Still confused, we enter a local "bar" and drink some strong beer out of a tap with a seventeenth century man on it. Everyone is playing chess. It is a very nice bar with candles, smoke and dim music. (There are no bars like that in London*, but many in Amsterdam, Prague and Vienna.)
I am talking about work with my brother (the word "career" is neither appropriate nor entirely palatable), and we talk a little about the ever-increasing possibility of me living in Amsterdam.
Me: I like this bar.
My brother: I wouldn't be playing chess though.
Me: No, nor would I, but I'd be up for a game of badminton.
My brother: Twat.
* There are many, many English things that I adore and think are unsurpassed (the BBC and Marmite, for example), but actually living there is Rubbish.
6 comments:
I know it's not long until my birthday, but please don't.
By the way, any beavers in the Dam?
Clearly it's selling your new pet, isn't it? Don't go! (Wait a minute, think of the blogging - canals! Opium dens! Wait... no, don't go.)
MM, very strong joke work! Beaver the Beaver came with me, so yes. Otherwise, none spotted.
But Ms B, whyever not! The WHOLE POINT is:
1. It is not London, which is in Britain, which is drowning in bureaucracy, pesky kids, rain, pointless expense everywhere and endless same-ness
2. It is very, very near London on an aeroplane so people can visit
3. There, there is man who will give me money. That means I can do some work for a few months near a canal, and then stop working and revert to my usual life, i.e. going to the gym and watching triple bills of Judge Judy
4. It gives me an excuse to get rid of the fucking cat, who has been mewling ceaselessly all afternoon.
But mainly 3 and 4.
Don't even think about it. Go! England is always much nicer when you've spent several months away from it, especially at this time of year.
The Dutch have this weird ( to my maybe repressed English mind) of not drawing their curtains and being happy to act out their lives in the gaze of any random person who happens to walk by. So it would be only fair if you were to get a webcam on your window ledge so those not in Amsterdam could feel as if they were.
And I know just what you mean about the nice bars. Shame about the very guttutal aka spitty Dutch langaue though.
Ms Pants, I agree! I shall go (if he tells me he wants me to go).
Anonymous - it is almost precisely for this reason that I love it so!
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