Deventer was fun. By fun, I mean alright.
I arrived at 11 am and made my way into the city center. It was dead. It was a Sunday. It makes me sad to see a city abandoned on nice sunny days. It's a total waste of space.
Where were all these people? At church? At home with their families?
No... They were all crammed into the city square drinking coffee and beer while watching a bocchi ball tournament. There was spread across the square in front of the old Weigh building. People were having a great time just throwing little coloured balls closest to an even smaller silver sphere. Observers sat at near by cafes enjoying lunch or a cool beer after their game. I walked by and enjoyed the collective spirit.
The early morning antics got me into a merry mood. I thought i would try my hand at the old camping game again. Why not, the sun was high and the clouds were few and far between.
To make a long story short, it rained down on me again.
I only got two hours of sleep, but I did enjoy a wonderful 1am walk around Deventer. I even stumbled upon Deventer's own Red Light District. It's situated along a road just across from the base of their notable bridge and it was busy at 1:30 in the morning.
After my little walk around I tried to get some sleep back at camp. I only achieved marginal success with sleep here and there. But this was not enough. At 6 am I started on another walk. This time I found a nice little windmill that is used as a lumber mill on the other side of the same bridge. I took numerous panoramic shots of the town and surrounding country side.
But ultimately I was disgusted with the weather. It was none stop rain day after day, so it was time to leave the Netherlands.
At 11 am I hopped a train with a ticket to Köln.
I knew nothing of this West German city but I became introduced to it's beauty upon leaving the train station.
A wonderful structure stands in plain sight. 'The Dom' they call it.
Germany's largest cathedral. And there I was at the foot of this colossal church, blown away.
I later ate dinner on the steps leading up to the Dom. Every few minutes I would twist my neck 90 degrees to make sure that this most excellent stone structure had not dissapeared. How could it? Thousdands upon thousands of tonnes dissapearing over my shoulder without a sound. Impossible.
And Beer is so cheap here. In the supermarkets large bottles of beer cost anywhere from €0.60 - € 0.80. I bought six different brands of beer for under € 6.00. And the scary thing is that beer is only going to get cheaper the further south east I travel.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
Address to the Nation: Update Amsterdam
This is an e-mail sent back home. People seemed to love it. I enjoyed it too.
Hello everybody...
I've been away for only two weeks... i can't believe that... it seems like a month... and the last 3 days have seemed like years...
I'm in Amsterdam... I'm currently in the Amsterdam library using their free internet... now i know where to go to get internet.... Donde es el bibliotheca?
I do not know what to think of the city... sure its nice and unique... and yes all the buildings lean and slant... sure the canals are filled with bikes and cars (an average of 50 cars a year fall into the canals)... but it has not stopped raining ... If i wanted this type of weather i would have stayed home but I'm sure it's just wonderful in Vancouver right now...
The weather has been horrible where ever I've travelled... Paris and Brussels were nice and sunny but it has not been very warm at all... London was a little windy with slight showers here and there but Amsterdam is getting dumped on... and the really funny thing about this horrible weather... I'm currently camping 20 minutes outside of Centraal Station...
The first night was a mess... I was a captain aboard a sinking ship... My Trail Appliance towel became a bucket to bail water from the leaking walls... Socks became corks... jackets became sleeping bags... t-shirts were pillows... and beer became sleeping pills... Before i left Brussels I had checked the weather via the internet and Amsterdam showed Sun all week... When i arrived 4 hours later the weather looked fine... there was no change in the sky when i arrived at Gaaspercamp, so I arranged to stay 4 nights in the campgrounds... The weather started to shift about an hour after i set up my tent... but that was ok... i positioned my little fort below a nice overhanging tree to minimize the amount of freefalling rain... This should have taken care of at least one night... 3 hours later the rain began to fall... thwacking the top of my nylon tent I was a little worried but I wouldn't let a little rain steal away the €42,00 I paid for 4 nights worth of camping...
And so the flood began....
That first night was horrible... but now I'm laughing at it because the next day i reinforced my tent... it's now a fortress of clear plastic garbage bags... I even bought a winter toque, that reads ''Amsterdam", to keep my head warm at night... The second and third night have been much more enjoyable... and by enjoyable i mean rather shitty, just better than the first night... Less leaks, less of a mess... a little more warm....
