Pamela Ozga – Beer, Boats & Bikes

studying abroad is the most selfish thing that you can do.

But it is the most selfish thing that you must do.

I didn’t begin my study abroad experience necessarily with any expectations. Of course I had hoped that it would be a great time and that I would form memories for life, but that seems like a given. Don’t we go into any experience thinking it will be a great thing?

My experience abroad has been the most liberating thing I have experienced thus far in my life. I had five whole months to do whatever I wanted. That sounds worse than it actually is. I obviously had pretty solid parameters, but I could really focus on doing the things only I wanted to do. I could take the courses that truly fascinated me, form relationships with people who intrigued me, travel to places that seemed worth discovering to me, and discover what all these connections meant to me as a person. How these connections form what matters the most to me.

I have learned that I am happiest when I am doing something that betters the social welfare, or social justice. Feminism empowers me and it is what gets me going. I am happiest when I am learning about the effects of postmodernism on how we perceive what it is that gives us happiness. The things we value are inherently subjective and a product of our individual realities. There is no objective truth.

I know this may sound like I just turned into a free-spirit hippie who has no concept of reality, but I mean it. I think it is bull-shit that there is only one thing that will make me successful. There is no one path designed for you. The more time you spend with yourself, the more time you spend learning what you love. You begin to understand that if you are good at something, you will succeed at it. You really begin to believe it because it is the only thing that makes sense to you.

Europe has been wonderful to me. Amsterdam specifically has shown me so many beautiful things. I can no longer look at it through the eyes of a newborn baby. It is a piece of me. It has given me so much joy over the past five months. I do not regret staying when everyone left (even though it wasn’t on purpose). This past month itself has shown me how important all of this is – immersing yourself in a culture and dipping into the surfaces of others.

It is only the beginning for me. My travels only begin here. I truly believe leaving your home can change your world. And by home, I don’t mean the physical space. I mean the feeling of home. Because if you only reduce your home to a physical space, you ignore that you can form other homes, and that is so very, very tragic. Because a home can give you so much more than shelter. It can give you a feeling of familiarity, of ease that everything is going to be okay. Amsterdam is my home; it does that to me. And that is why this selfish thing is the best thing, the best thing that everyone truly should do.

budapest: a city of a common struggle

When I first booked my ticket to Amsterdam, which was super early in May because I desperately needed to leave NYC, I wasn’t sure when the semester ended. I simply looked at the UvA calendar, which is the academic calendar at the University of Amsterdam, my larger university, and saw that it was on January 29th. I figured, okay that’s long but I guess, doable. It was only till later that my silly and eager self found out that the January month was completely optional. Oops, I had said.

With everyone leaving right before or around Christmas, I figured I had to make the most of my time here. So I convinced my best friend Sima to come visit me and travel with me. I also tried to convince my other best friend Elizabeth to come travel, but she only decided to visit for a week, as she had an internship to start.

So Sima and I, along with our friend Katia, decided to travel together to three cities we thought would be worthwhile: Prague, Vienna & Budapest. Little did I know how much I would fall in love with one in particular – Budapest.

Both Prague and Vienna were such beautiful cities, but something about Budapest felt all too familiar. The people, the atmosphere, the common struggle felt all too close to my own people – the Poles. Of course, it shouldn’t really have surprised me as these both were countries – Hungary and Poland – were occupied by the Soviet Union in a very similar way. After the resistance and after Stalin’s death, a much less harsh communism regime took over and there was room for a voice. They, unlike many of the other Soviet satellite states, were also very Catholic, so simply religious in general. This remains true until today. Poland and Hungary are one of the two only Catholic practicing countries in Central/Eastern Europe, while most of Eastern Europe remains very non-practicing religious.

But what to me was even more similar was the culture, the language. The language especially because the language itself was so very, very different. But the language – the sound, the sound was the same melodic sound. And the expressions of the people. The faces. Hardworking faces. Solemn faces. Kind faces. The foooooooood, well the food was confusing because it was filled with the country’s pepper, the red pepper – or paprika, as they call it. So, a bit of it reminded me of a Latino-Hispanic country – and don’t get me wrong, the Hungarians, at least in Budapest, looooved Latino culture too (it very much flourished the city) – but, it also flourished with the food of my people. Goulash & letcho – mmmmmmm.

