Sep 29, 2008

Amsterdam

Why is it so hard to go to bed early, even when I'm exhausted from a lack of sleep? Anyways, so I figured out how to get around my wifi problem. Had to go in and change the channel that I was on. I always wondered what the practical use of the various channels were, I guess I figured it out now.

So amongst the DVD collection here is the Coldplay Live 2003 disc. Since I had enjoyed the concert at Shoreline, I stuck the disc in and it's been playing on repeat for the last couple of days (except for a 12-hour stretch where I plowed through Band of Brothers). 2003 seems like a lifetime ago.

I'd never noticed this song "Amsterdam" before. Well, I've heard it while listening to the CD, but I've never even noticed the song title, and barely the lyrics either. Oddly, they both seem rather fitting at the moment though.



Come on, my star is fading
And I swerve out of control
If i, if I’d only waited
I’d not be stuck here in this hole
Come here my star is fading
And I swerve out of control
And I swear I waited and waited
I’ve got to get out of this hole

But time is on your side
Its on your side now
Not pushing you down and all around
It’s no cause for concern

Come on, oh my star is fading
And I see no chance of release
And I know I’m dead on the surface
But I am screaming underneath

And time is on your side
Its on your side now
Not pushing you down
And all around, no
It’s no cause for concern

Stuck on the end of this ball and chain
And I’m on my way back down again
Stood on a bridge, tied to the noose
Sick to the stomach
You can say what you mean
But it won’t change a thing
I’m sick of the secrets
Stood on the edge, tied to a noose
You came along and you cut me loose
You came along and you cut me loose
You came along and you cut me loose.

Sep 28, 2008

Caos Calmo - pointless review

I must be some kinda genius to think that I could understand an italian movie subtitled in dutch - or, at least, I must think I'm some kinda genius, since I neither speak italian nor do I read dutch, nor is my french anywhere close to good enough to understand the few scenes where business deals go on in that language. I think my favourite scene was when Roman Polanski, playing a high level executive, asks to continue a meeting in English (although pretty much right after, the dialog in the scene fades out to music).

It's a movie about a widower and his elementary school level daughter dealing with grief after his wife/her mothe dies suddenly in their garden. He promises to wait outside her school, and passes up on his job responsibilities to sit in the park. As the days pass, he builds up meaningless yet heartwarming "relationships" of the people who pass through the park daily, as well as his colleagues and friends who drop in on his park bench.

I'm sure I missed out a lot from not fully understanding almost all of the conversations, although from the very few bits I know of either language, the film was straightforward enough so that I wasn't entirely lost either. I pretty much missed out on much of the symbolism in the film. I didn't get the significance of most of the park characters (if there was any), nor of the gratuitious sex scene which probably ought to give this film an OLD rating for folks 45 and up. On the plus side, I'm now familiar with Stars' Your Ex-Lover is Dead and Rufus Wainwright's Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk.

Sep 26, 2008

Images from Amsterdam

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A little experiment with larger images.

the little things that keep me down

So there was a matter of this little item, a tiny item, that was Fedexed to me. The problem is, it was sent to my home address in Amsterdam, and I don't happen to be home during the day since I go to work. Unfortunately, the Fedex box was too big to fit in my mail slot, so hence although it took less than a week to cross from California to Europe, it spent two weeks lingering in the Fedex truck, making one failed attempt at delivery after another.

So finally after two weeks, I have a weekday off (weekends were useless since the Fedex office was closed). They've long since given up on delivering the fricking package, so I took the bus to the depot, which happened to be in a warehouse by the airport. It took three different buses in each direction, and the roundtrip took two hours. When I got the package, I opened it on the spot. Inside the box was a bunch of bubble wrap and a letter sized envelope. Inside the envelope was my little key fob. I stuck the key fob in my pocket and left the box and the bubble wrap in the trash and headed back to the bus stop.

Ugh.

If I had been smarter, I'd would have had it sent to my office, like I usually do back at home. It blows my mind though, how such a little thing can turn into such a huge hassle.

Sep 25, 2008

Miracle Food

It's surprising it's not more popular (maybe it is, and I'm just unaware of it), and I feel pretty foolish for not having taken advantage of it much earlier, but over the past few months, I've realized that cous cous is probably one of the best instant foods out there.

It's not like it's the first time I've had it. I recall visiting a Moroccan restaurant in Boulder, Colorado when I was still in elementary, and thinking cous cous was one of the best things ever. I had the idea that it was exotic and difficult to prepare though, having heard that it was hand rolled from semolina and required a long steaming time.

