I'm Leaving Amsterdam

"I think you're making a mistake leaving so early. To me, Amsterdam is one of the most interesting cities in Europe."

- Muni, at breakfast this morning

It's my last hour in Amsterdam. 

I've spent the last three nights in a Christian youth hostel in the middle of the red light district. When I read about it on the website, I just had to see it - the mental image of a bunch of Christian youths singing around the rubber raincoat brigade was too quirky to resist. But it's turned out to be a really, really good hostel. Staff are friendly, nice and seem interested. People are quite interesting.

I think Amsterdam means different things to different people. 

I met this Algerian guy in the hostel, a political asylum seeker. He's a former military guy who's ratted out on the army and is seeking refuge. He's been here in Amsterdam for five years, stuck in an endless loop of petitioning and adjudicating. His kids are growing up without him, he's stuck in a country he doesn't belong to, and he's going bald. He speaks of Amsterdam as a jail with open skies. 

I met this Aussie girl who can't wait to go home. She's been on a Contiki tour for a couple of weeks, and was exhausted by the time she came to Amsterdam. She hangs out in the lobby with a bottle of Coke and chips, dreaming of the beaches in Sydney. 

I met this English girl who grew up in Nepal, who works here in Amsterdam because she sees a need for God amongst these people and she believes she's the one to bring it to them. When she goes out to her church meetings, she skirts around the alleyways with their red-lit windows and the canals with their XXX theatres. She has the earnestness and concrete certainty of youth. 

I met this American guy who's spent a week in Amsterdam, and is thinking of staying another month. He like the canals. He likes the culture. He likes the tree-lined streets and the market squares. He's thinking about buying a stolen bike from a druggie so he can ride around the city, but he's keeps getting bitten by his ethics. 

I think that Muni's right. Amsterdam's probably been the most interesting place I've been to. There're 166 nationalities in this city, and probably more sub-cultures than I can count. And most of them are represented here in the red-light district. It is a very, very strange place to live. 

The place where I'm staying, the Shelter City, have a deal whereby you get free food and board if you become a cleaner. And if the Schengen zone visa wasn't perched on my shoulder like a vulture, I'd probably take them up on it. But you know, I've got 2 months left and I want to see Roma and Pompeii, Barca and Granada. There's always this compulsion to move, to leave, to see what's on the other end of the train line. 

Waiting to inhale

"When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it. I didn't inhale and never tried it again."

- Bill Clinton, who inhaled other things later in life

There are two things Amsterdam is infamous for, and I spent most of this afternoon trying to inhale one of them in my body. We sat on a bench by the canal and swore as the wind kept snuffing out the lighter. The sun was behind the cloud and it was getting cold. It wasn't what I'd envisaged. 

But when it finally got started, it took my breath away. Literally. I coughed about twenty seconds the first time. I coughed about thirty seconds the next. And when I tasted it in my phlegm, and I coughed even harder. I took a sip of Coke and walked over to the canal railing. 

There was a barge floating gently across the canal. Valiantly I tried again, trying to summon every ounce of bohemian chic within me. And this time, I coughed so much I had tears in my eyes and a wheeze that took a minute to get rid off. I think one of the passengers took a photo of me - or maybe I was just coughing so hard I was seeing sparks. 

Meanwhile, my friend's sitting on the bench, pissing herself laughing....

When I first heard that remark of Bill Clinton's, I didn't give it the credulity it deserved. There's probably a bit more too it than just a face-saving lie. If one has not inhaled, then one cannot have exhaled; and if one hasn't exhaled, can one really say one has participated? It's a bit like the sound of one hand clapping. Or the sound of a tree falling in the woods. Or an organised defensive corner by the Arsenal. It sounds real and looks good in theory, but it doesn't pass mustard in reality. Who'd have thunk it? 

I don't know. Going to go to Berlin in a few days. Maybe I'll mull it over on the train. 

Impossible situations

Kinnear: Which one is Simon Bird [Mirror journalist]?
Bird: Me.
JK: You’re a ****.
Bird: Thank you.

- the start of the Joe Kinnear show

I've just read most of the Joe Kinnear press conference. It happened sometime when I was in Norway, so I haven't been up with the football news as much as I normally am. Actually, considering I'm on holiday, it's shockingly depressing how much I am in touch with football news. Maybe I should throw the laptop in a train station locker and forget about it for the next five months...

Anyway, Kinnear's in a bad, bad situation. He's unloved by the players, the fans, the press. He's appointed by a man who's unloved by the above and will be sacked in a few months. And he works for a guy who's unloved by the above, is looking to sell the club and who probably can't give a toss about how the manager, the club or the fans are feeling.

Despite what he's said in the past, I'm sure Kinnear's bloody glad it's just an interim position.

I've a certain sympathy with Kinnear. I've shot my mouth off before. In fact, I used to do it at work once every six months or so, usually around August, usually on a Wednesday. It feels really, really good when you're doing it. You feel bulletproof, invincible and - and this is the part that really feels great - righteous. You feel like you're completely right, and they're completely wrong, and it's your mission on earth to tell them exactly how wrong they are.

It's only the next day that you start to realise what an arse you've been. I think we've all been in that situation. And really, there's nothing that needs to be said. He's in an impossible situation and he cracked. He's got my sympathy.

I visited the Anne Frank House today.

They've got excerpts from her diary plastered on the walls of the annex. There's this one that really got to me, about how the chestnut tree in the courtyard was more beautiful than it was the year before. The idea that she would look at the tree through a slip in the curtain, see the sun shine through the leaves and see the wind make them sway, and yet never being able to step out and touch it... it effected me more than all the holocaust stories I've ever read.