas’s family was anxious to meet her. We spent much of Saturday translating from Dutch to English and English to Dutch. Sunday started early with baking bread, preparing appetizers and cutting up fruit for the chocolate fountain we were having in lieu of wedding cake. When we sent the party invitations, we were surprised by how many people accepted. In addition to local friends and colleagues, guests were flying in from the US and all over Europe. The party was an open house starting at 2:00pm. By mid-afternoon, our small apartment was wall-to-wall with people. The tiny balcony was packed with smokers. Someone dumped over one of the trays of catered food, so there was a scramble to get more food on the table. One of my girlfriends was in charge of preparing the chocolate for the fountain. When melting another batch of chocolate in the microwave, some of it mysteriously started to burn and filled the whole apartment with smoke. Everyone squinted through the smoke and the exhaust fan added to the din, but the party had a life of its own by then. As the evening wore down, the crowd was reduced to family and just a few friends. Sleeping bags were unrolled and the living room floor hosted our wedding slumber party.

On Monday morning, we all got dressed for the ceremony. By some miracle, the weather was beautiful and sunny. (It is usually raining in Holland at this time of year.) We all met at the Stadhuis, a beautiful building from the 17^th century. When everyone was seated inside, the ceremony began. Unlike American weddings, in the Netherlands the bride and groom sit in chairs in front of the official. We only had to stand to take the vows. The official often addressed the guests and it seemed more like everyone was a participant. It felt like we were all in this together as a family.

As part of the ceremony, there was a story of an African god and goddess who embraced and created the world. The world they created is symbolized by a bi-color gourd, the green part on the bottom is the earth and the yellow part on the top is the sky. The official held one of these gourds and talked about how we were creating our own world together. She presented it to us and in all the photos after the ceremony, Bas is holding our world in his hand.

The day after the wedding, Bas changed his relationship status on Facebook. I received an email with this subject line, “Bas Linders said that you two are married…”. The message said, “Bas said on Facebook that you two are married. We need you to confirm that you are, in fact, married to Bas. To confirm this relationship request, follow the link below:…”

Lynelle Barrett lives in the Netherlands and has, in fact, confirmed her relationship.

Daedalian Adventures

The road ahead is rarely straight…

By Lynelle Barrett

Three Candlelit Evenings

The last time you heard from me, I was heading to Paris on the hi-speed train for a weekend with my friend, Lanna. She is American, but I met her through a French friend, Alex, whose friend Philippe married an American. It turns out, Lanna is from a town about 20 minutes from where my Mom lives. Small world, huh? Lanna lived in France at first, but last year Philippe’s job took them to Austin, Texas. Now her French husband drives a pick-up truck, listens to Country music and is lovin’ the Texas life. Last month they spent their holiday in France visiting relatives and I took the opportunity to catch up with them while they were on this side of the pond.

Philippe’s sister, Nathalie, planned a special Saturday night for us. We drove southeast, to a town called Melun. In Melun, we had a fabulous dinner of couscous and tangine accompanied by Moroccan wine. Then we all got back in the car for the drive to Vaux-le-Vicomte, the chateau of Nicolas Fouquet, Lord high treasurer of Louis XIV. Vaux-le-Vicomte was a mid 17^th century masterpiece. In fact, it was so resplendent that the young Sun King condemned Fouquet to life in prison and used his chateau as inspiration for Versailles. In the summertime, you can tour the chateau aux chandelles. The entire chateau and gardens are illuminated by 2000 candles. This really gives you a sense of what it must have been like in those days. Period artwork and furniture fill the chateau and there is a champagne bar in the garden. We wandered the grounds until midnight, soaking up the atmosphere, before heading back to Paris.

The next weekend, I had a surprise trip for my 45^th birthday. My fiancé told me to pack a weekend bag for a slightly warmer climate. I didn’t find out the destination until we boarded the plane at the gate. Milan! Mmmm... Italian food, museums…shoes! Alex, who lives in Milan now, picked us up at the airport and whisked us away for lunch at Obika, a mozzarella bar. This is apparently the new thing. You have your choice of different types of mozzarella (yes, there are different types…) and the hams, salamis and salads to go with them. It was a delectable lunch on a terrace in the Italian sunshine. After a tour of the Teatro alla Scala, wandering around the roof of the Duomo di Milano and a bit of shopping; it was time for dinner.

We met up with one of Alex’s friends to go to a North African restaurant called Yacout. The restaurant was elegantly decorated with all the warmth and colors of places like Morocco, Algiers and Tunisia. The lighting was softly glowing from pierced metal lanterns hanging from the intricately painted ceiling. While we waited for our table, a woman in a flowing skirt presented us with a tray of dates and tiny, golden glasses of milk and rosewater. We were seated for dinner next to a small glass stage suspended over an indoor fountain and while we perused the menu, musicians played gentle music on traditional instruments. Dinner was served in large hammered silver tangines. A bit later, the music changed and a beautiful belly dancer appeared on the stage.  All eyes were riveted to her undulating curves and shimmering costume. Then we ended our fantasy evening with mint tea and pastries.

The third part of the candlelight trilogy was a bit less romantic. I spent last weekend with some Dutch friends in Valkenburg aan de Geul, in the southernmost part of the Netherlands. It is famous for its caves and our main activity was a cave tour.

