Get to Know an Amsterdammer 2

As I continue to approach strangers and ask them for a few minutes of their time (and so far no punches or slaps), I met up with a local musician at Amsterdam's classic Cafe de Jaren, a sprawling two-level bar/restaurant with a canal-side terrace that is packed on summer evenings. This being November, however, we opted to stay in.

Some brief background info here:

This Amsterdammer was downsized from his sales job at Monster last year. He's been singing for years on the side, made the leap fully late in 2010, and in just under a year has landed the title song for a Reebok campaign (beating out OutKast, among others) and connecting with some big music industry movers in Holland and Los Angeles.

His first album is due in 2011. Check out his YouTube channel here. Check out his site (and cheeky Reebok ad) here.

Name: Steffen Morrison

Age: 31

Profession: Singer

How long have you lived in Amsterdam?

I arrived from Suriname on Oct. 4, 1992 in Amsterdam. Which makes it eighteen years for me.

List three quick words to describe the city, the first things that come to mind.

Diverse, Vibrant, A Living Postcard (Ed. note - it looks like five words after the Euro~Dollar exchange rate).

What are some of your favourite things about living here?

I love the canals in Amsterdam. These truly give the city its own unique character and identity. One of the other conveniences of this city is that you are literally 15 to 30 minutes away from everything by bike. Also, there is so much to be discovered about this city in general in terms of its history. Even for us who live in Amsterdam, at times we feel like a tourist because you discover so much daily.

Nightlife-wise, Paradiso and Sugar Factory are great for special shows.

What do you like the least about living here?

People on the bike tend to be pretty impatient. (Ed. - Er, yes. I just clobbered someone yesterday on the bike... more later). The fact there isn't much room for more tolerance in that area is something I would want to change about this city.

If you weren't living here, where would you want to live?

I would want to live in Los Angeles if I wasn't living in Amsterdam.

Oddservations

Some interesting views in and around Amsterdam and Haarlem over the past three days....

Seen: at Albert Cuyp street market

"Um, ok, give me one of those and two of those, jerkface."

Eaten: in Bloemendaal Aan Zee, at a snack shack

This is "Mexicano", a deep fried concoction involving some kind of ground meat.

As with many of Holland's culinary treats, created for maximum convenience and viscosity, it's best to take a page from the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

Seen: At a highway exit ramp leading to Amsterdam

Of all the reactions one might have to the above scenario, the disdain evident on this fellow's face seems the least likely. Although I would probably buy that suit.

Seen: at the same exit ramp, facing the above billboard

This seems to be a more appropriate reaction.

Seen: on bus 176 from Amsterdam to Haarlem

This security screen appears in almost every bus here.

The Comfort Meter is of particular interest to me. How do they know? Isn't 9 a bit high? Obviously they aren't aware of the Mexicano I ate earlier.

London Not Calling

Maybe I've just been unlucky. Maybe I haven't seen the best of the city. Maybe, though, there's a reason that movies like Children of Men and 28 Days have been set there.

London has that gloomy, post-apocalyptic feel that envelops you as soon as you enter the half-outside, half-inside automated netherworld that is the shuttle taking you from Gatwick's North terminal to its South terminal. It was there again as I spent arrived for a writing course last week.

Stepping into the Underground (an ominous name itself), you hear cool, clinical automated voices telling you to "Mind the Gap" ad nauseum, and buses have those creepy security screens in full view of all passengers that seem to presage a mugging. Work being done on the rails or the odd strike is also a very common occurence, so your travels can get bogged down in a hurry.

The city EATS money as well, in the manner of shoebox-sized hotel rooms for 120 pounds/night, shuttles (the Gatwick Express expressly makes your wallet lighter for 17 pounds for a one-way train ticket into the city), and an added 17 pounds for 24 hrs of wireless access at the hotel.

Yes, it has its charms - a huge selection of great restaurants and takeaway spots, mostly very friendly people, a royal family to easily make fun of, and neighborhoods like Notting Hill.

But you can feel the unspoken class warfare as well, and the gulf between the 'avs and the 'avnots is easily visible in the form of numerous private clubs, high-end cars, and the barely concealed contempt in so many hotel staffers' eyes.

Perhaps, as I say, I have just been unlucky on my four visits there, with a total of 3 hours of sunshine. Maybe I need a better spot to stay and more insider knowledge. Or buckets of money. Or, maybe Clive Owen and all those zombies were angry for a reason.

Meer Haarlem

So, this weekend was spent in London for a writing course - more later, on the course and on my least favourite big city so far.

For now, some more bucolic images of Haarlem as it continues to work its magic. Only 4 more weeks though...

Angle of Haarlem

Alright, the weather has broken; or at least, it is cloudy but not raining.