I didn't really realize until maybe a couple of years ago that the common supermarket version is already pre-cooked and dried, meaning that preparation simply amounts to soaking in boiling water (off of the heat, but covered) for about 5 minutes or so. It's not quite as fluffy as the real thing, but for something that can be prepared in about half the time of cooking pasta, I'd be willing to forgo that Slow Food mentality. And unlike most other instant foods, it's not packed with preservatives, salt or fat. It's pretty much just dried starch.

So although cous cous has that wonderful grainy yet soft-like-rice texture, it's not the most flavourful item out there when prepared with boiling hot water, but since it absorbs liquid so well, using some sort of flavoured liquid gives you a dish that hardly needs a side. As usual, I just throw together whatever's available in the kitchen, but with cous cous, it only takes 5 minutes to make another batch if you fail!

Braised Lamb Shanks with Instant Cous Cous
1. Marinate a lamb shank for as long as you can. I made up a marinade with some soy sauce, oregano, black pepper, bordeaux, chinese cooking wine and paprika. That's what I call fusion. Pretty good too. Use a lot of marinade, you'll end up cooking the meat in the liquid.

2. Chop up an onion and a red pepper (intead of using a red bell pepper, I got this long version, but it's the same idea).

3. Heat up a mid sized pot on the stove at high heat. When hot, add some olive oil and spread it out over the bottom of the pot, and sautee the onion for a minute or two before tossing in the red pepper. Continue to sautee until the onion is slightly translucent, and pour out the onion and pepper into a side bowl.

4. Return the pot to the heat, and before the remaining juices burn, put the lamb shank (without the marinade) into the empty pot. Sear for a minute or so, and then flip it and sear the opposite side for another minute.

5. Turn the heat down low and pour the onions and peppers back into the pot. Also pour the marinade into the pot.

6. Chop a tomato or two and add to the pot. I mostly toss this in for the extra liquid. If it looks like you need more liquid, add more tomatoes. Toss in some fresh basil too, for the taste. Also add plenty of salt. Generally you'd want the liquid to be very salty for the flavour to sink into the meat. Continue to cook at very low heat - a bare simmer, for two hours or so. Check on the fluid level, if it gets low, add some water or water/wine, or some other tasty liquid.

Sure, this takes two hours, but I've found that braised meats keep pretty well, so this is something you can do, say on a lazy Sunday afternoon for a Monday and Tuesday meal. When you're ready to eat, just stick the pot back on the stove, and maybe add a bit of fluid to reheat.

7. When ready to eat, take the lamb shank out. You'll be left with a very flavourful stew of onions, pepper, and tomatoes. Add enough water so that there's about 1.25 times as much stew as cous cous, and bring to a boil. Pour in the amount of cous cous you want for dinner, turn off the heat, and stir until mixed, and cover for about 5 minutes. Uncover and you've got some tasty cous cous to go along with your lamb.

If you don't have time to make a braised dish or stew, you can sauteeing/pan fry a main dish. When done, deglaze the pan with some wine, then add water and bring that combo to a boil, and add some salt to taste. Add the cous cous, stir, and cover for 5 minutes, and voila, there's your starch side.

Sep 24, 2008

More Food Thoughts

It seems like all I think about these days are food. That and how my internet access has been all screwed up today. I can now access the internet fine with my laptop plugged into the wireless router via ethernet, but it just keeps disconnecting via wifi. Either the wifi on the router is dying (I have problems on both laptops), or I'm being innundated by some sort of high energy radio frequency radiation that's enough to disrupt my wifi and most likely kill me.

Back to the food. I can't comprehend how President brand brie can be so popular. In the US, it was the worst brie I've ever had - to the point where I'd avoid buying brie altogether if President was the only one available. The stuff is flavourless, not creamy, and rather stiff (for brie). It bears only slight resemblance to good brie. So I was rather surprised to see the brand being popular in the supermarkets, both in France and Amsterdam.

Maybe the European version is significantly better? Maybe the brand was well established in Europe, and it's merely the North American licensee that produces an inferior product? You'd think the Dutch, who pride themselves on their cheese consumption, would have somewhat of a taste for cheese right? Or you'd think the French would be able to pick out a good French cheese? So I tried buying some, and comparing it to another brie at a local cheese shop. Verdict: President brie is still shit. I need to ditch all my preconcieved notions that Europeans have a more refined cuisine than North Americans. They certainly don't (try ordering a pizza in France and see what travesty you end up with), but they may still be more snobbish about it.

