sun 12 jan 2003 12:00:00 — osdorp / de aker
first days living in ams
during the last week …
i went shopping at the c1000 at least three times. getting used to what they have, what i can eat without being a cook. eating a lot of pindakaas and leverworst broodjes. i also nuked up a bunch of frozen spinach one day and ate that for breakfast.
i found out that late last friday night somebody busted a window of one of the local mosques, over on baden-powellweg, and threw a handgranade in there. i wondered if perhaps that was the big boom i heard just before midnight. it seems like an act of hate-vandalism because they didn't do it while anybody was inside. but sheesh -- handgranades? the city newspaper, i think it was called the amsterdams stadsblad, said people think there should be more security provided for mosques. i thought that was weird that that was the first thing on people's minds, that the police or the government should be the ones to do something about it. i dunno.
i think it was tuesday night that i went to the tuschinsky to see "de tweeling" which was based on the book by tessa de loo. the story in the film was a bit simplified and they left some parts out, but it was interesting to see a movie based on a book i'd already read in both nederlands and in english. i was kinda able to follow along even though my dutch hearing isn't good at all.
i went to see hg a few times. early in the week he was fairly busy spending time with irene because she was leaving soon. i think she actually took off for barcelona on wednesday. hg was very sad, because it looks like she's gonna be spending a lot of time away there, starting up a new office of the european union coastal commission or whatever it is.
i bought a few housewaresy things at the blokker, like afvalzakken, keukenpapier, candleholders and candles, etc. i also discovered the little post-office inside the stationery shop at dukaat, where i mailed away about ten postcards.
at 11 friday morning i went to meet with stans g at everaert advocaten. she gave me the lowdown on what has to happen in what sequence. she seemed fairly optimistic about my case. she is also very cute. anyway now i'm sposed to be writing a biz plan for my biz.
friday afternoon i hung around with hg some more. we had lunch at the marebela and then went to the criterion to see "bowling for columbine" by michael moore. which was a pretty powerful film. then we went back to the marebela for dinner. both meals were enjoyable in my opinion. for lunch i had a ham and mushroom omelet, for dinner i had haas with sate saus. i like the marebela.
yesterday on saturday lgf arrived. we hung around and talked a lot, about a lot of things. we went into town in his car, he did some returns. later he took me to meet a friend of his who lives in watergraafsmeer -- chris c. she lives with a painter named bart. she was a very smart interesting person, right now she's a freelance mar-comm person, but she used to work for ogilvy mather. she said a lot of stuff about what might happen with my kind of work. and she hung on to a copy of my reel to show to some guy she's working for.
after that we went briefly to see hg and mg, who were on their way out to the cinema. for some weird reason the marebela was gesloten, so lgf and i went to a pizzeria owned by a turkish couple who remembered him well, down at the corner of roeterstraat and plantage middenlaan. ate some good pizza, drank some beer. lgf had a nice chat with the turkish folks. i guess ramadan just ended? ramadan happens fifteen days earlier every year, but then they "reset" to begin in november again. anyway so then we came home. lgf was tired and slept late, i think he just woke up and it's 1230 in the afternoon.
today he and i are supposed to have dinner at the neighbors next door, dirk, jessica, jet and vien? at about 1730. they dropped me an invite thru the slot the other night. there was also some talk of our getting together with hg during the day, but i wonder if it isn't a bit late for that. i want to get a laundry lesson from larry. i have to think what else i wanna ask him before he goes home tuesday afternoon.
monday the chello-man is supposed to come install the cable modem connection. lgf is hoping to be here when that happens, but it's sandwiched between two other important appointments he has. on tuesday morning we're hoping to do a monetary transaction where i deposit some money to his bank account via the postkantoor.
there are still a bunch of things i need to take care of vis-à-vis my relationships back in the states, like letting certain vendors (and my doctor) know where i live now, and trying to transfer ownership of allston chronicle to joe. and figuring out what to do about my own web sites, like to i want to change where they are hosted.
hg offered to at some point go shopping with me for a bicycle, and to instruct me about how to properly lock it up here and there. that could get a bit tiring! but i think i should get a bike.