Even the Heavens must be in reverent awe of our prestigious queen, for all of a sudden, the sky has cleared away the heavy, sopping clouds that dominated it ever since your arrival, and a lively, crimson sun has emerged, glorious and majestic, as if to congratulate Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands personally on her sixty first birthday.
entire Dutch nation is dressed in bright orange today, celebrating this national holiday with open-air concerts, public performances, joyful activities, but first and foremost, in what the Dutch do best – commerce.
All over Holland, folks are setting up stalls or laying blankets in parks, on sidewalks and in the middle of roads, taking part in this tradition they call vrijmarkt. Items sold are mostly secondhand discards, used junk or just plain old rubbish, but then again, as the Dutch never throw anything away, plenty of bargains can be found.
Utrecht, its fourth largest city, where you now reside and in whose free-market you are currently strolling, prides itself with the only overnight trading spree in all the land. Around the Oudegracht and the Hoog Catharijne, right in the center of town, is where you chose to spend this splendid day, among a multitude of shrewd private enterprisers and numerous rosy cheeked vendees, soaking in the rarity of sunshine with apparent glee, and in the delightful company of an ex-girlfriend, her husband and their two infants.
These dear old friends of yours have taken you into their home, after your hasty getaway from the dead-end town of Nieuwegein[1] and the clutches of that wicked witch of the south, i.e. your landlady of a joke turned stale.
Truth be told, the lady wasn’t half bad to begin with. This fine looking, mid-aged redhead was willing to rent out a small room in her cozy apartment to a complete stranger; a semi-professional bum found in the red and desperate for affordable accommodation upon his arrival in the Netherlands.
Pretty soon though, the situation within the confines of that specific apartment started rapidly degenerating.
It might have been her over-fondness of the vin rouge, or your own fondness of mature women, or probably quite a bit of both. Granted, you should have probably known better than to have made even that slightest of advances, though she definitely seemed quite genuinely blushed by that unconventional gesture at the time.
Nevertheless, it was late one night, as unsteady kicking at your chamber door finally revealed her in person, sprawled in a pool of her own vomit, totally red in the face and screaming for the bloody foreigner to get the fuck out of her godverdomme[2] house.
The very next morning, you grabbed a backpack you never got around to unpack and howled it right back to Utrecht, straight into the basement of kind friends, who were only too happy to help you out, while getting themselves a bit of a babysitter into the deal.
Their three year old girl is now pulling them towards where an overgrown toddler is trying to vend toys he himself has outgrown, over by the side of the old canal. You yourself are drawn towards the Dom, where a Turkish guy is selling a nice looking nargileh,[3] sparkling in shades of ruby and jasper, for only twenty five gulden.
She is a rather sweet little girl that one, and though you genuinely cannot stand kids, you do manage to get along with this one quite well. Her brother is but six months old, and other than crawl around, continuously banging his puny little head against walls, smile a lot and crap even more, he doesn’t really do much.
Though the basement is diminutive, hardly large enough for you to stretch your limbs, you feel so much better in this homey crypt of yours, where you can truly be yourself, and in the company of those who accept you as you are.
Watching these friends of yours, as they try their best to out-haggle the kid for a battered old doll, flushed and missing an eye, you see such a happy little family, that had you not known better, you would have put on Hallmark cards.
Thing is that, now that you temporarily reside in the beating heart of their nucleus cell, so temporarily in fact, that you don’t even bother unpacking, and having been going head to head[4] with the man of the house on your homemade bong, daily and most confessionary basis, you also get exposed to the somewhat toxic material this three year old card is actually made of.
Then again, the popular view of marriage as a sacred, perfect trust is somewhat of a delusion to begin with. In fact, it is a rather hypocritical social contract, in which one hands personal freedom of choice over to a higher social authority, only so as to end up fighting like gladiators in the social ring and for its own sadistic amusement.
However, that’s simply my own point of view, no more, no less.
Why do people even bother to keep up this charade; to keep this unholy flame burning forevermore, is beyond me. As a friend, though, I’m there to offer full support in times of need, for that’s just what friends do.
Au contraire, life for you is very much like playing roulette. You put whatever you’ve got on the red, roll with it for as long as it rolls with you, yet never neglect to collect your winnings or pay your debts when your luck changes, then ride off into the scarlet sunset.
“Well, never mind all that…” you tell yourself, as you carry your newly acquired old nargileh over to where the little one is happily hugging her florid, ragged doll, while the even smaller one is beaming for no apparent reason.
All around you, lanky-ass people seem slightly too proud of their queen and country for their own good. True enough, Dutch people can be kinda arrogant sometimes; slightly on the redneck side of things, if you know what I mean; a fact you’ve already picked up on during the mere six weeks you’ve been living among them.
“But, then again, aren’t we all?” you say to yourself, as you throw your arms around friendly shoulders and lead the way amidst this jubilant crowd.
“Just need to learn the language and the customs, and with your Dutch birthright, you’ll eventually be accepted as one of their own. But right now, life is beautiful, the sun is shinning and, as God is my witness, Holland will become my home away from home; my European home base, no matter how long it might take to make it so!”
Continue reading . . .
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[1] Can be translated as “new jokes”.
