The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

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.

I can’t remember if I have mentioned it here before, but in any case I will do so again now. Myself and Astrid have been discussing a gigantic plan – no, we’re not getting married, but instead something far more exciting. It was her idea originally, but the more I have thought about it, the more it appeals to me too.

The plan is to go cycling next year. I am not talking about a day trip here, or even a week away, but something much more ambitious. The plan is to set off from Holland, travel through Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and China, perhaps finishing in Hong Kong or if possible in Taiwan.

There is a lot of things still to be sorted before we can be certain about this trip. First of all money, then visas, various other preparations, vaccinations, and things we haven’t even thought of yet. As I know more, I will write it here.

Astrid has been doing most of the research up until now, and via a string of communication had made contact with a couple living in Utrecht, who are experienced “world cyclists” and who were happy to talk to us and pass on their knowledge. Therefore, we made an appointment to go and see them yesterday evening.

They were very friendly and helpful and seemed extremely eager to share their knowledge and experiences, which as well and being interesting and useful also served the purpose of making the whole thing a lot more concrete in my head. To hear from people who have cycled through Iran, Kyrgyzstan, various other “stans” and who have come back to tell the tale makes it seem so much more doable and realistic, and thus easier to get enthusiastic about.

So, a very enjoyable and productive evening. The only downside was that having not really kept an eye on the time, I ended up missing the last train back to Lelylaan and got stuck at Sloterdijk, meaning a long walk in the wind through the rather desolate far west of Amsterdam in the middle of the night. This did however give the opportunity of seeing some interesting werkzaamheden going on on the tram tracks near my house – there was a bunch of guys grinding down the rails, producing a spectacular mini-fireworks display in the process as can be seen.

Well, obviously it looked a lot more impressive in real life than in this shitty mobile phone photo, but that can’t be helped.

After my dad having been here in May, it was the turn of my mum to come and visit me this weekend. It was actually quite a short visit, but all the same good to see her and see this place once again as a tourist.

On Saturday we wandered around the town a bit, visited Astrid working at the Noordermarkt, saw an exhibition at Mediamatic, passed by Eat at Jo’s (my work), and later cooked dinner back at my flat. A long and lazy breakfast followed on Sunday, then lunch in the restaurant at the top of the OBA (Amsterdam’s main library). After this we took a trip to see the Caspar David Friedrich show at the Hermitage. This was a little disappointing in that there were not so very many of his paintings, and it was in any case much too crowded to see things properly.

Soon it was time to head back to Schiphol and say goodbye, although before long it will be Christmas and time to make another trip of my own back to Scotland.

I received an interesting email recently inviting me, along with various other graduates from masters programmes in the Netherlands, for a meeting today at the offices of Uitgeverij 1001, a publishing house based here in Amsterdam. They are interested in doing something in the line of bringing out a new book, but at the moment things are still very much up in the air – basically, we were asked to come along and just have a general discussion about the sort of things that might be interesting topics for a publication.

It was certainly an interesting meeting, although I must say that there were a lot of familiar faces – more than half of those present were former (and one current) DAI students!

After a few hours we were not really too much further forward towards anything concrete, but a lot of very good discussion had taken place. We agreed to go away and think about things for a few months, and perhaps meet again before Christmas.

This type of working is quite a surprising departure from what I would expect from a publishing house, but in fact 1001 Publishers do seek to do things a bit differently. I was very encouraged by the discussions we had, and I really hope that I can be involved in something with them in the future.

I had really become quite enthusiastic after our meeting at the Sports Club on Sunday night, and as a result I stayed up until 5am transcribing our interview with Ghassan. This was rather stupid, because it meant that I was much too tired to accompany either Alite or Nikos on Monday morning when they went respectively to visit the Dutch embassy and to interview Reine.

Once I was finally able to open my eyes again, it was time to get ourselves ready for our presentation on Monday evening at Samra, the bar below Zico House. Nikos had been working extremely hard on the presentation, and so it was a bit of a shame when almost nobody turned up. This seems to suggest two things:

1. We didn’t publicise it very well – we had only sent out a proper invitation the night before, and even then to only a few people.
2. People here do not care about our project – perhaps not surprising since we are trying to get people interested in something that happened two years ago.

I think it is fair to say that both are probably valid. Still, quite disappointing considering that we had come all this way and worked so hard.

Afterwards, we had a few beers in Samra before heading across town to Gemmayze, the (for now) hip area of town with lots of trendy bars and beautiful people. We spent the rest of the evening in Torino Express, a cosy wee bar which could easily have been in Barcelona or London.