So why a common struggle? Well, because neither countries have had an easy history. They have been attempted to be annihilated or taken over because they were so important in European politics & the fight over land.

I would highly recommend that the Poles really try to create some natural hot springs, because Lord Jesus, those Turkish baths melt you into happiness.

I loved Budapest & I will continue to do so. It is a city melting with culture and vibrancy.

a conflicting city of tolerance: amsterdam.

I came to Amsterdam with the firmest belief that where I was coming to was a place filled with liberation and equality. I remember telling people I was coming here and everyone would laugh.

Of course you’re going to Amsterdam!, they would say.

The perception of Amsterdam outside of it is one of liberalism. The drug policy in the Netherlands for soft drugs like cannabis, is generally one of non-enforcement. Especially in Amsterdam, where prostitution has remained legal since the middle of the 20th century, a policy of tolerance, or gedoogbeleid, remains strong. Which is why I am confused why there remains such an institutionalized culture of racism, especially in regards to the practice of blackface.

I have attached a documentary piece from CNN as a source regarding the practice of blackface in the Netherlands:

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/30/world/blackface-documentary-zwarte-piet-feat/

According to The Guardian, blackface “represents a time when white Americans would put dark paint on their faces and act out incredibly racist and offensive stereotypes about African Americans” [1]. It is a racist practice that continues to be practiced in the Netherlands every holiday season with the arrival of Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of Santa Claus, and his servant, Zwarte Piet or “Black Peter.” What’s so problematic about Black Peter? Well aside the fact that he is a black servant to a white old man, he is always represented by white people covered in blackface.

Regardless of the fact that the Dutch assert that this is not racist and a part of a silly and harmless cultural practice of their country, the reality remains that this is racist. This is institutionalized racism at its finest. Whether or not this practice in the Netherlands is linked to racism, which it is in its direct link to the Dutch empire expansion and slave trade, is irrelevant. The mere fact that it is globally considered racist, the fact that I could come from America and see that this practice has made black people in the world feel less than human, is enough for it to have to stop.

What is potentially more powerful and more dangerous than any one person who is blatantly racist, is a person who refuses to think about what is happening around them. Complicity by being passive is one of the most dangerous states one can be in. Think about Hannah Arendt and her criticism of Eichmann in his moral evasion of responsibility in the dictatorship of Nazi Germany. This is not to say my criticism of the Dutch is in any way on the scale of what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, but this is a criticism of the passive individual and what that kind of passivity could potentially lead to.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/30/blackface-halloween-costumes-obviously-offensive

barcelona: a city of vibrant culture

I went back to Barcelona last weekend. It’s my first time I’ve been back since I first went in 2012. It was everything I had wanted it to be. A city filled with music, delicious food and a culture within a group of people unlike the Spanish, the Catalan.

Going back and seeing a place for the second time is an experience within itself. If you ever have the chance to go back to somewhere you’ve been before, and experience it through a new perspective, your world changes. Even if it is by the littlest amount, you gain new insights and become wiser.

When I arrived Thursday morning and could see that I had felt familiarity with reading a language that was not my first or second language was a beautiful feeling. To say that one can do this is not the average person’s capability. Spanish I understand: Dutch not so much.

I often wonder if I made the correct choice in not deciding to study in Madrid. I knew I could probably get in, I had the grades for it. But something about Madrid didn’t feel right. It would have made more practical sense if I had enhanced my Spanish. I do go to a a business school after all. Every chance you get is potential for you to increase your marketability. But I didn’t want to go to Madrid. IF i was going to study in a city in Spain, it would be Barcelona. The way it captured me when I first got there is something I can’t explain, but it’s something I’ll try to explain.

This city has an aura of community. For such a huge city, it forms little cultures within its neighborhoods. When we got lost trying to find the Montjuic, we stumbled upon the old neighborhood of El Poble-Sec. It was so quaint and communal. Little grocery stories with reasonable to low prices, a real working class neighborhood of honest and hard-working people. Then you took the metro a couple of stops, and you were in a more hip location where people are just having fun and dancing. Young adults are drinking away at some sangrias and vermouth while eating some delicious jamon tapas. It’s completely immersive and diverse in its cultures.

Barcelona has an art to it that is so breathtaking. Antonio Gaudi’s modernism fills up the city with colors and fascinating shapes and curvatures. Every building whether its his magnum opus, the Sagrada Familia, his collaboration park with Eusebi Guell, has colored captivating ceramics and sometimes, even geckos. Gaudi’s lasting impressions perpetuate an atmosphere of enlightening culture and honest happiness.

