This is not just madness

I’ve written this and the last post while sitting in Bagels & Beans, a cafe near Waterlooplein. It’s just the kind of place that I recently lamented not being able to find in Amsterdam. I read about it, I believe, on Alex’s blog. She mentioned it feeling a little too American, and maybe it does, but until I find another place with a pleasant atmosphere, where I can sit and read or write in decent light, and drink coffee while doing it, I’ll probably stick to this place. I came here for the first time yesterday and had a mean tuna melt bagel and mochaccino while reading Saturday. I can’t get the wireless here to work, which is unfortunate, but it also forces me to be productive, and to actually do what I set out to do, rather than wasting lots of time on the A.V. Club or The New York Times, both of which are noble ventures, but also excellent procrastination tools. Apparently Diablo Cody had the same problem while writing Juno, forcing her to go to Target to write, of all places. Wizard!

I started off yesterday early, getting to class right on time at 9am. It should be noted that I was pretty proud of myself for getting to bed at 1:30am the night before, giving myself a very solid six and a half hours of sleep. I think that’s the earliest I’ve gone to bed since getting here. So I went to class, heard a pretty mediocre presentation on German Expressionism, watched The Fearless Vampire Killer, on which I will give a hopefully much less mediocre presentation on next class, then went to Bagels & Beans. Then I went to class again in the evening, having done none of the reading, but got by just fine. We got out early because a number of people had to leave for the Madeline Albright lecture (which I couldn’t get tickets for).

Later, Sean stopped by to see if I felt like going to the borrel, and I told him “sure,” but by the time they finally left, it was pretty late and I didn’t really feel like going out anymore, so I just bummed around some more and went to bed. Also, I’ve learned to make a mean grilled turkey and cheese sandwich. The trick is to slather some honey mustard on the bread after grilling it. Delish.

Another day full of nothing to write home about

I’m in something of a conundrum here; I’d really like to have a post written for everyday here, it’s something of a goal of mine. I just think it’d be really nice to be able to look back on my time here and see that I have thoughts on every day. At the same time, I feel like if I do that, my time will appear much less exciting because of all the days that will inevitably end up with posts along the lines of “Went to class, did homework, lounged around, went to bed.” So the way I see it, I have four options:

• Only write when I have something worth writing about. Perhaps the best idea from a literary perspective, but I don’t want to give up on my goal so easily.
• Continue to write about everyday, no matter how monotonous. Perhaps the strictest adherence to my original goal, though will undoubtably bore both my current readers and my future self.
• Attempt to get out and experience Amsterdam everyday, therefore giving me ample material to write about. Perhaps the best choice in regards to my own personal growth, but also the one that requires the largest expenditure of effort, something that isn’t always my strong suit.
• Lie indiscriminately. Perhaps the most exciting option. It would allow me to improve my fiction writing, lounge around the room as I’m prone to, and provide intriguing daily updates to my many loyal readers. And you would never know the difference.

I’ll sit here and contemplate my options. Just be advised that if, after today, my posts suddenly become action-packed and full of intrigue, perhaps involving boat chases through the canals and government secrets, it’s because I took option “3″ to the extreme, and not because I’m lying to you. Because I wouldn’t do that.

But, uh, Monday. Yeah. Went to class and learned about acting styles. Ooo-rah! Before class, however, I had ventured to the Media Studies library in an attempt to track down the day’s reading. After class, I went to the Social Science library to try and find the reading for the next day’s Regulating Religious and Cultural Diversity in the Netherlands course. This is one of my major gripes with the Dutch, or at least the University of Amsterdam’s, style of education. Firstly, while there may be one central library, each discipline has a much smaller library of their own, forcing students studying in multiple disciplines (such as myself), to travel all around when trying to find the reading for class. This brings me to with second gripe with the way things are done here: apparently the UvA has gone copyright crazy recently, and has thus barred teachers from handing out photocopied readings in class. Instead, the teachers must direct the students to the specific departmental library, where they must then track down the book that the reading is in, and make a copy for themselves. This not only creates much more work for the student when the end result is precisely the same, it also prevents many students from even getting the reading, as both times I went to the Social Science library, the book had been taken by somebody else, therefore preventing me from adequately preparing for class. It’s just an absurd system, especially coming from a place where professors routinely hand out copies of readings (and sometimes copies of entire books) to class. I just can’t say I’m all that pleased with the way things are done. It makes me miss Macalester.

