2009 reflections

Found one of these over on What's new pussyat and ok it's a little late , but now time like the present, right?

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Moved out from living with a partner, attempted to live totally on freelance income, did a screen writing course, went to the States.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next this year?
I resolved to get a cleaner, and yes, I got a cleaner. But the aim of the resolution was to help repair my flailing relationship and it didn't acheive that.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Everyone! Meri Risa had lovely number 2, Angel had a little boy right at the start of 2009. A cousin had a second one, I think, or was that 2008? Big shout out to the lovely mummies.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No. Thankfully.

5. What countries did you visit?
USA (New York!!), UK, France, Belgium (not as impressive as it sounds when you are based in Holland). Wished I visited Norway and gone to Spain again.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
A sense of security and joy de vivre.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Oh I'm very bad at actual dates. But the one where I walked through the passport control to leave Amsterdam wih a very sore and sad heart. July 13, I think. And on a happier note, rocking up in New York YMCA where the lovely Miss J was waiting, after my flight was delayed by an hour and I nearly got the the subway to New Jersey by accident. June sometime?

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting back to freelancing in Australia and being booked solid for 3 months.

9. What was your biggest failure?
A broken relationship, that I didn't know how to fix. Oh I sense a theme here.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Not really.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My Blackberry, I think.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Airfares, rent, new laptop and phone bills.

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Very little. But going to New York was a welcome adventure.

14. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Mika "Happy Endings" and Nick Cave "Dig Lazarus Dig" from listening while riding through Vondel Park.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?
Happier, mostly, I don't feel trapped any more.
b) thinner or fatter?
A little bit thinner, yaay, getting rid of those beer and cheese love handles.
c) richer or poorer?
About the same. Replenshing the savings account, but feeling the lack of those nice Euros.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Visited other European countries. Asking people for a bit of a hand when it was needed.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Clamming up and acting tough.

18. How will you spend Christmas?
Oops, did this already - with family in Radelaide.

19. Did you fall in love in 2009?
Nup. Oh unless you count rekindling the love with Nick Cave via his new novel and exhibition. What *is* it about that man ?

20. What was your favorite TV program?
Hands down, The Wire, even though we watched on dvd.

21. What was the best book you read?
Um.. can't remember them all or what year I read them. Sure there was a few. Looking at the bookshelf, really enjoyed Stephen Fry's autobiography.

22. What was your favorite film of this year?
Probably "Julie and Julia". Also really liked "Where the Wild Things are". Saw "Cheri" when it was just the right type of escapism, but it was a fairly average film.

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Went out to dinner at Bazaar on AlbertCuypMarkt then dancing to live Brazilian music at de Badcuyp. Cycled to the red light district with Jess two in the morning when it was probably about 2 degrees. It was fun. I was 33.

24. What kept you sane?
Skype. And the ocean back in Sydney.

25. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don't think I have to answer that for you regulars.. see #19. Apart from the obvious, Mika and Cate Blanchett (if you substitute fancy for admire).

26. Who did you miss?
Everyone who I don't seem to have in my "crew" any more. Formerly my little sister, Miss J, Amberguity and the Meri crew, plus the whole of Australia. And now Kristin, Kirsten, and Jess, Biz and others in the greenie/Europe contigent. And my Auntie Ruth. Life is crap like that isn't it?

27. Who was the best new person you met?
Um, possibly, my new client, Jenn who is a total live wire and funny. 2009 was less about meeting new people and more about re-connecting with old ones.

Trending

Clothes swaps get trendy. I'm on the curve, baby.

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/shopping/swap-till-your-fashion-footprint-drops-20090709-ddx7.html

Shouldn't we talk about the weather?

Amsterdam: 9.53 am, nearly Summer (official start: June 21)
Sydney: 5.53 pm, approaching Winter solstice.

