Amsterdam, Netherlands

OK, a bit about 2011 still. One of the traditional news items, at some point in December of each year, is the election of the 'Dutch word of the year'. Typically that's a new word that was in the news a lot in the past year. Much to the hilarity of quite a lot of my foreign colleagues, the Dutch word of the year from a couple of years ago was 'swaffelen', which is a verb. Sometimes also spelled as 'zwaffelen', it is something that you better google yourself, but please don't do so at work because some of the videos you might find are definitely NSFW.

In December last year it was announced that the Dutch word of 2011 was 'wildbreien', which can be translated into wild knitting. I know, my reaction was 'huh?' as well. I had actually never heard of the word until the announcement in the news. It was explained as well. It's when people knit something and then attach it to items in the streets. Really? Then it dawned on me... right there, where I always park my bike on Oudezijds Voorburgwal... there is definitely something knitted to the railing next to the canal. And hey... isn't the bridge over Spiegelgracht, at Prinsengracht a bit colourful? I walked past the bridge today on the way to the swimming pool and had a closer look at its railings. Yes. Wildbreien in practice! Someone has actually been knitting sleeves for the bridge's railings. I guess people really do have too much time on their hands...

Amsterdam, Netherlands

A day of nothing much in particular. Even though most ice on the canals has disappeared there are still some patches of ice left, and funnily enough are water birds quite fond of holding on to them as long as possible. The swans in the canal in front of the house were resting on some of the ice. You'd think they would prefer the relatively warmer water as opposed to the icy ice to keep their feet warm, but no, they were even fighting to be able to remain on the ice, chasing away ducks, coots and gulls alike. The picture is of a resting swan on the ice, as seen from above.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

In the morning, after my shower, I walked over to my scales to weigh myself. It's a routine I've picked up again from years ago when I would do that every day as well. For years in between however, I hardly ever stood on my scales anymore, convinced as I was that they hated me and that they were continuously trying to insult me. And to be fair, I typically forgot as well, ever so conveniently.

As part of my new routine of eating more moderate portions, no more snacks, exercising (as in swimming) more, I also decided recently to start weighing myself regularly again. This morning, as I tried to do that, the scales actually broke. It was the ultimate insult. I tried to check if it were the batteries that were playing up, but when the scales still didn't work with new batteries I just put them with the rubbish. I will get new scales soon, but it will have to be ones that are much nicer to me... like by consistently showing about 5 kilograms less than what I actually weigh. That would be nice.

After work I went to the pool (oh yes) and then returned home for a quiet evening at home. The picture shows Oudezijds Achterburgwal as seen from the bridge in front of the house. In the distance you can see the Red Light District. The news today was dominated by reports about the second son of Queen Beatrix who was involved in an accident in the Austrian ski resort of Lech. He had gone skiing off-piste and quite likely he had caused an avalanche (avalanche threat had been set to high by the authorities) and he got buried by it for twenty minutes. The news reported all night that there really wasn't much news to report. Neither the Government, nor the Royal Family, nor the hospital where the prince was taken, released any statements. To be honest, it was driving me crazy a bit. This prince had done something immensely stupid. This prince removed himself from the line of succession because he married without Parliament's consent, and so his accident in no way had an impact on either Monarchy or State. This prince hates to be in the public eye, is very private and lives in London. And now the media only report about him. It was a bit too much.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

"Police have cordoned off part of Oudezijds Achterburgwal and is telling people to stay away from the area" - a rather ominous news story on the website of local broadcaster AT5 said at around 5 in the afternoon, as it was nearly time for me to go home. A report on the website of Het Parool, Amsterdam's news paper (and the proud continuation of what started as an illegal underground paper during World War II) mentioned something similar. There had been some incidents in the Red Light District and the police were now keeping the two sides of the conflict apart (actually separated by the canal itself - so they still serve a purpose, you see?)

