Anne Frank House

Late Saturday night (although it felt like Sunday around 5am for me and I'd been awake for 26 hours) I returned from the Netherlands. As I think about my time there, one of the most salient experiences that comes up for me is my visit to the Anne Frank House. It was during my group visit to Amsterdam that we were able to visit. And not just visit, but have an almost two hour lecture and discussion about the history of Anne Frank and her family with an outreach staff member there, and discuss the events that led to the Frank family going into hiding. Most poignant for me were the similarities of current events to those for the Frank family. I am still (and likely will continue for many months) digesting the experiences I had while in the Netherlands. And here, I'm not writing about my tourist experiences, but the ones where I interacted with refugee and immigrant students and had discussions about immigration in Europe. I believe the realness of the immigration phenomenon in Europe is lost on most Americans. The US is too vast and too big for us to have to know exactly how immigration is playing out in our own country, much less on another continent. I'm sensitive that most of us (including myself) in the States live in a region where we don't have to talk about this subject except on a theoretical or idealogical level. This means there is a high probability we form opinions about immigration apart from any personal connection or interaction with those who are immigrants. (I do know that many are also VERY involved and aware of working with immigrants and refugees, but I'll make a general argument here that the majority do not have any personal connection).

No pictures are allowed
in the Anne Frank House.
I found this graffiti tag,
and many others, of Anne's
recognizable portrait.

The woman who worked at the Anne Frank House gave us a very detailed program about the house and also led a discussion about Anne Frank and her family, tying it closely to current events. As I listened to her, I kept thinking about the students I worked with in Maastricht, and their families. How were they able to come to Maastricht? What family circumstances did they have to allow them to get there? Like Anne and her family, did they get status to move to the Netherlands somehow? If not, how many of those students came there in secret? Like Anne and her family who were denied access to the US, how many of the students in Maastricht had also been denied access to the US or other countries? How many had to hide? How many will have to hide if circumstances change in Europe like they did for the Frank family? The similarities of a dictator in power and removal or mass migration of people seeking a safer place to live during WWII and its link to today was not lost on those in my group. The personal story of Anne Frank and a revisit to her words and her secret annex deepened the daily experiences I was having with students at ISK in a way I could not have imagined.

Netherlands: Unstructured Time in Amsterdam

As I mentioned before, there are two parts to the Netherlands trip I was on. The second part was unstructured time. During this unstructured time my traveling group and I went to several different cities, some of which I have already posted about. One city I haven't written about yet was our visit to Amsterdam. We spent three days there, one was devoted to visiting a school just outside the city, and one half a day was spent at the Anne Frank House. For the rest of the time, it was what we referred to as "unstructured" which translates to "do whatever you want." So, we did whatever we wanted in Amsterdam, which for me meant museuming and biking.

I have become enamored with the Netherlands. This adoration is mostly due to the biking culture that is there. It is simply astonishing. Really, I mean it, amazing. As a regular bike commuter both in cities that have large cyclist communities and those that have none (ahem, Lansing), I do have some experience with biking around. The Netherlands is an entirely different place for this. Of course I had always heard of the biking culture, but I wasn't entirely prepared for what I saw there. Bikes have their own lanes. They have their own stop lights. When it comes to the transportation hierarchy, bikes are at the top. (With the exception of larger cities such as Amsterdam and The Hague, the trams are at the top). But really, bikes are the top of the transportation food chain. All things stop for bikes. You get politely yelled at, or dinged by a bell if you step into a bike lane. Or walk in a bike lane. I'm sure I am a little too giddy about the biking culture there, but it really is, well, AWESOME. I want to learn Dutch so I can move there. And bike everywhere. My friend Heather came up with a term for bikes that have two kid seats and a kid trailer: The Maastricht Minivan.

So of course, I biked while there. In Amsterdam, Heather and I rented bikes (only 7 Euros a day!) and used them as our transportation to get around and hit museums. The 7 Euros a day got us single speed coaster brake bikes, and since it's pretty much flat in the Netherlands, you don't need much else. We rode around to the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum, to a big park where we found some picnic sandwiches and chowed down. Heather got a little bell crazy and dinged almost everyone. She also came up with another term when we thought we could get to one road by crossing a little bridge, but alas, there was no bridge because there are so many canals they can't all be crossed in a straight line. Her term was "getting canaled." It was fabulous. Certainly there are other parts of Amsterdam, but well, it really is kind of weird. There are so many tourists in the Red Light district, and after about 8pm it starts to get creepy. But whelp, I was in Amsterdam so I needed to check out all the neighborhoods, but the best ones are just outside the center of the city, and the best way to get to those parts is by bike.

