Tag: amsterdam

Random girls, 2

Random girls, 2

A night in Amsterdam, a pub in Leidseplein.

So many people inside, isazi knows some of them, but they aren’t close right now. Our guy is definitely blazed, looking for something more to drink, walking to approach the bar.
He manages to get a spot in the front row, and a stool. He doesn’t use the stool, but he appreciates the fact that it is there beside him. At some point he hears someone speaking Italian.
He spends few minutes talking with these two guys, one Italian and one Argentinian. Time is not an issue tonight. She has all the time that she wants to reach the bar and take the spot beside him. She is at his right.
For one reason that we don’t know, or maybe for many reasons that we still don’t know, the guy ends his conversation with the two adventurers and gets back to his mission: getting something to drink. She sits on the stool at his left.
They both look at the bar, waiting for a bartender to give them something to drink. They both look at the busy bartender, that never looks back at them. Their legs touch, his left, her right. They look at each other and, unfortunately, they start talking.
I told you already that time is not that important tonight. They just talk, the bartender does his job and they don’t look at him, they just talk about their own lives. They are two polite kids, they even look at each other while they talk. I swear, the guy told me the day after that she enjoyed their conversation and even said that he was a cool kid. I cannot confirm, probably he was just wasted.
She is cute, blond, and comes from the unapproachable North. He is, well, simply him, and comes from the far South. She is just visiting, he is staying.
She decides it is time to order her drinks. A beer for her, something else for her friends. The poor guy suddenly realizes that this should be the end of their story, he’s sure that she’s going back to her friends with the drinks. Every season has an end, as the Greenhornes used to sing when we were both young.
Unfortunately, she decides to stay and keeps talking with him. The conversation is their secret, these two poor drunken souls, but I managed to extort from him the permission to publish just an excerpt of this conversation.
Everyone stops talking, the place is silent like, well, the typical pub in Leidseplein, Amsterdam. No sounds, no movements. Everyone looks at them. She looks him in the eyes and tells him “I don’t love my boyfriend, I just don’t feel anything for him anymore“. He looks her in the eyes. For a while he just looks her in the eyes. He looks her in the eyes and tells her “I’m sorry“.
She stands up, hugs him kindly and says that is time for her to go.

The Summer

The Summer

Still in good old Amstelveen, but this will be my last month here, it’ll soon be time to go back home. And then ? Oh, I’m planning to do many things next year, but you will probably hear something later on, it’s not the right time now.

Tonight the Netherlands will play against Spain in the final of the football world cup, and of course it’s raining here, after few days of an amazing sun. Probably I’ll be in Museumplein to watch the match, not a big football fan, but anyway, world cup finals are world cup finals 🙂

I will miss this place, but probably I will write something more sentimental about leaving the Netherlands and Amsterdam (and mostly all the nice people I’ve met here) in few weeks, for now I will just enjoy all the opportunities that this country is offering me, and will work on my master thesis (I should probably write something about it in the other website, but let’s wait a couple of months more…).

Paint it

Bye bye folks 😉

The long arm of the law

The long arm of the law

A Saturday night in Amsterdam and we are on the streets.

A bunch of people are walking around Leidseplein, trying to reach the Melkweg, not for going there, just to meet another bunch of folks in front of it. They’re almost all Italians but there is a Swiss guy too, just like on the jokes. Between them our hero (you know and we know is not, but for God’s sake, let him be happy sometimes) in the middle of a tremendous testosterone crisis.
The folks are about to decide where to go, when our guy and some other peoples decided to have their backs laying on the side of a parked car. The owner of the car was a policeman.

p: You were sitting on my car ?
i: Yes sorry.
p: I’m going to check. If there are any damages I’ll sue you and then I’ll shoot you.

Lucky fellow.

Random girls

Random girls

A Saturday night in Amsterdam, a Belgian pub near Leidseplein.

On the scene different characters, between them isazi and a girl. We don’t know if they know each other or not, neither they do, we don’t know what they are saying, or if they’re talking. What we know is only that at some point a conversation takes place. We can remember the content of the conversation but not exactly all the words. More or less the content of the conversation is the following one.

g: Are you Italian ?
i: Yes. How do you know ?
g: Oh, your English is so bad that you can be only Italian or Spanish.

Fail.

Amstelveen, The Netherlands

Amstelveen, The Netherlands

La città del titolo (Amstelveen) è dove abito da ormai un mese (se leggete il penoso articoletto di Wikipedia ita, bhe io sono proprio ad Uilenstede), sono qui per motivi di studio, il mio programma di laurea magistrale prevede infatti un anno di studio all’estero, così sono diventato uno studente della VU, la Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Potrei evitare di postare i link a Wikipedia ita dove le voci sui Paesi Bassi sono solo abbozzi, ma dato che sto scrivendo il post in Italiano facciamo che continuo così, diciamo che se volete leggere qualcosina in più cliccate sulle voci in Inglese e risolvete.

Il mio palazzo è il più brutto del quartiere, ovviamente, è vecchio e fatiscente e sarà demolito a breve (forse è per questo che è riservato solo agli studenti stranieri) ma è anche il meno costoso (no, forse è anche per questo) ed il più particolare, pieno di sfaccendati studenti Erasmus inebriati dal vivere nella particolarissima Amsterdam.
Naturalmente non ci sono solo studenti sfaccendati eh! 🙂
Diciamo comunque che la Guesthouse, questo il nome del palazzo, è rinomata per i party, quindi diciamocelo, un posto perfetto dove vivere; a dirla tutta il mio piano è anche molto tranquillo (tutti master o bachelor, nessun exchange) perciò un posto migliore non poteva capitarmi.

Il quartierino studentesco qui è carinissimo, dotato di tutti i servizi ed a pochi minuti a piedi dall’università, effettivamente siamo ad A’veen ma a pochi metri dal confine con A’dam, anche andare in centro è semplice (sia con i mezzi che in bici).

Ho comprato una bici di seconda mano al prezzo per cui in Italia avrei comprato una bici nuova ma era essenziale ed i prezzi delle bici qui comunque sono folli, sarà perchè è non solo il mezzo più usato ma anche il più usabile, sarà perchè non ci sono salite, sarà perchè altrimenti non ti godi a pieno la città, sarà che non lo sò ma alla fine le bici a me sono sempre piaciute (sono le salite che non mi sono mai piaciute invero) e quindi sono estremamente contento del mio acquisto.

Oggi ho consegnato anche il primo assignment della mia carriera universitaria qui, sono molto contento 🙂

È la prima volta che vivo all’estero, ero già stato anche qui nei Paesi Bassi alcune volte, ma viverci è un’altra cosa, e viverci per un intero anno figuriamoci, sto cercando di imparare il più possibile del come si vive qui, cercando come sempre di copiare tutto quello che mi sembra meglio ed evitare ciò che mi sembra peggio, abitudini alimentari comprese, mi piace questo esperimento di dutchizzazione e spero che i risultati siano buoni (da sempre un fan delle ibridazioni, delle mescolanze e del meticciato).

Bhe, questo post serviva solo a dare un aggiornamento della mia posizione e del mio stato mentale dato che non scrivevo da un po’ (ma ho pubblicato qualcosa sull’altro sito).