June 21, 2012
-
(written on 25 February 2013)
And so it was that I was waiting at Arrivals 4 at the airport again. Once more after work (although this time I had not gone home first) and once more for an easyJet flight from the UK. It wasn’t to pick up my friends from Glasgow though. This time it was to pick up Daniel, who is going to stay with me for the next couple of weeks (give or take) to enjoy a summer in Amsterdam. Well, I say “summer” and technically as of today that’s what it should be called, but the weather really is ghastly, with torrential rain showers coming down over the country with an annoying frequency.
‘Oh hi, yeah, hallo,” said Daniel as he walked out of the Arrivals lounge into the area where I was waiting for him. No handshake or hug, just his head lifted up a bit, trying very hard to appear “cool” or whatever these young kids call that these days. He was clearly happy to be here though, his first visit since September 2010, and that showed even more as we walked out of Central Station half an hour later. He enjoyed seeing the familiar sights and the brief walk to my apartment, which – luckily for him because this is where he’ll be staying for the time being – he also seemed to like. He settled down almost immediately on the little bench in front of the open window and started checking Facebook and whatever social media he’s involved in.
We went out for Thai food on Zeedijk and while we were eating a rather nice meal, the skies once more opened and Zeedijk got soaked with rain. And so did we as we made our way home after the meal because the rain did not relent. We just returned home, chatted a bit, drank a bit, and for the rest I decided to just let him be and let him get comfortable in this studio. He seems to be enjoying himself so it’s all good. At around eleven, I closed the curtains in the middle of the living room, he went to his air bed and I went to my slightly more comfortable mattress… and that was the Kid’s first day in Amsterdam 2013.