Netherlands: Structured Program Time

The trip I am a part of for the Netherlands consists loosely of two parts. The first is what the group has been calling program or structured time, the second is unstructured, or casually, free time. What the structured time means is we are based in the city of Maastricht, a smallish sized city at the southern "nub" of the Netherlands, only 20 kilometers from Belgium and Germany. In Maastricht, we are working with a school, called ISK, and at ISK we are working with students, the majority of whom are refugees from Syria and Eritrea. These students are at differing levels of English, and most don't know Dutch when they arrive (as an aside, it is quite humbling to learn Dutch from a 12 year old Syrian girl who can speak some English). We are creating some loose programs for assessing their English competence, because the school also teaches English along with Dutch. (Another aside, everybody speaks English). These activities, the organized time with ISK, the day trips to visit other schools around the Netherlands and Germany, are all part of the structured program part of this trip.

Admittedly, I was nervous about our close work with ISK. Although the partnership is considered "structured program" it is still extremely unstructured, ambiguous, and somewhat random. Some of us have developed an assessment, others of us have developed conversational English activities. And most days we are there, I just kind of kick it with the students. I talk with them during their breaks, join their classes (where I learn Dutch, but not very well), and learn about where these students have traveled from and what kind of music they like (there are many Beliebers here). While I can't say exactly how this is making me feel, I do know there are deep emotions stirring inside of me about the immigration and refugee phenomenon happening in the Netherlands and across Europe. This phenomenon is very present here for everyone, and everyone (Dutch or other national citizens) have strong opinions about it. Bumping up against this very real situation on a daily basis in the least has made me remember there are other, sometimes more pressing challenges facing our world than my own American politics, and also made me realize the thoughts and emotions I am experiencing will continue to percolate for many months.

My group with some of the ISK faculty

Travel in a Group

I arrived in the Netherlands ten days ago. Very jet-lagged and tired, the group I am traveling with made our way to Maastricht after landing in Amsterdam. Maastricht is where our "home base" is, although we have divided our time between Maastricht and other parts of Europe. So far, this "trip" has been amazing, confusing, educational, and emotional.

Traveling is something that has become a distant friend to me. I used to spend more time as a young person traveling, mostly alone. Going overseas just doesn't happen much anymore, much less going two or three hours away from where I live in Lansing. Basically, I just don't get out much, or if I do, it doesn't really feel like traveling. Now, as I travel through the Netherlands, to Belgium, France, and Germany, I feel like I have reacquainted myself with my old friend; a friend who gives me the feeling of alertness, of having to navigate things, learn quickly new phrases to try to get on in a different country. Yet this fellowship trip is also an experience I have never had before, a (dun-dun-dun) group travel experience that makes me want to tear all of my hair out. I used to mock big groups of tourists traveling through cities, and now I am a part of one of those big groups. It has taken me a while to feel comfortable walking with 19 other people. And actually, I still don't feel comfortable with it, I just kind of deal with it. Despite this, I am privileged to be here, and to be traveling to these places. Next post I'll write more about the work I'm doing here, for now, some pictures. (I'll add that I've been practicing my selfies a lot here too).

Cologne: The Kolner Dom, Love Locks on the bridge over the Rhine, little shops, selfie in the tower
of the Cologne Cathedral 533 steps! (Kolner Dom)

Paris: Heather and I at Notre Dame, little remote controlled sail boats at Jardins de Luxembourg,
Eiffel Tower, Louvre (I only did a visit to the Pompidou and skipped the Louvre) and finally
Sacre Coeur in Montmartre.

Brussels: The Atomium, the train to Brussels, the Great Market, and Manneken Pis

Saugatuck State Park Exploring

Over the long holiday weekend, we took a day trip to Saugatuck State Park. The park is about an hour and a half drive from Lansing, and one reason we went is because it is on Lake Michigan. I really love going to Lake Michigan, it is both really beautiful and really bizarre (I always think it should smell of the sea, and yet, it doesn't). I also love the soft soft sand of Lake Michigan, and we did enjoy the beach for a while. We walked along the strange lake lapping shore and laid out our blanket. I relaxed for a while and then thought "I'm getting kind of hot. I didn't bring my bathing suit. Kevin is going to burn." So we packed up our blanket and flip flops, and decided instead to take the 5 mile loop around the natural area of the park, figuring that most people would not want to do such a thing. We were right! We barely saw anyone on our hike, and enjoyed the overgrown dunes of Lake Michigan and its foliage. We walked out to a bluff, looked at the lake again, and then headed back on the other end of the loop, not knowing that the northern end of trail was all sandy dunes, and all in the sun almost all the way back to the trail head. But it was great! A wonderful way to spend a day off together in the outdoors, get a little tan before I head out of town (er, out of the country) and give thanks for such a beautiful country-side I live in.