Allochtoon

Outside my regular cafe, an elderly Indonesian man approaches me and asks a question in Dutch. He has a scrap of paper in his hand and looks like he is looking for an address. As I start to form the sentence I can say most confidently in this country's native language.. Ik spraak Nederlands niet.. he notices the delay in my answer and switches to "oh, Engels? you speak English?" Yes I say, I speak English, but I know this area well if you are looking for something. .. "So you are an outsider then. Like me." he says. Yes, I am. I reply. And then he walks off to find his destination.

Recession-proof jobs ( an occasional series)

1. Piercer

On Friday I wandered to the main shopping /cinema district in Amsterdam. There, I had a quick chat to the guy in the piercing and tattoo shop. (Don't worry mum - didn't get anything done). He told me he "doesn't know about this recession - they recently renovated the shop and business has been up for the last nine months!". He thinks it's only "affecting all the rich people - the big end of town, not the ordinary people."... "Well, not yet" he added. Maybe piercing would still go well anyway in a real recession, as people without decent jobs form a punk rebel army and go marauding in search of meat, scraps of tin for their urban humpies, and un-diseased women. You would probably have to barter your piercing, lobe-stretching and scarification skills for food and medicines though.

2. Locksmith

A colleague's brother's profession. Apparently in good times, people want locks. In bad times, they also want locks.

Urges

I have a need to garden at the moment. On the weekend, a great lady called Mel and I walked up and down the flower market in Amsterdam and were inspired to take our first step towards guerrilla gardening. This has been quite a thing amongst trendy post-hippies in the UK for a while now, and fits into a kind of re-claimed ye-olde-crafte-integrated-to-the-nasty-city sub-culture that also spawned knitting bombs and such.

So our attempt started local, in fact the miroscopic strips of dirt right next to my front door. For you lucky house-dwelling aussies, my front door is actually a security door to a block of 8 flats that extends right to the property boundary in a particularly urban part of the densest city in the world. It's like: door. street. No gaps.

Anyway, spring must be approaching as it is now well above zero in the daytime, and the chairs are back in our plein, goodbye icerink. At the flower market Mel got a lemon tree, and I picked up about $6 euros worth of overcrowded daffodils and blue hyacinths (i think). We popped outside to the street in the gloaming and plonked them all in, nearly 2 doz individual plants, in clumps just right where I suspect plenty of men have relieved themselves in the small hours after leaving the nightclub across the street and getting on their bike. Oh well, a bit of extra nitrogen never hurt, right. It's the tiniest addition of plant life, to a tiny strip with just a few scrubby plants, and it took about 10 minutes, but it was a good feeling!

We've both got a taste for it now, and I think I'll move down the end of my street to a long, blank wall, and perhaps do a mix of bulbs and pretty creeprs, and maybe some rosemary for the locals to pick. One thing in this country that is cheap: flowers and bulbs. Mel wants to do the area around the new trees in her street that are currently surrounded by sand, and hence, dog shit. She's even talking about adding soil first, now that's advanced.

Only thing is, it's not particularly guerrilla round here, as loads of Amsterdammers pretty up their front steps onto the street, with as much as they can cram into a space about 30 cm square, including pots and planters. I can't imagine really anyone batting an eyelid, but anyway, nice to add to the riot of colour that is spring and perhaps some tulip bulbs that will continue to pop up and self-propagate long after I've left the area. Hm, maybe a packet of sunflower seeds. I don't like to spend loads on cultivating plants for my own balcony, as they will eventually have to go.. but can easily imagine going berko in the public spaces, radiating out from my front door.

Extremes

Only just got a look at the awful devestation of those fires. It's on the one hand un-imaginable what it would be like to be trapped in that but all also but all-too-easy to picture those areas going up in flames on such hot days. I was driving in the back roads around Bendigo just 10 or so days ago, through the towns that are now being torn up by fire. I visited an amazing winery in that area, Elgo Estate, they are 100% wind powered and they also fence off natives and re-use their organic wastes to condition the soil. All too rare in Australian industry. I recommend every reader buys their wines off the website, and have fingers and toes crossed they missed the worst of the blaze.

And over this side of the world, Britian is experiencing freakish heavy snow, closed roads, motorways, cancelled school, the lot. In fact, just looking out the window, the thin drizzle in Amsterdam seems to be forming into sparse snow flakes here. Heavy falls currently predicted for Tuesday. Wish I could send some your way, Australia!