On Saturday afternoon we descended into the bowels of the Earth, via a spiral staircase. Around and around, we finally arrived at the bottom. A guide issued us hardhats and instructed us on safety rules. The instructions were in Dutch, which I mostly understood. But everyone turned and looked at me(!) to make sure I understood that if I got separated from the group, I should stay put and not wander around by myself. Then the guide gave our group two candle lanterns and we proceeded through the underground labyrinth. There were riddles and puzzles that we had to solve in order to find our way through the tunnels. Unfortunately, our group was not very good at it and several times our guide appeared out of the darkness to send us in the right direction. At one point, he showed us a rope along the tunnel wall and then took our lanterns away! We clung to each other in the blackness, shuffling along until we literally saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

The next activity was to BIKE through the tunnels. The guide told us the safety rules for bikes and I learned a new word in Dutch, “bukken” which means “duck”. Then our little peloton was on the move, single file, through the maze of stone. The tunnels were narrow and peppered with sharp turns. The ground was a thick layer of loose dust from years of stone mining. Keeping the rear tire from skidding out was a real challenge. In many places, the ceiling was so low that we were riding with our heads close to the handlebars. Bukken!!! Sometimes the hardhat still scraped the ceiling anyway…a sickening scriiiiiitttttcchhh sound that made you very grateful it wasn’t your bare head. Ha-Ha! Bukken!!! Most of the group thought this was all good fun, but I was really glad when it was over and I still possessed all my skin. The final pleasure was the climb UP the spiral staircase to get back to the outside world. After that, the only candlelight I wanted to see was reflections in my wineglass.

Links:

www.vau-le-vicomte.com

www.obika.it

www.teatroallascala.org

www.duomomilano.it

www.yacout.it

http://www.valkenburg.nl/toerisme/informatie.php?lang=en&menu=0&submenu=0

Lynelle Barrett lives in the Netherlands and is marrying a Dutch man in about 2 weeks. So she guesses that she’ll be staying for a while.

Daedalian Adventures

The road ahead is rarely straight…

By Lynelle Barrett

Life Redux

If life is like time and is supposed to go in a straight line, then my life proceeded as it should for 40 years. After that, something started to go awry. The big hand in the sky that was drawing my lifeline started to scribble. I got divorced from my high school sweetheart, packed up all my stuff, moved to Europe and more or less cut myself off from my past life.

It’s been happening gradually, but more and more, my new life and my old life are starting to come together. The wild twists and turns are beginning to smooth out. Four years later, I’m starting to be able to see the way ahead again.

My Dutch school obligations are behind me. After a false start in a job that made me miserable, I got certified to teach English. Instead of trying to find a job with my limited Dutch, I focused on sharing knowledge of my own language. I turned my weakness into an asset. I teach Business English and I really love my work. The latest twist is that in October, I am getting married. This is one I didn’t see coming. I never really thought about getting married again.

I can honestly blame City Hall. Things were going along just fine with my Dutch boyfriend and me.

When I earned my Certificaat Inburgering, my social worker told me that once I have been in Holland for five years I can apply for a Dutch passport. I would be exempt from taking the dreaded citizenship test. This would not only earn me the rights of a Dutch citizen, but also the rights of an EU citizen. But what about my US citizenship? Would I be willing to give it up? This called for some research. What I found was that the Netherlands does not require the spouse or registered partner of a Dutch citizen to give up their foreign passport. The current US policy is that if the other country doesn’t make you give it up, neither will America.

Dual citizenship. Wow. The Holy Grail.

So Bas and I made an appointment at City Hall to get information on registering our partnership. When we told the advisor that we would probably not always live in the Netherlands, she strongly suggested that we get married instead. Registered partners are only acknowledged in the Netherlands and Belgium. Hmmm. Mr. I-don’t-see-any-reason-to-ever-get-married started to hear wedding bells.

I chewed on this information for a while. Then I got comfortable with the idea. So we went ahead with the next step. We had to get permission to get married. Not from anybody’s patriarch, but from the Dutch government. This could take up to 8 weeks. Based on my previous experiences with Dutch Immigration, I was skeptical. Incredibly, the permission really was granted within 8 weeks and it seems the Dutch government is going to let me marry one of their people.

All this wedding activity is coming just after we returned from a summer holiday to America. Our US holiday was planned around my cousin’s wedding in Seattle. Now Bas has met my entire family, even some distant cousins I didn’t know I had. We also met my Mom’s new boyfriend, who thinks everything she does is fabulous. Romance must be running in the family.

We had several stops on our US tour, including visits with my best friends from college, old friends from when I lived in New Orleans, one of my long distance best girlfriends and…my ex-husband. Yeah, I was a bit nervous about that last one. However, it went very well. When my ex-husband dropped us off at the train station he said, “You found yourself a nice guy.” I’m glad he liked Bas. For years and years, he was my best friend and I value his opinion. In fact, everyone in my life has approved of my choice. All his friends and my friends, his family and my family are happy about the marriage. Other people are less surprised that we are getting married than we are.

Before I left for my visit back to America, I was wondering how I would feel about being back in the US. With my European currency, I brought back all sorts of goodies: an iPod, a new camera, Levi’s, foreign movie DVDs with English subtitles, books, Twizzlers. But the best thing I brought back to my new life was my old friends.

Lynelle Barrett lives in The Netherlands but on Friday after work she is taking a train to Paris to meet some friends for the weekend. For fun ( and to keep it cheap), she has reserved a bed in a hostel. Hopefully, this will not a big mistake for someone well into their 40s.