14 Aug 2014

Dutch things

When you live in a certain place, anywhere in the world, your surroundings are usually familiar and part of your everyday life.

When travelling, you can't help but notice the continual changes in culture, behaviour, and things that are different from your own usual observations at home.

I spent some time with a friend (Arno) I hadn’t seen for ten or more years. Arno, who is an Event and Festival organiser in Amsterdam is also a part time journalist end enjoys writing for a Dutch motorcycle magazine. Arno has travelled all continents writing and taking pictures of interesting things.

During our conversations he mentioned something I recognised but not realised that I was doing likewise as he did. First of all about being a motorcyclist. This form of transport brings you much closer to death than being a car driver. You compensate for this by being much more observant on two wheels than when driving on four. For example if I ride the bike and see a car driver in front of me slowing down and looking left and right in quick succession I know he is not going to notice me and may make a sudden turn left or right without indicating or may make a sudden stop. So I create more space and wait to see what happens. When riding a motorcycle you are much more aware of things also because you feel the wind, temperature, smells etc and are more exposed to sounds.

The second thing is when you write stories, never mind if that is at a professional- or hobby level, you are much more aware with your surroundings and notice a lot more things which may be of use in a blog or story.

In Amsterdam I noticed several things that are different. A "cigar shop" sells nothing but cigars and a “cheese shop” nothing but cheese. You don’t need to be a magician to buy “magic mushrooms” which incidentally you buy in a “coffee shop” where coffee is not the main item on sale but certain drugs are.

If someone in Australia has a problem with having children one can have In Vitro Fertilisation ( IVF), however when you enter a shop with “Seedbank” written on the window they wouldn’t know anything about IVF but instead you may walk out with a bag of marijuana seeds.

While in the area I took time to visit a friend who coined the phrase “friend for life” . Now I wonder what that means exactly. If one of the lives ends does the phrase “friend for life” finish or has the other party to die also. The problem with a “friend for life” is that there can be long periods were there is no contact, even several years. In my case I had lost contact for 4 years with my friend Wijnand who called himself Robert while in Australia,only to find out that he had passed away and that he did not had my address to contact me in the short period before his death when he was able to do so. I am glad I found him and his neighbours who were able to fill in the gaps in his life’s story.

Anyway here are some pictures

Meanwhile I am in France and will update my blog a bit more regularly.