Second food related thought for the night, more alcohol does not make a better beer. I've been taken up with Belgian beers, especially abbey ales, after visiting the beer fridge at Bo's BBQ in Lafayett, CA. I guess one good thing about the Netherlands is that it's close to Belgium, meaning that access to Belgian beer is much easier than it is in California, although Dutch beers (which are still better than American beers) are still more popular. La Trappe is a Dutch Trappist brewery, with beers available at local supermarkets. I've tried their Dubbel (which usually refers to a brown ale) and Tripel (which usually refers to a stronger brown ale). I found that La Trappe also has a Quadrupel, which one assumes, is an even stronger ale (it is, at 10%). I bought a sixpack, which was a mistake, considering the taste of the stuff is pretty harsh. If there ever was a sipping beer, this is it, I couldn't imagine anyone would really enjoy just gulping this dark fluid down.

Sep 22, 2008

Dutch Efficiencies

That would be an oxymoron, if I've ever coined one. I'm impressed how locals can bear with some of the bureacracies here, let alone get anything done. Even more impressively, I'm often told with the shake of the head to bear with it and be patient, as if it's the only possibility, and that it's a virtue to wait and abide on idiocy. Patience certainly has its place, but in Amsterdam, it's absurd. Take my attempts at opening a bank account for example:

1. Go to a bank to open an account, with all your required paperwork. The standard response (I've tried a couple of different banks) is that I need to make an appointment. Seriously, come on now, it's 9am and there's 2 people working in the bank and 0 customers, and I need to make an appointment to come back another day? Where's the logic in that? Do you not want accounts to be opened? Two banks actually asked me to make the appointment by phone because they were unable to make an appointment for some reason (although a 3rd branch did it on the spot for me).

2. Actually open an account. Even though I have the proper paperwork, it takes them an hour to verify that what I have is sufficient, and that's before they begin the process of opening the account. Opening the account takes another half hour, mostly because the bank person (I have no idea what to call him, he seems to amount to a teller, but they don't actually have the teller stalls they have in the rest of the world... they just sit around at their desks doing God knows what) hunts and pecks at the keyboard. Seriously, you have 3 other fingers and opposable thumbs, learn to use them.

3. Wait for the bank card. I don't understand why they can't provide me with the card at the bank when I open the account, especially since I made an appointment in advance. Can't they send the card to the bank when I make the appointment? Can't they at least give me a temporary card, as I've gotten pretty much at every bank in North America?

4. Activate the bank card. Ok, I've waited a little less than a week to actually receive my bank card, but I'm told I need to bring it to a branch to activate it. This sounds like a minor annoyance, but I've failed at least 3 times now. Attempt #1, I'm told I need my passport. Ok, it makes a bit of sense since I used my passport as ID to open the account, but please, I had other photo ID, and the "teller" who opened my account could have mentioned this requirement to save me a trip. Attempt #2, the next day, the branch is closed, with a sign telling me to go to another branch. Heck I was there yesterday, and you could have told me that you would be closed instead of telling me to "come back tomorrow with my passport". #3 Ok, I had to wait past the weekend, so on Monday I give it another shot in the morning and I realize that banks open on Mondays from 1-5pm. Seriously guys, I can understand a case of Mondays, but this is a little out of hand.

I'm no big fan of America, but compared to Dutch banking practices, I wouldn't put my bets on the Euro either. Now if corporate America could throw around some of its weight in a good way and get these European banks to get their acts together.

Sep 21, 2008

Food in Amsterdam

Frankly, I haven't eaten out too much since I've arrived in Amsterdam. The last time I tried eating at a sit-down restaurant before my little jaunt in Chinatown (for BBQ pork and duck on flat rice noodles) was during Alex and Sinyee's visit at the beginning of August.

