Ik ben weer nat... en ik ben het zat.

A week-and-a-half into my re-immersion in Amsterdam, and I'm still feeling the effects of the transition pretty heavily.

The weather has been absolutely atrocious.  It's like we left Ohio in the dog days of summer -- mid-August heat and humidity, sunburns, sweat, and mosquitoes -- and landed in Amsterdam to experience late-October / early-November conditions:  skies of battleship gray, buckets and buckets of rain, high winds, and cold fingers.  The only contants, as it turns out, are the mosquitoes and the humidity.  Absolutely every surface here seems to be immediately susceptible to mold, mildew, must, and moss.  Our basement has flooded twice since we've been back (once likely from the weather, once from plumbing problems).  Shoes and jackets are perpetually stinky.  It's simply inescapable... this morning, and seemingly every morning.

Ik ben weer nat... en ik ben het zat.

Coming back is not the same as staying.

Yesterday, the Dutch national football (soccer) team suffered an agonizing loss -- falling to the Spanish in overtime, 1-0.  It was a hard-fought game.  Even though many faulted the way that the Dutch team approached the game (calling it ugly, thuggish, and brutal), I am proud of the way that my adopted country played in this year's World Cup tournament.  They showed mental toughness, and they didn't let the Spanish intimidate them.  They kept to their game-plan, and it almost paid off for them.  If they could have held out for just four more minutes, they would have had the opportunity to win the game on penalty kicks (against an opponent who was, by most accounts, clearly better than they were).  If they could have held out for just four more minutes, I genuinely believe the game could have been theirs:  the first championship in Dutch football (soccer) history.

But it wasn't meant to be.  It turned out to be just another heart-break for an eternally-frustrated fan base.

Last Thursday, the city of Cleveland, Ohio suffered an agonizing loss -- when basketball superstar LeBron James decided to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers and sign a new contract with the Miami Heat instead.  The Cavs gave it their best shot, managing a clever campaign to keep their native son (James grew up in nearby Akron) playing in Cleveland, which was admittedly an uphill battle for a city which has been having a rough half-century or so.  And unfortunately, the story didn't have a happy ending for people from Ohio.  Similar to the way it happens in business, politics, and industry, Ohio sports are plagued by the fact that the best and the brightest often end up moving on to greener pastures in the South, or on the coasts, or in the bigger cities, where they achieve their glory.  Cleveland, in particular, seems to have a penchant for developing really good teams and really good players, but then losing at the last minute when the ultimate prize appears to be within their grasp.  There had been some hope that the LeBron James situation might be different -- that maybe he could be the "messiah" of Ohio sports.

But it wasn't meant to be.  It turned out to be just another heart-break for an eternally-frustrated fan base.

There's something astonishingly similar about these two agonizing losses, these heart-breaks, even though they're for very different cultures, different sports, and different types of loss.  On the emotional level, though, they're very similar.  Close but not close enough.  Good but not good enough.  Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.  I know the pain of Dutch loss, Ohio loss.  But the pain doesn't change my fondness for Oranje voetbal or Ohio basketball.  If anything, the pain intensifies my feelings of identification and affinity.  We may be mildly pathetic, but we've still got pride.  We may lose when it comes to the "big game," but we're loveable losers.

Ears ringing, throat stinging, elbows (and knees and shoulders) banged against me as I pushed through tens of thousands of screaming strangers.  Several of the people in the crowds physically accosted me at different point along the way, slapping at me and yelling in my face.  The air was filled with smoke and sirens.  Some strange, cold substance was raining down on my neck, my back, my legs.  It was absolute pandemonium.

And I hardly could have enjoyed myself more.

For yesterday's World Cup semi-final match between Holland and Uruguay, I joined 40,000 of my closest friends at the Museumplein in central Amsterdam -- watching the big game on the big screen, in the midst of the most unimaginable orange insanity.

When the Dutch team scored a goal, the sound of the crowd was deafening:  cheers, air-horns, vuvuzelas, bells, whistles, and music blasted over the sound system.  Confetti and fireworks shot up into the air.  Bright orange flares spewed acrid orange smoke.  And everyone jumped up and down -- making the Museumplein seem like a rocky orange sea.  People crashed into each other:  complete strangers hugging and high-fiving (and this from a culture where eye contact with strangers on the street is generally avoided).  And best of all, the Dutch team won 3-2, making it into the championship game for the first time in 32 years (and providing the opportunity for its first world championship ever).

It was an unforgettable experience.

And to think... I'm going to be back in Ohio for the championship game!  It'll be hard to be away from all the pandemonium in Amsterdam (especially if the Dutch team could pull off the win), but I'm definitely going to be cheering from wherever I'm at.

Speaking of which, does anyone know a good place in north-central Ohio for watching soccer with an enthusiastic crowd?!?  If there is no such place, I'm going to have to create one in my parents' living room.  I wouldn't miss the championship for the world.

I saw them installing this piece of art at the H88 earlier this morning.  It looks like it's going to be amazing, so I thought I'd pass along the word, for anyone who will be in Amsterdam this weekend...

Sachi Miyachi born in Tokyo and lives and works in Amsterdam, is a performance and installation artist.

She studied anthropology, philosophy and art at the Wako University in Tokyo and came in 2004 to the Netherlands where she did the Gerrit Rietveld Acadamy and Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam.

In 2007 she won the AIAS Prize of Honour (International Association of Independent Art and Design Schools)

Miyachi does refined drawings and installations that are often constructions of "forgotten memories". She takes in what meets her in her direct environment and searches as an archeologist the usable history data to tell a story about the urban change and identity. Rituals and other daily actions are a important part of her work.

For Artspace50, Miyachi will show 'The frame'.

A picture frame is a container for a picture intended to enhance its subject matter, make it easier to display in a space. 'What enhances today's life?' is the key of Miyachi's frame. By a use of mass produced daily objects, Miyachi creates the special frame in a grotesque manner to emphasize how our today's life and memories have been framed in a mass-consumption society. With a site specific context, the viewer will experience to face on Miyachi's approach to the world.

When and where:
Friday, 9 of July
from 20:00 till 23:00
Herengracht 88 sous, Amsterdam

curated by Avantia Damberg (contact@avantiadamberg.com)