The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

I am now entering the final stages of my studies at the DAI. Today it was time to appear before the DAI staff and a few selected external experts, in order to defend the thesis and website which we have all had to produce as a condition for graduation.

This terrifying event took place in the quite odd location of the World Fashion Centre in Amsterdam, which is quite conveniently about five minutes away from my house. This certainly made a nice change from the usual three-hour journey to Enschede, although of course it did not do very much towards diminishing the nerves which will naturally accompany such an encounter.

I was the first of the day to explain my website, which in the end was a fairly matter-of-fact and businesslike conversation with visiting website guru Ronald van Tienhoven. Not especially difficult but also not the type of occasion for being sung to the rafters either.

Next, it came time to defend my thesis, this time with outside expert Jorinde Seijdel, editor of Open magazine. This was surprisingly relaxed, and I was relieved to find that the commentary was mostly positive.

So, one more ordeal over with, just the assessments of next week to go.

A while ago I had offered to help my fellow DAI students Buba and Marina with an ambitious performance/video project which they have been developing. Finally it has been possible to find some time to do the filming for this, and so I have been in Enschede for the past few days.

What this was to involve was them sitting at and walking behind a table, overlaid so that there would appear to be at least three of each of them. This is of course easier said than done; I don’t have much experience of the techniques needed to do this type of thing, but I thought it was an interesting project and worth doing at least as a way of learning.

Such an effect is called “Bluescreen” or “Greenscreen” because you film the action in front of a bright blue or green background, which it is then possible to make transparent in the editing software. The problem is that this can only be done well with exactly the right kind of smooth, even lighting, and with a very bright colour which will not reflect onto other objects in the scene.

The type of fabric we had was not ideal, and after three hours of messing around it was still not possible to get the ideal type of lighting. However, we were able to get something with which it should hopefully be possible to work. We shall see.

Myself and Astrid set off last Thursday morning on the train from Centraal Station for a few days in Germany. The main reason for this visit was to attend the wedding of our former DAI colleague Dagmar, but since it was such a long way and because where we were going is in such a nice piece of countryside, we had decided to stay a few extra days and make a wee holiday out of it. I certainly felt like I needed it after all the recent stress of preparing to graduate and other things.

The journey involved taking the train to Koblenz, on the way changing in Cologne. Dagmar then picked us up and took us to Höhr-Grenzhausen, the large village/small town where she and husband-to-be Helge live, along with Dagmar’s little daughter Lilly. Just before the train reaches Koblenz, the flat land that has extended from the Netherlands begins to rise up into rolling hills covered with forest, meaning that the landscape becomes quite dramatic and very Germanic; it feels a long way from Holland.

Dagmar and Helge’s next-door neighbour had kindly agreed to offer us a place to stay during our trip. In fact, it appears that where they live is at the centre of a friendly little community, with the neighbours helping out with the organising of the wedding, which was itself held in the courtyard next to the house. This made the whole thing much more relaxed than the average wedding.

The actual event itself took place in the Rathaus (“Town Hall”) in the centre of Höhr-Grenzhausen, with the usual formalities of signing things and agreeing to honour and respect one another, and so on. I say this without 100% certainty because my German is pretty dreadful.

After this, it was back to the house for food, before a few hours break and then more food, beer, songs and dancing, and even an acrobatic display by friends of the couple. This was certainly a first for me. And later, yet more food. I have never eaten so well at any wedding anywhere.

The party continued on into the next day, after which myself and Astrid decided to explore the surrounding countryside a bit and make the most of the weather. There was something so amazingly refreshing about being able to wander around in the woods and sunbathe out in the open without once being disturbed by other people or coming across signs telling you to stay on the paths. This is simply impossible in the Netherlands.

We ended up going walking every day until it was time to return home on Monday afternoon, which I was not so very enthusiastic about. Still, work and such things cannot be avoided.

As mentioned, I now have a studio, on the Kinkerstraat in Amsterdam. That is all very nice, but of course before I could use it for anything it was necessary to move all the stuff that I have collected here in our flat. Some of this is extremely heavy, and in any case it was far to much and too far away to be carried. I didn’t feel like paying for a van, and so a more creative solution was needed.

What I decided to do was to construct a sort of trailer for my bike, and move everything on this. I have seen such things before, although they mainly seem to be used to take kids to school rather than lugging big steel tables and such like. All the same, it seemed like a mad enough idea to be interesting.