Here's a picture I took on Thursday on my morning ride through Vondel Park. Note, the seagulls are standing on top of the pond.

Advantages to living in a cold, calvinist country

1. When you go to the shops at 5 pm, and make the 10 minute cycle home, your white wine is nicely chilled.
   
2. It gets dark before five and people in canal houses tend to leave their curtains open until about nine. If you rug up and walk around in the early evening you have a very good chance of seeing someone naked.
   
3. When it is snowing, and you absolutely have to go out to the bank, there are plently of other locals getting around who don't see anything strange in cycling when it is one degree and ice is gathering on your beanie.
   
4. If you ride in this weather for more than 10 minutes your face goes kind of numb so you can't feel the little icy needles hitting anymore.
5. Getting back inside makes you feel reborn.
6. You get to see ducks walking around on icy ponds in the park . Haha, skating ducks.
7. The exchange rate is very good to the dollar.
   

Disadvantages to living in Netherlands in the winter:

1. It's cold
2. It's calvinist
   

Gratuitous winter kitsch

There's really nothing that makes me feel like an excited little kid, quite like snow falling. And an outdoor ice-rink.

Light of my life

I took this on Thurdsay night at the Max Euweplein, behind Wagamamma's. It's a pretty ugly semi-circular space between buildings but it has a highly convenient bike patth right through the middle. Along with the casino, Hard Rock cafe and Irish bar that I think attract approximately no locals, there is also one of those over-sized out-door chess sets that is in constant use.

The lighting display here is giant pawns! Over the entrances they've hung kings and queens. And this photo just captures a little section of the curtain of lights hung over the top. It makes the space really pretty and sparkly.

I've probably mentioned before, but I forgot from last year how the city seems to make themed light displays on different streets, and they are all different. Mostly repeating shapes hung up on the lamp posts. But some similar horizontal blankets of fairy lights like this. Its nice, like a compensation for the darkness gathering at 4.3o pm. The whole Christmas lights thing makes a lot more sense over in this season. I think the Indian festival of Diwali just passed, also a festival of light at a time when the days get much shorter.

Museumnacht

As mentioned below, last Satuday night I had an awesome time, biking round Amsterdam, in low-digit temperatures, with some crazy cultcha-huntin' cats from a large-international-ngo-that will remain nameless.

First, we congregated at the Leidseplein, the big, tourist infested square, with a dozen bars, street performers, and now an ice-rink in the centre. Although not so salubrious, this is an established point of reference for people from all over Amsterdam and especially visitors to congregate when they are not confident they can find that little out-of-the-way bar on the Van Harleem Voorboorgswaalstraat, let alone pronounce it.

We had a bit of a group consultation about which museums and events to attend. The way it works is you buy a single ticket for 17 euro, and then you get entry to everything that is open, about 40 venues all up. The Rijks Museum had the star centre piece, Damien Hirst's For the love of God, the most expensive piece of work ever sold by a living artist.

We however, avoided the big show-stoppers because of the queues. Our schedule involved one or several beerjes at each of the following:

9:30 pm Mediamatrix exhibition xxboys - a multimedia and photo exhibition on transgender, specficially female to male, by the look of it. We didn't see the photo room (which was contructed entirely out of black crates inside a bigger room) because the queue was too long. But we did see a performance of a girl with multiple temporary medical piercings right along each arm, on her knees while a man dressed as doctor lifted her arms and moved her torso using two over-sized 'puppeter' contraptions connected to strings that were connected to all the piercings. Some people in the queue for the photos were a bit sqeamish and were turned away from the performance while we were trying to see it live.

