A Dutch Life

They just cant be serious, can you imagine the chaos a Pollywaffle could cause here!

Trends in Japan » Tokyo Summerland wave pool manages to fit in some water

It looks like we’ll be booking tickets for a visit to Aus tomorrow, details to follow. As well as being excited, Petra (her blog is appropriately called Petrafied!)is a little nervous about our dangerous creatures. To the Dutch these appear as an endless stream of exotic sounding animals not unlike the scrolling text seen at the beginning of Star Wars.

Anyway, it seems there is the list is now one creature longer. 

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Pet camel kills Australian woman

It was a very big weekend for the gay community in Amsterdam with the Gay Pride Boat parade weaving it’s way through the canals on Saturday. My neighbours downstairs, Bernard-Jan (pictured in the middle below) and Wies, were kind enough to invite me to watch the festivities from their boat.

Thomas (pictured to the right, but not in the skirt) was also able to make it, and with a number of Bernard-Jan and Wies friends we basked in the sun and enjoyed wine while what can only be described as a unique and colourful parade passed unobstructed before us.

One thing is for sure, there is obviously no shortage of Engineers in the Gay community, some of the modifications/decorations performed to these boats was impressive to say the least!

Anyway, good fun was had by all, for the full album of pictures click here.

Often I like to think about the decision people make when faced with choices that on the surface offer absolutely no advantage or disadvantage. For example many of the trains here in Holland are two story. I think that basically, some Dutch guy went to London many many years ago, he saw the buses there and decided that they would get the jump on train design and go double-decker before the English did. Don’t get me wrong, I like the fact that I can choose between sitting upstairs or downstairs, but it does feel a little bit like the Razor blade wars that has gripped mens shaving accessories for the last few years. My money is on Germany going for the triple decker, after that, well, it’s anyone’s.

But I digress.

This morning I got on the train at peak hour, there were a lot of people waiting get on. I was toward the front of the queue and I had a gentlemen standing to the left of me. Upon entering the train you are of course faced with a choice, do you want to sit upstairs or downstairs? Now, to me, this decision is pretty arbitrary, but interestingly it most certainly was not to this guy.

The first set of stairs, and therefore the most convenient, were on his left, and were leading down. I headed for them before realising that I was quickly heading for another crash. You see, despite the weight of thousands of commuters bearing down on him, this guy had decided that he wanted to sit upstairs, and in doing so effectively cut off any number of people that were heading to the ones leading down (think turning left in your car from the right hand lane, this is the guy in the left lane who is going straight).

Now, I agree that this guy was well within his rights to choose where he wants to sit, however, I am well within my rights to ask why? And I mean this in the nicest possible way, with all due respect. He left me wondering just what exactly it reveals about his personality? Does he know something about sitting upstairs that I don’t? Has he looked at the crash statistics and found that you have a greater rate of survival sitting upstairs? Is it cooler there in the summer? Do you find a better smelling class of commuter? Is he being hunted by a ninja and wants the strategic advantage of fighting with a sword from above rather than below?

You see, unlike everyone else, including me, he did NOT make a random selection of floor based on whatever was most convenient. He intentionally selected the upper floor, and that makes me curious.

In closing, I ask, what does this say about a person? What is the psychology behind this? What would this sort of behaviour, that is choosing upstairs instead of downstairs, say about you? And most importantly, do you think I should sit upstairs?

Where do YOU sit?

P.S. If my good mate, and resident Public Transport aficionado,  Michael Alexander is reading he probably had the answer…<grin>

P.P.S. If I were in London I bet the folks over at Going-Underground here would get to the bottom of it, if only the Tube was double-decker.

Started with My First Time
Continued from My First Time Part II
Continued further from My First Time Part III
Was still going at My First Time Part IV

Upon returning to the table the boys saw the foreign bottles. They began to wonder why I had not bought “Coldees”, but something stopped them from asking. Their hands reached for the beer in a smooth, calculated fashion, yet with such urgency that you wondered if I had purchased only three bottles for the four of us. With one remaining in my hand, I took the initiative and raised the bottle mouth to mine. The bottle was oh so cold and the fragrance pungent, smooth, entirely addictive. I tipped it slowly and effortlessly, the bottle bottom rose as if defying gravity, like it had wings. Before grabbing it I had made sure the label was facing away from me, broadcasting my new preferred beer as if it were the flag of my country. I was growing in confidence. In a rush I felt the precious amber liquid pour down the bottle neck and seamlessly down mine. I was taken. My taste buds threw their heads back and moaned. Faintly I could hear the beating of wings. I had to stop, to gather myself, to breathe, to compose myself. My eyes were now closed, in reality it was only a second but I felt hours pass. For a time I was oblivious to the sights and sounds around me but then in a snap back to reality, the bottle was again connected to my lips. I still don’t remember lifting it there but factually the beer was again flowing. Struggling to take control, I grabbed the bottle firmly, if I didn’t know better I would have said it began trying to buck my grasp. I became more determined, and by sliding it sideways I managed to prize it from my lips. As if breaking in a horse, I intentionally slammed it down on the table, and exclaimed “Ahhhhhh…” for at least 5 seconds.

