Politically incorrect...

Today was a day of culture of all sorts. We got a late start (seriously, never underestimate the power of a hot shower and sleeping in a bed after 3 nights on the ground in a tent) and walked down prinsengracht to the Anne Frank house.
After getting trapped behind the requisite Asian tour group, we journeyed through the museum, a vastly empty loftspace- to symbolize lives lost- and got a glimpse of what life was like for the eight people for whom the darkened annex was home.
All deep and prolific thoughts aside: have you ever heard something in a different context and suddenly the meaning was changed? Well, on the way out I walked past the restroom and two girls walked in and exclaimed with much distress: "Aw shit! Everything's occupied!" having just walked through the Anne Frank house, it took every last fiber of my political correctness to not reply "that's what she/Anne Frank/Jews said!"
Yup...I'm terrible...or maybe just observant...
After Anne Frank, we strolled further down the canal to a cafe where we sat outside with cups of tea, writing postcards, people watching, and listening to a (presumably) drunk busker play Wonderwall (it is a universal fact that if you hand a drunk person a guitar they WILL play Wonderwall. It's like monkeys writing Shakespeare)
After this was all said and done: it was pub-crawl time! Highlights include: making friends from 4 different continents, being dubbed "party-girl pub-crawl queen" by a Swiss-German who was impressed with my awesome and constant dancing, instigating a large group of Brits to sass eachother in French, and, after we lost the pub-crawl entirely, finding out that EVERYONE ELSE had lost them too and going on an epic quest to find them...and failing...but the quest was great!
Ah well, on to the next!

Where to begin...

After a weekend of sun-screened, dirt-encrusted, sweat-sticky, knee-bruised, foot-swollen, musical madness at PinkPop, I have returned to wifi enabled civilization (and thus, the bloggernetosphere)
Highlights of PinkPop include:
-Robert Smith being as superbly creepy as I had dreamed/feared (and gawking at an equally terrifying doppelgänger who was wandering about scaring the children)
-Expanding my knowledge of Dutch musicians (who all seem to sing in English)
-Having my mind blown by the quality of Linkin Park's performance... Seriously, they had so much energy and presence, it was insane. Even non-fans got sucked in and developed an appreciation for their live show.
-The floor-shaking shoulder-to-shoulder classic/alt-rock dance party in the cafe tent after the Linkin Park set that lasted until security infiltrated and ushered us all out.
-The post-dance party dance party with the awesome DJ at the campground (at which the aforementioned compliment fail occurred)
-Fresh-squeezed orange juice
-The men of Mumford and their adorable adoration of the East Street Band (especially when they were invited on stage to jam during Hungry Heart and they kept bowing down to the band and grinning and dancing like goofballs)
-Being surrounded by incomprehensible Bruce Springsteen love (the Dutch LOVE them some Bruce. Even those with shaky English can sing Born To Run absolutely flawlessly. It's incredible.) with an unobstructed view of the stage. A Jersey girl can't ask for more.

Now I'm back in Amsterdam, eating pancakes and living life. It'll be nice to have a bed tonight :-)

The Kate Polsky guide to receiving complements:

Hello, and welcome to the PinkPop edition of the patented Kate Polsky guide to receiving complements.
Receiving complements in a manner that is both gracious and sincere is a skill that has always seemed to escape me, especially in a flirting context. This is not to say I don't appreciate complements, I just tend to... Fail.
Some examples from previous editions of the guide include:
The return- "I like your shoes" "I like YOUR shoes/shirt/pants/face" Even if it's true, it comes off sounding forced. If the other party is also a returner, this could also lead to an endless loop.
The confusion- "you have very pretty eyes" "haha...wait, seriously? They're brown..." This one kind of speaks for itself... :-/
The silent attempt at gratitude- "wow! That thing you did was awesome" "...:-)" **crickets** A picture may be worth 1000 words, but when words escape you, sometimes a visual cue can be worth 1000 dubloons, redeemable at thatwasawkward.com/yeahyou
Which brings me to tonight's installment :
The "did I just say that?"-
Your campsite at the weekend music festival you're attending, in a country in which you don't speak the language, has a dj'd dancehall. You decide to go. It is hot as satan's balls in there, but the dj is great, so you begin dancing up a storm. You're a literal hot mess, but at this point you're pulling a Billy Idol and dancing with yourself so you are certain it doesn't matter. At this moment, an attractive Dutchman approaches you and puts his arm around you. He introduces himself in Dutch, which you don't speak, and you introduce yourself in english, which he *does* speak. He turns you toward him and says "You are beautiful. You shine like the sun." and you respond, very matter-of-factly, "Shine? That's probably just from the sweat..." The man is amused, but you are so dumbfounded by what just came out of your mouth that you just dance away, blog about it, and hope you don't cross paths tomorrow...Whatever, you can't pronounce his name anyway...