Some initial impresssions:

• Haarlem is home to close to 150,000 people, and it is much whiter than Amsterdam.
• Huge green spaces and trails give it a much more spacious feeling than its neighbour to the east
• There's a very good mix of the old and the new - stately 17th century buildings and homes are juxtaposed with modern offices and shops.
• Its core is pedestrian- and bike-only.
• The Grote Markt (Big Market) in the center of downtown is exactly the kind of European market you want to see - stalls offering the best in cheese, meats, bread, and sweets, all against the backdrop of towering church towers and cobblestone streets.
• It wouldn't be Holland without canals winding their way throughout the city and the nearby communities.

Essentially, it is a more manageable, bite-sized version of bustling Amsterdam. It feels like the kind of place that offers a more relaxed lifestyle, where if you want an occasional injection of adrenaline you can hop a car, bus, or train and be tapping your veins in the big city in 30 minutes.

Fiat, for 'Fix It Again, Tony'

Golfers come here to work on their short game

Old and new

Haarlem

Faithful readers... I am now in Haarlem for a month, and by all appearances so far it is a great little city some 20kms west of Amsterdam.

This will soon become more apparent to you via photos and stories (with occasional forays into Amsterdam still). BUT - it has been cloudy and raining for 2+ weeks, and I need some sun for the pictures. Stay tuned...

In the meantime, enjoy a book suggestion:

The Wave by Susan Casey - non-fiction, all about the science and more about the people chasing big waves around the world. Fascinating, freaky, inspiring.

Get to Know an Amsterdammer

In the first of another semi-regular series that will be appearing on these pages, you'll meet an Amsterdammer and find out their views and perspectives on this interesting and infinitely contrasted place.

The profiles you read won't be limited to life-long Dutch people, mind you. I will be providing as genuine a snapshot as I can of the place, which means speaking with a big range of people, from expats to visitors to whoever won't punch me in the face as I approach them randomly.

I stumbled upon our first interviewee in a local Coffee Company. These places (a dozen or so in Amsterdam) serve up pretty average coffee and equally mediocre snacks, but they make up for it in coziness and good people-watching, whether you're sitting at a long communal table or outside anytime it's not snowing.

Name: Marc

Age: 39

Profession: Account Manager for one of the big insurance companies in Holland

How long have you lived in Amsterdam?

All my life, so 29 … eh … 39 years. I was born in the neighbourhood called ‘de Kinkerbuurt’ at the edge of the centre. During university I started living with my girlfriend in the centre, just 5 minutes walk to the east of ‘de Leidseplein’. After 7 years we moved to the other side, near the ‘Elandsgracht’, and doubled in size (two children).

List three quick words to describe the city, the first things that come to your mind:

Versatile, free and intense!

What are some of of your favourite things about living here? (These can be specific places, bars, stores, parks, neighbourhoods, and/or general feelings about the people or the vibe - really anything you can think of). (Ed. - Marc provided almost all the website links as well, which was enormously helpful)

I really like the accessibility of things and people in Amsterdam. The way you and I met for example, in the Coffee Company. It’s most of the time possible to ask anybody anything. Everybody is living apart together. [Note from Editor: "living apart together" is a great expression]. Feels a little like a village.

Also Amsterdam has four seasons, so every emotion of life and nature passes through during the year. I like that for the balance.

Favourite saying from the Dutch rock artist and painter Herman Brood who lived in Amsterdam: “I don’t collect money, I collect moments."

My favourite spots are:

‘Het Vondelpark’ (our own Central Park). We use this park for almost everything. Recreation (with the children), sports, hangout with friends, birthdayparties, ice skating, passing through by bike on our way to school, BBQ’s, music festivals, Queensday, and so on.

‘Coffee Company’: for socialising/meeting friends and people, working (wifi access), reading newspapers (our dutch Starbucks).

‘Burgermeester’ for the best Dutch hamburger [Editor's second note: I strenuously disagree with this one, having just been to Cafe Parck; but it's Marc's interview, not mine, so I will shut up].

‘Het Kaasboertje’: cheese-store in ‘de Pijp’, where they know everything about cheese and you’re not allowed to buy anything without tasting first.

‘Foodware’: fresh organic take-away food, cooked with passion (I sound like an ad).

‘Rakang’: my favourite thai-food restaurant. Service with the biggest smile (try the ‘Tom Ka Kai’ soup).

‘Van Dobben’: my favourite place for a fast Dutch lunch (but open till 2:00 am), especially a ‘broodje kroket’ and their Filet Americain. [Editor's third and perhaps final note; Filet Americain is a reddish spread of dubious origins that is a huge favourite among Nederlanders]

‘Holtkamp’: royal dutch pastries (lemon merenque pie and also ‘kroketten’).

‘De 9 straatjes’: nice little shopping streets with all kind of shops.

‘Artis’: our town zoo/parc.

‘Ben Cohen’: best shoarma place.