Do I regret not studying abroad in Spain? Absolutely not. I love Amsterdam. It is quite honestly one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It holds liberties. And open and free permeation of knowledge.

It holds some pretty awesome people as well. My seven friends who came with me on this trip, every single one of them at one point made me laugh and smile. Honest and kind friends really. Thanks Kelsey, Laura, Anna, Parker, Thomas, Amit, and our new friend Jussi! Jussi, if you are reading this, you are a hilarious human being! So no, studying in Amsterdam has not been something I have regretted.

I’ll come back to you Barcelona. Fins la pròxima vegada!

berlin, germany.

What a beautiful city filled with culture and history Berlin is. People often forget because of its very clear association with a horrifying war and a horrifying genocide. But Berlin is rebuilding.

There is a huge street art scene in Berlin, specifically in the Kreuzberg, a very hip and artsy neighborhood in the South of Berlin. Illegal and legal combined, street art sweeps the city. It is virtually not frowned upon by the police, but the thrill of getting caught and the threat of getting arrested, both are pretty real.

The picture up there, it’s been at the East Side Gallery, the open air gallery that once divided West and East Berlin, since 1990. And it is the most breathtaking thing – the entire gallery is. That one, it’s called Europas Fruhling, and it’s by Catrin Resch. It’s legal and beautiful.

This one up here, is illegal. But it represents three children in Argentina who don’t have a normal childhood. They are in gangs and it is supposed to juxtapose this playground in Berlin. The children in Berlin play in the playgrounds while children in many South American countries don’t have that advantage. They have to resort to gangs and violence. I don’t remember the artist’s name but I know he came to Berlin because here, he can express this injustice.

Other than Kreuzberg, Berlin’s very strong dedication to commemorating the horrific crimes of the Nazi party are evident all throughout the city. The most beautiful, and eerie at the same time, memorial I saw there was the Holocaust one. Gray stones that go on forever with different depths cover the lot of a gray ground. Its power is compelling. Here’s a picture:

Overall, Berlin was a beautiful city. The people, a little rude, but it didn’t bother me much. I am a New Yorker after all! Modern and growing, Berlin is becoming a cultural hub for music and art. It’s creating a new metropolitan, a place where potential can be found.

Here are some more pictures:

Another Kreuzberg painting representing the robotic and societally conformed humans we are becoming, and how this world is swallowing us up:

And this is just an autumn day 🙂

traditional dutch food.

A kroketten. a fried delicious concoction of I’m not sure what.

home-sickness is real.

Studying abroad is great.

I repeat that to myself every day. And I’m not lying, it is great. But no one tells you how much you’ll miss home.

The biggest challenge in my life right now is this itch to go home. It’s not very huge but it’s there. I guess it sucks that I haven’t really had any friends or family visit. I did have an old friend from high school come this weekend, but me and him were really not that close. I miss familiarity and I want it for a little.

It has been two months and four days since I’ve been here and I yearn to read something in English, to see my friends, to go take the Subway, to get a good slice of pizza, to get good Chinese food (yes, food is very important to me). But I can’t get that. I can’t drive two hours back to Brooklyn to do this.

And I’ve really been thrown in the deep water. As a student who has been commuting for two years in college and four years in high school, this is my college experience. I am living alone and I’m cooking alone. I’m doing laundry and cleaning and shopping for food and it’s all in Dutch.

I love it here. I tell myself that when I go outside with my bike and just ride down to Flevopark and look at the colors on the leaves changing or I bike down to Jordaan, a very old-school Dutch neighborhood, and see the original canals of the city. It is absolutely beautiful and breathtaking and I truly fall in love with it more every day, but I do miss home.

media.

a month later. always bring your passport everywhere you go.

It’s hard to keep up with everything that is happening here. A month has flown by. I’ve traveled a lot. I’ve studied. I’ve gotten homesick. I’ve gotten anxious. I am anxious right now.

Living in another country is a terrifying experience. That being said, it is also the most exciting thing you can ever do. Immersing yourself in another culture is overwhelming. You want to do it all. My life for the past month has felt like I am a freshman again. But I am a freshman in a world completely void of any of my past. I am new here. I am making new friends and new memories and like anything that is new, it is fragile and awkward.