Having a place of my own and a kitchen to myself means I can procrastinate all I want. Most recently I had some nice strawberries that I had bought for smallgroup, but had forgotten to bring out after dinner. A week later, they weren't in the best shape; I thought I'd cut them up and toss them in a pan and make some glazed strawberries to put atop my ice cream (yeah, my average saturday night when I'm down with a cold - I needed the vitamin C). I ended up with more strawberries than ice cream, so the rest ended up in an impromptu strawberry jam, which I was pretty happy with. Ended up in a home-made pop-tart the next morning in conjunction with some mini-pita bread and penotti duo (nutella-like spread).
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The next item is a mystery inside an enigma, put through a meat grinder and masked in artificial food colouring. The concoction is known "Filet Americain", which begs the questions, where does the concept of "filet" come in, and what's so "Americain" about it (bonus question: where does "Americain" come from, since the Dutch word is "Amerikaan")? Wikipedia claims it's simply the Belgian term for steak tartare, but as you can see from the image below, the produce is actually rather different.
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A steak tartare is identifiable as finely chopped raw beef, mixed with spices, olive oil, and perhaps a raw egg. Along with carpaccio, I have the mental image that it's a European dish. I've met one too many Americans who find any sort of raw food too exciting to think that such a dish could originate in the US (although I rather do enjoy raw beef, provided it's served at a reputable enough establishment).
A "filet Americain" though, is sold at supermarkets, with an expiry date at least two weeks out of the purchase date. The meat is ground to the consistency of a paste, and both the texture and flavour are closer to pate than beef. My understanding of economics and food preparation says that meat ground to the point of being unidentifiable is most likely from an inexpensive cut rather than a filet. The fact that it has a two week shelf life suggests that it makes heavy uses of nitrates/nitrite and food colouring to ensure that it remains a tasty orange instead of a drab grey. All in all though, it's a fairly tasty meat-that-you-can-spread-on-toast.

Sep 20, 2008

Chinatown

Everyone kept telling me that Chinatown in Amsterdam was right beside the Red Light district. Obviously, I haven't spent enough time in the RL, since I haven't found the chinatown till today, when I made a concerted effort to locate it.
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It was surprisingly, pretty much smack dab in the center of the old city, and despite being mixed in with Thai, Indonesian, and Sushi restaurants, had a few passable chinese BBQ restaurants as well as a surprisingly well stocked supermarket, meaning that I now have chinese cooking wine, soy sauce, fried dace and korean aloe drink.
As a constant reminder of my inadequacy with language here in Europe, people in Chinatown seemed to be able to speak Cantonese, Mandarin, Indonesian (?), English and Dutch. At least I learned how to say 'alsjeblieft', I'll call that a moral victory.

Sep 17, 2008

Easy come, easy go.

The pedal on my almost-free bike keeps falling off. I think I tried to screw it back on this morning when I parked it, and probably forgot to lock it up after fixing the pedal. Now it's gone.

I hope whoever took it loses the pedal and screws himself over.

It's here!

Ok, now when can I actually buy it?

Edit: Ah, disappointment, it won't be available till November. The other new cameras announced today, the G10, SX10 IS, 980 IS and 870 IS all look interesting for one reason or another. It's a much more interesting launch this year than last, and my bank account will be hurting for sure.