[2] Goddamn (Dutch)
[3] An oriental water pipe with a flexible tube (a.k.a. hookah or shisha)
[4] An Israeli way of saying ‘locking horns’, while rosh (head) is also slang for a bong dose.
entire Dutch nation is dressed in bright orange today, celebrating this national holiday with open-air concerts, public performances, joyful activities, but first and foremost, in what the Dutch do best – commerce.
All over Holland, folks are setting up stalls or laying blankets in parks, on sidewalks and in the middle of roads, taking part in this tradition they call vrijmarkt. Items sold are mostly secondhand discards, used junk or just plain old rubbish, but then again, as the Dutch never throw anything away, plenty of bargains can be found.
Utrecht, its fourth largest city, where you now reside and in whose free-market you are currently strolling, prides itself with the only overnight trading spree in all the land. Around the Oudegracht and the Hoog Catharijne, right in the center of town, is where you chose to spend this splendid day, among a multitude of shrewd private enterprisers and numerous rosy cheeked vendees, soaking in the rarity of sunshine with apparent glee, and in the delightful company of an ex-girlfriend, her husband and their two infants.
These dear old friends of yours have taken you into their home, after your hasty getaway from the dead-end town of Nieuwegein[1] and the clutches of that wicked witch of the south, i.e. your landlady of a joke turned stale.
Truth be told, the lady wasn’t half bad to begin with. This fine looking, mid-aged redhead was willing to rent out a small room in her cozy apartment to a complete stranger; a semi-professional bum found in the red and desperate for affordable accommodation upon his arrival in the Netherlands.
Pretty soon though, the situation within the confines of that specific apartment started rapidly degenerating.
It might have been her over-fondness of the vin rouge, or your own fondness of mature women, or probably quite a bit of both. Granted, you should have probably known better than to have made even that slightest of advances, though she definitely seemed quite genuinely blushed by that unconventional gesture at the time.
Nevertheless, it was late one night, as unsteady kicking at your chamber door finally revealed her in person, sprawled in a pool of her own vomit, totally red in the face and screaming for the bloody foreigner to get the fuck out of her godverdomme[2] house.
The very next morning, you grabbed a backpack you never got around to unpack and howled it right back to Utrecht, straight into the basement of kind friends, who were only too happy to help you out, while getting themselves a bit of a babysitter into the deal.
Their three year old girl is now pulling them towards where an overgrown toddler is trying to vend toys he himself has outgrown, over by the side of the old canal. You yourself are drawn towards the Dom, where a Turkish guy is selling a nice looking nargileh,[3] sparkling in shades of ruby and jasper, for only twenty five gulden.
She is a rather sweet little girl that one, and though you genuinely cannot stand kids, you do manage to get along with this one quite well. Her brother is but six months old, and other than crawl around, continuously banging his puny little head against walls, smile a lot and crap even more, he doesn’t really do much.
Though the basement is diminutive, hardly large enough for you to stretch your limbs, you feel so much better in this homey crypt of yours, where you can truly be yourself, and in the company of those who accept you as you are.
Watching these friends of yours, as they try their best to out-haggle the kid for a battered old doll, flushed and missing an eye, you see such a happy little family, that had you not known better, you would have put on Hallmark cards.
Thing is that, now that you temporarily reside in the beating heart of their nucleus cell, so temporarily in fact, that you don’t even bother unpacking, and having been going head to head[4] with the man of the house on your homemade bong, daily and most confessionary basis, you also get exposed to the somewhat toxic material this three year old card is actually made of.
Then again, the popular view of marriage as a sacred, perfect trust is somewhat of a delusion to begin with. In fact, it is a rather hypocritical social contract, in which one hands personal freedom of choice over to a higher social authority, only so as to end up fighting like gladiators in the social ring and for its own sadistic amusement.
However, that’s simply my own point of view, no more, no less.
Why do people even bother to keep up this charade; to keep this unholy flame burning forevermore, is beyond me. As a friend, though, I’m there to offer full support in times of need, for that’s just what friends do.
Au contraire, life for you is very much like playing roulette. You put whatever you’ve got on the red, roll with it for as long as it rolls with you, yet never neglect to collect your winnings or pay your debts when your luck changes, then ride off into the scarlet sunset.
“Well, never mind all that…” you tell yourself, as you carry your newly acquired old nargileh over to where the little one is happily hugging her florid, ragged doll, while the even smaller one is beaming for no apparent reason.
All around you, lanky-ass people seem slightly too proud of their queen and country for their own good. True enough, Dutch people can be kinda arrogant sometimes; slightly on the redneck side of things, if you know what I mean; a fact you’ve already picked up on during the mere six weeks you’ve been living among them.
“But, then again, aren’t we all?” you say to yourself, as you throw your arms around friendly shoulders and lead the way amidst this jubilant crowd.
“Just need to learn the language and the customs, and with your Dutch birthright, you’ll eventually be accepted as one of their own. But right now, life is beautiful, the sun is shinning and, as God is my witness, Holland will become my home away from home; my European home base, no matter how long it might take to make it so!”
Continue reading . . .
______________________________________________________________________________________________
[1] Can be translated as “new jokes”.
[2] Goddamn (Dutch)
[3] An oriental water pipe with a flexible tube (a.k.a. hookah or shisha)
[4] An Israeli way of saying ‘locking horns’, while rosh (head) is also slang for a bong dose.