Last week, I got a chance to hang out with the Ambassador of the United States to the Netherlands, Timothy Broas. Since I won the Gilman Scholarship, I was invited to attend a reception at his residence in the Hague, which is the Netherlands’ version of Washington D.C. It was such a beautiful city and the ambassador was very sweet. They passed around appetizers and wine and we all got to talking. It was a little comforting to see so many Americans in one place. It felt like home.

This past weekend, I went to London. Correction: I barely made it into London.
As per my agreement of studying in the Netherlands, I get a residence permit card that allows me to freely travel anywhere in Europe in the Schengen Agreement. (Quick fact: the UK is not in that agreement). So does it surprise you that when I got to the French border of the UK at 4am, because my roommate and I had taken a night bus there, they literally almost did not let me go? Well, it shouldn’t. I didn’t bring my passport, thinking my residence permit card was sufficient enough, ESPECIALLY since I have been told time and time again that Europe “has no borders”, and was almost left in a town called Calais, France all by myself.

I was freaking out! Thankfully, I was able to pull up a copy of my passport on my OneDrive cloud account and showed the much-nicer-than-US UK border patrol man and he gave me a temporary travel document. Lesson? ALWAYS bring your passport everywhere. Always.

London was beautiful and I will start posting pictures I swear. Another lesson? Always read all your ticket information. We got to London Victoria for our night bus ride back at 9 on Sunday night (9/27). We ran into our friend Margaret who we had met at our ISN introduction week and not only was our bus delayed by 45 minutes, we couldn’t even get on it because we had forgotten to check in with our passports. The check in had closed and we didn’t know what to do. We had to buy another ticket for our ride back.

It was a wonderful weekend, but a terrible time going there and back. Never take UK megabus. I mean you can take it, but let my story sink in very well.

Other than that, London was beautiful. Expensive as hell, but beautiful. I’m not sure how my friend Massy didn’t go broke there. It was very international but also very European. Everything was in English, which was pretty nice.

I don’t know where else I’m going next, but I think it’s going to be Berlin. Then maybe Budapest. Then Prague. Europe is amazing and now I am actually going to post photos!!

XoXo Pamela

today is the first day of the semester

These past two weeks in Amsterdam have flown by like crazy. I’ve met a lot of people through things like ISN, which is the International Student Network, and things like the introduction week at my school, AUC, Amsterdam University College. It’s crazy to think that this feels like my home already. I feel like I’ve seen a lot of it, have my little spots already, and can quite easily navigate the city. AND, I got a bike, which literally now makes me a Dutchie because it’s honestly the most common way everyone gets around here. The public transportation is good, although definitely not as good as in NY, but runs only to a certain hour.

The Dutch are insanely smart and relaxed people, but there a lot of things that I’ve had to adjust to here. Money being the biggest. The way that money is used here is much different than in the US. Almost everyone has these PIN safe debit cards and I’m highly considering getting one only because of how difficult it is to use my regular debit card anywhere I go. Most credit cards aren’t accepted, so I’m forced to mainly pay in cash. I’m running out of cash, so I need to most likely set up a Dutch bank account. It’s very confusing and definitely something I need to figure out. This is definitely one of the struggles of living in a foreign country.

As for communicating, it’s very easy in Amsterdam. Most people speak English. But reading things? Well, shopping is a little bit more difficult. Everything is in Dutch and I have to hope they have some pictures associated with the food item. Most things are common sense, but those that aren’t have forced me to learn very basic Dutch. It would be nice to know how to communicate with people here in their native tongue.

I went to Brussels this weekend and that also was a change. New country, new language, new public transportation system. Thank god my two friends knew a little French (my roommate Jocelyn and my British friend Francesca). Definitely much different than Amsterdam. It felt much more Parisian. Everything felt royal, like the Grand Place or even the Royal Palace. It makes sense that Brussels, which is in Belgium, feels Parisian. They speak French there. I got lost at night coming back from a bar which scared me senseless. Even though Brussels felt very safe and is actually very small, there was something so insecure in not knowing my way around like I do in NY. Europe is also not as safe as it seems. Migrant children are escaping ISIS in Muslim countries and the threat of terrorism is very real. For some reason, Amsterdam doesn’t feel this way and I hope it stays this way.

I’m starting my first day of classes today. I’m excited. I’ll keep you updated some more later. For now, I’ll give you some pictures.