What was going on? Extremist religions set up against each other? The 1% hitting back at the 99%? Prostitutes on strike? Nope. It was that type of modern day tribal warfare that I despise as much as the sport it's coming from. Ajax Amsterdam were playing against Manchester United in the Amsterdam ArenA tonight. That's right, football and hooligans. Many Manchester fans had come to Amsterdam without actually having tickets to the game, and they were now in and around the many bars in the Red Light District. And of course a bit of fighting with Ajax fans would then be much appreciated. Police kept them apart with dogs, horses, anti-riot gear and even the machine that I saw parked on Nieuwmarkt when I got home at 6:30: a water cannon (picture above.)

There was a discussion in the UK during last year's English Riots about whether the police could use water cannons to keep rioters apart. In the UK water cannons had only ever been used in Northern Ireland. It was decided by the UK government not to use water cannons in England during the riots, despite the severe damage that those riots caused. So I guess it's a bit funny, in a twisted way, that some of the English rioters then, on a visit to Amsterdam now, may have been confronted with a ominous looking Dutch water cannon just for throwing a beer glass at fans from the opposing team.

As I got home, by the way, the match had started, all fans were either under arrest or watching the game in the bars, and the streets were actually quieter than usual on a Thursday evening.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

When you have to work till at leat 5 in the afternoon, and you're expecting a visitor at 7, and you still need to go to the supermarket to get some groceries ahead of that visitor's arrival, and you also still want to do your usual Wednesday swim exercise in the pool in between... well, then you have to hurry.

That's exactly what happened. I left the office at 5:10pm, walked over to my bike and cycled to the swimming pool. At 5:30 or so I was actually in the shower and not soon after in the pool. I did my usual fifty laps, and then another four laps that I typically also do each time: one lap swimming with using arms only, one lap swimming using legs only and then another two laps underwater swimming. At 6:20 I got out of the pool, showered and got dressed and at 6:30 I was on my bike again, on my way to the supermarket. I dashed through the store and was on my bike once more at 6:50 for the very short ride to my house. I got there at 6:55 - nicely in time before the visitor. I even had time to take a picture of my place from the other side of the canal. The scaffolding is still there, but the green door, yeah - that's mine. Günter, for that was the visitor of course, was there minutes later. It was a very nice evening as usual.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

What you see in the picture above is melting ice on Oudezijds Voorburgwal. Yes, the winter has left, the snow is gone, the ice on the canals is melting very quickly now. Suddenly the magical atmosphere in Amsterdam has vanished again, and we'll have to wait quite a while before we can walk on the canals again. That's fine by me, to be honest. Wonderful as it was last weekend, I must say I'm in the mood for spring and summer. I want to be able to open my windows in the living room again!

There was some interesting news on the situation with the house today. After months of having gone entirely incommunicado, the seller of the apartments in our buildings is suddenly speaking again, and he is offering some money as compensation for the many flaws that we are still encountering in the building. Initially I was tempted to accept his proposal, because that way at least some of my dearly beloved (and currently missing) savings would come back... but after a talk with my upstairs neighbours today, it became apparent that this proposal was just not enough. A clear matter of 'too little, too late' and so we pursue our quest of closing down the coffeeshop on the ground floor and forcing the seller to come up with compensation for the all the problems that we still have in the house. To be continued, alas. Oh... and Valentine's Day? Yeah, screw that.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

I was outside for about 45 minutes today (my part time day) and quite frankly I found that enough. In the morning I sat down behind my work laptop in order to continue with some of the outstanding review work, and also to have a quick chat over Skype with my colleague in Cape Town. The main part of the review work could not be done because somehow it was blocked in the system. I remember the days when the year end review was a set of six or seven questions in a Word document that had to get filled out. Nowadays it's endless questionnaires with rather puzzling questions that take ages to fill out. And when something goes wrong in the system (as happened today) you need to find the people who can fix it with a searchlight. But oh, this sounds very much like Grandpa talking about them good old days, and that's maybe a bit unfair.