I started out by making a quick trip to Het Juttersdok, my favourite second-hand shop in this area, in order to seek out some parts that might be usable. Ideally I would have liked some smallish wheels with tyres, such as those for a child’s bike, but these were not to be found. Instead, I found a sort of metal frame with two plastic wheels about 12cm wide, although a bit steep at €10.

As I was wondering whether it was worth paying this much for such a flimsy piece of junk, a couple of small boys who appeared to be assisting in the shop said that the thing I was looking at needed to be thrown away. Of course I then said that in that case I would do so for them! After some consultation with the man at the cash desk it appeared that it was not to be thrown away, but that I could have it for €5. Done deal.

After dragging the thing home, all that was necessary was to cobble together a wooden surface to sit over the frame, and some sort of arm to connect it to the bicycle. This last stage was the most tricky, necessitating quite a bit of sawing and drilling into bits of steel bar in order to make a sturdy enough bracket. However, after about 3 hours of work and some test runs round the neighbourhood, the thing was ready to go.

I am quite pleased to be able to say that it does in fact work! I have now successfully managed to move the majority of my stuff to the studio, although not without some curious stares from passers-by. What is a shame though is that people here will just stare like idiots and not say anything, whereas back in Glasgow they would be throwing all sorts of smart-ass comments, abuse, and friendly encouragement. The Dutch could do to come out of their shell a bit at times.

I have a new studio in Amsterdam! I am very happy about this because one of my major plans for the next few months, along with graduation + finding a job + finding a new place to live, was to get hold of a decent place to work. The situation right now where I have been using our balcony as a workshop is really not ideal and is driving me nuts.

My coursemate Daniëlle had mentioned to me earlier in the week that fellow coursemate Emily had been interested in taking over the vacant studio space in the same building as her own studio. Unfortunately, the antikraak (“anti-squat”) bureau who own it wanted to more than double the monthly rental as well as require quite a large deposit, which mean that she no longer felt that it was worth taking. Therefore, Daniëlle asked me if I was interested.

It also seemed quite expensive to me, but having given it some consideration I decided that it would still be worthwhile. Quite a few of us from the DAI have been discussing looking for a common working space, so this place will hopefully serve as an ideal temporary solution until this is possible. It also means that I don’t have to be so worried about where to put all my stuff if finding a new place to live doesn’t go as smoothly as planned.

What was really a pain in the arse though was having to go through all the necessary procedures to get a contract signed and be allowed to use the space. The woman at the antikraak office was really rude, and basically gave the impression that I should be bloody grateful that I was getting anything at all. Worse than this, the fact that I could not get the money for the deposit together absolutely immediately meant that it was necessary to come back once again and go through the whole process again today. This time the assistant I spoke to was much friendlier, but made it almost impossible to have a conversation by constantly jumping up to change what was playing on the radio, answering the phone every twenty seconds (no exaggeration), or attempting to wipe whatever sticky mess was covering her desk and therefore ruining her concentration.

All this unpleasantness out of the way, and I finally have a proper place to make things. Of course, because it’s antikraak we could get chucked out any time with two weeks notice, although the fact that Daniëlle has been there for about four years means that this hopefully won’t happen for a while. By that time something more permanent will hopefully have been arranged.

I have been working the last two evenings at Eat at Jo’s, as explained last week. This has involved the usual duties associated with working in a restaurant/bar, such as serving beer, taking orders, clearing up now and then, as well as lots of standing around doing nothing. The place seems to serve in the main as a canteen for the staff of the Melkweg, who are allowed to eat there for free. There were one or two paying customers, but they were definitely in the minority.

Strangely enough there are two people working there who I know; quite coincidental considering I don’t really know vast numbers of people in Amsterdam. Everyone who works there (whom I have met so far at least) seems really friendly, and best of all the food is great. The plan is to hopefully put in a couple of shifts here most weeks, which will not exactly cover all my living expenses but will help a bit at least.

I had a very interesting although strange experience today. I had signed up on-line last week with a temp agency, Appoint, who specialise in jobs in ICT and something called “cross-media”, whatever that is. Since I am about to graduate and therefore need to start earning some coin fairly pronto, and because the fact that the pound has been sinking like a stone against the Euro means that the work I have been doing for RSTO in Scotland (which pays in pounds) does not pay so well any more, it seemed like a good time to seek out something of the same nature here. I am not so very enthusiastic about earning my living programming websites, since I would rather do so by making art, but the reality is that that is not going to happen for the moment. This is one way where I can earn a wee bit more than pulling pints.