This city is really confusing me. It is such a strange and overwhelming mixture of signals, lifestyles, images, and people that it is impossible to get an idea of what it is actually about. It is European and Middle Eastern at the same time, but this is far too simple to describe the situation. Every time I think that I am getting an idea of the place, I come across something else to complicate things. I must say that this is really intriguing, and I am getting more and more attached to the place.

After a few hours sleep, we had to get up again on time on Tuesday to go and interview Ali, another of the 2006 participants. Unfortunately he was not there to meet us, which at least means a bit less transcribing to be done later.

Due to complications when booking tickets, I was to stay a day extra. This was the last day for Nikos and Alite however, so we took the time to wander around in a relaxed manner. We met Reine for lunch in Gemmayze, and later on had one last drink in Barometre with Tony. We were all pretty tired, and since they had to get up at 4am for the plane, we all went to bed quite early.

On Wednesday morning I woke up alone in Zico House. I have to admit that this was actually a nice feeling, and that I was very happy indeed to spend a relaxing morning tidying up and drinking coffee. Later, I visited the National Museum, which has some very interesting displays of stone tools from the very beginning of western human civilisation. It is quite difficult to get a sense of time when you are confronted with a little stone ball and told that it was used to beat things 1 million years ago. I could just imagine some hairy caveman grunting and smashing at things with it – in some ways we have come a long way since then, but in other ways not so much at all.

Afterwards, I met up with Bchara for a look round his office. He works for a firm doing some very interesting architectural and sculptural projects, and when his boss found out that I originally trained and worked as an interior designer, he immediately asked if I would like to come and work for him! I really couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not, but after the experience of the last week I was in fact quite tempted to say yes. Alas, there are too many reasons to stay in Holland for now. Maybe some other time – he said that I was welcome to get in touch “any time in the next 100 years”.

I later had a wander round Ashrafiye, a predominantly Christian part of town, before meeting up with Bchara again to go to the cinema. I saw quite a few of the people from the Beirut art scene who we had met over the last few days, confirming my suspicion that it is indeed quite a small world here. Everyone seems to know everyone else, which could be a good or a bad thing depending on the circumstances.

Later we had one final drink (and a delicious sandwich) in Gemmayze before I headed back to Zico House to get packed and catch a few hours sleep before waking up in time for my taxi to the airport at 4.30am.

As with the outward journey, there is nothing of note to say about the return flight besides that it was long and uncomfortable – aeroplanes are of course not built for the percentile of people such as myself above 1.9m.

Back in Holland, everything seems so strangely quiet. To employ a cliché, Beirut is an assault on the senses – countless conflicting images, the smell of pollution, cigarette smoke, petrol, rubbish, and Arabic coffee, the sound of car horns and taxis with broken exhausts, and the clammy, sticky feel of the heat. Coming from this most chaotic place, Amsterdam seems like the most neat and orderly place in the world. Even the motorway near my house, which usually bothers me, is hardly noticeable.

So, while it is good to be home, I hope very much that I will get the chance to spend some more time in Beirut in the future. It is fair to say that it is one of the most fascinating places I have ever visited.

Since my worries on Friday, quite a lot has been achieved to calm me down. Firstly, we had two meetings on Friday – at the Lebanese artists’ association Ashkal Alwan, and then later with the organisers of the 98WEEKS project.

The first of these was quite informative in relation to the art scene Lebanon – it would appear in particular that there is not very much in the way of structure in the country in this regard, which is clearly not surprising given its recent history. It seems that business is conducted in a much more informal and personal basis than in western Europe, with small groups forming and with perhaps quite a tribal mentality as a result. It is hard not to make mental comparisons with Lebanese society as a whole.

Later, we sat in the improbably-cold surroundings of Café De Prague, whose air conditioning could do to be turned down a few notches. We were there to meet with Marwa Arsanios and Mirene Arsanios, the founders of 98WEEKS. Theirs is a project with some similarities to Here As The Centre Of The World, in that it will involve Lebanese and foreign artists and will focus on public space. Afterwards, we were faced with the strange contrast from normal proceedings when we went outside to get away from the cold…

Later, we saw a (not very interesting) street performance which was part of the street festival organised by our host, Zico House. This took place in the newly-reconstructed city centre, which has been entirely rebuilt from the ground up following its total destruction during the Civil War. What is quite alarming is that fact that it is entirely built and managed by a private company, so that this in effect not really “public” space at all. As we see with American corporations in Iraq, it is often the private sector who stand to make the most from war and its aftermath.

Despite our meetings, I was still quite agitated on Friday night when we met up once again with Tony in the evening for a drink. I was getting increasingly panicked about the lack of a visible result from our trip. My state of mind was not made any better by the presence at our table of the famous curator Catherine David, who happens to know Tony. I really tense up around such “important” people, especially when they are the type whom it is necessary to impress in order to make it big in the art world.

