I haven’t blogged much since I started my new job; you’re probably happy with my silence. I suppose I can tell you about my evening though.
I’d like to extend my uttermost gratitude to Bradley Thompson – go follow him on Twitter – for making me understand the importance of a social life. While I don’t claim to be developing one, it’s at least a start in my opinion – even if it does cost me €7,25 for a gin and tonic. Even though I’m not the most social person on the planet meeting-people-and-being-comfortable-at-the-same-time-wise, that’s never going to change if I don’t get out there and meet people. And I live in Amsterdam, so it’s not as if language or a lack of population are hinderences. (Well…) I’ve found myself a little jazz bar in the centre-west of the city and, having gone there on Saturday to listen to the amazing Funk Allstars, I thought I’d go again yesterday evening. I got on the Metro from the station no more than eight-hundred metres from my student flat but the carriages that provide the line 53 service look like New York Subway ‘cars’ to me – with their bare metal panels and the floors soaked and stained from various fluids, and I just wasn’t having any of that. I changed trains at Van der Madeweg but tiredness and general stupidity led me astray. I got on what I thought was a 51 – the sneltram from Amstelveen – but it turns out it was a 50 and over the line to Amsterdam Centraal the flyover carried us. “Oh bother”, I thought; “but I’ll just cross over at Overamstel and get a 51 towards Centraal”. I only realised when the doors wouldn’t open for me at Overamstel station that the 51 doesn’t call at Van der Madeweg at all and that I should have changed at Spaklerweg like I did on Saturday. Anyway, …I muttered “arseholes” when the next set of doors turned its buttons off when I was half-a-metre away and stood there embarrassed as the Metro moved on to Amsterdam RAI. “I know I can get a tram north from h–”, my thought interrupted by the sight of the 4 to Centraal Station moving away from the tram stop beneath the station platforms. I carried onwards to Station Zuid, knowing that I could change to another tram that would take me towards the city centre. Luckily, the 5 goes to the same tram stop I alighted at on Saturday; the stop only a few hundred metres south of the Bourbon Street jazz and blues club – open 22:00–04:00 weekdays and until 05:00 on weekends. Decent, really cosy; not up-its-own-arse like some establishments I’m too tired to mention. The B-Funk Jam were playing on the 2 × 4-metre stage yesterday – I’m not the greatest blues follower but it was certainly a good night out with good music.
I was determined to talk to someone for at least a minute on a subject other than what drink I’d like to purchase – free entry before eleven means they have to make their money someway; hence the insane (though you’ll have to account for the exchange rate) price of a G&T.
When me and Heather Phillips plucked-up the courage to ask other students – students outside of our own class; you have to understand how serious this is(!) – for contributions to I Thought About Writing A Title last year, our first victim was deaf. Out of the few dozen in the room to strike up a conversation with, the Spanish man and his translator didn’t have much to say of interest: John Coltrane, for instance, who was mentioned an awful lot, I don’t find that much of an icon. I can understand why the conversation didn’t get very deep: in my slow learning of Dutch, I found that adjectives are far more of a pain-in-the-arse to learn than (for example) verbs; either this language business is going to be more of a problem here than I thought or these two weren’t into their blues enough to comment on the live music. (I’m sounding mighty Anglophilic today.) The Americans I was planning on “enjoying Amsterdam?”-ing during the interval left during the second song – a strong blues number – and, noöne felt remotely approachable … until I discovered that the fifty-something couple that had been standing next to me for most of the evening were (or at least spoke) English – thank fuck for that Dutch woman and her lust for that bar stool. When the interval came about and after I’d plucked up the courage to smile (but not in a Gordon Brown kind of way) and say “so, enjoy the first set?”, it transpired that they were in fact from Australia and were touring Europe for a month. After a while and with the time approaching midnight, I thanked them for their company and ran for the tram in the distance. I must say that the tram drivers of Amsterdam are a fuck ton more tolerant than the bus drivers in either Cambridge or London when one’s just missed the doors closing.
And that was my night last night. The diagonal lines under my eyes are getting more obvious with every look in the mirror and my jet black hair only accentuates them. I’m sleeping better – much better – than I was during all but one night of my forty-two-night camping ‘experience’ but several years of all-nighters, a poor diet and a lack of self-routine has left my eyes bag-laden and my face scarred. If only I didn’t know how much of a farce those caffeine eye roll-on dingetjes are, I could at least make a comfort purchase.
K Steinhardt 