11:00 pm Something to do with animiation at some kind of art school facility near the Dam square. They has a night-clubby room with a dj apparently mixing images in some way along with the dj mixing music. But they had two much cooler things .. a guy with a dj rig in the foyer areas, who was mixing aromas to go with the music he was playing, he had a burner and a cooking pot and a bench. At one point he was doing a fragrant meat stew with his balkan gypsy music. Earlier he made an overwhelming and delicious mix of something indian and fragrant - also using a stick blender to good effect. You can't get that on the internet. At that venue our wee group was lubricated enough to take part in interactive art, where someone had rigged up a stop motion camera over a big white carbdboard canvas on the floor. We acheived a none-too-bad hippy canvas, complete with rainbows a host of little stick figures marching over the page. Then we got to watch its creation compressed into about 10 seconds. neat.

12:00 am Replica dutch merchant vessel that is moored in the Ij river. Chillout room on the maindeck, with sailors hammocks strung along, plus caught the end of some African drumming in the hold.

1:00am Nemo interactive science museum. A very strong rival to Questacon, this place was jam PACKED with toys. Fun fun fun for well oiled 30 somethings, but it was impossible to keep the group together as everyone just wandered away to the shiniest spinning thing that they were drawn to. Reminds me now of Johnny Depp saying that having toddlers is like living with drunks. Or hanging with drunks is like marshalling toddlers.

2:00 Ushered out in an orderly (Dutch) fashion, as per the advertised finish time. Cycled home with mr B in the icy chill, wrapped in jackets, scarf, wooly hat (thanks Ali) and gloves, to a lovely cosy bed and a lie -in on Sunday morning.

Go Amsterdam, city of funky wholesome fun.

livin' la vida local

I had lunch with Sophie yesterday, who is from Australia but who lived in Amsterdam for more than five years. She is one of the small army of non-Dutch women who catch themselves Nederlandse heren, marry them, and seem to be rather successful in taking this demographic out of this already small country away overseas somewhere. So far, I know two women from Australia and one from England now in the South of France who have manged it. So, Soph has had a closer look at the Dutch way of life than me, being adopted into her hubby's family, and also learning to speak it proper, like.

We are of course both familiar with the endearing way a died-in-the-wool dutch person will tell you any non-redeeming feature about yourself with no hint of awkwardness, but without malice. "Your hair looks funny." "Your arse is a lot bigger since you got pregnant" (that one was for her, not for me). At the office, I was more inclined to laugh and be pleased they cared enough to make a comment. There's the tendency to end to work day at 5 o'clock sharp, and eat dinner at 6 pm without fail. I actually like this, I think the healthy attitude to work within a set period should be preserved as long as possible here and in France, Spain and Italy. Long live the siesta!

If you drop round to a traditional family around dinner time, be prepared to sit on the couch while they eat dinner. But you really shouldn't have dropped in unannounced anyway. This is the only country either of us have visited where an adult will have a glass of milk with their lunch, and yep, at a business lunch too, instead of a glass of wine. Apparently hobbies are very common, thanks to the crap weather. Kids just grow up learning to do slightly out-there regional things like ice-skate beautifully or stilt-walk or god-only knows what actually.

Oh, and we have a total smoking ban in all restaurants and pubs here (effective 1 july, height of summer). So now as it starts to turn a bit chilly, and we are retreating more inside, its been awesome for me. The locals, bless them, think its a shit idea. Even the non-smokers. Apparently one of the arguments goes "well you don't go to the pub to be healthy do you, so it's stupid to force this on us in the pub, people can make their own choice". Certainly not the cringey "I'm not worthy" attitude of Aussie smokers, who are constantly hiding and saying sorry all the time. I guess here they haven't had 10 years of public education browbeating on the issue. At the moment they are running an add where are middle-aged woman scours the house for her durries and ends up opening up the vacuum cleaner bag and lighting one up. It's pretty skanky. It seems that they when they are going to tackle an issue, they take it head on, with no sensitive touchy-feely support for your foul addiction!

Torn

Hey those with feed readers, sorry if you thought that title might refer to some personal tortured tale of woe and heartache from me. It is actually about Natalie Imbruglia. And earache.

