It was quite the experience. I’ve had two weeks now to process everything but it’s still hard for me to put into words exactly how it felt to be there. I went alone which was ok. It was kind of disappointing because I was supposed to meet a friend but she ended up getting sick. Getting there on the train was a bit of a fiasco, involving a ticket mix up but that could be a post all by itself.

Once I arrived in Amsterdam I made my way through the sea of orange to Museumplein.

It was funny because as I was walking down this main street I realized that I didn’t actually know exactly how to get to Museumplein. I mean, I’ve been there dozens of times but it’d been years. I had a general idea so I decided to just follow the masses of people. They all seemed to be walking in the same general direction. It worked out but I did end up taking a rather round about way. Turns out, not everyone in Amsterdam was going to Museumplein to watch the game. Psh.

One of the things I love most about the Dutch is their enthusiasm for all things Nederland. The orange outfits ranged from impressive to just hilarious.

This? Was probably not even the weirdest outfit there. Just the weirdest I got a picture of.

The area was set up to hold 100,000 people. They estimated there were 180,000 people there. When I say we were like sardines I’m not exaggerating even a little. There were times I was moving through the crowd and my feet weren’t even touching the ground. I’ve been to many rock concerts and outdoor festivals but I have never been in a crowd that was this jam packed. Generally in big crowds there are breathing areas where people are spaced out a bit more. Not here. We were shoved, shoulder to shoulder as far as you could see. If you could see the screen, you were smooshed up against people on all sides.

Oh right, have I mentioned that Dutch people are statistically the tallest people in the world? Yup. Have I also mentioned that I’m 5’4″? So when I mentioned seeing the screen I really meant the people who were 6′ and above.

This picture (and all crowd shots) I took on my very tippy toes with my hand stretched as high above my head as I possibly could.

Not even joking, this…

was my view for about half the game. Not actually bad to look at per se, but also not exactly what I came to see. My head was barely at their armpit height. Halfway through I decided to move around. I never actually found a good spot to watch from so I basically took my cues from the crowd as to what was going on in the game.

This is my very favorite picture from the trip. It was clearly a very intense moment in the game.

Being in the big crowd alone was overwhelming to say the least. Not that I was nervous or felt unsafe but it’s amazing how alone you can feel when everyone around you has a group. There were friendly people but mostly guys and I’m pretty sure it was mainly for ulterior motives. Actually, their motives were fairly clear in certain cases. One group of four guys was so excited that they put me in the middle and humped me from all sides. Fun. Another guy asked me (for his ::cough:: friend) if I “wanted to have sex because he’s very horny”. Charming. It didn’t bother me necessarily but it would have been nice to have my own group of people.

By the way, it was hot. The Netherlands is supposed to be all mild with the weather. You know, mid 70′s in the summer. Beautiful. Not this summer though. At one point it was 93 degrees. Ninety-freakin-three degrees. That, combined with the fact that there was copious amounts of alcohol being consumed and we were crammed together like cattle, made for a seriously smelly experience.

At one point a helicopter flew over and dropped orange gerber daisies on the crowd. It was very pretty but also perhaps to help with the smell? Please ignore my incredibly sweaty bangs. Gross. Also notice the guy next to me is several inches shorter than I am. Poor dude couldn’t see anything either. We would have commiserated about it together but he only spoke French and Spanish. Ah well.

The noise level was unbelievable. Not only was there cheering and yelling and singing but the vuvuzelas. Oh the vuvuzelas. Also, air horns. I’m not sure what’s worse. Honestly? I’m leaning towards the air horns. At least they have to stop when the user needs a breath. It was noisiest before the game started. While they were playing there were moments where the quiet was almost eerie considering how many people were there. It was quickly followed by shouts of excitement or disappointment but some moments the tension was something you could actually feel. That was the best part of being in that insane crowd, feeling every emotion of the game times 180,000.

Yes, there were moments when I was beyond disgusted. First off the smell, which I have already mentioned. Then there was the time I watched a guy just pee, right in front of me, in the middle of the crowd. He didn’t want to lose his spot. At that moment I was never so happy to be wearing tennis shoes instead of sandals. I may have looked like a dumb tourist but at least my toes weren’t anywhere near touching that filthy ground. There was also the beer flying through the air (why do people waste perfectly good beer? I don’t get it.) Then the vomit. And God only know what other liquids.

Amsterdam is generally a very clean city. Not so much when there’s a game apparently.

I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t stay for the entire game. About three quarters of the way through I went to the edge of the crowd. I just couldn’t handle being smashed against so many strangers anymore. It wasn’t like I could actually see anyway. I did stay until Spain scored their goal. There were only a few minutes left so I knew it was over. Plus? I. was. dead.

