Carol Bontekoe

This blog has been keeping track of my adventures since 2004. The stories and the adventures have come from my college dorm room to Uganda, Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan, learning Dutch in the Netherlands to living in the wilds of Homer, Alaska. I went back to school in Amsterdam to study Theaterwetenschap (Theatre Science) at University of Amsterdam. And now my adventures as a Fruit Fly, a Sexy Unicorn, and creating a movement with Team Sparkle in Chicago.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

1/2 off, full refund

I re-learned a lesson this past weekend. When traveling/living abroad if something seems to be going wrong or out of the ordinary- follow the lead of the locals.
I was down in Leiden this weekend-yes you are correct in assuming this is where Einstein studied and where the pilgrims lived. I was visiting my friend Sarah who is studying there, she’s a real Einstein(ba-da-dah!) My first night there we wanted a chill evening so we went to the Einstein CafĂ© and then to a movie. I finally saw the remake of Hairspray, this was a big for me since I am obsessed with the original. While standing in line to get our tickets some nice women behind us gave us a ½ coupon, which made the movie the cost it would have been if I had seen it in the States.
We were enjoying the movie when half way through the movie, mid-John Travolta line , the movie just stopped. I was outraged. I did the half-stand, half-sit move where I haven’t committed to full outrage or quiet seated outrage. Sarah pointed out that we only paid half price maybe we only get half a movie. I was checking our tickets to see if it said we only paid half price to see if I could get a full refund on the tickets. Then I noticed something- all the Dutch people were totally calm. They were getting up and going out calmly or sitting and talking calmly. Then they eventually came back with a fresh glass of wine or a new beer, calmly. I committed to sitting back in my seat at this point. After about 10 minutes the movie started back up. They do this for all movies so people can go and get a fresher drink. I’m glad I refrained from pulling the seat out of the bolts and hitting the manager while demanding a FULL refund. Instead I half showed I was foreign and half showed- I’m a quick learn.

2 comments :

  1. Anonymous said...

    hahahah that is hilarious!! While I was reading it I totally thought you were going to only get to see half the movie! i was like what the heck? Why would anyone want to see that?!?!?
    Good thing it was only a break...sounds kind of nice actually! They should adopt that in the US....you know, so we can get more popcorn (your fav!)
    Miss ya girlie,
    Sara

  2. Anonymous said...

    hahaha... i love listening[reading] to your stories.