Sep 14, 2008

On Perpignan

I was in Perpignan, France from Sept 2-7 for Visa pour l'Image, supposedly the biggest annual international photojournalism festival. I heard about it last year from photographer Adam Ferguson; at the time I had no expectation to go any time in the near future. Somehow I ended up in Amsterdam, working for a photo agency. Since the staff of the agency were attending the festival, myself, another intern, and an ex-intern were also invited to join, although on our own travel expense.
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Fortunately, the agency had a house rented out where we were invited to stay, which is nice in a town where the hotels are pretty booked out a year in advance for the event. As interns, there wasn't too much we had to do there. I was pretty much there to enjoy it and absorb as much as I could; which was good, since I felt pretty tired and drained going in.
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I didn't do much at all there. I checked out some of the photo exhibits, checked out some of the evening screenings, and attended one of the panels. I probably should have attended more of the panels; although they dind't seem that interesting, the debates could have been educational.
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In retrospect, I could have done some more. Could have studied the exhibits more, could have networked more. I really wasn't in the mood for the latter, and it's hard to throw yourself out there as an advanced hobbyist when everyone else is either a photographer or an agent or an editor. Plus, there were far more ambitious photographers throwing themselves at editors, networking to sell, whereas I have no work to push or to motivate me to chitchat, although I guess I really could have done the "hi, how are you, you have any kids?" kinda smalltalk to at least get to know some people and get my foot in the door.
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In the evenings there were photography screenings projected on a huge widescreen. The image was created by six projectors. Each evening would start with a slideshow of the news stories of 2007, broken down into a few months for each evening. After that, various photographers and their stories would be featured.
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One thing really struck me about the nightly "news" - for a festival that celebrates photojournalism, a profession that idealizes "real news" over "censorship" or simply news pushed by commercial media outlets, there seemed to be a certain filter applied. There was a strong presence of African stories and very little North American, or developed world coverage. Obituaries presented were mostly of musicians, ones that I've never heard of and were probably mostly of interest to people in their 50s or 60s. Few were what I'd consider world news.
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The screening on Friday night was focused on the 20th anniversary of the festival. At the end, the director of the festival, Jean-Francois Leroy, himself was feted and presented a gift of prints from the many photographers who are his friends and have benefitted from the festival.
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Which brings me to the one thing that I didn't really like about the festival - which, should be taken as an opinion more than a criticism: the professional week has a certain cult of personality to it. There are important people, who all know each other. The festival is the time for them to see each other and catch up with each other. If you're in the clique, you get to hang out and drink with your friends. If not, you're a nobody, left scrounging around the Cafe de la Poste in the evenings in search of other nobodies who are trying to make it as photographers. That's not to say that there aren't friendly photographers, but as a generalization, that's the way it goes. I guess it's the same if you go anywhere where people already know each other and connections are already firm.
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One place I lucked out on was to have a front row seat to watch photographer, Philip Blenkinsop, receive the Visa d'Or, one of the three top prizes given at the festival. As an oddity in the history of the festival, the final night's screening and closing party were cancelled due to rain/security, instead Jean-Francois found Philip as he was having dinner and dragged him out onto the street to present him with the award.
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I was a little disappointed at the closing party being cancelled - it was famous for being a good time. I did, however, get to see the tiny closing ceremony, held for the benefit of the organizint staff, which lasted for maybe 20 minutes before everyone returned back to the Cafe de la Poste to hang out until the cafe closed.
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Sep 9, 2008

So simple but so good

I didn't get this from a recipe, so it's probably not authentic, but it's very simple and makes me feel all deutche:

2 supermarket bratwurst (aka braadworst)
a pack of supermarket saurkraut (aka wijnzuurkool)
an onion
a pepper (I got a yellow one)
a bottle of leffe (brune dubbel)

In a 10 or 12 inch frying pan sautee the onions and peppers on high heat until slightly brown. Move them aside in the pan and sear the bratwurst for about 45 seconds, then turn bratwurst over and sear for another 45 seconds.

Pour in beer until the frothing mess covers half the sausage; cover the pan and reduce heat to a simmer until the liquid boils off. It takes about 8 minutes (ok I just made that up, I didn't watch the clock). Add some more beer, as well as the saurkraut, and simmer until mostly dry. Take out the brats and mix the vegetables together.

I got impatient while waiting for the sausages to cook, so I had some warm crusty bread (they sell parbaked bread here that you can finish off yourself at home) with some pate and brie. Having my own kitchen is bad news. This passage comes to mind:

Phil 3:18-21 For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Sep 7, 2008

Baggage #2

My transfer at Lyon was about an hour, after that I grabbed a local train to Montpellier. I had just decided on Montpellier as a destination on Monday morning. I needed to be in Perpignan on Tuesday, so I had thought about taking an overnight train. It was over $100 more for the overnight train than the regular train, if I took the regular train though, I'd have to stay somewhere overnight. I had considered Lyon, Marseilles and Montpellier, and decided on the last one since it was closest to Perignan, meaning I'd have the most flexibility on getting there on Tuesday.