Anyways, tonight is my last night at Gaasperlas Camping... (Gaasperlas is the name of the lake, the name of the camp site is Gaaspercamp) I'm going to try and get a bed at the Flying Pig Hostel in downtown Amsterdam... where all the kids have piercing, dirty dreadlocks and ugly facial hair... The downtown district is not very nice... everyone is a tourist visiting for Amsterdam's notorious decriminalized commodities... I don't blame them... it's one of the things that makes Amsterdam so interesting, but it attracts a large diverse crowd... I think I'll leave for Deventer on Sunday... and then I will either B-line it for Berlin or head south for some sun... I shouldn't be putting myself through such horrid weather... a beach in Spain sounds really nice right now... Anyways... I'm going to try and salvage what I can of this soggy day in Amsterdam...
Adios Amigos
Matthew J. Van Deventer
Hello everybody...
I've been away for only two weeks... i can't believe that... it seems like a month... and the last 3 days have seemed like years...
I'm in Amsterdam... I'm currently in the Amsterdam library using their free internet... now i know where to go to get internet.... Donde es el bibliotheca?
I do not know what to think of the city... sure its nice and unique... and yes all the buildings lean and slant... sure the canals are filled with bikes and cars (an average of 50 cars a year fall into the canals)... but it has not stopped raining ... If i wanted this type of weather i would have stayed home but I'm sure it's just wonderful in Vancouver right now...
The weather has been horrible where ever I've travelled... Paris and Brussels were nice and sunny but it has not been very warm at all... London was a little windy with slight showers here and there but Amsterdam is getting dumped on... and the really funny thing about this horrible weather... I'm currently camping 20 minutes outside of Centraal Station...
The first night was a mess... I was a captain aboard a sinking ship... My Trail Appliance towel became a bucket to bail water from the leaking walls... Socks became corks... jackets became sleeping bags... t-shirts were pillows... and beer became sleeping pills... Before i left Brussels I had checked the weather via the internet and Amsterdam showed Sun all week... When i arrived 4 hours later the weather looked fine... there was no change in the sky when i arrived at Gaaspercamp, so I arranged to stay 4 nights in the campgrounds... The weather started to shift about an hour after i set up my tent... but that was ok... i positioned my little fort below a nice overhanging tree to minimize the amount of freefalling rain... This should have taken care of at least one night... 3 hours later the rain began to fall... thwacking the top of my nylon tent I was a little worried but I wouldn't let a little rain steal away the €42,00 I paid for 4 nights worth of camping...
And so the flood began....
That first night was horrible... but now I'm laughing at it because the next day i reinforced my tent... it's now a fortress of clear plastic garbage bags... I even bought a winter toque, that reads ''Amsterdam", to keep my head warm at night... The second and third night have been much more enjoyable... and by enjoyable i mean rather shitty, just better than the first night... Less leaks, less of a mess... a little more warm....
Anyways, tonight is my last night at Gaasperlas Camping... (Gaasperlas is the name of the lake, the name of the camp site is Gaaspercamp) I'm going to try and get a bed at the Flying Pig Hostel in downtown Amsterdam... where all the kids have piercing, dirty dreadlocks and ugly facial hair... The downtown district is not very nice... everyone is a tourist visiting for Amsterdam's notorious decriminalized commodities... I don't blame them... it's one of the things that makes Amsterdam so interesting, but it attracts a large diverse crowd... I think I'll leave for Deventer on Sunday... and then I will either B-line it for Berlin or head south for some sun... I shouldn't be putting myself through such horrid weather... a beach in Spain sounds really nice right now... Anyways... I'm going to try and salvage what I can of this soggy day in Amsterdam...
Adios Amigos
Matthew J. Van Deventer
The Travelling Library's Night Out
It's strange. I don't know how I did it but I managed to read all six of the books I brought with me. They were supposed to last me four months but things have changed. I am going to need more books.