Now the beer was mine.

To be continued…..

Yesterday I did both, at the same time.

It was about 9:50am in the morning, and I was cruising on my bike to a meeting. It is true to say that I was riding faster than normal, certainly slower than Tour de France standards, even if you compare it to that one guy who wasn’t taking drugs.

Anyway, I crossed the road in front of the Museumplein (a place often swarming in tourists), turned right and began to pick up pace. I caught out my left eye one of these tourist people (you get to know what they look like pretty quickly) wearing all white, but didn’t think much of it. I smoothly moved my bike out to overtake another rider and then delicately moved it back onto my side of the bike path. It was than that I saw the tourist again.

She seemed to be turning in my direction, and I think its at this point that I make my fatal mistake. I somehow forgot to consider the fact that tourists are dangerous. Rather than continuing to turn into her lane on the bike path, she instead looked away from me, almost as if she were pretending she couldn’t see me, in the process lining her bike up as if she were the Berlin wall stopping me from getting into West Germany.

It’s at roughly this point that the pain started. I had no time even to brake, to ring the bell, to yell “Ummm, excuse me mevrouw, but could you please watch where the hell you are going”, nope, all I could do was brace myself. What followed was in all likelihood the biggest bike crash in Dutch history, and that is really saying something. My thoughts from this point on can be summarised as follows:

“She really has no idea I’m here”
“There is only a very small chance that this is not going to happen”
“Impact in T minus 0.000003 seconds”
“Ouch”
Song plays “Because I’m learning to fly but I aint got wings, Comin down is the hardest thing”….

And it was, there was a bit of a blur which lasted a shuddering few portions of a second, then there was that incredible feeling of “Well, that didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would”, at this point I began wiggling toes, elbows, checking for blood. This whole process however was rudely interrupted by the realisation that I was lying, bike on top of me, in the middle of the road. Quick thinking led to the decision to postpone the checks in favour of a rapid retreat to safe ground.

Scraping my bike up, I made my way toward the crowd, who suddenly made me feel a lot worse because each face had this look of absolute horror. It reminded me of the time I put that ski-lift lollipop thingy on backward at Corcheval, only to be thrown through the air at great speed, upon landing I looked back at Adam and Scott and found they were not laughing, only then did it start to hurt.

It being my first crash in Holland, I wasn’t really all that sure what to do. I was stunned. I had a thousand people talking to me in Dutch, I can only presume saying “Are you ok?”, and I had the women whom I had overtaken telling, well yelling, at me that the tourist was definitely on our side of the bike path (she narrowly missed a similar fate to me) and that I was certainly in the right. Despite this the pain continued.  

Looking up, I saw the tourist, whose relaxed ride through Amsterdam had been completely transformed, standing and appearing to be generally ok. Her bike was even upright, and unlike mine, had front wheel and handle bars still pointing in the same direction. She was surrounded by an even larger crowd, probably due to the fact that she didn’t end up in the middle of the road, and was probably understanding less than I was. I asked her a number of times if she was ok, each time she said she was, and she didn’t seem to be anything more than shocked. Her face however was still frozen in the same expression I’d seen just as my waist passed my handlebars and found a moment to briefly look back.

I was really lucky. No one wears helmets in Amsterdam, my head did not hit anything (though, I’m not sure you always remember such an event, its not sore at any rate), my phone was in the other pocket and survived, my wallet seemed to spread the impact evenly on my hip. Really, what hurt the most was the minor damage to my computer, which was on my back at the time, and of course the fact that I will never actually get to see the whole thing in slow motion.

After dusting myself off, I rode off on my trusty steed, making some pretty significant steering adjustments to ensure I didn’t ride in circles, and actually made it to my meeting on time, just with slightly messier hair.

I’m just that little bit more Dutch today. 

Technorati tags: Bike Crash, Amsterdam, Bike, Tourist, Accident