Travel 6: Kathy and Sabina’s Amsterdam “Smelly Fish” Deep Thoughts Experience
Everything is bruin in Amsterdam. Brown buildings, brown river, brown bicycles, greenish-brown substance rolled in a white paper... The persistence of brown didn’t depress me though. Just the opposite: Amsterdam rocks brown.
And it’s a charming place, charming like hell (figuratively speaking). Maybe my perception was slightly off, if you know what I mean…
Or maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic that finds the cafes by the canals adorable with tempest of narrow housing architecture surrounding them and leaning towards the bridges, as if willing to touch them or smell them or embrace them, ignoring everything there’s to ignore (and there’s a lot). Somehow I felt the buildings were scooping me up in an embrace, tilting forward and looking down at me as if to say:” Hoe doe je, Sabina?”
*Let’s hope google translate captured this as “How you doin’, Sabina?”
But I think what captured me the most was the type of conversations you end up having there. Some of those will challenge your views, some of them will confirm your views, and some of them will teach you what your views are. Freedom of everything is twisted in and out, until you untie that knot with exactly what your opinion is. It may end up surprising you. That is, unless you allow the seduction of couch potatoe-ing take over. Which you shouldn’t. Thus say I. Just don’t…
Amsterdam essentials: umbrella and boots. Don’t let the summer fool you; you need boots no matter what time of the year it is. I felt sorry for K. Her jeans were soaked to her knees, her shoes hardly providing any cover. Not that it bothered her.
I like travelling with K. We’re both no nonsense travelers. We see a lot, because it’s important to both of us. Regardless of what’s on the agenda, we always end up having so much fun. How can I summarize it? It took me over ½ a year to complete this blog post, simply because I couldn’t capture the essence.
What would it be for this trip if I could?
Would it be that we walked miles and miles never even thinking of asking each other if our feet hurt?
Would it be that we laughed like crazy when I informed her I broke something made of glass in the bathroom of our tiny hotel room (the tiniest so far), but couldn’t identify what it was. I will not disclose what it was, only that after 10 minutes of frantic searching and debating of what it could possibly be (me, terrified it was one of her expensive face creams), that piece of glass flew out of my hands with the biggest force my arm could muster never to be spoken of again.
Could it be that we learned we have such conflicting views of common topics in Amsterdam, views we never touched upon in our 10 year old friendship? Despite them, or maybe because of them, we talked and talked and the conversation chatter carried through tiny little streets, some of it soaked in rain, some of it glittery in sunshine, some of it swallowed by the canal. And mind you, some of it definitely killed by the potent smell of raw herring.
Is it that our search for an authentic bruin pub took us to an Irish pub where we companied with other people, other people/company that urged one of us to whisper “Make ‘them’ go away!” We ended up going away, I guess we compromised.
Is it the simplicity with which we typically find our way around: me -- stuck with a map, K., in her usual ‘can you tell me where so and so is…’ Well, I have to say, Amsterdam is one city in which I was map-less.
Is it how different things capture our attention, so we end up pointing this or that to one another, each polite enough to acknowledge or patient enough to wait for the other to stop indulging. Or even discovering a new interest and being grateful for a new passion or piece of information.
Would it be that despite our grumpiness the day of travelling back, as we inevitably end up in an argument over breakfast, an argument I always blame on the lack of coffee, we always conclude with acknowledgement that we’re bitchy because we don’t like leaving, we like going. Incidentally, it just happened that we barely avoided being soaked up with water accumulated in a tent over a coffee place in front of our hotel, where we begged them to give us coffee as we were in a hurry to catch our flight. Karma saved us from that one.
Could it be, at least for me, the relief of finding her, as we both have a tendency to wander off? I typically walk faster (don’t let that fool you, K. walks even faster than I do, to be heard in the next Travel blog), while K’s camera directs her walking path. We lost and found each other a lot in Amsterdam.
Or is it all the girl talk, over and over again the same topics? We churn and churn events, people, emotions, all that’s precious to us, without any pressure to change topics or a reminder we already talked about it?
I don’t know what it is. I don’t really want to know. I’m almost afraid that magic would be broken if it was put in common words. Common, defined words of our language, instead of the mush that goes through your head as you think of things. I want to keep the mush going. Mush compromises of some words (keywords in at least two different languages), mixed with smells, acoustics, tactile(s), texture, feelings, emotions (are feelings and emotions the same – they are not. Feelings are just there, emotions are [I think] reactions to things, or the other way around…) Mush is able to distinguish things without defining them. When I think Amsterdam, mush brings a lot of stuff. When I talk about Amsterdam, words come out, but they’re never perfect, I almost want to scream “You had to be there!”
There, that defines it.
