The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

After the expected late rising and wandering about like a proper bunch of fannies, we were taken by Martin to Prague Zoo. I suppose it’s no’ bad, actually, but I reckon as well you can begin to suffer from animal fatigue or something; “oh, there’s a wee snake thing! oh, look, another horse-like creature”, but apparently the highlight which I missed because I was looking at a sleeping warthog was giraffe licking piss out of another giraffe’s arse.

Not enough meercats for my liking.

Martin’s band were playing a gig later which was no’ too shoddy. It was held outdoors in a sort of Victorian gazebo thing which started to bend and shake like fuck when it had about 30 drunk Czechs and Scots jumping on top of it, which was followed by some further alfresco bevvying ’til the wee hours. Apologies for the quality of the video; my camera doesn’t like the dark very much.

The best option for Sunday was a type of outdoor lido type thing which appeared to have survived the transition to capitalism quite well. It’s the type of architecture that I’m quite into, I suppose, and the kind of thing that probably wouldn’t get built in such a form nowadays, which is a shame.

Then an outdoor showing of “Life of Brian”, which was, I think, a pretty good way to round of the weekend at an early hour before the week’s nonsense…

Cycled round like a madman this morning trying to get a few things ready for heading off to Prague – managed most, at least.

Dreadful cunt of a journey, though. Firstly, the flight was delayed for about 2 hours (no explanation of course), and when it finally arrived the worst was yet to come. How long is reasonable to wait for you luggage coming off the belt? 10 minutes? 20 minutes? Well, in this instance an hour had gone past without a sign of it. It was then that I began to realise that almost all of the people who had been on the same flight were also waiting, and it seemed reasonable to assume that the whole lot had gone missing. Nice. What made the whole thing worse was that there was no announcement save from a single one stating the obvious fact that “Luggage on flight QS 27 from Amsterdam has been delayed”, and no help whatsoever from any of the airport staff.

I am guessing that the flight was made up roughly half-and-half of Czech and Dutch passengers, and you could tell quite easily which were which by the irate questioning of officials and waving of arms on the part of the Dutch, whilst the Czechs just kind of stood around with a stoical resignation. The Dutch don’t seem to get that angry as a matter of course, but they don’t take kindly to bad service.

Was finally met with a very warm welcome from the troops at Staromĕststá (yes, I had to look that up) metro station, and proceeded via the famous Charles Bridge to a bar for some top class food and delicious, cheap beer. The rest of the night becomes less clear, but certainly involved riding around on a few trams (smaller than the Amsterdam ones and much cuter), before crashing at some unknown time back at the “Hostel Advantage”.

We have been getting a frightening amount of junk mail. They have a system here whereby you get a wee sticker from the council to stick on you letterbox, and then the cunts are legally obliged not to stuff it with crap. So here’s ours, freshly applied. Stay away, fuckers.

Had an early last night, which was probably for the best. Got Prague coming up next weekend, so it seemed worth taking it easy just this once.

Basically just stayed inside working for a bit before watching a couple of DVDs. About the only thing of note to happen occurred when I popped out to the shops early in the evening; the English guy who lives below and along a bit from us (and who we have been warned about by our landlady) was screaming at the top of his voice at some guy in the street below. I wasn’t quite able to work out what it was all about, but it seemed that he knew the guy and was telling him in no uncertain terms to get the fuck away from the building. I think his words were something like, “please, please, please piss off now, or I won’t come and see you this evening”. Strange way of expressing things, no?

According to our landlady he beats his girlfriend and son and has spent four years in a Dutch prison, but then I think she has an axe to grind so I can’t be sure. It would kinda fit, though. I’ll say “hi” to him in the stairway, but apart from that the best move seems to be to keep a wide berth. I’m up for an easy life.

A funny old mood today and no mistake. Don’t know why, perhaps just hungover from Friday, perhaps smoking too much doob (I’m not a big smoker, usually), or perhaps also because after 2 weeks of ceaseless sunshine the sky today grew dark and the air muggy. Storm’s a-comin’, maw.

Sure enough, just as myself and Andy had popped out for some provisions from Albert Heijn the skies opened – thunder, lightening, pissing it down, the lot. I assume it was perhaps the same in Scotland since we are not so far away, really.

