More birds, Erasmusbrug, muskietennetten, and een verjaardag

Today I walked home from school.  It is just about 4 miles, which is quite a hike.  Fortunately, with the exception of Erasmusbrug (the giant, new-ish, fancy-looking bridge across the Maas from Rotterdam to Zuid Rotterdam), it is pretty flat.  Also, although it was pouring on my way into school, it had cleared up by the time I walked home, which was nice.  But I don't see myself walking back and forth all year long.  It is going to seem mighty cold before too long.  I am pretty sure that, if I had needed to use my umbrella while I was going across the bridge it would have broken.  It was windy every where but going across the bridge it was hard to stay upright sometimes.  People riding bikes against the wind were really, really struggling.

This is a view from about half-way up the Erasmusbrug.  The railing is, of course, straight, but when you do the panorama thing with the pictures it distorts things a little.  The boats on the right are bus-boats.  You can take them from Rotterdam to Dordrecht and they also do tours around Rotterdam.  The building immediately to the right of the bridge is that slanty-faced building I pointed out when I first arrived.


Also, today there was a new kind of stork/heron in the "pond" on my way to school.  I think that I misidentified the "Blue Heron"--it's coloring is kind of right but it seems kind of big.  But today there is a new one that looks like what I assume a stork looks like.

 <---- This is the one that I thought was a blue heron.  It seems too big now, and too dark, and the coloring seems a little wrong.


This is the one that seems like a stork.  It was significantly larger than the bird on the left. -------->



I am contemplating getting mosquito netting ("muskietennetten" in Dutch) for my bed.  I looked it up and it costs 30 euros (or about $50) to get the size for a twin bed so I thought that I would tough it out but now I am thinking that that might not be a good idea.  I have always felt like I was pretty tough, mosquito-wise.  I think that if anything would prepare one to face a mosquito with fortitude, running fences through the swamp would be it.  Also, after a few introductory bites at the beginning of the year, I wouldn't get too many itchy bites for the rest of the season.  Well, apparently European mosquitos are a different breed (and they are a numerous breed--someone was telling me that Zuid Rotterdam is known for having lots of mosquitos and this has been a really wet year).  At first, I just had a couple of red spots on my arms.  Then I had a bunch of them.  Then they started itching.  Now they are really itchy and bumpy.  I counted them up and I have 19 bites on my left hand alone and I look pretty much like a plague victim which is awkward if you are supposed to be meeting people and shaking hands (I tried to take a picture of my spots but my hands just looked really weird and the lighting wasn't any good).  There are no screens on my window, so last night I closed the windows to keep the mosquitos out but it got really stuffy and I had to open it up again to sleep.  So right now I am prevaricating between figuring out what "anti-histamine" is in Dutch, shelling out the money for a mosquito net, and being all macho and toughing it out/assuming I will get over it before too long.


Also, I now know how to sing "Happy Birthday" to someone in Dutch.  One of my class mates (the one who suggested Kibbeling) had a birthday today ("een verjaardag" in Dutch) so we sang to him (but not well).  This is the song:

"Lang zal hij leven
"Lang zal hij leven
"Lang zal hij leven
"in de gloria
"in de gloria
"in de gloria
"hiep, hiep, hiep, hiep, hoera!"

("Long may he live (x3)
"in glory (x3)
" hip, hip, hooray!")

Nobody brought up any fun death- or zoo-related additions but maybe they thought that the "living long in glory" thing sounded sufficiently anticipatory of death already.