See? Dead.

I wanted to catch a train as fast as humanly possible. I knew that I would only be ahead of most of the crowd by a bit but I hoped that it was enough of a head start that I could maybe get a seat. It worked. I had to stand until the first stop and after that I was able to sit down. I really needed to sit down, see above picture as evidence.

What an incredible experience it was. I really am glad I went. There were moments where I doubted my sanity in going. The train trouble getting there, the intensity of braving the enormous crowd alone and the stress of getting a flight home all made me wonder if it had been worth it. In the end I really think it was. It’s a story I’ll always have. That’s really why I did it, for the adventure.

And boy, from start to finish, what an adventure it was.

In the bottom of this box are dreams disguised as dance shoes and clothes. The shoes are loving worn out. Not quite with holes, just worn spots and discoloration where my toes used to rub the floor the most. They’re still good, I could still wear them. But I don’t. I don’t dance anymore.

There’s nothing in the world that makes me feel more alive than dancing. It’s the way my soul speaks. When I hear a song it’s rare that I’m not dancing to it. Only now I usually only dance in my head.

When I was younger I was a dancer. I danced all styles of dance but I wanted nothing more than to dance on pointe shoes. I took classes several days a week. When I wasn’t in class I was practicing for class. As a little girl my favorite places were the aisles of the grocery store. They were the best for practing spotting as I twirled. My mom didn’t seem to mind. At least she never stopped me. My mom was wonderful like that.

My dance teachers were some of my favorite people in the world. They were beautiful and when they danced it was like magic. They didn’t just perform steps, they sparkled. Dances weren’t just a series of steps put together, they were their feelings set to music.

One day the head of the studio called me into her office. I don’t remember why. I do remember her asking me what my goals were. Among other things I mentioned how much I wanted to dance en pointe. I don’t remember anything else she said in that meeting except for one thing. “You don’t have the feet for it.” Everything else is a blur. I don’t remember if I cried then. I don’t think I did. I don’t think I said much else at all. All I remember are those words and feeling like I’d been punched in the stomach. I don’t have the feet for it. Just like that.

I didn’t stop dancing then. It was several years before I stopped altogether. But a little part of me died that day. That dream was snatched right from under my nose by cruel genetics. To this day I cry if I see ballerinas dancing en pointe. Why did that have to be my dream when I wasn’t made able to do it? Cruel.

There are so many reasons that my dance dreams lie in the bottom of a box. Money, time and age are all factors. But packing up things to be put into storage I’m reminded of that moment. The moment one of my dreams died. I’m also reminded that I don’t dance anymore.

I can’t decide what’s worse, moving or unpacking. I’m leaning towards unpacking. At least with moving it’s fairly brainless tasks like lifting and walking. It’s exhausting but at least you don’t have to think very hard. With unpacking you have to figure out where to put every little thing. Will this fit? How does that look? Where’s the most logical place (you know, so it’ll be in the *best* place I can’t find when I’m looking for it later)?

We also didn’t have nearly as much time to pack as I would have liked since I got stuck in The Netherlands for almost a week. That means a lot of the stuff got thrown into random boxes to be sorted through later. Good times.

Also on the to-do list, painting the old apartment back to white at some point before Thursday. I really wish the other apartment complex’s management didn’t suck so much. If I’d have known we were going to move out after only one lease term I would have left the walls white. Oh well.

Tomorrow the guy is supposed to come out and turn on our Internet. Why someone has to physically come out I’ll never understand. I mean, obviously they own the Internet. You’d think they’d have figured out a way to do it digitally by now. What do I know though, right?

At least our tv is now set up. Putting on DVDs to play in the background makes unpacking so much more interesting. The time visiting with Joel is nice too. Without being able to bury my face in Twitter we talk a lot more. Who knew?

I hope things keep moving along quickly and we get settled in. We’re all tired and ready to be done moving.

For now, all you need to know is I was an au pair for my Dutch family and I love them. What caused me to think about going to The Netherlands was the World Cup game, but what convinced me was the idea of seeing my family again. I arrived Saturday morning (thankfully very well rested because of my first class seat) and had all day to visit with them. It was fantastic.

This is my sweet Caroline. She has a bit of a flair for the dramatic…

and an obsession with my iPhone. As you can see, Timo thinks it’s pretty nifty as well.

Lekker ijs.

If you’ve never had a stroopwafel, I’m sorry. So delicious. In ice cream? Even better.

Timo, Morten and Caroline. I can’t believe how big they’ve all gotten. They were only 1, 3, and 5 when I first met them. Now they’re 7, 9 and 11. Ah!

While strolling around Rotterdam we came across these flower arrangements.