In other news, I made a sausage sandwich for dinner. And it was good.

Drugs! Sex! Prostitution!

All lies. I didn’t do anything Sunday except meet with my group from Film Theory in Practice to determine a research question for our upcoming semester-long project. I just wanted a sensational headline to build up Will’s hopes for an exciting post before dashing them with the monotony of a day spent doing homework. Have a good day.

Taking it easy

I still felt a little out of sorts after waking up around midday on Saturday. I knew I wanted to take it easy throughout the day, but I also didn’t want to stay sequestered in my room for hours on end. I began by making a quick trip to the grocery store, and picking up some essentials. I couldn’t find the milk I bought last time, and as a result, I’m fairly certain I’ve been eating my Cruesli with half and half for the past couple of days. I decided to buy a couple chicken breasts so I would have something to eat besides cold cuts and soup.

After getting back and putting my groceries away, I cleaned up around the kitchen, washing dishes that had been sitting dirty on the counter for days. It wasn’t much, but I was glad I was at least feeling slightly useful rather than wasting away watching more television on my laptop. I thought about biking over to Westerpark to read, but by then it was getting late and I knew I wouldn’t have much sunlight left. Instead, I decided to walk around the area immediately around Funen in order to try and find a nice cafe to read at.

I finally remembered to take my camera with me, taking a decent shot of Funen on my way out. I think the colored windows come off really nicely from this angle. I first walked the streets to the east of the building, over to Czaar Peterstraat, which I knew housed a cafe or two along its way. The thing about Dutch cafes is that I, from my American perspective, would really consider them pubs. Outside each cafe is a illuminated sign signaling the brand of beer that they serve, and the interiors are uniformly dimly lit and dominated by a large bar. They might serve an espresso drink or two, but they just aren’t the inviting spaces where I’d like to sit and read for an hour or two. I’m sure such a place exists within the city though I fear that it would feel unnecessarily American, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not what I’m looking for while in Amsterdam. I’m going to keep searching.

After striking out on the Czaar Peterstraat, I decided to venture over to the west side of Funen. I walked around areas I had been before, but also wound up at an intersection that I passed two or three times my first day in Amsterdam as I walked from Centraal, carrying all my luggage, unsure exactly where Funen was located. As the sun, began to set, I took a picture of the windmill up the road from Funen. The windmill houses a small, local brewery that people have talked about visiting since our first night here, but haven’t yet explored, to my knowledge. During my walk, I stopped at my first FEBO, a Dutch fast food chain that features automatic vending of some items, like burgers. The food was quick and cheap, and tasted like it. I’m sure my burger had been sitting in the warmer for quite some time, as it didn’t taste very fresh. In any case, it won’t ever be my first choice, but at least it’s there in a pinch. I then began making my way back to Funen, my hunt to find a nice, quiet cafe a bust.

I took another picture of the windmill when I returned to Funen. It’s a handy landmark in a foreign city; no matter where I am, if I can find the windmill, I get get back home. After returning, I hung out with Thomas, Sarah and Christy for a while before going to bed. We were hanging out in Thomas’s room, and at one point, he decided to lie down on his bed. He naturally feel right to sleep (although he will deny it), so after some joking around and toe-wiggling on our part, we decided to leave him to his rest and went to bed ourselves.

Eli’s Coming

Friday started off like a pretty typical day. After banging around the room for a while after waking up, a couple people came by to see if I wanted to visit a coffee shop with them. I told them that’d be great. The group we ended up rounding up was pretty sizeable, and ten of us or so ended up biking to Abraxas by Dam Square. After a few biking snafus around Centraal, we all eventually made it and went in.