Soon my rucksack will be filled with books instead of clothes. I'll go from town to town, city to city, collecting new and used books storing them in my bag of wonders. I'll grow a beard and with my ruby red cheeks I'll look like a literary Saint Nick. I'll hand out novels to the kids of Dresden. I'll provide pamphlets to Croats. I'll drop dictionaries from the roof tops of Deventer. People will see me riding the rails across Europe and they'll wave. I'll smile, tip my hat, give a wink and bellow out a grand "Oh, Oh, Oh!" to avoid any copy rite infringements.
They'll write songs about me. Stories will be passed on every year around this time.
"Remember the year that mad man came and gave us his second hand books?"
I wish someone could have been there for me. A mythological librarian on who has access to countless books stored up in his backpack of stories.
I guess all these kids could just go to the library, but there's no fun in that. None at all. I want to see the kids smile and grow up properly.
I wonder what Stuart is reading these days? He always picks the best novels. They always contain a great message deep down between the lines. Literature of the '50s and '60s always seem to give me the most satisfaction. The counter culture movement really hits the Bohemian deep within my soul.
But now I am here in Europe living the Boho dream. I am connected to the beat of the city. The pulse of the people, the energy that fuels the endless array of lights, they are a part of me. Light rays pass through my little eyes and I process it all through that large mass of circuits in my head. It's a real trip when you think of it.
Life seems so simple but someone somewhere around the world has developed another ideal standard that throws all your learned logic out the window. I cannot fathom the degree of intolerance that leads to someone unloading several hundred rounds of bullets into a school house or blowing up a subway station during rush hour. Just baffles me.
The idea of intolerance has spawned from the city of tolerance.
Amsterdam changes every hour that I am awake. The Red Light District is no longer just for sailors. At night people funnel into the notorious quarter just to get a peek at the nearly naked sex workers. It's fantastic and radiant. The lights sting and hum in the night air. Reflections in the canal create distorted mirrors of midnight mischief, sex shows and pleasure toys. The women in the window are no different from waitress'. They are service industry workers, winking and licking their lips for a tip. It's wild.
Eye contact is an embarrassment on it's own. These women can tell who is willing to lay the money down and those who are just window shopping. Streets turn to side streets. Side streets turn into alleys. Allys to walk ways barely wide enough for two way foot traffic. The Red Light District is a catacombs of legal lust and sin. Just wild!
Back at the hostel I was greeted with '80s party music. People were huddled around the in-house bar fumbling for drinks. The commons room was flooded with bright party wigs and clothes from this year's American Apparel catalog. Every smile and every laugh, soon to be broadcast world wide via Facebook and Myspace. The all mighty power of the Internet.
The party screams "look how much fun I am having in Europe! Look at all my new friends!"
This is not Europe. This is just another night in North America. Crank the stereo and shovel back the beer, black out and then do it again.
I learned my lesson the night before. I went down to Leidseplein to explore Amsterdam's club life. It was no different than the clubs back home. Same music, same lights, same girls. I loved it. I called it quits around 1 or 2 in the morning but the club crawlers kept going. After leaving the club started to walk back to the hostel but I didn't know that I was walking in the wrong direction. I had no map nor phone. I just kept walking until all the old brick buildings started to look less crooked and more contemporary. There was no one for miles. No cars. No trams.
You tend to realize the concept of loneliness while walking the miscellaneous streets of Amsterdam at 4 am. I am a long way from home.
Luckily a group of youngsters, like myself, were passing by and recognized my vacant concept of direction. They were able to contact a taxi which took me back into the city at a fee of 15 Euro. But these little follies amount to experience and experience tends to generate excellent stories.
Last night's lesson: Always bring the map or find a girl you can go home with...
Soon my rucksack will be filled with books instead of clothes. I'll go from town to town, city to city, collecting new and used books storing them in my bag of wonders. I'll grow a beard and with my ruby red cheeks I'll look like a literary Saint Nick. I'll hand out novels to the kids of Dresden. I'll provide pamphlets to Croats. I'll drop dictionaries from the roof tops of Deventer. People will see me riding the rails across Europe and they'll wave. I'll smile, tip my hat, give a wink and bellow out a grand "Oh, Oh, Oh!" to avoid any copy rite infringements.
