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My colleagues and I went for dinner at a small restaurant here in Amsterdam last night. You wouldn’t find it if you didn’t know about it, as it’s not in an obvious location. We’d originally planned to eat elsewhere, but that place was fully booked. Our CEO recommended Le Petit Latin.

The decor was ‘French’ in a string-of-onions-round-the-neck-’allo-’allo kind of way, but it proved quite effective, I no longer felt I was in Amsterdam.

The menu was chalked on a black board on the wall. It was mostly self-explanatory (if you read French), but the jovial French owner dropped by to explain it all anyway, in lovely Dutch and Franglish even for our mixed company.

A quick glance told me I was never going to find anything on it that would fit my current calorie-limited diet, so to hell with it for once.
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If you’re in the neighbourhood… tomorrow morning, Thursday December 6, I will be handing out DAG newspapers at Amstel Station in Amsterdam between 7 and 9am.

You can’t miss me, I’ll be the dwarf running around in a bright red jacket and matching pants.

Walter V.’s second novel, ‘West‘, is out. I
couldn’t make it to his book launch due to work, so I’m going to buy one
from Scheltema today to help keep it in the Top 10, like he asks on his blog. (There’s absolutely no shame in being a hoor and the oh-so-cool detractors should lighten up.) He’s getting really
good reviews (one reviewer said it was free of the Dutch smell of
sprouts and on par with American writers’ style). Walter ’started’
writing his tales of Amsterdam suburbia on his personal site around the turn
of the century. It’s great to see him succeed like this and I can’t wait to read the book. Cult of the amateur, pah!

I will be leaving Public Broadcasting to join the cross-media news service Dag.nl in Amsterdam as an ‘Entertainment editor’. I’m looking forward to hone my skills in a new environment. And to my new 8-minute bike commute.

Dag.nl is located in the INIT building as featured in the previous post.

Was all I needed to get the cheer back in my life. Didn’t know most of the songs, didn’t matter. (Seen 22-1 at the Paradiso in Amsterdam.)

Oct 4 - Came So Far For Beauty, Cohen tribute (Dublin)
Oct 5 - Came So Far For Beauty, Cohen tribute (Dublin)
Oct 15 - The Knife (Amsterdam)
Nov 3 - Cat Power (Amsterdam)
Nov 4 - George Michael (Rotterdam)
Nov 12 - Kaiser Chiefs (Amsterdam)
Nov 16 - The Killers (Amsterdam)
Nov 18 - Joan as Policewoman (Haarlem)
Nov 26 - Cathal Coughal (Dublin)
Nov 28 - George Michael (London)
Jan 13 - Sohne Mannheims

Since I forgot to print out my e-ticket at work on Friday and having no ink left in my printer, I had to cycle across town to Kinko’s to print it out. Although I’m convinced I must have been a little grumpy, the Kinko’s guy let me print out my stuff free of charge.

My trolleybag is packed. It was hard to imagine ‘Dublin + heatwave = which clothes?’ It’s going to be 5 degrees cooler than Amsterdam, but still 27 C.

Regrets, I’ve had a few, but none so big as the one where I kick myself for not having lived and worked abroad in my lifetime.

I envy my cousin who was born in Africa, schooled in Indonesia and Denmark, and is living in France. Cosmopolitan beats nationalist in my book.

In my highschool days I would have loved to go on an exchange program to the USA, but that didn’t seem to be available to me at the time. When I was in college I worked in Northern Ireland for 6 weeks, but there weren’t any schemes for a longer stay. Later still, well, it just didn’t happen. Maybe I’m just not that adventurous.

Let’s face it, I should have moved to Ireland years ago. Before the goldrush. When houses were dirt cheap (seven, maybe ten thousand Euro would have got me a nice cottage back then. What a great investment that would have been.

I always said I wouldn’t fit in over there, but fuck me, I’m Ms Square Peg whereever I am including this place I call ‘home’. Still as round holes go, Amsterdam ain’t so bad.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this. It’s just a little frustrating at the moment not being able to hop on the DART to lend a hand.

Took a ferry from Amsterdam CS to Velsen, and a bus to IJmuiden, in search of photographs and fresh fish.

Ended up on IJmuiden beach and at a fair on the promenade, awash with other day trippers.

Everything was ugly. Cheap ware on sale. Burger joints and football jerseys. People.

A seamen’s choir was murdering Irish traditionals (Fiddler’s Green, Black Velvet Band, translated in Dutch.). Hoompapa, hoompapa.

I picked a restaurant, ordered Redfish, ate and watched the other, mainly elderly, people there.

At the table behind me, a man was telling a story about a woman who had lost control and had let everything go. Couldn’t cope with anything. Hadn’t opened her mail, hadn’t paid any bills, or taxes until she was declared bankrupt.

A nasty scale stuck at the back of my throat. I ran for the bus, but the driver wouldn’t stop.