The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

For the second time in the month I have spent an evening at Café Pakhuis Wilhelmina. The last occasion was at Hogmanay, whereas this time it was to attend a Burns Supper. Now, the purpose of this event is of course to celebrate the life and works of the poet Rabbie Burns, who lived from 1759-96 (according to Wikipedia at least). He is a national hero in Scotland, and his birthday, that is the 25th of January, has become a sort of de facto national day. I for one am quite pleased that we have taken to celebrating the life of a drunken, womanising, working class poet instead of some general, king or politician.

This particular event had been thought up by a guy called Andy Bruce, a fellow Scot living in Amsterdam, who had actually emailed me about a year ago about arranging such an evening. I was very curious about the sort of crowd that would turn up – would it be a room full of homesick expats, or instead mainly confused Dutchies? In fact, it turned out to be mostly the second with a few of the first.

The evening got off to a fine start with plenty of whisky, soup, music, and of course the highpoint of the evening – the piping in of and address to the haggis. I am not aware of any other cultures in which it is normal to talk to a plate of dead, cooked meat before plunging a knife into it and waxing further about its “gushing entrails bricht (bright)”. It is certainly a site to behold.

I must say that the guy flown over to address the beast and later to read Tam O’ Shanter was brilliant. Worth the entrance money on its own!

So, more music, whisky, beer, and so on later, it was time to head back home through the freezing midnight of Amsterdam in January. At this point, while trying my best to cycle in a straight line while somewhat worse for wear, I was stopped and hassled by the police because I did not have a little red light on the back of my bike (I did have a white one at the front, but that is not enough). I tried the tactic of talking at them about nonsense until they got bored and drove away, which amazingly worked. No fine this time, at least.

One last thing – Andy had wrote to D C Thomson to ask if they would sponsor the event. Naturally, being skinflint east-coast types they did not, but instead sent this enormous ceramic cast of Maw and Paw Broon and the Bairn. Doubtless not many non-Scots will know what I am talking about, but here is is anyway.

Since we will be shortly heading off into the wilds of eastern Europe and Asia, it is necessary that we get innoculated against a range of terrifying diseases. To this end we had an appointment this morning at the LUMC in Leiden, which is apparently well known among cyclists as the place to go for this sort of thing.

The doctor who we spoke to began by asking where exactly we were going, and this is when things became a wee bit complicated. Because we will travel through so many countries and climates, there ends up being quite a lot of things that we could fall victim to. What makes the whole thing irritating as much as frightening is that it is of course not possible to do it all in one visit, or even in a couple; we need to be injected a total of four times over the course of a month and a half to receive adequate protection. Here is what is on the menu:

• Typhoid fever
• Tetanus
• Polio
• Diptheria
• Rabies – unfortunately the vaccine doesn’t actually prevent this but gives you a bit more time to get to the hospital if attacked by a mad dog, etc.
• Hepatitis A
• Hepatitis B
• Frühsommer-Meningoenzephalitis (FSME) – Never heard of this one before, but it’s a horrible virus that you can get from ticks and which will cause your brain to swell up and possibly kill you.

So after all that I guess you are as good as invincible. Of course, it’s important to put things into perspective – you can get innoculated against everything under the sun, but it won’t help much if you break your leg or get run over by a car. Life is full of risks, whether at home inside or on the road in the middle of China.

Happy New Year! It’s 2009. Christ, the last year went past pretty quick. Oh well.

Since last year’s attempt to organise a part for Hogmanay was such a disaster, this time the plan was to go elsewhere. Laura had suggested Pakhuis Wilhelmina, a venue next to the IJ, and for want of anything better to suggest I was happy to go along with this.

I must say that I really liked the place, its kitschy look reminding me of soul nights in the Woody back in Glasgow, bringing more than a little nostalgia with it. The music was brilliant, with the sole exception the appearance of some nervous and over-earnest guy with a guitar at one point just as the atmosphere was getting good. More one for a quiet Sunday evening I would have thought, and not the biggest party (excepting Koninginnedag, of course) of the year.

Once again, the strange Dutch tradition of trying to maim and kill each other with fireworks as the clocks struck 12. Good fun, but my attention span for this sort of thing lasts about five minutes before the desire to return inside for a beer takes over!

Didn’t stay too late in the end, but still had fun. If things go according to plan, I may be in Hong Kong for the next New Year. A lot to come before then, though.