A day on the canals...

The weather was beautiful, I had a bag full of chocolate and stoopwafels, and it was promising to be a good day.

In the manner typical of Erasmus, everybody assumed that somebody else had told everybody. I missed the message. So they all went to Amsterdam in the morning to see the Rijksmuseum and I tagged along at midday. But it wasn’t a problem, because at 1:00 we all rounded the corner of centraal station’s immense three-storey bicycle garage to see Joost, waving to us with debonair style from his leather-bound boat. It didn’t look so big compared to the enormous canal boats (with tourists pressed against the window like they were trapped inside), but it was big enough for about 12 of us. Plus a stereo and an esky.

Deniz still had beer left over from the balcorridor party at his house. This is a phenomenon experienced regularly while in Delft. For some reason, in a rather cold country, an architect once decided it would be a good idea to put the corridors on the outside. Instead of one down the middle, there are two ‘balconies’ down the side. It would surprise me if there was just one of these, but there must be an architectural mass mania (look how creative he is! I want to do that to!), because they are all over Holland. The result can be seen two ways; either as a corridor that doesn’t keep you warm, or a balcony that you can’t do anything with because it’s a thoroughfare. Thoroughfare or no thoroughfare this didn’t stop us of course. We sat on blankets on the balcorridor of the17th floor, graciously moving our feet aside for any passerby.

Joost decided to act as our tour guide for the day. However, he only knew the location of one tourist sight – Anne Frankhuis. And he couldn’t find it. He seemed a strangely anxious about this, but everybody else was too relaxed to share in his sorrow. We just kicked back and drank the beer, and cracked open the stroopwafels. All while compulsively taking photos, as though we had itchy trigger fingers. Every so often Joost would turn the boat into a new canal and say “I’m sure this is the one now.” So we would all wait with polite expectancy until the inevitable “actually, maybe it’s the next one…”. Eventually Joost got this monkey off his back and we found the right canal; Anne Frankhuis clearly visible by the block-long queue outside its door. We glided on by like celebrities “haha! Enjoy your queue!”

But soon the carefree atmosphere evaporated, as all the beers caught up with everybody at the same time. Then our pleasure ride became ‘mission toilet hunt’. The permanent canal-boat houses that had looked so pretty were suddenly no more than inconvenient obstacles between us and a parking spot. And they were everywhere!

Its amazing how slowly a boat actually moves when you begin to notice it. Just turning a corner is like geological processes, occurring over a number of millennia. In slow motion we eventually ground to a halt in front of the casino, where someone had most graciously left a parking spot. Suddenly the situation was reversed, and everybody was in fast forward. We all leapt out and sprinted to the nearest café, leaving the least desperate person to guard the boat (or was it just the slowest desperate person?).

About 5 minutes later when everyone was of a somewhat more relaxed demeanor, we strolled around the square buying ice-creams (and more beer). To my horror I saw Amsterdam urinals for the first time. They are obviously modeled on the practice, adopted by drunken males, of peeing in corners. Because they are composed of four corners stuck together. A man just walks up to them, and wedges himself in the corner to have a pee… I did a double take. Sure, you can only see their back, but that’s hardly the point is it? I still know what the front is doing! If you felt so inclined you could walk up and tap them on the shoulder “Sorry to interrupt, could you please tell me the time?”.

Restocked with beer and food we returned to the boat. At about five we decided to ring the drive through (sail-through?) pizza place near the Amstel. They took a while to cook it, but fortunately it also took us a while to find it. Everyone gained a very comprehensive view of the Amstel, as we went up and down it about four times; clearly this was Joost’s intention. Stocked up with a boat full of pizza, we finished our afternoon with a leisurely cruise through the red light district and back to the Singel.

I have a theory. The Dutch have some sort of national fetish with nasty but nice things in small windows. Of course there’s the famous red light district where you have (rather bored looking) prostitutes strutting their stuff in little glass rooms. But there is also the national food substitute; Feebo. Feebo is something equivalent to Australian meat pies; where it tastes really good but you don’t really want to know whats inside when you’re eating it. Feebo’s food preparation policy consists of collecting together a lump of processed meat, and deep-frying it with a schnitzel coating. But then…. the clincher. They display a whole wall of Feebo croquettes behind little glass windows, which you can pay to open if you want one. The parallel seems obvious to me…..

Later we went out to Leideseplein, drinking some coffees in a giant café with the worlds most bad-tempered waiter. So after several crappuccinos we abandoned him and moved on to a pub called ‘the watering hole’, where aged rockers were singing covers of rock and roll hits. A numble of jugs later we finished our night with a stroll (giggling like school girls) through the sex shops of Amsterdam, eventually returning to the station to catch the night train to Delft. How civilised of them to provide a night train for me! And so popular that even at 3 in the morning some people had to stand.