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
Showing posts with label Amsterdam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amsterdam. Show all posts
Friday, August 22, 2008
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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