No updates for a while, but this is thoroughly excusable in my mind due to the dashing around the globe attempting to sort my life out with just a rucksack of ugly clothes, and a few EasyEverything time vouchers.
Well, to fill you in, things are going well. The plane journey was not one of my best. I was too blazé about checking in early and subsequently LustVessel (his chosen pseudonym, not mine and shall hereafter be known as L.V.) and I were separated by the center isle of the 747. We did however wave at each other across the fields of economy passengers during key moments of the inflight experience.
Our whirlwind tour of Tokyo was sadly aborted by the fact that trains back from the city ceased operation at 10pm and we’d have been stuck there till 6am No great loss, we had a focus group review of Japanese chocolate snacks available at the airport and hotel. Disappointingly they insist of adding fruity flavous (“Mixed Berry KitKat” being a prime misguided example) to everything, and the end result is slightly nauseating.
Flight number two was punctuated by the cries of the ging-er child on the lap of the woman next to us. She was a tired looking early 30’s individual, slightly greying. L.V. said she looked like a reluctant single mum who’d been knocked up by a raver. Possibly a scarily accurate guess.
On arrival in England, we made a weekend pitstop to my brothers quintessential English Country Garden home in Kent. I felt ridiculously proud that L.V. got to see the more beautiful aspects of England, instead of the normal Aussie or Kiwi slog straight into Heathrow and then to Earls Court, or shepherds Bush or whatever. My Bro has recently taken up horsemanship in his inimitable Nu-Landed Gentry style, so I satisfied my pony club upbringing with a hack in the countryside.
London was a whirlwind tour! As is the case with England, it takes something like the weather, or World Cup football to make people forget their age, race or political standpoint and suddenly embrace their nationality. Front page news on all the papers was Heathrow breaking the 100 degrees Fahrenheit mark, something that hadn’t occurred since they’d started recording the temperature. London was wildly happy and united, if a little dazed by the heat.
Antipodean L.V. meanwhile, continued to be bemused by our habit of adhering to Imperial measurements, “100 yds to next exit” on the motorway, and using Fahrenheit where possible. I maintain it’s quite charming, like choosing vinyl in a digital world.
Activities in London not involving constant drinking, were a pleasant stroll through Hampstead Heath observing the duckponds brimming with pale pink English flesh splashing around, a midweek Brixton outing dancing to a live Asian breakbeat band in the sweaty, cavernous depths of the Bug Bar, finest Indian food in Herne Hill and a tour of Coldharbour Lane. Three paddy wagons were busy picking up messy revellers and after my fevered description of the seediness, I was disappointed no-one tried to sell L.V. crack. Oh well.
Family and fun duties completed so to Cambridge, for an overnight in “Sleeperz” hotel next to the train station. Sleeperz was an unimpressive building and was “pretty grim” as I remarked without realising I was walking past the reception. The charming middle eastern gentleman inside did not appear to hold it against me, or perhaps his wide grin was due to the fact we were paying for a room, he only worked there.
Firstly we arrived in Leiden, a gorgeous university town 30 minutes south of ‘Dam, and I had arranged to stay with an old friend Robin, from DotCom days. We had a Greek meal and tried our Dutch only to find out the Spanish waitress didn’t speak it! I also tentatively bought beer and cigarettes in Dutch and received a round of applause from the locals who were observing with great amusement from the bar. As we suspected they speak immaculate English but are happy to tolerate and sometimes assist keen foreigners. We also discovered, on changing money that the Dutch for “Foreign Currency” directly translates as “Strange currency” and also as potential residents we are required to register with the “Strange Nationality” bureau.
Amsterdam is great fun so far. There is so much to process, how to make phonecalls, how to find a flat, what mysterious fried items contain meat products. It’s just as fairy tale as I remembered and the sight of 6 foot tall Dutch girls on giant bikes carelessly chatting away with a mobile clasped to one ear is an inspiring sight.
Finding a room has been harder than I had expected. We trawled the ViaVia (local ads paper) looking for something along the lines of “Cool people wanted for laidback shared house” but found only rooms of the bedsit sort. The first I saw was in the red light district and had a miniature single bed and ripped sheets as curtains, not to mention (why do people say that if they are mentioning something?) the mini scroffulous shared kitchen with piled up plates.
Another option was sharing a house with a dog (small, snappy, hysterical) and it’s Surinamese owner Grace, a once student activist who had sought refuge in Holland. Although now free to return to Suriname, she was biding her time until she was 45 and the Dutch government would pay her an income to return to Suriname, and stay there.
She’d done her maths and had calculated her benefits in Suriname were worth more than what the president was paid. “Dutch people are stupid” she shrugged.
The flat however was small and in a rather nasty, tenement-only, residential area, which didn’t look a great deal of fun.
We’ve conceded that failing a happy, instant friends kind of shared house, we’ll have to pay a bit more to get something decent.
One flat we investigated (garishly decorated, 80’s style batchelor pad, nasty black furniture with too much glass and mirror) was being touted by a pock-marked Eastern European man His strange, twitchy manner, lack of a consistent name and insistence that we could “keep everything in the flat” suggested perhaps this was not his flat to rent. That combined with a an elderly Dutch lady desperately trying to communicate something to us in Dutch about “the man upstairs” was too much for our shaken confidence, and we ran screaming.
Anyway, for fear of jinxing a very cool thing indeed we have found an awesomely excellent new home, and until the deal is done and dusted I’m not going to tell you about it.
You’ll be impressed…
Oh Yes.. ;-)