I told you the Dutch grew fond of vuvuzelas.

That evening we headed over to my second favorite Dutch family’s home. There I got to make homemade sushi for the first time. Despite being very labor intensive it was fun and allowed for some nice conversation.

It was also quite yummy.

Sisters, Ineke and Thea.

What a little ham. I actually traveled to Romania when Thea and her family were living there to help her out with her other kids when Abel was born. He’s five now. Eesh!

I can’t even express how much this family means to me or how amazing they are. As stressful as the trips back and forth to the airport were, I really was lucky to get some extra time with them. It ended up being almost a week which was really a big treat.

With all the visiting I did, plus the stories, video clips and pictures from the game, my time in Holland will have to be broken into parts. Look for part two tomorrow!

Not long after we got to the gate the CSR made an announcement that they were clearing the standby list so we should remain seated. At that point we got excited because we were pretty sure that was a good thing. It was! Before boarding was even half over I was handed a business class boarding pass. I could have kissed her. I controlled myself, although I don’t think my thank you even began to express my gratitude. I literally got teary eyed at having that boarding pass in my hands. Me and another standby were seriously hugging each other we were so happy. The only bummer was, because of date restrictions, one of the standbys I bonded with didn’t get on. As I went down the jet bridge, I overheard the CSR tell the other guy he wouldn’t be able to fly. I felt so bad for him. He’d been trying to get out just as long as I had. Hope he makes it tomorrow.

Once we were on the plane I was in heaven. There were a few tense moments where the pessimist in me was afraid the flight would cancel because they were running “system checks” for 30 minutes past departure time. Thank goodness everything checked out fine and we were able to get on our way. I didn’t truly relax until we were in the air.

Then did I ever relax. Seriously, if you have to travel first and business class is the way to do it. For some reason, despite a short, restless night of sleep, I wasn’t sleepy once I was on the flight. I ended up watching four different movies and playing a bunch of games on the entertainment system. So nice.

The best part by far though was giving Joel a big hug and kiss. I missed him so much! It was also good to see my puppy. I’m pretty sure she missed me too.

Please focus on the cute puppy and not the enormous bags under my eyes.

It’s now about 7:30pm and I’m seriously thinking I’m going to go to bed as soon as I publish this. Really I wanted to go to bed around 5pm but I thought that was probably way too early. I have a ton of pictures and videos to go through and since my brain is basically apple sauce that’s not going to happy tonight. Look for several Holland posts in the coming days. Night! ::yawn::

From where we live it usually takes around 3 hours or so to get to their house so we left not long after Joel got off work, 4:45pm Eastern. Of course traffic sucked. Really badly. We had the brilliant idea to take an alternate route… aaand everyone else had the same idea it seemed because it was just as bad going that way too. We didn’t end up getting to their house until a little after 10pm.

That’s right. It took over 5 hours for a 3 hour drive. Kill. Me. Now. Luckily most of the time Twitter worked and when it didn’t I had Joel to talk to.* There were also some pretty windmills to look at on the way down.

Reminds me of The Netherlands. Oh how I miss it.

I may or may not have stuck my arm directly in front of Joel’s face to get this picture. Yes, he was driving. The windmills were a nice break from the constant corn. Because Indiana? Pretty much nothing but corn in 90% of the state. Not that that’s a bad thing. If you really like corn.

I remember as a kid I actually loved driving past cornfields that were plowed perpendicular to the road. When I stared at the rows whizzing by there was almost a wave like motion to it. It fascinated me. Honestly, it still does.

Anyway, I expect we’ll have a fun weekend as usual. Tomorrow we’re just hanging out and Sunday we have plans for a Spanish brunch and fireworks. Epic Fourth of July weekend? I think so.

*That sounds so backward. I really need to try and curb my Twitter addiction. Sorry, Love.

Because of the over zealousness of the other team I ended up taking several falls and am quite sore today. I also ended up with some pretty decent marks and bruises. Most of them are boring scrapes and such, but one I am actually pretty proud of. I’m impressed with it mostly because it came from an awesome block on my part, if I do say so myself. A guy took a shot at the goal and I saved it with my knee. It stung like crazy! Enough that the dude asked if I was ok. It was a hard hit. I was fine but when I got home I took a better look.

Yes, that is an imprint of the soccer ball on my knee. Jealous?

I’m sorry but that? Is a pretty cool bruise. It’s more than 24 hours later and it’s still there in the same shape although it’s faded a little. Not exactly the sexiest thing around but I think Joel is impressed and that’s what really matters.

If you see me I won’t be rocking shorts for the next couple of weeks until these marks start to go away. Right now it’s very obvious that I got in a fight with a soccer ball… and it won.