That three quarters of an hour that I did go out, I went to the English Used Books shop on Kloveniersburgwal, just one block away from me. It's a great store, very old fashioned, with huge cupboards of - yes - English used books. I was looking for a play by Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire. I bought a DVD of Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother) from Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar last weekend and that particular play is quite central in the film. After having read about it on the net, I went out to the bookshop today to see if they had a copy. They didn't. But they had several Tennessee Williams books so I'll just keep checking and one day it'll be there.

It's not like I don't have enough to read, as it is. I'm currently reading a book that is probably the most disturbing book I've read in my entire life. It was recommended to me by my former colleague Nancy. One day she heard that I had listened to a podcast from The New Yorker magazine, which was the excellent short story The Lottery (written by Shirley Jackson) read by American writer A.M. Homes. Nancy urged me to buy some books by A.M. Homes, specifically This Book Will Save Your Life and The End Of Alice. I bought both during a visit to New York in 2009, and read This Book Will Save Your Life pretty soon after that.

I only started The End Of Alice when I was in Barcelona earlier this year. Without giving away the plot too much it's the story of a jailed paedophile who is serving a 25 years jail sentence and who is corresponding with a nineteen year old woman, who herself turns out to be paedophile chasing a twelve year old boy. The book is written from the perspective of the older man and that makes it extremely direct. More than a couple of times I nearly put the book away not wanting to read it further. But the story is captivating and excellently written... and the subject is so horrific... that I've continued so far. Including reading some fifteen pages today, but that's about all I can stomach at a time.

Also, when I was outside today, I took some pictures of the quickly disappearing ice. In front of the house, a small section of the canal was kept ice free by dozens of birds for the two weeks that it was very cold. Now the ice is melting rapidly and the birds will soon have all of Amsterdam's canals to enjoy again. The gull in the above picture was guarding a particular section of the melting ice, while ducks and coots tried to get to some of the food that was apparently locked in the melting ice. And that, basically, was my day.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Eleven o'clock in the morning. I had just finished drinking a couple of mugs of coffee and reading the Sunday Herald on my iPod and was sitting at my computer when the doorbell buzzed. Sigh. Not really in the mood to deal with anyone right now, and mostly I dreaded something related to the scaffolding that's still in front of the house. I waited a bit, trying to decide whether to answer the door or not. OK. It took me a while but then I pressed the intercom button and said "Hello?"

"Salvation army!" a voice bellowed up through the intercom.

Ah. Ok, good folk. This wasn't someone from the Salvation Army (good folk as well, I presume) but Paul, who's been using the same announcement every since I moved here basically. Paul is one of the few people who actually rings my doorbell spontaneously, and that's a good thing but also a very un-Dutch thing to do. I'd hate to speak for all 16 million of us, but typically Dutch people don't like people coming into their houses unannounced. Fortunately I don't mind (and I had cleaned the place at least on the surface yesterday) so it was all good. As soon as Paul had sat down on the sofa though, I proposed to go out for a coffee somewhere and it turned out that that was exactly what he had in mind as well.

We went to Bagels and Beans on Waterlooplein where I had a Latte (yes, another coffee so I nearly overdosed on caffeine this morning) and Paul had a complete breakfast including one of the weirdest drinks I've seen in my life. It was something to do with Green Energy, but I'm not sure whether that label was more inspired by marketing or by science. Paul is an absolute gym addict though, and it's been amazing to see him change over the past two years. He actually had to promise himself not to go to the gym today because he had overdone it this week. "I've overdone my visits to the gym" - now there's a phrase you will not hear cross my lips any time soon. As always it was great to see Paul though, so I was actually gratefull that he had dropped by and that I had decided to answer the doorbell.

Mind you, in the afternoon I did go for my share of exercise with a visit to the pool and once more I enjoyed it very much. I walked to the pool and part of that walk once more was over a frozen canal, Prinsengracht. Some people had even carried a cargo bike on the ice and they were selling all kinds of things to the people walking or skating by. It was once more a very special thing to see, so, despite the impression that I may have given on this blog yesterday that I'd posted enough wintery icy pictures... here's another one...

