Say, perchance, you’ve just finished your stint in a very small town. You want to live it up a little, out your inner hedonist, and make a little crazy; but where to go? Contemplating my future post-Tiny Town and with Sin City on my doorstep, how could I resist? I scrubbed off that pesky wholesome visage and exchanged it for a sunken pallor and a pair of regulation DDs: it was time to visit the ‘Dam.
Although I wasn’t too enthused by the prospect, I have to say, I’m a convert (although not quite in the way my accommodation intended). I love Amsterdam. Love it. I had no idea that through the marijuana and neon haze it would be so beautiful. It’s an amazing city, vibrant, relaxed, and I would love to be able to take a speedboat to my friend’s house; it certainly beats the hell out of taking a tram. It had great walks, great drinks, and a great atmosphere.
But we will not speak about the food. We will not. Hot meals from a vending machine make baby Jesus cry. People do not eat that.
Tastebuds aside, Amsterdam and I rubbed along quite nicely in a non-contagious fashion. I was staying right on the edge of the red-light district, oddly enough, in what was a Christian hostel. This wasn’t just any Christian hostel, though. This was like the S & M, latex, leather spikes, and vaginal muscle display of Christian hostels: it was hardcore. I’ve stayed in Catholic hostels in Italy before and assumed this would be similar – bit of a curfew in exchange for church subsidised rates and a few creepy crucifixion pictures. Nothing doing. Instead I found myself in a terrifying parallel universe where people kept asking me to prayer club all the time. Where’s the charity in that?
My 16-bed dorm was also filled with 15 cheerleaderish missionary types (and I’m not talking about their post-marital position of choice, either, they were actually young missionaries) from Tennessee and myself. When I asked them what they were doing in Amsterdam, one of them trilled, “We’re just lettin’ peeyoople know how march Jeesus loves them; watch y’all doin’ here?” ‘Jesus’ and ‘y’all’ in one breath and one very well-packed dorm? My eyes started rolling back into my head and my mouth started to froth – grammar and God all in one sentence. It was just too much.
As I mentioned before, I am an atheist, and I find the whole young-religious phenomenon just a bit weird. I think it’s a lack of irony thing, and that so many young people I know who have faith are just missing that certain something … which I suppose, is doubt. They’re just so sure about everything in a way that makes me a little uncomfortable. I’m not anti-religion, however, and I don’t mind church. Perhaps I just love a bit of hierarchy and the razzle-dazzle of the Catholic mass, and it irritates me when the Hillsong yoof throw a ‘God bless you’, or ‘God loves you’ at me, every time I leave the room; I would never even presume to speak on behalf of my own father, let alone for everyone elses. But hey, I suppose that’s faith, and that’s why they have it and I don’t. At the very least, points for actually going to a place where maybe they are needed.
Suffice to say, I had a grand couple of days and am now back in Belgium. More just passing through, really, spending the night in a hostel in Brussels. Which I think is how I think my relationship with Brussels should forever stay. See, Brussels and I, we have a few issues; we don’t always see eye-to-eye; we are not, by any stretch of the imagination, in lurve. I don’t know quite why, as I think it’s a cool city, but something about it just doesn’t work for me. Perhaps it’s the fact that every time I come here I get chronically, disorientingly, train-missingly lost; perhaps it’s because I still don’t really like waffles; or, perhaps it’s because every time I’ve ever been here it’s rained like a mofo. That’s right, even coming from a sunny 30 C in Amsterdam, Belgium was wet wet wet (but not wild – they definitely leave that side of things up to their northern cousins). And today I got caught short. No brolley. Stupid, idiot me. Stupid wet, idiot, wet, me, idiot. Wet.
It’s something that’s difficult to understand in sunny Oztralia, just how insidious the rain here can be. Absolutely everyone has SADs, and I’m fairly sure that if for no other reason this is because they are all be chronically afflicted with tinea (my hostel room was sporting a bottle labelled “Fungarest”. Ergh). It’s an amazing sight, though, when the sun comes out: people spend all day outside and turn themselves towards the sun like steadily reddening blossoms. Of course, as soon as a cloud comes along (and you know it will) they all close up a little, wilt, fade, get quieter and then go inside again, all the while planning their next solarium session.
I never thought it was possible to miss the drought, but even if it means we’re all showering in each other’s urine by the time I get back home, bring. it. on.
That’s sure to help with the tinea, too.
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