2 Weeks and Lovin Amsterdam
‘Bloody tourists!’ I swerve as another person steps blindly out onto the cycleway and fly on by. Two weeks in, and I’m no tourist anymore; I’m an Amsterdamer and lovin it! I’m feeling rather well settled in Amsterdam and sampling all this vibrant/crazy/cool city has to offer. I’m proud to call Amsterdam home.
I started out as a tourist my first few days, wandering the lanes and canals, eating old cheeses, drinking at traditional brown bars, and taking in all Amsterdam had to offer. To orientate myself I had joined a couple of walking tours, one of the city centre which is steeped in history, and another of the red light district, which aside from getting an eye-full was a brilliant backgrounder on all you could wonder about. Anne Frank’s house surprised and impressed me with the quality of the exhibition and the length of queues outside. But since then I have rather left the coffee shop hopping, red light gazing tourists to their own devices, just like the other Amsterdamers.
I can report that everything is great and thanks for the emails asking how I’m getting on. The lecturers and facitlities at Amsterdam University are spot on and already we students have become a tight knit group who work hard and play hard. With so much going on getting that work/play balance right will be a knack. It has been a little energy consuming setting up house, bank accounts, insurance and social security numbers but thats life and it’s slowly coming together. I’ve also met up with my Rotary host councillor, Wilko, and I’m looking forward to getting to know the Amsterdam Rotary clubs in the coming weeks.
A few events of note:
Amsterdam hosting an annual gaypride event which brought a liberal dose of outrageousness to the city.The highlight was the daylong canal parade of boats along Prinsengraght packed with more boats and people than I would’ve believed possible. Beats, glam, colour.
Also this Wednesday I managed to get my hand on some tickets to see the Netherlands vs England at the Amsterdam Arena. For me this was a real football spectacle as I’d never seen so many household names at a game before. They were all there, Beckham, Rooney, Lampard, Terry, Ferdinand etc and for the dutch, Van Persie, Robbin, Khuyt etc. The full house was awash with orange except for the far corner of rowdy white. The quality of play in the first half was pretty even but the dutch jumped out to a 2-0 lead as the capitalised on some poor defending. We in the Oranje crowd we buzzing, and even sang “always look on the bright side of life” accross to our English visitors. But the Pommes fought back and an unbiased person would say they fully deserved their comeback to 2-2 and could’ve even snatched a win. Typical dutch complacency. BBC report.
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