(not from the handlebars of a bike this time!)
Aussie mates, see you all soon!
Dutch mates, see you all in a month!
English mates, hope to visit before end of the year!
Everyone else, COME TO AMSTERDAM!
Archive for the 'Amsterdam' Category
I’m heading back to Australia soon, really cant wait. This time, for the first time ever, I will actually be there for a decent amount of time, a whole month! Petra will also be coming which adds an extra degree of excitement, for the past 18 months she has heard nothing but how wonderful it is, with this trip I get to show her exactly what I mean.
Of course when I’m there friends and family wonder what it is like over here, and just like its hard to tell people how great Australia is, its hard to describe just how great Amsterdam is. Anyway, last year before heading back for my sisters wedding Petra and I put together a little video of what was then our new place (I moved, stayed two nights, then flew to Australia). Thought it might be fun to share it here, so that when I’m back home this time, everyone can see my Dutch life that little bit more clearly…
As you may have guessed by the inactivity around here Petra is back! (and she wants me to tell you her blog has a new address!)
She actually got back for just over two weeks ago now. It was a lot earlier than expected as her friend and research companion Esther was very unluckily hit by a minibus. This left her with a pretty seriously bruised foot, when I say pretty seriously I mean not able to walk for a few weeks type seriously. This was not your average “ouch, I just kicked the step accidentally” type bruise.
Anyway, the two and a half months she was away was long enough for us both. She had an amazing time, has come back with all sorts of weird habits, like insisting on giving me some type of “fiver” every time one of us says something even mildly amusing, but I think we will be able to westernise her again pretty quickly.
Welcome back Pij-je!
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.
Technorati tags: Gay Pride Amsterdam 2007
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.
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
She has been at me non-stop about adding a link to it from here, almost as if she thinks I have more readers than the New York Times.
Anyway, she does have a few pics from our recent travels with my folks, so it is certainly worth checking out.
to benumb or paralyze with astonishment, horror, or other strong emotion
It was a week and a half ago now, and I only arrived back from Vegas at 2:00pm, but I did get to experience just a little of Queens Day in Holland. For those who don’t know, it’s probably the most celebrated day in Amsterdams calendar and the Dutchies do the usual beer drinking and reveling, however, in addition, they also do this weird garage sale thing. This basically means that everyone brings out their junk and tries to sell it to anyone walking past. Of course this probably explains why so much drinking is done, without the drunks nothing would get sold!
For all this I owe a debt to my rockstar neighbour, Leon, he not only ensured I got to see just a little of Queens Day, but introduced me to the beer at my local brewery and taught me to eat the cheese with the mustard NOT the fancy meats, who knew!
He also took this ridiculous picture:
That is me in the Orange, and my local brewery is actually in the windmill! Cool eh?
My first really, really, really beautiful weekend in Amsterdam. Right now I’m sitting at my computer desk with my window open, watching a steady stream of boats file past. Spent yesterday on the banks of a canal with cheese, olives, wine and crackers. Today we rode around in the sun, in search of the perfect beach, failed, but the recovered with a nice cafe and cold beer.
The view from my apartment last night:
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