A sign of good things to come

This morning I awoke at 5 to the ass of a naked man in my face. As this is a *historic* sign of luck and prosperity on the horizon (ok, maybe not, but it is definitely a sign of something) I take this to mean only good things ahead.

Off to Pinkpop! (posting from the train... There's free wifi ON the train!)
May there be many a proverbial naked man ass in your future.

A note on friendship:

When trying to meet up with old friends in foreign lands, do not fall asleep in odd places and expect them to find you...unless said friend is a homing pigeon.

Blog attempt 5692: once more with feeling

I'm the worst. I always say I'll write and I never do... I'm like your second grade pen pal (unless you're me...then your second grade pen pal died in a flood...seriously, can't make this shit up) but I digress...
Well I'm back (or at least trying to be) and better (read: probably worse due to lack of real keyboard and pictures) than ever!
Doesn't that sound super appealing?!?
Let's get this ball rolling: why am I starting this up again? Why no pictures? Where have I been? Where am I? Why do you care?
This whole blog started as a way of making sense of the strange and glorious nature of my life and travels as a student in Switzerland but unfortunately, between actual studenty things taking up most of my time and my hardcore Luddite nature when I travel (one less thing to pull out in the security line, AmIRight?!?) the blog suffered the fate of many of my technological pursuits (try following @KateHasMoxie on twitter I swear it updates...sometimes...) but as of 4 months ago, I found myself in possession of a wifi enabled device, as of 5 days ago, I can no longer claim "student" as my occupation, as of 3 days ago, I've been on an adventure, and as of today, I've added a blog program onto my mp3 device (thus no pictures and no real keyboard, for those keeping track)
Upon connecting the facts that my handwriting is dreadful and chicken-scratchy at best (killing all potential for a beautiful leathery travel journal) and the that wifi is magically abundant (airports, cafes, park benches, seriously, it's everywhere) I decided blog was a good forum for thought-sharing... Plus "self employed volunteer travel blogger" sounds mildly less pathetic than "unemployed 20-something vagrant with an iPod"
So: where have I been? Since last we spoke, Estonia, Finland, Turkey, Budapest, Malaysia, Netherlands, and Germany... Ask me about it sometime. I'll gladly talk/type your ear/eyes off when my keyboard isn't too petit and auto-correcty for my pudgy fingerbits.
And now? After missing (see: electing to sleep through) a 6 AM flight to Maastricht, I found my way to Milan hobbled from centrale toward the duomo on my stiletto heel punctured gnarly bruised foot... Needless to say, like a champ, I didn't make it chose to eat all the food instead...such is life. One night spent sleeping in a bathtub later, I left for Berlin. My gnarly foot and I did a boat tour, found our way to the Brandenburg gate, and then gave up on proper culture in lieu of a long night of food, drink, sparklers, music trivia, and bingo at White Trash. I did take advantage of the glory of spargalzeit and eat all the spargels (asparagus for ye non deutschers) so that kind of counts as culture... Next day was dedicated to Berlin wall hunting and pretending to be David Hasselhoff while balance beaming down the brick line where the wall once stood. This morning was a 7 AM flight to Amsterdam, landing, feeling cocky about my ability to get around, then realizing that autocorrect had destroyed the street names I had written, hopped the tram to leidseplein and wandered until I was fortunate enough to actually find the hostel. Success.
I then climbed the STEEP friggin stairs to my room on the top floor, flung open the windows, befriended my Chicagoan bunk mate, a 30 year old Slav with dreams of environmental activism and actualities of waitressing, and started to blog... Which is where we are now...

So, why should you care? Eh, you shouldn't really... But it could be fun to track my monthventure through Europe and know that I'm not dead, right?

This entry has become too long..my typing finger is sore. I vow the rest will be more reasonable (for your sake and mine)
See you next time for Amsterdam: nighttime edition.