The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

After yesterday’s unpleasant end to the afternoon at the Vakantiefietser, I returned today with a clearer head about the bicycle that I wanted, and also to talk things over with the guy in the shop. I didn’t want to get in any kind of argument with him, but rather just make it clear that I was not happy with how things went yesterday. It seemed that this was preferable to just letting it fester. In any case, he will lose a lot of sales if he keeps going this way.

I am really not very good at this sort of difficult situation, but it turned out fairly amicably. I explained that I was quite upset, he apologised, and hopefully that will be the end of the matter. And in about six weeks time, I should have my new bike!

After our visit to check out bikes at the Vakantiefietser last week, the time had come to finally take the plunge and order some bikes. This is it now – money is being spent, and the trip has taken a step closer to reality.

The first thing to do was to go for a test ride on a variety of different bikes. I must say that it was really enjoyable to have a shot on a decent bike, being so used as I am to crappy bikes thrown together from parts of other ones which were beyond repair. Well, I should hope so, seeing that there’s not too much change out of €2000 for each of these beasts!

As I cycled round the roads and tracks near the Westergasfabriek, I really felt that I could keep going for ever on one of these, it was such a pleasure to be on. Whether I will still feel like that after ten months on the road is a different story.

Later, back at the shop, we got measured up and began discussing options and so on – it seems that every part of a bicycle in available in at least three different types. It was about this point that I felt myself beginning to suffer from information overload, and also that things went a bit sour.

I explained to the guy that was helping us that although I was definitely going to order a bicycle, I would quite like to think everything over for a bit, sleep on it, and come back tomorrow with my final decision. Upon hearing this, he got a bit upset and started acting, in my opinion, quite childishly.

He started making this over-dramatic show of making sure that I could not see my frame measurements (lest I go elsewhere and buy a bike, presumably), and basically just making me feel very uncomfortable indeed. I of course felt myself getting quite angry about this, and thus in even less of a position to make decisions about what to buy. Goddamit, I’m spending a fuck of a lot of money, and I need to be sure that I am doing it right!

The whole thing left quite a bad taste in my mouth, when I should have been super-happy about ordering my brand new bike. I will need to go back tomorrow and try to sort things out.

Encouraged by having found “the” boat yesterday, I took a trip today to the Lange Duinen, the large expanse of sand near the village of Soest where I intend to make a short film in the near future. There were four things I wanted to do;

1. See how it looks in the winter, since I was last here in August.
2. Test out the fancy video microphone I have just bought.
3. Test out the DIY steadycam I built yesterday, loosely based on the instructions here.
4. Find some nice places to film so as to be able to compose shots beforehand.

Everything went pretty OK, except that this little “desert” was not very “deserted”. What I mean to say is that there were people walking dogs everywhere, and the sand is quite churned up by footprints all over the place. It will not exactly evoke the unexplored Australian outback that I had in mind.

Thinking about it later though, it occurred that this might actually make the film more interesting, and certainly funnier – if it in fact becomes more about some lost traveller from the past stuck in the middle of Holland. A sort of refugee looking for a wilderness. Need to think it through a bit more.

Last week, I went to see a man about a boat, which was almost perfect except perhaps a wee bit too heavy. In the meantime, I had got to hear about another, smaller boat which might suit the job. It belongs to a friend of Astrid’s dad.

Unfortunately he lives in Gorinchem, which is a quite a long way from Amsterdam, by Dutch standards at least. The description I had of the thing was encouraging enough to make the trip though anyway.

There was a little bit of confusion when I rang him to say that I was on the way, since he thought that I was coming tomorrow – it is of course totally possible that I did say that… Thankfully this was not a problem.

And very glad I was that I made the trip, since the boat is absolutely perfect for my film, even better than the other one. If everything goes well, I hope to do the filming in a couple of weeks.

The plan to cycle to China is getting a bit more real these days, and so certain unavoidable things need to be addressed – amongst which is that we will need to get some shit-hot bikes.

There is a shop in Amsterdam especially for this type of thing, The Vakantiefietser, to which we made a visit this morning. They were very friendly and seemed bursting with information about what was available, affordable, and suitable for our journey.

