A Dutch Life

My poor little beloved Karmann Ghia has been a bit of a hot potato since I moved to Amsterdam. With no where to park it, I have had to first leave it to overstay its welcome in the Microsoft car park, and then resting with the mechanic for the last 6 months. You see I can’t drive it here because it is not registered, anywhere, and before that I couldn’t insure it in Holland because it wasn’t registered in Holland, nor in the UK because I was living in Holland. ARGH!

Anyway, on Monday I’m taking it in to get registered here in Holland, with summer coming up I hope I can take it on at least one decent road trip…

Picking up a coffee, that is contained in a plastic cup, and finding out upon touch that it is cold. I reckon it must be like touching a dead body.

This is the picture that sat next to my computer desktop all day, only most of the day it said -5 not this relatively warm -3! For those at home in Australia this means that right now it really truly IS like a fridge outside.

The thing that puzzles me, is why, when it gets this cold, we continue to bother with temperature? It strikes me that the human body is unable to tell the difference between, say -5 and -3, and that what would in fact be more useful would be to describe it in terms of the amount of pain you feel in your hands while riding your bike.

I went out for a coffee this morning, and stupidly forgot my gloves, DAMN that hurt. For those at home, imagine you are behind the bar at a party, in the middle of winter, and people are asking for a beer at an average rate of once every .3 seconds (not unusual for a moderate size party in Aus) and to serve it up you have to plunge your hand into an esky full of ice. OK, now times that by about 10, and THAT is how much my hand hurt this morning. On the positive side, the lovely prosecco (thanks Thomas!) I was carrying was cold enough to drink (I didn’t, but it may have helped the pain go away!).

Anyway, the upside of all this, is a really beautiful city of Amsterdam. I had my breath taken away when I looked out my window upon getting downstairs to find the following (complete album):

This is a cool mystery. This site contains a set of pictures showing rocks, some of which are several hundred pounds in weight, sliding across dry lake beds called “Playa”.  

The Sliding Rocks of Racetrack Playa Mystery – GEOLOGY.COM

My brother put me on to Kanye West years ago, and his new album has this great track called “Homecoming”, which is a collaboration with Coldplay.

I’ve been listening to it non-stop. Why?

Tues 16^th Oct – Arrive Adelaide

Sun 21^st Oct – BBQ at my folks house

Wed 31^st Oct – Drive to Melbourne

Thur 1^st Nov – Arrive Melbourne

Sun 4^th Nov – Fly Home to Adelaide

Wed 7^th Nov – Fly to Sydney

Sun 11^th Nov – Fly to Singapore

Mon 12^th Nov – fly to Amsterdam

Tues 13^th Nov – Arrive home in Amsterdam

The lovely Petra is coming too, her first trip to Australia, so we have so many things to do, people to meet and places to see. Been totally disorganised up until now, but will be trying to arrange catch-ups as soon as I land.

If you are around, and have some time, drop me a line, be good to see you and for the Adelaide folks, COME TO THE BBQ ON SUN 21st, just drop me a line.

I sadly missed my brothers 21st birthday, but I did make a little photo video for him, not sure enough people saw it, and its just been sitting on my hard disk taking up space.

James, enjoy!

BBC has an excellent article which confirms something that I have always known. James, this is why your big brother will remain the tallest McPherson that ever lived.

BBC NEWS | Health | How older siblings stunt growth

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

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.

Heading off to Spain tomorrow, taking a weeks summer holiday with my neighbour Leon. We are heading first to Barcelona, then to Figueres, then to San Sebastian then finally to Madrid (where I’m looking forward to catching up with Sacha).

It has been 7 years since I was in Figueres, with my last visit there being a very memorable one. Scott and I were on a tour through Spain and France and decided we should check out the Salvadore Dali museum, as we are both fans. While there, I of course needed to use the Internet, so we headed into the library. There we found just one computer, and a young Catalan women hogging the access. After a period of time she realised we were waiting, turned, and I guess because of Scotts red hair, asked “Are you English?”. With reflex we responded, “No, we are Australian”, proud that this made us just that little bit more exotic. She replied “Well, since you speak English you can help me with this translation?”, so we did. I learnt a lot about boats while massaging the words into perfectly formed, almost artistic sentences. When complete we were invited out for some drinks with her friends, starting at midnight.

We spent the rest of the day chilling out, before about 11:00pm putting on our party frocks, already we were marveling at the Spanish culture for late nights. We did ask the women for her name, but neither of us could say it, we never imagined letters could be put together in that order. Anyway, upon arrival we were greeted by some cold beers and a collection of other Catalans. We spent the first minutes learning how to pronounce Meritxell, her name, finally getting to a point which all present deemed acceptable. We chatted and drank for an hour or so before Meritxell asked if we were ready to go out. Looking at our watches we could see it was approaching 1:30am, leaving us wondering what we had been, if not out, for the last hour and a half. 

At this point Scotty, who was on the end of 3 months or more of traveling bailed, leaving me alone with the Catalans for a night of clubbing. We drove out to what seemed like a strip of clubs in the middle of nowhere, and proceed to crawl down it. Meritxell seemed to know everyone, and therefore supplied copious amounts of free drink. The last I remember is dancing in this huge bar, and watching Meritxell jump into the swimming pool. Yes, there was a pool in the club.

Anyway, its Meritxells 30th birthday, and this is just one of the great memories I have of her friendship. Its going to be fun to return to the town where we met 7 years ago, and its really amazing that we have kept touch over the years like we have.

During the time I have known her I’ve lived in Melbourne, London and now Amsterdam and she has lived in Barcelona, Paris and London. The great bit was that we had over a year of overlap in London, with a particularly memorable summer of 2005, (which I think was the first her and Thomas lived there).

Well, anyway, Meritxell, cant wait to celebrate your birthday, and thanks for dragging me off the couch as often as you have! <grin>