I feel kind of bad traveling around in groups that large, because they inevitably, through nobody’s fault, cause congestion and end up sort of taking over the entire building. This is especially true in Amsterdam, where everything is so small and compact. Of course, we did pick an inopportune time to arrive, around 5pm Friday evening, so the place was already pretty full when we got there.

After we finally got in and made our way to the bar, I ordered a mocha space shake. As I began to sip on the very tasty shake, I realized that nobody else was ordering. Apparently, everybody else was being polite and waiting for the two members of our group who rode the bus to arrive. So there I stood, rudely drinking my shake as everybody else stood around the bar waiting. Oops. The shake was very good though, and I drank it a lot faster than I probably should have. Another oops.

Eventually everybody else got their assortment of drinks, joints and brownies, and we headed upstairs to try and find space for all of us. We ran into another group of IES students and were able to squeeze in with them. For a long time, we just sat and talked. I made plans to go and see a bunch of local bands at the Paradiso later that night. A couple joints were passed around; I tried a bit of somebody’s brownie. After an hour or two, we decided it was time to head out and we began riding back.

On the way home, two of us decided to stop at the Sphinx Snack Shop to get a bite to eat for dinner. We both got grillburgers and fries. Apparently there was a huge hunk of meat behind the counter that I failed to see. We had an awkward exchange about cheese. As I stood up to pay, I all-of-a-sudden felt incredibly lightheaded, and assumed that the space shake was finally kicking in. After struggling to give the correct change, we headed out, unlocked our bikes, and rode back.

Back in my room, I became increasingly unable to function. My vision was blinking in and out like a strobe light and I was having lots of trouble concentrating. On my laptop, I felt like everything was going in slow motion, and I have having trouble clicking and directing the mouse. I felt like my best option was to just put lay in bed and watch a movie on my laptop. With great difficulty, I started the movie and got into bed.

It quickly became apparent that I was, under no circumstances, going to be able to pay attention to the movie. I felt like my body was spasming and that I was writhing under my comforter. I tried to just go to sleep, hoping everything would be fine when I woke up, but I just continued to spasm. At one point, I felt my chest and could feel my heart racing. At this point, I began to get really freaked out. For about twenty minutes, I paced back and forth across my room, trying to calm myself down, trying to slow down my pounding heart. I made sure my insurance card was in my wallet, just in case. I contemplated calling 1-1-2, the Dutch emergency number, but I didn’t want to create a fuss, especially here in Amsterdam. I didn’t want to be that kid who got sent to the hospital, the cautionary tale that would be told at IES for years to come.

So I did what I always do, and attempted to self diagnose on WebMD.com. At first, I became convinced I was undergoing a panic attack, as my symptoms seemed to match. But the page stated that attacks only last for five to twenty minutes, and I was sure I had been pushing at least thirty. I began to search for other possible ailments. I continued coming back to one affliction, one malady that WebMD labeled in a bright red box, with the warning that anybody experiencing these symptoms should contact emergency medical personnel immediately: heart attack. I have no idea what a heart attack feels like, I’ve never had one, but I’d always assumed that it involved a great deal of pain; I wasn’t experiencing pain per se, just an unrelenting pulse. But I slowly became more paranoid, what if I was having a heart attack, what if I was dying. I certainly didn’t want to be the kid who died in Amsterdam, the kid who death brought suffering to his friends and family back across the Atlantic.

I decided to bite the bullet, to dial 1-1-2, and let everybody else be damned. I envisioned the ambulance driving up to Funen park, my body being carried out of the building on a stretcher. But fuck it; I wasn’t going to die like that, not that night. The call went through. On the other end, an operator quickly picked up. She asked something in Dutch. “Do you speak English?” I inquired. “Fire, police or ambulance?” she questioned. I indicated ambulance to her, and instructed that I lived in Amsterdam when she asked what city. My address ran through my head “Funenpark 10 1018AK Amsterdam, Funenpark 10 1018AK Amsterdam, Funenpark 10 1018AK Amsterdam…” I needed to remember where I lived.