They'll write songs about me. Stories will be passed on every year around this time.
"Remember the year that mad man came and gave us his second hand books?"
I wish someone could have been there for me. A mythological librarian on who has access to countless books stored up in his backpack of stories.
I guess all these kids could just go to the library, but there's no fun in that. None at all. I want to see the kids smile and grow up properly.
I wonder what Stuart is reading these days? He always picks the best novels. They always contain a great message deep down between the lines. Literature of the '50s and '60s always seem to give me the most satisfaction. The counter culture movement really hits the Bohemian deep within my soul.
But now I am here in Europe living the Boho dream. I am connected to the beat of the city. The pulse of the people, the energy that fuels the endless array of lights, they are a part of me. Light rays pass through my little eyes and I process it all through that large mass of circuits in my head. It's a real trip when you think of it.
Life seems so simple but someone somewhere around the world has developed another ideal standard that throws all your learned logic out the window. I cannot fathom the degree of intolerance that leads to someone unloading several hundred rounds of bullets into a school house or blowing up a subway station during rush hour. Just baffles me.
The idea of intolerance has spawned from the city of tolerance.
Amsterdam changes every hour that I am awake. The Red Light District is no longer just for sailors. At night people funnel into the notorious quarter just to get a peek at the nearly naked sex workers. It's fantastic and radiant. The lights sting and hum in the night air. Reflections in the canal create distorted mirrors of midnight mischief, sex shows and pleasure toys. The women in the window are no different from waitress'. They are service industry workers, winking and licking their lips for a tip. It's wild.
Eye contact is an embarrassment on it's own. These women can tell who is willing to lay the money down and those who are just window shopping. Streets turn to side streets. Side streets turn into alleys. Allys to walk ways barely wide enough for two way foot traffic. The Red Light District is a catacombs of legal lust and sin. Just wild!
Back at the hostel I was greeted with '80s party music. People were huddled around the in-house bar fumbling for drinks. The commons room was flooded with bright party wigs and clothes from this year's American Apparel catalog. Every smile and every laugh, soon to be broadcast world wide via Facebook and Myspace. The all mighty power of the Internet.
The party screams "look how much fun I am having in Europe! Look at all my new friends!"
This is not Europe. This is just another night in North America. Crank the stereo and shovel back the beer, black out and then do it again.
I learned my lesson the night before. I went down to Leidseplein to explore Amsterdam's club life. It was no different than the clubs back home. Same music, same lights, same girls. I loved it. I called it quits around 1 or 2 in the morning but the club crawlers kept going. After leaving the club started to walk back to the hostel but I didn't know that I was walking in the wrong direction. I had no map nor phone. I just kept walking until all the old brick buildings started to look less crooked and more contemporary. There was no one for miles. No cars. No trams.
You tend to realize the concept of loneliness while walking the miscellaneous streets of Amsterdam at 4 am. I am a long way from home.
Luckily a group of youngsters, like myself, were passing by and recognized my vacant concept of direction. They were able to contact a taxi which took me back into the city at a fee of 15 Euro. But these little follies amount to experience and experience tends to generate excellent stories.
Last night's lesson: Always bring the map or find a girl you can go home with...
I AMsterdam... Who are you?
I don't know what to tell you about this place. There are no secrets here, only excuses to relieve the firm grip on reality.
And I'm clutching mine.
The people who come to Amsterdam are farm from beautiful. The tourist runs the city but this city will run you down. I'm not sure if these people know what they are doing but they flock to the city with backpacks filled with time and empty ambition. They stroll in with their dreadlocks and dollar sized earrings that expose gaping holes in floppy earlobes. They flood Centraal Station and pour into the streets. They seep their way to Dam Square. They loiter with guitars, hooked on hidden drumbeats only heard in their warping minds. They dress to impress their own style parading to the world a fashion of grunge meets goth meets Indie underground dance party.
I won't let myself fall in with the tourist crowd. I don't even pass the dress code at the door. Maybe one day I could turn my back on humble clothing and devote my attention to the traveller's chic black tastes.
But this would take years to complete the transformation from "collage boy casual" to the uniform of the Damists. I would need to stock pile weeks and months of facial hair and then carefully select what unique figure i could create.