Next week, we will hopefully come back and order some bikes!

I’ve been out in the Bijlmer this week, an area at the far south-eastern corner of Amsterdam which serves as home to numerous faceless office blocks, as well as a majority non-white residential population. The Grachtengordel seems a long, long way away here.

The reason for my spending about an hour travelling from my house to get here was because I have been doing some work for James Beckett, the artist with whom myself and some other DAI students worked earlier in the year. He’s busy with a major installation, and needed some guys who “know how to use a ratchet properly”. It would seem that I fall into this category.

James’ studio is in an anti-squat property. So is mine, in fact, but this one is on quite a different scale. It’s a 2600m2, five-storey office building which has never actually been used for its original purpose. James is now its only occupant and pays about €70 a month for the privilege. If the economy goes as bad as it apparently is heading, there will perhaps be a lot more of this sort of madness.

The first task was to deal with the delivery of about twenty huge steel-and-glass frames which were arriving from China. Of course, the reason for this was because getting things made over there is still so much cheaper than here, despite the huge transport costs.

Problem is, the supplier had decided to cut some costs by packaging almost everything into one huge but badly-built wooden crate about 3m long and weighing half a tonne. There was some sickening cracking noises as the delivery guy wiggled about with a fork lift buggy trying to get it out of the back of the truck, but thankfully everything inside survived OK.

Before we could get this huge thing out of the car park and away from the rain, there was one small problem to deal with – the automatic barrier at the entrance for which we had no key or other means of opening.

Well actually, no key except a set of Allen keys. With one of these it we swiftly dismantled the (doubtless very expensive) automatic barrier, allowing free passage for our Chinese goodies while passing business folks looked on bemused.

This could come in very handy – with one small hexagonal-shaped piece of metal, you’ve got free parking everywhere.

I’ve been nursing an idea for the last few months for a film that I would like to make. It’s quite closely related to my film with the rolls of carpet, in that it will feature me hauling something heavy across the Dutch countryside. Except this time, it will be a small boat.

Details will be revealed here later!

What I had in mind was the sort of small wooden rowing boat that is commonly found to hire in public parks in the UK. Unfortunately, and quite surprisingly for a nation obsessed with boats, such craft are rarely to be found in the Netherlands. About the smallest boat in common usage are the steel bootjes to be found on the canals, which are generally around 4m long – much bigger than I am looking for. Also, for reasons which will become clear later, it must be wooden.

I was very pleased then to hear that Astrid’s cousin had a little wooden boat that might be suitable. Problem is, he and his family live out in the middle of nowhere. Therefore quite a long trek on the train and bus this evening to see the thing.

Arjan, the man in question, turns out to be a swarthy, friendly bloke who makes his living as a veehandelaar (livestock dealer), who contrary to my past experience with such people did not take exception to me being a vegetarian and an arty type at that. I really felt like some sort of bohemian intruder in his parlour, with wood stove, thick leather-bound bible on the sideboard, and friendly dog, but if he was perturbed by the situation he didn’t show it.

The boat was hidden rather forlornly at the back of the enormous shed attached to the rear of the house, awaiting the springtime and its chance to be used once again. Perhaps it will get a chance earlier than that.

I was pretty pleased with it – looks wise it’s perfect, and only slightly larger and heavier than I would ideally want. There’s lots of practical things to be sorted before I can think about coming round again to borrow it, but I’m pleased to have at least found something that should fit the bill.

There was only one bus an hour back to Utrecht, and even then it’s twenty minutes walk to the bus stop. Arjan kindly gave us a lift there in his livestock truck, a sort of oversized transit van in which sheep and cattle can be transported. As we waved goodbye I asked him how many beasts the thing would hold – “about 6 cows, or 50 sheep” he called back. That’s a whole heap of mutton and burgers.

I see that it is at least two and a half weeks since I have written anything here. Unfortunately my life at the moment is not so very interesting, at least not interesting to read about. I seem to spend the whole time working (I have a lot of earning to do to make up for studying), with very little time aside for other things. For this reason my contributions here might be a bit sparse for the time being; more interesting adventures will lie ahead, hopefully.