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Yeah, OK, one more ice and snow picture of Amsterdam then. It has to be, because from tomorrow onwards we're expected to get above freezing temperatures again, and with that the return of the grey clouds, the dull weather with occasional drizzle and nothing too exciting. A typical Dutch winter, called kwakkelwinter in Dutch, which sounds much funnier than what it actually is.

But back to today! The weather was gorgeous. It was cold, but the sun was shining very generously. The shadows were still long, because the sun is not high up in the sky this time of the year yet and the sun's rays definitely didn't feel warm, but the sun did make everything in this city look absolutely stunning today.

Anton Pieck was a famous Dutch artist, mostly active in the middle of the 20th century and his drawings and paintings have become synonymous with a very typical style of portraying Dutch landscapes and cityscapes. Pieck made everything look quite Dickensian, as if the country and its cities were one big fairy tale coming straight from the Disney Corporation. For about 364 days of the year, Pieck's creations seem quite unrealistic...

Except today. Amsterdam was a fairy tale city today. With its canals frozen solid, there were many people out and about, and instead of walking on the streets next to the canals, they were now on the canals. And so was I. I got on the ice on Kloveniersburgwal and giddily walked towards the Amstel River (which was frozen but with very bad ice so that's where I got off the ice again) and then walked towards Prinsengracht where I got on the ice once more and walked a fair distance on the ice. It was magic! Instead of walking over the bridges, I now walked underneath them, and the view from the frozen canal gave a whole new perspective of the city. It was cold, but I had a wonderful time. There were many people around, skating and walking, and everywhere you could buy Glühwein (mulled wine), hot chocolate and other substances to keep you warm inside. One of those days when it is oh so easy to fall in love with this city all over again, and be happy that I live here.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Whenever someone asks me how things are at work, I typically answer with "quite busy" which is just as typically a very true answer. It's not a complaint, mind you, because I'd much rather have enough to do than having to sit at my desk trying to figure out what the best way is to pick one's nose (tempting as that job description seems to be.) Today I declined a meeting invite by a colleagues overseas, mainly because the meeting would be irrelevant for me, but also citing "too much work" as a reason why I wouldn't be able to spend half a work day on the meeting. And that really is the case.

If, like me, you work part time, then saying that you're too busy usually doesn't go down very well. Part time work is frowned upon by many colleagues, here and overseas alike. They're not using the L-word (as in: lazy) but it's clearly on their minds. Part time work is seen as a typical Dutch abberation and definitely not seen as a career helper. The same colleague whose meeting request I had declined earlier today sent me an email about a different topic later in the day and she closed it with a coldly stated "I assume you're off on Monday." Beng! Passive aggression at its finest.

I could have replied in a bitchy way (and believe, I would have loved to because this particular colleague, well... anyway... zen) or I could even have explained to her patiently that 'having my part time day' (i.e. not getting paid to be in the office on that day) is a fundamentally different thing from 'having a day off' (i.e. getting paid but taking a day of leave)... but I decided to do neither. I just replied that, yes, Mondays are typically my part time days but that I wouldn't mind coming into the office if urgent work was needed and she only needed to let me know. There was no further reply.

It's annoying that, despite the fact that I've worked (for free!) on many part time days in the recent years (making me, in short, a fool), and despite the strong feeling I have that I'm working longer hours than quite a few of my full time colleagues (making me, in short, an even bigger fool), I still have to justify working part time... and feel guilty for not being in the office on actual part time days. Anyway. Thanks for listening to this therapeutic rant.

After work I went to the pool (oh yes) and when I cycled home after that, I noticed a huge crowd on Keizersgracht. And that is not Keizersgracht, the street next to the canal, but Keizersgracht the actual canal, solidly frozen after a week of very cold weather. Someone apparently had created a Facebook event and it had attracted hundreds of people, who were standing on the ice, chatting, drinking as if they were at a typical beach party. Given that in many winters the ice on Amsterdam's canals is not strong enough to carry anyone, seeing hundreds of people on the ice was quite special. So, despite the bad picture quality, I'm posting a picture od this unique happening here anyway.