What was quite surprising is that the day after signing up on their website, I received a phone call inviting me to their Droombaandag (“Dream Job Day”) this Saturday (thus today). This would basically involve some presentations, some one-on-one discussions about job possibilities, as well as a borrel (“wee drinky”) afterwards. I was sold of course on the last of these points.

I must admit that I was quite nervous on the way to their offices, in a very colourful modern office block next to the IJ. The whole officey-businessy career-focussed thing is not my style at all, and especially the type of people who inhabit such circles.

As it happened the organisers were super-friendly, and the day was quite interesting and maybe even useful. We started with a talk about the Talenten Motivatie Assessment (I’m not going to bother translating that) that we had been asked to fill in online (all 312 questions of it). The point of this computerised test was to see what sort of personality you have, and thus what sort of job you are suited to. The idea is that people are in the main unhappy because they are in jobs to which they are totally unsuited, an idea which is certainly hard to fault.

The results of this assessment, which we received during individual appointments at lunchtime, are basically a set of graphs comparing your strengths in 22 areas such as need for leadership, need for order, ability to work under pressure, etc,. There was also a textual summary automatically compiled so that it looks like it was really written by a human.

Honestly said, it was in my case disturbingly accurate about a lot of things. There were a few rather odd conclusions, but on the main it had me down to a T. Apparently, I have almost no desire to boss people around, am quite chaotic, but have a high degree of social empathy. It certainly encourages a lot of narcissistic self-psychoanalysis.

After that, a rather stupid workshop in the afternoon with these kind of silly exercises that seem to do little except make people embarrassed (“tell the person next to you about the last time you were really proud of something you had done”, or “phone up someone you know and ask what your best quality is”). This I could have done without.

But, all in all, quite an interesting day. Who knows if it will result in any paid employment, but that’s another story.

Having last month been “green lighted” on our work and thesis, it was time today for the same to happen with regard to our graduation publications. I have mentioned progress on this quite a few times here, and it is now getting to the stage where final decisions needed to be made and a reality check carried out with DAI course director Gabriëlle and publications editor Emily Pethick. Thus, once again a trip to Arnhem.

Before it was my turn, I managed to have quite a productive conversation with Cecilia about the few small areas needing to be finished off. After this and a nice lunch provided courtesy of the Werkplaats, it was time to present what we have been working on together. This seemed to go down pretty OK; aside from one or two minor adjustments, the thing is almost finished. This was very good to hear. I’m really excited about the whole project and can’t wait to see it printed.

I had a quick meeting today with the owner of Eat at Jo’s, the little restaurant at the side of the Melkweg, about working there. Now that things are getting a bit quieter at the DAI, I really need to get earning some money as soon as possible. Something easy in a place like this would be perfect.

He said that he expected things to be quiet this summer, but that he would give me a try-out shift next Wednesday. Let’s see how it turns out…

My friends Andy and Laura have been busy sorting out the wee garden of their house in Noord, and yesterday celebrated by having some folks round for a barbecue. Having a garden, even a little one like theirs, is quite a luxury in Amsterdam. I am suitably jealous.

Despite forecast of rain, the weather held with us and it was quite a nice wee party. The only strange thing was that myself and Astrid were the only people there without babies. Whether this was by coincidence or because this is the time of life at which people start to do this kind of thing, I don’t know. All the same, it was quite surreal, especially considering that it doesn’t seem too long since I was regularly staying awake all weekend and engaging in all sorts of drunken antics with the same people. How times change.

The good thing about all this was that since things started early because of child concerns, I was back home and in bed not so long after midnight (getting absolutely soaked by a sudden thunderstorm on the way), and was in turn able to get up early this morning without a hangover. Maybe this new life ain’t so bad after all.

I used the said early start to make a visit with Julien to the monthly vlooienmarkt (fleamarket) at the NDSM-werf, also coincidentally in Noord. It was the first outdoor market of the summer, and absolutely packed. As usual, I spent far too much money and had far too many things to take home: in this instance a large saw table, a small electric drill, and a bench vice. I just can’t seem to have enough tools!

The best part by far of doing things in Noord is that you get to take the ferry across the IJ. To my surprise, the tiny wee ferry from the NDSM-werf to the Tasmanstraat was running today; usually, it only runs through the week. I love this wee boat, which nobody ever seems to use although it is perfect from getting between Noord and the west of Amsterdam. Although the crossing is only about five minutes, you get a fantastic view of the city from a unique perspective, and it’s free as well. Definitely one of Amsterdam’s “best-kept secrets”.