The neighbour downstairs and directly behind us has been playing "Torn" by our Natalie, on repeat for at least 2 hours. She was playing it many times yesterday, too. And on Wednesday when I was working in my bedroom office all afternoon with the balcony door open. When I close the door I can't hear it through the double glazing. But it's quite muggy at the moment and it's nicer to have the breeze. This week, fresh air seems to come accompanied by endless repetition of "I'm all out of faith / This is how I feel / I'm cold and I am shamed / Lying naked on the floor .... " wafting in as well.

She was definitely home this morning, she kept coming into the yard to trim hedges, to empty buckets. etc. Her yard is so close I could spit into it from my first floor balcony. But I couldn't quite work up the courage to talk to her. Kind of a tricky one. See I've got no problem with music, I don't care about the volume, I JUST WANT TO HEAR A DIFFERENT SONG. Currently I've wimped out. But if it goes on another couple of days, maybe I'll have to resort to a passive aggressive note. Perhaps I should give her a new cd.

They're terrible lyrics, really. I've always thought that the word "torn" in the song was just an angsty metaphor for being heartbroken. But for me, it's always conjured up images of what happens in a difficult birth (and now it will for you too...) - just an unfortunate lyric choice by an inexperienced pop star. Now I've seen them written down, she could be singing about a rape, almost.

Anyway, not the kind of thing you want to hear over and over and over. Biz and I have discussed possible explanations of the repetitive sound track:
- she' s left it on to make it seem like someone's home and is actually out, unknowingly creating a neighbour torture device (sadly - no, I've seen her)
- she's had a break up and is wallowing (but like, wouldn't just one night on the red wine with Nat be enough? Come on, three days!? )
- she's learning the song for a karaoke competition (ever heard of the internet?)
- she's deaf and doesn't know it's on repeat. (hmmmm)
- it was the sample song that came with her new ipod, and she just really wants to play it and doesn't know how to get new tracks on there. (a bit far fetched, perhaps)
- she's lonely and just wants some music as company (a. no-one's that lonely, and b. we have a thing called TV and radio for that)
- she just really likes that song, and she's eastern european and doesn't really undertstand the lyric anyway.

Signing off, confused, sharing the joys of high density living. Bee.

Some websites

I've been having an annoying moment, where I know for certain someone told me a funny story on the the weekend, and I clearly remember saying "that's going on my blog!" but have no clue what the actual story was about. I guess drinking at least a bottle of prosecco before 6 pm will do that. Prosecco? Its a cheap dry fizzy white wine. Also called frizzante. Like what you drank in year 11. The euros love that shit.

It was gay day on Saturday by the way. When the whole of Amsterdam goes out to line the Prinsengracht and camp it up. Yay. I had pancake brunch in one canal-side flat, immediately followed by bbq lunch at another and watched the parade with some boyz from London and some work colleagues from the shall-remain-unnamed NGO I was working for. Then back at ours for more drinks, plus grilled chicken, then a trip to visit a street party at the homomonument in pouring rain, then a very studenty party in the red-light district, hosted by a fellow named Boo. Ah, Amsterdam.

So to compensate for lack of humorous anecdotes, here are some sites I've been visiting recently.

Passive Aggressive Notes Warning - time wasting alert ahead!
Mother Jones Lefty-yankie current affairs that aren't too hysterical
Hollow Men (to watch the shows online, scarily accurate)
Flycheapo (handy index of what airlines fly in and out of what airports)
Via Michelin (put in origin and destination, and voila it spits out directions and travel times)

Crime and punishment

Last week, m'learned friend Miss K suggested we go to visit the international criminal court in The Hague. It was the last sitting before summer break, and her being a student of international law, environmental law, human rights, this was a last chance while in the region to get this first hand learning experience. Okay, I said, finding the post-holiday life of a "freelancer" drag a little slowly on these rainy summer days. Maybe I can write something about it.

We went to the trial of Charles Taylor, former president of Liberia and accused of 11 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, rape and recruiting child soldiers.

We got to the courtroom by taking the regular commuter train from Amsterdam and a tram. At the public entrance, we had our handbags x-rayed but we didn't have to leave them in locker. Cameras and tape recorders were banned, but we weren't carrying those. The gallery was like a high-tech lecture theatre. We were separated from the proceedings by a glass wall, judges facing the public, prosecution to the right, and defence the left. Charles Taylor was sitting behind his defence counsel.