So, got totally soaked and had to retire to the sofa to sit sweating like it was Borneo. All the downside of a heatwave with none of the good bits, bah.

The lack of wallet has been in some ways a blessing in disguise, since a total absence of funds had led me to stay at home most of the time and work like a busy wee bee on the stuff I am actually being paid to do; the importance of this is becoming very clear to me, since the hassles of moving and the whole year I have spent learning Dutch and my place at the DAI will count for nothing if I cannot sustain myself financially. One of the facts of being a grown-up, I suppose.

Another big step though, today;- after several phone calls and delays, I finally had an appointment with the Belastingdienst (Inland Revenue) about getting a SoFi number (see above). In the end it was surprisingly easy, and as a result something of an anticlimax; I just turned up with my passport, inschrijving documents, filled out a form, and that was that. I can now legally work in the Netherlands. So in fact, 5 years residency and an official language exam is all that now stands between me and a Dutch passport, should I want such a thing.

Woah, that’s jumping the gun a little. Gotta grow a moustache first.

Cycling back from the Belastingdienst and in quite an elated kind of mood I passed what might be the coolest shop I have seen for quite some time – “The Chopperdome”. Yes, it’s shop that sells every kind of lowriding bicycle, from off-the-shelf to totally custom-built numbers. The guy had one out front which was the bees, even featuring a motorbike fuel tank welded to the frame, which is not quite as gay as it sounds. €1300, though, and likely to get stolen in about 10 minutes flat I would imagine.

The next task, having obtained a SoFi number, was to go and open myself a bank account. This was once again not without a minor hitch, that being that after queueing for about 10 minutes at the local Post Office (they also run a bank, the Postbank, which is by most accounts one of the better ones), I was told that because I had a foreign passport I needed to go to a completely different Post Office elsewhere (and of course queue for another 15 minutes). And then wait a week before getting my card, naturally.

My boss has a theory about all this, which kind of fits; they make it just difficult enough, but not impossible, to settle in here as a foreigner, so that people who have come for a stoned weekend don’t just decide to jack everything in and stay here. Quite sensible, really.

While I was at the post office I noticed this pair of idiots trying to post a chandelier, or at least some sort of brass thing. They seemed to have just brought the thing whole to the post office, where they then proceeded to dismantle it on the floor and begin wrapping the pieces in bubble wrap. Bonkers.

Later on I had arranged to meet Katie and Jimmy to visit the degree show of the Masters program at the Design Academy Eindhoven, which was in fact thankfully being held here in Amsterdam at the Droog gallery/shop. Now, for those who are not design geeks, Droog (pronounced to rhyme with “boak”, except with a “ch” as in “loch” at the end) are about as cool as it gets in Dutch design, and Dutch design is of course very cool. The name means “dry”, and I suppose that’s a pretty good description of what they do. It’s mainly product design, and of the kind that whether you like it or not makes you smile, or at least stop and think for a while. If that’s the best you can do as a designer then that’s not half bad, I would say.

This was of course the show of the Eindhoven students, of course, but you could easily see the Droog influence. One of my favourites was a tablecloth with embroidery sewn in electrically conductive thread which was linked to a pair of lights in the centre, so that as you added or removed metal cutlery and serving dishes from the table the lights would grow dimmer or brighter. Tops.

There was also a small sideboard-type-thing with strange but nice looking rubber attachments within, which when turned inside out formed into little bowls on its surface for keys, fruit etc.

Actually, you would kind of have needed to be there to get quite what I’m on about, but the point is that I was quite inspired. Almost wish I’d applied to Eindhoven, but, well, I didn’t.

Had a few quiet beers by the canal-side with Katie and Jimmy, then since we were all skint headed home by way of Katie’s work – a sushi restaurant. She pops inside for 2 minutes and comes out with a huge packet of veggie sushi for us! Top girl! Could the evening get any better?

Met Andy for a few in the Soundgarden, which was probably not wise given lack of funds and prior consumption of beer, but never mind. At least no cycling this time.

