Nijmegen for a day ...

My winter months in Nijmegen have seen little but rain and work (and episodes of The A-Team with Dutch subtiltes ... after countless hours of direct observation and inquiry, I can report conclusively that "I pity tha fool" has no direct Dutch translation) ... so when we had an unseasonal day of sun yesterday, I emerged from my hibernation to explore my surroundings in search of some eccentric beauty ...

Circle of Healers ...

Last week I had the honor of watching a project of mine over the past 10 months blossom in Southern California. About 40 miles outside San Diego, 60+ med students, residents and physician mentors gathered for the seventh annual National Circle of Healer's Conference/Retreat, sponsored by the American Medical Student Association. We had expert led (and volunteered!) workshops on narrative medicine, non-violent communication, communicative/therapeutic drumming and shamanistic journeying.

Initially, I was thrilled to have this opportunity to design a healthy weekend party with a $7000 budget for some of my dear friends (both present and future) and to invest myself around the creation of an intimate space and a vision (using communication to channel personal inspiration into the physician/patient encounter) ... to give authority to my seldom acknowledged hippie/granola side ...

Over the months, though, this project grew to strain me both logistically (attention to minutiae in coordinating something 9,000 miles away) and metaphysically (maintaining some non-attachment so that I didn't overwhelm the project with my own needs and expectations)

In the end, it was a bit of a blur (perhaps due to the jet-lag), but we got rave reviews from all of the mentors and participants (most of whom had spent around $500 each on airfare and program fees to be there that weekend) ... no one was hurt, we home-cooked all of our vegetarian meals, and it looks like we might have come in under budget ... unfortunately, as I consigned myself to the business of making sure things ran smoothly/promptly, I did not put myself in a very good position to properly appreciate the weekend ... but this is a small price to pay for it all.

The project wouldn't have been much without the help and support of my planning committee (Dave, Evan, Sonia, Sonya, Sahana, Amy, Marcy) and I guess the true testiment to the weekend was that while helping to make sure things did not go awful, awry or askew, they all seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves -- and for that I am very thankful

Continuing with my counter-intuitive winter pattern, I experienced my coldest night of the year in the hills around San Diego ... 15 degrees F ... the coldest temperature on record at the retreat site, with about half an inch of snow as icing on the frozen cake .... I should have expected it, especially when I met the camp site caretaker, who was actually named "Frosty" ... Fortunately, we had a glorious indoor fire pit and enough firewood and space heaters in the cabins to make sure that nobody really noticed ...

Some images from that weekend:

Hurricane Season in the Netherlands ...

Having survived Hurricane Cyril (dubbed by the Germans who recorded 123 mph winds ... we only saw 84mph winds in the Netherlands, but evidently enough to cause quite a few people to get blown into the canals in Amsterdam and halt transportation) -- amazingly, no reports of significant flooding despite most of the country (ironically, the most densly populated one in Europe) being below sea level -- I am settling into my homely new apartment in Nijmegen (pronounced : N'aye-may-hen). Despite the 30-40 minute commute to school (with bus transfers) I am quite happy with my situation here, and am enjoying a renewed focus on my studies, research and language skills (watching the likes of Ali G with Dutch subtitles ... hopefully after a few months of this I will be able to speak Nederlands like Borat!) -- imagine, finding discipline in the Netherlands!

Some pics of my spacious apartment's living room and kitchen

My brief backyard, and a nearby football pitch ... a very residential feel for a change !

Magic of the Middle East ...