The witness had his back to the gallery, the central panels of windows were screened, and he apparently had a sound proof booth. His testimony was relayed through CCTV, his voice altered and image pixcellated. Our headphones had a simultaneous translation to English on Channel 1.

That morning, the defence lawyer went through an administrative matter requesting more time on some aspect of the trial preparation. Then, the prosecution started questioning the witness. Essentially, she was trying to get him to acknowledge that he had previously seen and was aware of the contents of a series of documents relations to specific actions of a militia group. She then wanted him to say whether his memory of actual events verified what was in these documents. At every opportunity the defence tried to discredit the documents themselves, the witnesses' ability to understand them, whether the witness only understood the documents after being read their contents, whether he was literate or able to read the English at the time of the offences,... etc. I guess that's his job.

The prosecution was a North American woman in her 50s, short steely grey hair. She looked exhausted, but she was keeping a poker face. The defence lawyer an British guy, not as senior, with a honey-coated upper crust voice probably from Cambridge, who couldn't help smirking a little as he said things like "if it please the court" when pointing out that his copy of the evidence wasn't copied correctly and had lines missing from the bottom and the sides.

We were only in the room for about an hour of a trial that started in January and will probably go on for several months more. A group of lawers are running a detailed blog, and the special court of Sierra Leone is screening the trial in their local court room to allow greater access.

It was fascinating to see international human rights law in operation like this. You can only imagine how tedious it must be to have to plug away into all the evidence for years, interviewing people over countless horror stories. But for the people sitting on the other side of the glass, this is their day-job. They are full time agents of justice, and they have appropriately impassive faces and a dry manner to go with it.

It was alternately chilling, especially when the witness was being questioned about some associates, namely one called Rambo and one called Van Damme. Who does this document refer to where it says Van Damme? Why was he called that? What was his role that day?

Viva musica

This last two weeks, there has been a series of concerts - Live @ Westerpark, on the edge of Amsterdam.

On Tuesday, I went to see this year's silly Euro-pop sensations Mika (inside the fence) and then on Saturday, sat outside with a bunch of freeloaders to listen to and watch Leonard Cohen on the big screens which you could see over the fence in you stood in just the right place. I didn't know that Leonard hasn't toured for 15 years. It felt very special to hear "Everybody knows, Marianne, First we take Manhattan, and Hallelujah" sung by their composer who has passed the 70-year mark, still sounding gravelly and grave and warm as ever. And with our picnic on the concrete, including red wine and marvellous Euro-snacks it was a fine social occasion too.

I liked that the Mika gig was set up to make full use of that very big stage, even if it was totally cheeze-a-rama with circus performers, a clown on a harness flying around, a shadow-play with big furry animal costumes, etc. He has a divine voice, floppy brown hair, speaks a handful of languages, and I'd happily carry his love-child. (Mika, in case you're reading). There's a photo of the artist on stage with a giant blow-up "big girl" here. (c/o Erik Luyten - I hope that's within the terms, Erik!).

Both times the it had drizzled rain on and off all day (just like the whole week....) but while clouds hovered ominously over the park, the drops held off for the duration of the music. Sadly I missed an outdoor Radiohead concert while away on holiday, but that sold out back in March I think.

Bizarro is in darkest Africa this week, and I'm looking for more/ new work suitable for the summer months. The days are long at the moment, and the nights are mild. My apartment seems to hold the heat of the narrow cobble streets.

Koninginnesdag

Queens Day. April 30. As predicted Amsterdam went completely mental. Boats and Orange are clearly the go. And games like the one where you buy three eggs to ditch them at someone wearing a plastic bin liner. Click the photos to go to flickr page.

Koninginnenacht

Its queens night tonight.

Its the night before queens day. I just stayed in the office till about 8pm, sipping wine and writing press releases.