Finally got in contact with the secretary/PA of the guy who found my wallet, who told me that he had taken it to the police station on the Prinzengracht. She expressly pointed out that there was still €100 in it when he had done so.

Got to the said police station, only to be told that my wallet was now at the “Gevonden Voorwerpen” (found objects) office miles away on the other side of town. I should have known it would not be plain sailing (all a good opportunity to practice my Dutch, though).

Eventually found the aforementioned office, and joy of joys, they had my wallet. Not so joyful was the absence of the €100 from it. I was ready to curse the Amsterdam police as every kind of corrupt motherfucker on the planet, until the guy explained that money found in wallets is kept separately, and a note is made of its amount; very efficient, very sensible, very Dutch. So wallet back, money back. One-nil to Meighan, I think, and an apology due to da Amsterdam plod.

Sent the guy who found it an email full of breathless thank-yous. I said that I didn’t know if he believed in Karma, but if he did his had just about trebled (and he was welcome to a beer/coffee at a time of his choosing). Top bloke, nuff said. People are not all swine, after all.

There had been a power cut in our whole block (nae, whole neighbourhood) in the morning, so I stopped by De Balie on Leidseplein for a wee shot of their free WiFi, expecting as I was a reply from the Sandberg today.

Didn’t get in. No surprise whatsoever, but it still cuts like knives when you read it. I don’t handle failure very well (but then success neither), and so it was just as well that the wallet incident had occurred to lift my spirits. It’s been the story here so far down to a T, massive ups and massive downs. A little averageness wouldn’t go amiss.

Could only sit and wait about the Sandberg application, and no word back from the wallet guy. Terrible mood and easily my worst day since getting here.

What just put the fucking icing on it was getting a letter from the Inland Revenue back home telling me that I had been overpaid Tax Credits for the last year-and-a-bit to the tune of nearly £1400. Most of this was from the previous tax year, so why the fuck did the morons keep paying me this year? Where do I have that sort of money sitting around to just hand out at a moment’s notice? Nowhere, that’s where, and if I don’t have it they damn well can’t get anything. Besides, I’m over here and they’re over there, so they can whistle for it.

What I wouldn’t give to be rich, just for a wee bit.

Stressed to fuck in the morning, mainly about the fact that I had nowhere near enough work to show at my interview, but the wallet thing didn’t help. Until I got an email, which went something like this;-

“Are you the Chris Meighan who lost his wallet in Amsterdam on Sunday morning? Because if so, I have it”.

Unbelievable. Jesus does love me after all.

I sent a reply along the lines of “You are the business, by the way. Give me your number and I’ll call you”, but was generally too busy worrying about the Sandberg to think any more about it.

To explain a little more, the Sandberg Institute was the second of the two graduate schools I had applied to in the Netherlands. Having already been accepted to DAI sort of took the urgency out of things, but in a way it would be more convenient to study at Sandberg, since they are based in Amsterdam as opposed to way out in the sticks.

On the other hand, they had already seen some of my work at an earlier interview in April, and now wanted to see more. This I could not really give them, having not made much new (a full time job plus commuting to Edinburgh plus preparing to go away had pretty much put paid to that), and so it looked like a bit of heavy bullshitting was the only way forward. It had worked okay for DAI, at least.

Well, suffice to say that I didn’t quite pull it off. They were very polite and encouraging at the interview, but it was clear by the end that I had not convinced them enough, if at all. All the fine talk in the world will not compensate for a portfolio lacking in substance.

As it happened, I was a lot more taken with the facilities at DAI anyway, but not having to spend 1 week in 4 a 2 hour train journey away would have been nice. Never mind.

Needless to say I awoke several hours later absolutely freezing and disorientated. As luck would have it, though, I had sobered up enough to work out where I was, and so managed to make it home in one piece before crashing out in my own warm, lovely, indoor bed.

All very good, no harm done, ’til later in the evening I got that sickening feeling that I am so used to. Phone – check. Keys – check. Wallet – nowhere to be seen. Fuck-a-doodle-do. There was €100 in it and all my cards. Curse the mother who had me!

I had enough to worry about what with my upcoming interview at the Sandberg Institute the following afternoon. This I could do without.