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I have been intrigued by tattoos for a long time. And from the first time I met a Sharpie, I have been drawing on myself. Dots. Symbols. Things I saw on TV. I even have a file somewhere with printouts and drawings of different tattoos I liked. Some were things I could see myself getting. Others I would never get (see: on the face).
But there has only been one tattoo I ever really saw myself getting. As any of my friends can tell you, I have obsessed about it over the last 4 years. Drawn it here and there. Toyed with getting it here and there. I’ll do it after this happens I’d say. And then I wouldn’t.
The thing about that one tattoo is that getting it wasn’t originally my idea. It was my mother’s. But after her surgeries from breast cancer she didn’t want to get it anymore. In her words, “I’ve had enough pain for a while.” And with that, she passed the desire onto me. And this Saturday I finally did it.
My friend Ashley M. had also been thinking about a tattoo for a few years now. She had the script picked out and everything. And we agreed to do it together. So here is the inspiration for mine:
And here is mine:
The tattoo is the same one Leeloo has in The Fifth Element. The difference in mine is that each line is made of 13 (a fibonacci number) dots. Each set of 6 lines represents a different element: Earth & Water (near my toes) Fire and Air (closer to my ankle). I opted to place it on my foot (vs. the wrist in the movie) because it is not as typical as some places, because I don’t want it to interfere with any possible interviews, and because it will look cute with sandals but won’t be the first thing someone notices. I typically don’t walk around looking at people’s feet first.
What do you think?
So, I know what you’re thinking, and here’s the answer.
Did I do it? yes.
Really? yup.
Glad? Hell yes, you really only get to be in Amsterdam once.
The great thing about being in Germany is the amazing flexibility you have to travel. The downside – it may take six hours. Six hours to turn get to a new country, with a new language, and live it up. This weekend, it was Amsterdam, in the Netherlands with a late Friday night arrival, a full day of walking/running from place to place in the rain, and an afternoon departure on Sunday.
I’ll take care of the not so great part first, and then move on to the great. So, the one downside, sadly, was the guy I Couch Surfed with. It started out well: he picked me up at the station, insisted on carrying my bags, pointed out attractions as we rode the tram, and then we hung out with his friends in a pub in de Pijp (pronounced de pipe, LOL). We all had a great time, some good conversation, and I discovered that Heineken is only slightly better at the source. But, I’ll be honest, I have a big bias for German beers now. Anyways, as we walked home, it started raining. And he put his arm around me, which I shrugged off. This type of crap continued through my stay, along with attempting to do the romantic peer-into-the-eyes in a creepy way. So, both nights, I pretty much slept on guard the entire night (there were no hostels left in the city)- and with all my shit packed just in case. He was also clingy and wanted to spend the entire stay with me, and called a few times while I was with Kyle & Melissa on my own for a while.
While I will definitely couch surf on my own again, and will with Kelly when we visit Berlin this weekend, but next time, I will trust my gut. I ignored that feeling because the monitoring on the site is set up so that people wouldn’t risk doing something because they would be caught, and the system checks in on how things went, and negative ratings cannot be deleted, I was still uncomfortable. When the last e-mails I got before I left were highly flirty – I should have gone to the hostel the first night. I’m pretty good at the feeling-people thing, but I shrugged it off as me being well, me, and just freaking. And I shouldn’t have, because you don’t just risk something like that.
But back to the fun.
Our first search was for the Red Light District. We went up and down our map, and couldn’t find it (“It should be right here! Like, all of this!”). So we doubled back down a street, following a family of four on bikes, keeping our eyes open. And then, well, we realized that we actually had been in the District the entire time. Seems like they were chilling a little more inside, but when we passed this time, there were more people out, so they were in the doorways. And then we started looking around more, and, Ta-Da! There were the windows, with women of all kinds (most not that skinny, interestingly enough). A lot of the windows were empty, but we definitely had our experience.
As for the rest of it, it was a really good time. It rained the entire time, but that was fun.
Because the first time it really started to pour, we had been inside for all of 5 minutes at this one coffee shop, decided it was a little sketch, came out and the sky was falling. So we spent the rest of the day, hopping from covering to covering and eventually spent some time in a coffee shop. Which was not only fun in the obvious way, but it was so nice to get out of the rain and have some time to dry off. After that, we wandered, checked out the flower market (I wish we could import flora). And then, it was back to Giorgio – although luckily for most of the afternoon/evening, his friend Eddie (who was from London and awesome) hung out with us.
The brightside about couchsurfing though, is that I really got to see little nooks about the city, the oldest pub and house in town, a massive chess match,
had the best rated fries in the Netherlands, went to the Van Gogh Museum, saw some sun on Sunday (ha!) and tried some raw herring (tasty!). But I wouldn’t stay with Giorgio again.
OH, and I had some really good cookies – Stroopwaffles. yum.
The beginning and end of my trip felt like the board at a train station (or airport). My mom arrived at 13:55, and although I left in a cab a while earlier, I left her in Paris at 17:24.
The trip was great, and I loved showing my mom and aunt the city and country I have come to love. It is different, in small but significant ways.
At the same time, when they arrived, it was like an intrusion on my world. And while I felt that feeling coming, when I first met my mom, I had felt it to a lesser degree when Mike came. This place, this experience, my life here had really been mine, and only mine. And I was selfish. I didn’t want to share it, and honestly it’s changed me. Not just my approach to research, not just the way I want to change my dress. But me. Those little, subtle things that make a person the person you know. I’m free here, completely. The expectations people have are fresh, no baggage.
I noticed when Mike came, that certain things I had let go (notably, the cussing) came back. I became who I was. I don’t want to be that. I like who I’ve become, I like the way I live my life here, and I hope to bring much of it back. And as much as that’s true, I don’t want her to know that, to have this feeling that she’s missed. But that’s life – I’m my own person now, and one of the greatest things about this is that it will help her allow me (and let me allow myself) to really – as cheesy as it sounds – become an adult.
So, she was right, the first comment I made after ‘I love you, how are you,’ when I saw her was something along the lines of ‘your purse is too high, you look like a tourist’ was wrong. I was mean, I was childish. But as soon as I said it, I was sorry. She thought I said it because I was embarrassed by her, and it was tough to get through to her that that wasn’t it. Although my mom is the one that taught me to see the many sides of a story, when I act this way to her, it’s just over. Unless I talk, unless I explain, and unless I outright ask her if she understands where I’m coming from and forgives me, she just shuts down. She won’t talk to me, and at most, just says, ‘ok.’ And I think I’ve finally learned to actually do this, even if I have to do the reaching out – and I’m glad, because the rest of the trip went quite well.
We ate great food, we saw amazing things for the first time – together. She got to experience the public transportation, amazing bier & brezels, and cleanliness I’ve had for the last two months.
I think we both know that I arrived and will leave a different person. I just hope I can hold on to that. And I hope that even though it was only a week, she will experience the same.