She transferred my call, and after a few rings, an authoritative voice with an Indian accent began speaking to me in Dutch.

Me: Do you speak English?

Doctor: [austerely] A little.

Me: My heart has been racing, and I feel lightheaded, and my breathing is really quick–

Doc: Have you been smoking drugs? Like the marijuana?

Me: Yes, yes! Marijuana!

Doc: Hmm, yes, marijuana. What you do is this, drink a sweet beverage, like orange juice or Coca-Cola, and rest, and you will be fine.

Me: Orange juice or Coca-Cola, okay…

Doc: Do you live alone?

Me: Well, technically I live alone, I live in student housing, but I’m the only one in my room…

Doc: Well, you find a buddy, okay? And he will look after you until you feel better.

Me: Oh okay, find a buddy. All right. Thank you.

I didn’t have an OJ or Coke in my room (I had run out of both earlier that same day), so I made my way over to my neighbor’s in the next room down the hall. After knocking, she comes to the door. Bluntly, I ask if she has any orange juice or Coke. She asks if I’m okay, and I say, well, not really, and begin to relay my last hour to the three girls there in the room. Unfortunately, they only have Diet Coke in their room, but they let me have it, along with their stroopwafels. I sip on the Coke and munch on a stroopwafel or two, but my heart continues to race, and I don’t feel myself getting any better. The room is really quite, and what I don’t realize at the time is that all of them are pretty stoned as well. I tell them I think I’m going to go back to my room to lay down for a while, but they say I should just lay down there, which I do. After I while, I still don’t feel myself getting better, in fact, I’m pretty sure I can feel my heart straining even harder, so I decide to call the emergency room again. After going through the operator, I’m again connected to a doctor.

Me: Do you speak English?

Doctor: [austerely] A little.

Me: Well, I called a little while ago–

Doc: You smoked the marijuana?

Me: Yes, yes, that’s me!

Doc: And you drank the sweet beverages?

Me: Well, we only had Diet Coke, does that work?

Doc: No, no. Must be real Coca-Cola, with sugar.

Me: Hmm, okay. I’ll try and find some. How long should it take after I drink the real sweet beverages to start feeling better?

Doc: About an hour.

Me: An hour. That’s not terrible. What should I do if I don’t feel better by then?

Doc: Well, you can come to the hospital, but you will have to find your own way here.

Me: Ah, okay. No ambulances. Well, thanks. Goodnight.

I relay the call to the girls in the room, and they begin a hunt to find some real juice or soda from somebody else on the floor. Eventually they come back with some sort of apple juice, which I begin to quickly intake. After laying down for a little while longer, I begin to feel better. One of the girls checks my pulse, which she tells me is absolutely normal. Immediately, I feel foolish. It was all psychological. I’m no longer convinced of any of my symptoms. Was my heart ever racing? Probably not. Was I ever spasming in bed? Doubtful. Sheepishly, I thank them for all their help, apologize for ruining their night, and return to my room. I fall asleep finishing Michael Clayton on my laptop.

What a wasted night. I missed the local bands at the Paradiso I was hoping to see, instead spending the night in a drug induced fit of paranoia and panic. I think it was probably just my body reacting to the greatly increased amounts of foreign substances I’ve been partaking in the past few weeks. Clearly, I need to start taking it a bit easier. Message received, loud and clear.

By the way, sorry some of the wording is a bit awkward throughout. I decided not to mention anybody by name because of the potentially sensitive nature of the goings on, so you probably noticed a higher pronoun quotient than usual. My apologies.

No Matter How You Calculate, The Answer is POLYSICS

And then there was the time the Polysics came to play at the Paradiso.

Thursday evening, a group of us decided to go out, ostensibly to go “clubbin’.” Now, I must profess that I’m not overly keen on the entire notion of clubbing, but having never gone “out” to go dancing, I figured it was something I should probably give a chance, especially here in Amsterdam. We biked over to the Paradiso, our destination of choice for the evening.

