Dagmaraka goes Dutch

dagmaraka wrote:

Ah, OK, i'll look. I've been overwhelmed lately-- bombarded by emails with links, suggestions, and such, so i've been actively hiding and avoiding. But I'll look once my chapters (2) are written and submitted.

No problem.

If you'd like, I could easily ask my sister to ask around about apartments or help in other ways - but for that I would need you to email though, I'm afraid... So I know what to ask about or can just fw it.

And well, yeah.. <stern wink> ... if you would like my input on anything whatsoever, wondering about what I might know or not know in a thread that I've never seen and don't know about is probly not the best way of getting it Cool

I'm hardly on here anymore, this last week really was an unfortunate exception.. I'm trying hard to stay away from this darn place altogether! But you can always start chatting in the gmail chat, or if you've got skype you could do it in skype chat, which I've pretty much always got on - thats probably less of a hurdle than email. Cant promise to follow this thread (or any other here), I'm afraid.

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nimh wrote:

I'm hardly on here anymore, this last week really was an unfortunate exception.. I'm trying hard to stay away from this darn place altogether!

I'm sorry to hear that, and hope you'll change your mind after taking a break.

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Me too.

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nah, nimh, i have your email, so once i really have time and energy to focus on what i need to find out, i can email you... i don't think i will in the coming weeks though. too much going on. i think i'll just plunge in, after all, that befits my character.

once there, i'll want pointers, i think. and i'll also know what to ask. now i know and i actively don't think about the hague, as i'm busy moping about and missing boston.

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The NYT's Frugal Traveler goes to Amsterdam:

http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/going-dutch-in-amsterdam/index.html

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/08/06/travel/06frugal533.jpg

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Didn't see this before. Who the hell steals luggage?

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umm...thieves?

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Unreal. I bet they target females who might have jewelry. They can have my toothbrush and dirty underwear - I never travel with anything I can't easily replace.

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not at all. they are not quite so discriminating. they take anything they can.

anyway, about those apartments....

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One nosy question about your new job, Dasha --

I darkly remember my high school history teacher talking about an institution called the "Deutsch Franzoesische Historikerkommission" (German-French commission of historians). It was founded shortly after World War II, when our governments realized that part of the mutual hatred between the French and the Germans was that they had tought their young people diametrically opposed versions of the same common history. Recognizing their mistake, they made German and French historians sit on one table, check each other's facts, figure out the "true" history as best they could, and teach it to the students of both countries. This mutually acceptable history was imperfect in that it sometimes sacrificed reality to a "let's not offend anyone" bias (which we 16 year olds gleefully picked apart after looking at the primary literature). But it vastly improved on the conflicting histories it replaced.

Your new employer sounds as if it might be the European-Union-ized descendant of this commission. Is it?

Just curious.

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I think and hope not. The commissions as you mention still attempt to exist, some fare better, some worse (Slovak-Hungarian one was an utter fiasco, but Czech-German one functioned pretty well for quite some time)

Where I work, we don't seek people to agree on one version of what happened, or coming up with one acceptable narrative. Rather, it's about highlighting the complexity of history, acknowledging the validity of vastly differing narratives, understanding where they're coming from and what they mean to people.
In any conciliation process, there are three main elements at work: Truth (who did what to whom), Justice, and Peace. They often not only don't go hand in hand, but can undermine one another. Peace is in my work more important than Truth or Justice.... we focus on people, their needs and relationships. Helping people work through their quest for Truth and Justice, but ultimately keeping Peace as the final goal in our own agenda for the process.

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Thanks -- both for the info, and for fighting the good fight. (That's probably the wrong metaphor, but you know what I mean.)

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it's the perfect metaphor for the dagster!

http://www.fabu-licious.com/images/PinkBoxingGloves-300.jpg

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this lady does not do pink. but funny koinkidenk, i have JUST posted my pro boxing gloves on ebay. keeping my heavy bag gloves, but, sigh, i won't be needing the pro ones no more.

QUESTION FOR ALL YE SAVVY A2K FOLK:

I am having trouble finding the right kind of shipping company. I want to send my 6 plums, as we slovaks say, home by boat, in one of them cargo boxes, and i don't care if it takes half a year... But all I'm finding are international shipping companies that charge thousands of dollars and have minimum requirement of something like 200 cubic feet. All I will have is 5-6 boxes of books/clothing stuff. Everything else stays behind, including furniture. Now that shouldn't cost $3,000.... I guess I'm not entering the right search words into google or sumpin.

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dagmaraka wrote:

I am having trouble finding the right kind of shipping company. I want to send my 6 plums, as we slovaks say, home by boat, in one of them cargo boxes, and i don't care if it takes half a year... But all I'm finding are international shipping companies that charge thousands of dollars and have minimum requirement of something like 200 cubic feet. All I will have is 5-6 boxes of books/clothing stuff. Everything else stays behind, including furniture. Now that shouldn't cost $3,000.... I guess I'm not entering the right search words into google or sumpin.

Six boxes is an awkward size to be moving across the Atlantic. Too small to put into a container, too large to take with you as baggage. I have colleagues who came over to the States from Munich with similar amounts of baggage, and they didn't find anything either. They ended up putting their boxes into my container when I came over.

I think you have basically two options. Option one is to have six Slovakian friends in Boston, and ask each to take one box with them the next time they go to Slovakia. Option two is to find people to share a container with. I know there are websites for this, but I don't know their URLs. I guess I'd start by Googling "share a container" or something like that.

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hmmm. i know my colleague did that when moving from cambodia. he only had one large box, which had a coffee table and random stuff in it. i'd ask him , but he's in the middle of nowhere in thailand and won't be back in civilization before i leave.

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Damn, I thought this was going to involve going blonde, plastic surgery for a ski jump nose, tulips, and wooden shoes.

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dagmaraka wrote:

hmmm. i know my colleague did that when moving from cambodia. he only had one large box, which had a coffee table and random stuff in it. i'd ask him , but he's in the middle of nowhere in thailand and won't be back in civilization before i leave.

I'm flying to Germany in the first week of September. I could volunteer for one box if you have a way of getting it from near Heidelberg to its final destination.

After that, my next flight home would be over Newton Day, also known as Christmas. The tickets for Christmas aren't booked yet; I could arrange a layover in Amsterdam, and you could pick up another box there if that helps you..

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Thanks, thomas. Don't have anyone in Heidelberg or in Germany for that matter though.
I'll mail books with media mail, rest I will probably just pick up gradually as I return to the states every now and then.

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@dagmaraka,

Hey -- Mata Hari has hijacked your account! What a wicked thing of her to do!(And pretty cool, too.)

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Dagmaraka goes Dutch

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