I intentionally didn't look ahead for accomodations. The plan was to lock up my rolling suitcase and explore the city and see what came up. Unfortunately, upon arriving at 10pm, I discovered there were no lockers available in the train station. Wandering around the area near the train station, I found that pretty much all the hotels were full (not sure why, but it was the day before school started so I suspect that was related), and none of them had lockers. In the end I found a Holiday Inn, where the desk clerk agreed to lock up my suitcase in the storage room, provided that I pick it up before 7am when his shift was over.
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I've found that one of the parts I hate most in travelling is carrying luggage around. It slows you down and drastically limits how far you can go before you're exhausted. Add to that the clumsiness of carrying it around, worrying about theft, and the fact that it marks you out as a vulnerable tourist.
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After having stowed the suitcase, I explored the town by foot a bit before jumping on the tram. The first night in Geneva, I had taken the trams around the city to get a feel of the outlying areas and was planning to do the same. Unfortunately the outbound train I took was the last one. It was about 1am when I got to the end of the line, and there were no returning trams. It took me about 4 hours to walk back to the train station. The trip included a couple of short naps on park bences along the way, and meeting a bunch of guys playing football in the empty square at the center of the city at 4:30am. It got colder than I expected, so I was glad to get back to the station, where I found other travellers sleeping for the night. If I had to have carried the suitcase through the night, it would have been pretty miserable, but as it was, it was only tiring (and my feet hurt after).
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The next morning I first took a bus to the sea, took a few photos, and then bussed back wandered around the city a little more, when I ran into two dutch tourists that I happened to see the night before. It was interesting that they were photographers, so I hung around with them as they explored the town. Ultimiately it wasn't the best decision; because of them I missed the train I was planning on taking to Perpignan (which meant a lot more walking when I got there since I then didn't have a ride to the house I was staying at).
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The more vocal of the two dutch guys proved to be arrogant, opinionated and ignorant, a combination I find downright unbearable. It's something I pretty much guessed at, but maybe I was too generous in not making early judgements. Maybe this is too harsh, but then maybe the lesson to be learned is to trust my judgement and not waste time with the wrong people who will drag me down.
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On an absolutely unrelated note, I gotta learn to sail.

Sep 4, 2008

Baggage #1

On Monday I took the train from Geneva, Switzerland, to Montpellier, France, which involved a stop to change trains in Lyon, France. On the train to Lyon, I saw a black woman on a train, carrying her three kids. She looked tall, slender and strong as she tried to manage two toddlers and a baby at once by herself. Initially she didn't find all the seats together and put the two toddlers in one car, and sat in the next car and watched them through a window. I watched first as she efficiently changed three diapers, and then filled three baby bottles from a bottle of juice while holding the baby.

I felt a little bad for her, trying to watch over the three kids. At moments I felt like offering to help, but I always have this sense that unsolicited may be unwelcome, especially with protective mothers and their children. Maybe it's just the way I don't necessarily feel like I need people to offer me assistance most of the time. The daughter, one of the two toddlers, at first seemed quite capable of taking care of her younger brother as they sat together in the other car. Later though, as seats freed up and she came back to sit with her mother, she seemed a little out of it, first slipping on the seat as she was moving across it, and banging her head against the train wall, and again later falling off the seat completely and landing on her butt. I suspect they must have been having a long trip, since her brother was nodding off with a baby bottle in his mouth, occasionally jerking up to hold the bottle, but not sucking anything out of it.

As I got off the train, I felt a little uneasy as everyone rushed off and the woman packed her stuff and got her kids in tow. I hung around to watch, just to make sure she and her kids all got off the train. The mother got off, carrying the baby and her luggage, and looked around the platform for someone as her toddler boy stumbled off the train in a half-awake daze. The clumsy sister also stumbled off the train, and at first stepped in the crack between the train and the platform, and then fell all the way through the crack probably bumping her head and limbs against the train and platform on the way down.

I rushed over as the mom started screaming. Another woman who was just beside the train had gotten on her knees as well, and together we reached down and grabbed the girl and pulled her up, as some men stood in the train's doorway to make sure it didn't close and the train didn't move. The tracks and gravel were only about three feet down below the platform, but it was a fairly big fall I think, when the girl was much shorter than that. We managed to pull her up quickly, and returned her to the distressed mother. A station employee had been summoned and came over and checked the girls head, and a crowd gathered.

I have no idea if the station employee had any medical training, but since the woman seemed to be taken care of by plenty of native french speakers, I just went on my way. Later I saw her two boys leaving with a couple of other people that I had noticed with her on the platform. I guess the woman probably went to take care of her daughter.

I ended up feeling bad for the woman (and considering perhaps that I should have been helping her kids off the train instead of merely watching). At the same time though, it seemed almost inevitable that some sort of accident would happen considering that the woman had her hands full with luggage and two toddlers running around. It seems almost negligent to allow your children to stumble off the train by themselves. She could have put her luggage down off the train first and then helped each kid out, or vice versa. While I may be rather insensitive, it seems almost foolish to even attempt to travel alone with three small children given all the things that could go wrong. I find it difficult enough to travel around alone and keep my eye on my belongings, having three children that move around would be next to impossible. It seems like the type of situation that would require far more careful planning. I understand that perhaps this woman may have had no choice. If that were the case it must be a difficult life to have to carry around all that baggage.