‘Sichuan’: Chinese restaurant with a superb (Michelin star) Peking Duck menu

‘IJscuypje’: icecreamstore

‘Spare Time’: clothing store

‘The Old Man’: Boardstore

Clubs:

Sugar Factory

Paradiso

Melkweg

Westergasfabriek

Panama

Tuschinski art deco movie theatre

I can go on for hours...

Other favourites: Museums, our canal(house)s, expensive shopping in the PC Hooftstraat, ice skating at ‘het Museumplein’.

All sights are walkable (is that a word?) [Ed. - yes], but a real ‘Amsterdammer’ uses a bicycle (with children seats and a big basket for groceries).

What do you like the least about living here?

Parking policy/costs, all the construction works (new subway Noord-Zuidlijn), Amsterdam Noord neighbourhood.

If you weren't living here, where would you want to live?

San Francisco, USA. Been there a few times, has the same vibe as Amsterdam in a way.

Foreign Fun

Part of the fun of experiencing new cultures is to see how they manage to translate their words into the English language, or at least a distant cousin of it.

In Lisbon recently, the menu for a seafood-filled 'Spaghetti Mediterraneo' offered a delicious combination of 'octopus, shrimp, and selfish with oil', which was at once a source of laughter and a painful reminder of my hormonal teenage years.

The sign below was seen at a hotel gym in Carcavelos, not far from Lisbon but far from motivating. The 'need to use Snickers' to enter the gym seems a little counter-productive.

Just last night at Amsterdam's excellent Cafe Parck, a fantastic hamburger can be followed by the slightly less appetizing-sounding 'apple pie and wipe cream':

I'll be on the lookout for more - perhaps as my own form of payback for repeatedly massacring a few foreign languages myself in the past 12 months.

Amsterdam Architecture

In what will become a semi-regular feature here, a small section of a neighbourhood will be be featured from time-to-time. These posts will showcase mostly architecture, but other local quirks and qool things will be highlighted as well.

This past weekend took me to a section along the Amstel River, just on the edge of De Pijp, a neighbourhood packed with character. It was a brisk sunny morning (here's a tip for Amsterdam-bound travelers: the lousy weather doesn't normally wake up until about 11am, so many early mornings can be enjoyed and photographed in calm, sunny times).

This particular section of the river is lined with houseboats, trees and some excellent restored old homes. And when you head out at 9:00am on a Sunday, it's just you, a few other runners, and some ducks.

Throughout Holland, they take their bike-locking seriously

Cool blinds

The Other Side

Carcavelos, Portugal - October 2010

Our life consists partly in madness, partly in wisdom; whoever writes about it merely respectfully and by rule leaves more than half of it behind - Montaigne

In other words, in recounting the places and events of the past 12 months on this blog - while they have been fantastic by many measures - I should not over-romanticize things by obscuring the rough patches.

Some stormy skies have rolled in very occasionally, but lately they have become more frequent. Maybe there has been some research done on this phenomenon, but I will call it the Traveler's Wall. Or maybe something catchier, like Expat Excrement.

Culture shock plays a part for sure, as does the loss of all things familiar - your friends, your car, your surroundings, your subscription to Sports Illustrated.

We know this when we travel - after all, we do so specifically to lose those very familiar things for a while and to re-energize. Having this knowledge does make the tough times much easier, especially when considering how lucky most of us are in the big picture. But to not mention the less-than-ideal times seems somewhat dishonest to the people reading this blog.

Some moments have been written about - the short but jarring terror scare in May, the simple acknowledgment of there being days like this.

Others have not been mentioned:

• the quiet misery of a Paris hotel room in the midst of a snowstorm over the holidays.
• getting soaked to the bone at 3am when biking home alone, with a fever, from a pub while your entire home country celebrates an Olympic gold medal thousands of kilometers away.
• needing to use a highly dubious restaurant toilet - complete with folding door that closes with a magnet and a timer that leaves you in total darkness after 40 seconds - for several days in Lisbon due to a broken home commode.
• countless hours of lonely time spent on public transit in a strange place.
• several days where I didn't need to be anywhere nor did I have any idea where to go anyway.
• waking up several mornings to see one of Amsterdam's million mice emerge from a toaster or swimming in a pot in the sink.
• the unending amount of dog crap on European streets. Seriously people.

It's all what you focus on of course. I've traded the above for many, many more hours of great experiences and learnings. Plus, each of the above can ultimately be used positively at the same time (who wouldn't enjoy some quiet time to themselves rolling through the Dutch countryside?) or at least laughed at. Humour is a great balm, even if it's hard to find in the exact moment.

But lately, the resilience has worn off a little, the energy has waned, the funny stuff has been more difficult to unearth. Done traveling? No, never. But a post coming soon highlights a few signs that a break from the unfamiliar is due.