We got inside and checked out the various rooms. Not much seemed to be going on, except for some sort of scream-metal band down in the basement, so we stuck to the main room, and the generic techno beats that played over the PA. We got in a little after midnight, and at first I hoped that the DJ would come on at 12:30. No such luck. So I waited longer, awkwardly half-dancing with the rest of the group. I began to hope, to pray, that the DJ would come on at 1am and bring some kickin’ beats to the dance floor.

What occurred was greater than any DJ.

At 1am, a Japanese woman, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and space-commando shades appeared onstage. “Finally,” I thought to myself, “The DJ has arrived. And she’s even Japanese! An added bonus…” She stood completely still as a beat began to pulse through the hall. I made my forward to the front of out group, entranced by the spectacle before me. As three more people, all dressed in matching jumpsuits and shades took the stage, I knew we were in for much more than just a simple DJ set. Yes, we were in for something much greater and more complex.

The Polysics were onstage. There was a guitarist, a bassists, a drummer, and the keyboardist that first took the stage. No introduction, no wasting time, just right into the rockn’roll. The first thing that struck me, and this is the thing that stuck with me throughout the night, and kept me going through their unfortunately short 45 minute set, was the sheer energy that the band showed on stage. The lead singer/guitarist, Hiroyuki Hayashi, especially displayed this mentality, playing to all sides of the stage, running back and forth, getting the crowd into the show with various bizarre hand motions. Soon after the show began, I knew that I had to be at the very front in order to witness what was before me, so I weaved and darted through the crowd until I was up at the stage, directly below the bassist.

For the rest of the show, I just absolutely gave myself over to the music. When the music demanded a fist-pump, goddammit I pumped my fist, raising it high in air. When Hiroyuki shouted “HELLO AMSTERDAM!” numerous times through the set, I yelled my approval with the rest of my adopted countrymen. When he shouted “WE ARE SO EXCITED TO BE HERE!” I shouted “WE’RE EXCITED TOO!” in response. I not sure what happened, but for those 45 minutes, I was absolutely at the mercy of the Polysics.

I’m not even sure how I would describe the music. If I had to label it, I’d say J-Rock, but that’s a cop-out. Maybe new-wave noise-rock? Does that work? Apparently they’re obsessed with DEVO, but since I’ve never listened to them, I really couldn’t say. All I know is they played their hearts out, and that’s exactly what I needed.

The set ended abruptly. They stopped playing, and Hiroyuki said something into the microphone in Japanese, but I had no idea what we was saying. For a while, the band idled around on stage, and I assumed they were taking a weird sort of intermission. After a while though, it began to seem like the set was over. Everybody else decided to leave, but I told them I was going to stick around for a little while. I went back into the main hall, where the Polysics had unfortunately began to pack up their instruments. Looking back, I feel bad. Apparently these guys are huge in Japan, apparently they’re like the Japanese Beck; they shouldn’t have to strike their own stage. Anyway, I bought a t-shirt, checked out the other rooms for signs of life, but all the bands appeared to be packing up. I don’t know what was going to go down for the rest of the night. I was only 2am or so, and the Paradiso is open for 24 hours a day, so I’m not sure if a DJ was going to take the stage later or not. I headed out, though, but on my way back to unlock my bike, I passed the band as they loaded their gear into their tour bus. I slowly walked up to them, trying to be sure they weren’t going to think I was a nutter, then when they noticed me, I simply said “Thank you, you put on a great show,” and walked away.

I ran into Sam and Sonia at Texaco on the way back. I was out of milk, and wanted to buy some before the morning, but they didn’t have any plain milk, only the chocolate variety, so I bought a Cornetto instead. Sam invited me over to his room, so once we got back, I headed across the hall to his place where we watched some Arrested Development, a fitting end to an amazing night.

Addendum: Sorry I’m late posting this- it’s been a strange weekend. I’ll try and fill you in tomorrow.

Polysics: Great Band or Greatest Band?

Answer once I wake up