She was something of a living, breathing stereotype: an absurd caricature of a middle-aged Frenchwoman, nonchalantly sipping whisky and smoking theatrically out of the side of her mouth, gazing wistfully into the air after every puff. Perhaps she’s OK once you get to know her.

My impatience caused a bit of tension between myself and Nikos and Alite later, which I feel quite bad about. They are both used to working at quite a different tempo to myself. I hope very much that we can find some sort of middle ground, with perhaps a bit more urgency from them and a bit more patience from me.

On Saturday, we went once again to Café De Prague to interview Bchara Malkoun, one of the other participants from the workshop in 2006. We fired questions at him for almost two hours, recording the whole thing on tape. This proved to be much too ambitious, and in fact I have spent about five hours transcribing the whole bloody conversation, the result of which is no less than twenty-two pages long. This is a concrete result, but perhaps a bit too concrete.

We have been eating almost exclusively from Barbar, a snack bar down the road which appears to be open twenty-four hours a day. They sell a sort of folded-over pizza for 2000 Lebanese Lire, which is not much more than €1. This delicious snack plus very strong coffee has been the main fuel for our activities.

On Sunday, after I had finally finished transcribing the interview with Bchara, we went for an appointment with his fellow workshop participant Ghassan Halawani at the Sports Club bar on the beach, this time with a drastically-reduced set of questions. On the way, we had time to stop and wander around a rusty and dilapidated old funfair, seemingly staffed only by swarthy-looking children. The sentimental Arabic music that blasted from an ancient stereo system held together with tape completed the atmosphere of forlorn abandonment.

The interview with Ghassan went well, in fact so well that we didn’t have time to interview Reine, who had come to meet us once again with her baby and husband. Hopefully we will have time to talk tomorrow.

We have now been in Beirut for three days. I have stopped hearing the constant car horns and have become slightly more accustomed to the heat.

On Tuesday evening we met up with Tony Chakar, a Beirut resident, occasional DAI guest, and Here As The Centre Of The World project co-coordinator during the Beirut and Enschede workshops. He took us to Barometre, a small café/restaurant not far from where we are staying in the centre of the city. The food was very good, the local beer also, and it was also great to catch up with Tony and have a few laughs.

We ended up spending most of Wednesday inside Zico House trying to get some work done. Whilst Nikos was busy with a presentation about Here As The Centre Of The World, I set about compiling a list of questions for the Beirut-based participants. The purpose of our trip is of course to collect information for the book which is to be published about the project, since efforts to solicit opinions and feedback remotely via email have largely failed. The idea of the questions was to try and provide a stimulus for extensive feedback, since “what did you think of the project?” is of course quite difficult to answer beyond “it was great” or “it was a waste of time”.

In the evening, Nikos cooked dinner (we had gone shopping at a local supermarket earlier), and later project leader Alite arrived from the Netherlands.

After quite a slow start on Thursday, we went to visit Beirut-based artist and former HATCOTW participant Reine Mahfouz, who has just had a baby boy. On the way to her house on the eastern edge of Beirut, we had our second experience with taking a taxi, this time thankfully not so expensive.

Taxis on the street here are a bit different to Europe. Instead of hailing a taxi and asking the driver to take you to your destination (although this is possible), it is cheaper to hail one of the frequently passing taxis (which are usually bashed to bits and full of holes), even if it is already carrying passengers. You tell the driver that you want “service”, which means that you are happy to be crammed into his car with as many people as possible and are prepared to reach your destination by whatever route is necessary to deliver the other passengers as well. Following our experience when coming from the airport, it has become clear that it is essential to agree the price before getting in the car.

As it happened, we ended up being in our own in the car which was perhaps a bit of a shame. This will doubtless not be the last time that we take a taxi, so there is plenty of opportunity for experiencing this strange taxi/bus combination.

When we went to see Reine and her little baby, we were served a sort of pudding made from rice and flavoured with cinnamon, coconut, and nuts. This is traditionally served to guests when a new baby has been born. It was delicious, and certainly an improvement on Beschuit met muisjes, the dry and crusty Dutch equivalent.

In the evening, we once again went for dinner with Tony at Barometre, this time accompanied by some other residents at Zico House – a Turkish girl and a couple of Belgians who have just finished an art workshop here in Lenanon.

I am a little concerned that, despite the fact that it is obviously very enjoyable to be spending time in this exciting city, we have not made very much progress on our mission. Hopefully things will accelerate a bit during the next few days.