Day 42 – July 18, 2011 – Wow. Just… wow.

I carried all this on my bike (not pictured - the wet butt)...

Number of days in Amsterdam – 42

Number of days without a bike theft – 38

DaysHours left until the close of the Kickstarter Project – 10

Days since it last rained – 0

We did it.

I can’t believe it, but we did it.

With just hours left to our Kickstarter pitch, we’ve made $5,521!

A week or so ago, I’d resolved myself to the fact that we wouldn’t make it. We’d seen such a sharp surge in the beginning before things leveled out, and that last $1,800 or so seemed insurmountable. But with an outpouring of support from friends and strangers alike, we did it.

A week or so ago, I started plotting next steps. Wondering what to do when we didn’t hit that goal.

It was a bit odd, but I was ready to figure out what to do next, although I didn’t know.

Now I’m pondering the same questions about what to do because we did make it.

You see, I don’t want to let anyone down. I want the results of our next steps to be fun, informative, interesting and again fun.

So then, what happens next?

Nothing.

Nothing?

Well, not right away anyway. Amazon processes this thing over the course of a few weeks, so we have a little time to sort things out.

Plus, I have a fish to eat.

As soon as we have a nice day anyway. I want the shots to be perfect for our inaugural production that only my generous, amazing donors will get to see.

Because that’s really what it’s all about first. As one of you said:

The raw herring video is the sole reason we pledged money.
It has nothing to do with how much we love you guys.
I just want to see you gag.

And that makes me feel good.

So for the next little bit, it’s business as usual. The posts will continue as per the norm. Just keep in mind that we have some fun stuff on the way.

So, back to life in the ‘Dam…

Because life goes on, I accepted a new freelance job (the things that are helping to keep a roof over our heads and food in the bellies) that starts Wednesday, so I needed to do the thing that most people avoid here – a full grocery stock-up. I’ll actually be going into an office every day for a few weeks, so we needed a little bit of everything around here.

The reason that many people don’t do large grocery shopping trips all at once has to do with getting it all home on a bike and carrying it up the stairs that a lot of people (myself included) have to deal with. But here I was, getting several bags of groceries by bike and hauling them home.

Again, in the rain.

And it wasn’t the first trip that got to me. Even though that trip involved carrying two massively packed saddlebags full of groceries home from the grocery store, where I then hauled them, soaking wet, up the stairs to the flat.

It was the fact that, after that, I had to go to the market for produce and seafood and repeat the process all over. This time in clothes that were already soaked.

But the spaghetti and clams we had for dinner made up for it. The clams here taste so much better than the ones we can get at home, and I think it’s a freshness thing. I also have my eye on the beautiful selection of fresh oysters here. Nicole can’t eat raw oysters yet, not until the baby comes, but I know where to get them.

We watched a great movie, called What We Do Is Secret. We brought two binders of DVDs to watch on the computer for entertainment, which is a good thing, because Dutch TV sucks. Actually, to be fair, it’s as one of my Dutch friends put it – “Some Dutch TV is quite good – but it’s in Dutch.” What remains is a lot of syndicated programming from the states – Law and Order in its various forms for the most part. It’s not too far of from TV in the states.

What We Do Is Secret is a biopic about Darby Crash, the lead singer for California punk band the Germs. It’s really good, and it stars Shane West, who did such a good job as Darby Crash that, when the band reformed, they actually asked him to take over as the singer.

Crash was obsessed with the idea of circles, and of things being cyclical. The band’s symbol was a circle, and they had a song called “Circle One.” West had a line in the film that, while I’m not sure if it was a paraphrase or direct Darby Crash quote, summed it all up:

Everything works in circles. Like sometimes you’re doing something, and a year later you’re back at the same point. You understand that? So circle one is what we’re doing now, and someday we’ll probably do circle two.

That’s a line that stuck in my head, with everything we’re doing now, and with the upcoming babymoon that we’re getting pretty excited about. You see, an unborn Nicole was in Bavaria, and now we’re going back to see it, this time with our unborn daughter. Are we then starting our second circle?

If so, the ‘Dam seems like a great place to do it.

The record-breakingly wet month hasn’t done anything to slow anyone down. Everyone is going on with business as usual, albeit with wet butts. It’s not just the locals, either. The Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions is reporting that there is an upswing of tourists coming in over last year, despite the massive rain.

Of course, I wouldn’t necessarily think it’s despite the weather. Odds are, many of these people booked their trips months ago, and just aren’t going to cancel them no matter how much rain we’re getting. The increase in tourists combined with the rain, though? It’s probably going to lead to more bike/pedestrian collisions.

Alec, one of our commenters, also pointed me to this site, which is becoming very helpful in my Dutch education. It offers audio clips of many of the more common Dutch words and phrases. I’ve started playing with it as I work each day, working on adding more phrases and words to my vocabulary. It’s allowing me to add more pleasantries into my conversations before I have to switch to English, and keeping me from looking as clueless when I start a conversation with someone not yet aware that I don’t speak Dutch.

No we just have to see how well we do when we get to Germany.

If You Go:

Picking up a few phrases in the local language goes kilometers into making your daily transactions go smoothly.