A lightning bolt? Racing Stripes? Eurotails? Quite frankly, I do not have the time to grow a beard and it makes me itch.
I would need piercings galore. One through my lip, another along the bridge of my nose, and four more scattered through out the Netherlands of my body. But this would fear into my simple little life. Suddenly walking becomes a hazard. These little metallic knobs become landmines, accidents waiting to happen. What would happen if the hidden piercings were to get tangled in fishing wire or snagged in my clothes resulting in the severing or tearing certain unmentionable members.
As for tatoos. One is not enough. I would have to be littered with meaningful images like the virgin Mary, my son, or a jumping Japanese fish.
Enough said...
But those are just the Dam tourists. The Dutch are lovely people. Tall as you would never believe, with blond hair and light blue eyes. And here I am in peasants clothing and a head of hair that has not been this long for roughly 14 months.
I don't stand out but I'm not a part of their jigsaw...
People don't make eye contact in the big cities. London and Paris were too wrapped up in their own history that they keep rolling along. The sun sets and the neon lights wake up the tired lives. People pour out of the Underground or Metro and flood the streets but not like the Dam tourist. No, these folk have lives. They are managing their life (something the Dammers will learned to do five, maybe ten years down the line).
The city streets criss-cross canals and endless rows of crooked houses. Everything leans. This city is like a demented version of Disney's Toon Town and with the right kind of drugs you can recreate the cosmic colours of the magic kingdom.
The Dutch whizz by on bicycles built for getting from A to B. They do not notice the cracks in the streets or the people walking down the designated bicycle lanes. They are stoic faces speeding across bridges, talking on their mobile phones, reaching for their briefcase or purse, adjusting a bra, all while pedalling their soviet designed bicycles. You can tell that a factory has pumped out millions of these utility bicylces.
Amsterdam is a bike cemetery and the canals are their graves.
This is an evident problem around the city. They have managed to find solutions. Large ditch diggers operated by a long flat boat reach in and scoop up any solid debris. Giant mechanical arms pull out bicycles and pieces of cars everyday. It is a sight to see my friends.
Everything is a sight to see. This whole continent screams "look at me!" But when we turn to look all we see is some guy slumped in a chair smoking on a cigarette asking "Why me?"
An older man told us off the other day. He had been drinking for days and sleeping on the very same bench where he was sitting. His blond hair was aged and the stubble on his face declared that he had given up on his public appearance. The empty Heineken cans added to the decor of the cobbled stoned street. He hated his life and condition but he could not transgress his thoughts to turn his life around.
For him it was too late. The only thing he had left in the world was his ability to interact with his surroundings. And so he chose to interact with our tour group. The man sputtered something in Dutch. A cry that could have gone unheard. He spoke again, this time more direct. With anger and disgust he sputtered out more words, this time understandable to the majority of the group.
"Go home," he cried in broken English. "Go back to your airplane, back home. You ruin this city. You are not welcome here."
The man was thoroughly disgusted with all of us standing in front of the roadside statue. All he saw was 30 tourists (not the Dam tourist) making a mess of his country, inhaling on all the vices Amsterdam has to offer. This was an interaction between two polar opposites; the "haves" vs. the "have nots."
At the digression of our tour leader, the 'haves' released a communal 'boo' in retaliation for the man's drunken intolerance. I kept quite. I could relate to what the man was saying but I was not condoning his verbal attack. Our public shaming managed to break his morale but you could tell that his spirit had been broken years prior...
It was a scene that became epic in my life, even though I had nothing to do with it. I was there watching in a city built around tolerance and social freedoms.
The Golden Age of the Netherlands is so far gone but for some reason it's still pressing in my mind.
And I'm clutching mine.
The people who come to Amsterdam are farm from beautiful. The tourist runs the city but this city will run you down. I'm not sure if these people know what they are doing but they flock to the city with backpacks filled with time and empty ambition. They stroll in with their dreadlocks and dollar sized earrings that expose gaping holes in floppy earlobes. They flood Centraal Station and pour into the streets. They seep their way to Dam Square. They loiter with guitars, hooked on hidden drumbeats only heard in their warping minds. They dress to impress their own style parading to the world a fashion of grunge meets goth meets Indie underground dance party.