Then I had a couple of beers at the homo monument with Mr B and some work pals who were leaving at the same time. At the momument there were drag queens queens doing eurovision take offs, there was the obligitary beer tent with the cups for 1 euro deposit. And many people dressed in orange.

then i cycled back tot the flat to change into jeans and get a waterproof jacket to go out and meet Mr B and the others. I cycled past temporary tents on the canal bridges, houses totally open to the street, stings of orange flags where residents had clearly connected their house to the nearest lamppost, orange balloons put out by the city council, people cruising on boats in the drizzling rain and dark, pumping basslines everywhere, and general amsterdam craziness.

Apparently tomorrow is the queen mum's birthday. It s a holiday and it lines up pretty well with the start of spring. Amsterdammers have been copped up inside since october with rain and shitty cold, less than 10 degrees everyday for 6 months. And now they want to par-tay.
I'm off to see if I can find my friends.

What's in bsharp's bag?

Following on from the meme started by Betty Sue and Miss J...

- 2 x free postcards for "negen straatjes" (the nine little streets) area - picked up at the amazing brazilian sandwich shop near work. With sincere intentions to write and send to aus.
- saved label with address of funky mexican hand-made shop (in the 9 straatjes)
- wallet from Bondi Market - never really happy with the double fastening mechanism
- only decent lippy I own (from Body Shop in an airport I think) inside carry case with mirror - a gift from little sister who does try to keep me nice
- memory stick (totally full)
- keys on chunky seahorse keyring from Miss J, plus Albert Hein bonuskart, which I get swiped at the supermarket sometimes, but I'm not too sure what that gets me as a "bonus".
- Ikea pencil (the horror)
- Mobile phone
- single bandaid
- 2 types of travel sickness pills (Stugeron and dramamine) one with no packet
- 1 x neurofen left in the bubble pack (apparently I am addicted to off-the shelf medicines, who knew?)
- pen
- Camera case (normally containing the camera used for this photo..)
- 2 x Albert Hein receipts, 1 shoe shop receipt and 1 receipt from todae in glebe (also for shoes)
- 1 x flier for a swing night in Haarlem train station
- 1 x custom moleskine Amsterdam SIY guidebook, a pressie from the glebe vegan household.
- 17 eurocents in loose change

Amsterdam update

Hi everyone - I've been a bit lax in posting about the Euro-experience recently. Because I know that you're all gagging for more about Ollebolen, bitterballen, bicycling and terrible bureaucracy.

Anyway, there was a brief chilly spell, but this week we haven't had any more below-zero temps. Oh yeah and the big news is that I got a real job! For three whole months. As a press officer with an NGO that is having a big international conference here in May. My first time 9 to 5 in a real office in more than two years. And oh yes, office politics, they still exist.

Mostly though it's bags of fun. People talking on the phone in several languages every day (my team consists of Dutch, Italians, a Latvian, a Cherman, couple of brits and me the lone antipodean). And it's in a great location. This is a picture of the buildings across the canal, where I park my bike. Reflected in the ice on the one morning that the canals froze a bit. Only a thin layer on top mind you. Pretty, huh?

In other news, we made a trip out the edge of town to the Amsterdam Ikea. I was sooo excited, being quite concerned with having a gezellig home environment these days.

But it was actually a bit like the seventh dimension of hell. At the buying area they have these towering shelves up to the 20-foot ceilings, numbered from one to 67 where you have to go and find your precious flat pack. And when I finally got to my new office chair, the one that we had chosen after trying all the models for good back support and arms at the right price.... the bloody arms were out of stock. The base chair was there, but I had to switch to a totally different model at the last part of the epic Ikea odyssey in the bowels of the labyrinthine warehouse. A bit like Jason and the argonauts, I thought.

Biz nearly gnawed his own feet off he was so oppressed by the consumerist binge. I'm actually amazed he didn't grab a toddler out of (one of many) bugaboo strollers and yell "I am confiscating this human in the name of sustainability and human rights until you put all of those wretched mass-produced items back THIS INSTANT." At least I think that was the source of his moral outrage, he was a little too mithered to be quite so precise.