May 4, 2012
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Amsterdam, Netherlands
National Remembrance Day in the Netherlands today, which means that there were two minutes of silence at 8pm and a national, televised ceremony on Dam Square, just a stone’s throw from my house. But before it was 8pm, there were some other issues to be dealt with, and that started twelve hours earlier, at 8am.
The scaffolding in front of the house was at long last removed last Saturday and Sunday, but there was still some paint work to be done on the window frames, and for that the builder had asked me to be at home for a day so that he could work on the windows from inside the apartment. So, I had taken today off and opened the door – and the windows – for him to come in and paint. Because the wonderful warm Queen’s Day weather is long gone again, it was really quite chilly with all windows open all day, but at least there was some work being done again.
At 10:30 in the morning my downstairs neighbours also came up for a chat about the situation with the building. They, as I, are appalled by the horrible look of the façade. We talked about what had happened in the previous months. It’s my firm belief that we were back-stabbed my the upstairs neighbours in a big way… but that’s of course difficult to prove. It was good to have this chat though, because – if anything – there’s been a complete lack of communication about some important issues regarding the house.
And as if all that wasn’t enough, today also saw the arrival of a couchsurfer who’ll stay with me for three days. A Brazilian guy called Luãn, now residing in Germany. He walked in at around noon, while the apartment was still a mess (not to mention quite chilly) but then left again to explore the city and come back in the evening when everything had been cleaned up again and the temperature was also much more agreeable. I didn’t go the ceremony on Dam Sq because the incident two years ago, when a crazy guy started shouting during the two minutes’ silence, causing a panic in the crowd, has left me feel quite uncomfortable about being on the Dam itself. I watched it all on TV and was quite relieved when the two minutes were over without incident.