I won't let myself fall in with the tourist crowd. I don't even pass the dress code at the door. Maybe one day I could turn my back on humble clothing and devote my attention to the traveller's chic black tastes.
But this would take years to complete the transformation from "collage boy casual" to the uniform of the Damists. I would need to stock pile weeks and months of facial hair and then carefully select what unique figure i could create.
A lightning bolt? Racing Stripes? Eurotails? Quite frankly, I do not have the time to grow a beard and it makes me itch.
I would need piercings galore. One through my lip, another along the bridge of my nose, and four more scattered through out the Netherlands of my body. But this would fear into my simple little life. Suddenly walking becomes a hazard. These little metallic knobs become landmines, accidents waiting to happen. What would happen if the hidden piercings were to get tangled in fishing wire or snagged in my clothes resulting in the severing or tearing certain unmentionable members.
As for tatoos. One is not enough. I would have to be littered with meaningful images like the virgin Mary, my son, or a jumping Japanese fish.
Enough said...
But those are just the Dam tourists. The Dutch are lovely people. Tall as you would never believe, with blond hair and light blue eyes. And here I am in peasants clothing and a head of hair that has not been this long for roughly 14 months.
I don't stand out but I'm not a part of their jigsaw...
People don't make eye contact in the big cities. London and Paris were too wrapped up in their own history that they keep rolling along. The sun sets and the neon lights wake up the tired lives. People pour out of the Underground or Metro and flood the streets but not like the Dam tourist. No, these folk have lives. They are managing their life (something the Dammers will learned to do five, maybe ten years down the line).
The city streets criss-cross canals and endless rows of crooked houses. Everything leans. This city is like a demented version of Disney's Toon Town and with the right kind of drugs you can recreate the cosmic colours of the magic kingdom.
The Dutch whizz by on bicycles built for getting from A to B. They do not notice the cracks in the streets or the people walking down the designated bicycle lanes. They are stoic faces speeding across bridges, talking on their mobile phones, reaching for their briefcase or purse, adjusting a bra, all while pedalling their soviet designed bicycles. You can tell that a factory has pumped out millions of these utility bicylces.
Amsterdam is a bike cemetery and the canals are their graves.
This is an evident problem around the city. They have managed to find solutions. Large ditch diggers operated by a long flat boat reach in and scoop up any solid debris. Giant mechanical arms pull out bicycles and pieces of cars everyday. It is a sight to see my friends.
Everything is a sight to see. This whole continent screams "look at me!" But when we turn to look all we see is some guy slumped in a chair smoking on a cigarette asking "Why me?"
An older man told us off the other day. He had been drinking for days and sleeping on the very same bench where he was sitting. His blond hair was aged and the stubble on his face declared that he had given up on his public appearance. The empty Heineken cans added to the decor of the cobbled stoned street. He hated his life and condition but he could not transgress his thoughts to turn his life around.
For him it was too late. The only thing he had left in the world was his ability to interact with his surroundings. And so he chose to interact with our tour group. The man sputtered something in Dutch. A cry that could have gone unheard. He spoke again, this time more direct. With anger and disgust he sputtered out more words, this time understandable to the majority of the group.
"Go home," he cried in broken English. "Go back to your airplane, back home. You ruin this city. You are not welcome here."
The man was thoroughly disgusted with all of us standing in front of the roadside statue. All he saw was 30 tourists (not the Dam tourist) making a mess of his country, inhaling on all the vices Amsterdam has to offer. This was an interaction between two polar opposites; the "haves" vs. the "have nots."
At the digression of our tour leader, the 'haves' released a communal 'boo' in retaliation for the man's drunken intolerance. I kept quite. I could relate to what the man was saying but I was not condoning his verbal attack. Our public shaming managed to break his morale but you could tell that his spirit had been broken years prior...
It was a scene that became epic in my life, even though I had nothing to do with it. I was there watching in a city built around tolerance and social freedoms.
The Golden Age of the Netherlands is so far gone but for some reason it's still pressing in my mind.
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