The magic of the Middle East ... snow on palm trees (despite 5 days in Sweden, my first snow of the year was in Jerusalem), rainbows in the desert (Dead Sea) ... not a very conventional week in Israel ... meanwhile in Jordan, a snowstorm dumped a meter of snow on Petra (thus preventing my much anticipated and fantasized visit, and requiring the army to rescue via airlift 61 Greek tourists as there were no snow plows) ... an interesting, but by no means entirely satisfying, trip


Jerusalem is an amazing place ... too much history and culture ... From getting lost in several bibilically-famous sites of miracles and daringdo -- Temple Mount, Gethesemane, Via Dolorosa, Golgotha, etc -- to the current dynamics of the Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian Quarters ... I can start to understand why it has been the most contested-over city in history

I loved Tel Aviv (probably should have gone to med school there instead of Cleveland), I hated the border crossings (that held a travel partner for 5 hours because he has a muslim name and has been to lebanon and syria) ... but the spas and hammams more than made up for all of the hassles and slight misfortunes

New perspectives were my Christmas/Hannukah/Eid gifts ... from getting a glimpse of life behind the West Bank walls in Palestine to hearing about the vehement administrative support for holocost deniers in elite, secular Jordanian schools, the area just grew more complex by the day ... on my last day I found myself in arabic markets shopping beneath the glow of Al-Jezzera replaying the inapproprately-timed execution of Saddam Hussein (accompanied by somewhat accusing stares as many Jordanians and Palestinians were very supportive of the former regime), as if to remind me of the part that I have to play in the entire drama -- and that it is impossible to be just a spectator anymore

I'm very thankful for my arabic-savvy host (Abi) and traveling partners (Abi & Ali) for the week, as well as the Fulbright expat group for more exposure and inclosure than I could have mustered on my own ... shukran!

I've posted 60+ of my favorite pictures from the week at my new photo site --
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nixdorff/
You don't need to sign-up for anything to view them, and it's much easier than uploading a dozen pictures to my blog ... so enjoy at your leisure !

Christmas in the West Bank ...

Merry Christmas from Jerusalem and "the territories" ... a quick update as to how I spent my Christmas in the Middle East. All of the big christian midnight masses were "sold out", so I attended a English Epsicopalian service outside the walls of old jerusalem ... for the day, we travelled to Bethlehem in the West Bank to the Church of the Nativity (seemed the most appropriate thing to do) to light a candle for my grandmother ... staying in the Muslim quarter of the old city, it is strange to see picutres of Arafat alongside pictures of Santa Claus ... 'tiss the season ...

A strange seasonal message brought to you at the West Bank border crossing


The much less seasonal insides of the West Bank ...

Oh, how Bethlehem has changed in 2000 years ...

La Fiesta De Mi Despedida ...

As a celebration of my final days in Leuven, my beloved Spanish threw me a surprise going-away party ... a most unexpected yet appropriate end to my three months here ... I will always remember Leuven as being more Spanish than Belgian ...

And of course no Leuven celebration would be complete without the Turks !! God bless you all ...

And of course no Leuven/Spanish celebration would be complete if it didn't spill over into the clubs at the wee hours of morning ...

Ah, the end of an era ... thank you all for a wonderful chapter !!

The Stockholm Syndrome

Subtitled: Still looking for something Sweder ...

I made use of the cheapest round trip ticket imaginable (.02 Euro + taxes and fees) to visit one of the most expensive cities on the planet (mixed drinks for about 10 Euro, coffee for about 4 or 5 Euro -- the Italians in the group were almost in revolt) ...


Stockholm ... where the sun rises at 10AM and has set again by 2PM, and everything is covered by a perpetual layer of frost ....




Christmas markets were everywhere ... where one could enjoy a warm seasonal Glogg

One of my favorite parts was this open air ice rink where I found that I could skate as well as some of the Swedes ... which seemed somewhat unnatural (particularly for someone originally from Texas)

Numerous museums (mostly free) ... my favorite was the Alfred Nobel Museum (ironically, the man who endowed the Peace Price is most well known for his invention of dynamite) which featured an exhibition of the paitings of Winston Churchill

By far the highlight of the trip was a day trip I took to Sodertalje to see a Swedish Master's League Ice Hockey Match (SSK vs. Bjorkloven) ... Swedish hockey is beautiful thing ... much more fluid with more finese and less sluggish boards play ... the crowd was equally appreciative and amazingly attentive to the game as well ... In the picture below, if you zoom in on #33 (upper left), you will see one of the purest smiles -- which, afterall, is what hockey is all about