Exodus to Amsterdam Göteborg

Whoa! Hey! A blog post! Haven’t done one of these for a while. Let’s see if I remember how Wordpress works…

… hmm, a few plugins to update, gimme a sec here…

… done!

Ok, back to the issue at hand. Some people may know that on October 23, Shannie and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary. Ten wonderful years of her putting up with me is no small feat, and as such deserved to be celebrated. We’d always talked about doing a European trip for our 10th, and since we’re already here now, suddenly the process of doing so became a whole heck of a lot easier.

Italy is always a country I’ve wanted to visit, so for our anniversary we decided to spend 10 days in the boot. Our plan involved flying from Amsterdam into Venezia, spending 4.5 days there, then taking a half-day train to Roma, followed by another 5 days.

Long story short: Italy was absolutely gorgeous. Everything we had dreamed it would be. The weather was extremely cooperative as well, only giving us rain on one day out of ten. Every other day was sunny warm. Really, we couldn’t have asked for anything better (except for maybe more days).

Still working our way through the roughly 800 or so photos that we took, but here’s a selection of pictures from Venezia. Highlights from this city include: attending a performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons by a string group in authentic period costumes, eating delicious gelato 37 times a day, some of the most delicious red wine I’ve had in my life, an evening of Miles Davis music at the Venice Jazz Club, and taking a “bus” (read: “ferry”) trip around the entire island.

Click on an image to view it full-size. Note the little “Previous” and “Next” links at the bottom of the popup when you do so.

Roma pictures and a description of how I almost met the Pope to follow soon.

amsterdam, canals, italy, you big tourist anniversary, italy, jet lag, pasta, rome, travel, venice

Shannie was off being a good ctizen today by volunteering her time helping collect donations for the local food bank. Because I’m a cold-hearted selfish jerk, I took advantage of the cloudless skies and 21°C temperatures to put my biking pants on and go for a spin around the country. Today’s route took me North from Amsterdam to a small village called Marken, almost entirely along dikes on The Netherland’s East coast.

Bikely.com map of the route I rode

It was an absolutely gorgeous day, except for the blustery head wind off the ocean that I had to contend with for the ride out. However, this made the ride back home ridiculously fast.

Also, sunscreen would have been a nice idea. I’m, um, a little torched right now.

(These photos may take a while to load, I don’t have any photo editing software on the computer I’m using right now, so they’re all just pulled straight off the camera. Patience is a virtue, etc.)

amsterdam, you big tourist bicycles, churches, windmill

Queen’s Day is the day where The Netherlands celebrates the birthday of one of their queens by turning the city of Amsterdam into the world’s biggest street party. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE heads out to the streets, canals, rooftops, and anywhere else they can find open space to paint the entire city orange. Of course, being new to the area, we had to put on our orange shirts and partyin’ pants and join the debauchery.

The morning started by meeting at one of my co-worker’s apartments and hitting the streets at around 11 a.m. What followed was a good solid 12 hours of walking around and partying with roughly 1.5 million of my new closest friends. I have NEVER experienced an atmosphere like this before. DJ booths set up on street corners, people peddling their used junk, every doorway selling beer without liquor licenses, and public (VERY public) urinals scattered around in an attempt to keep things somewhat sanitary. The crowds were shoulder-to-shoulder everywhere you went, so all you could do was go with the flow and let yourself be carried along by the vibe. The weather was gorgeous, and everyone had the time of their lives.

I can hardly wait until next year.

(click images below for fullsize)

amsterdam canals, debauchery, ow my head, party, queen's day, walking

What?

It’s been over a month since our last update?

Um… whoops?

Let’s see… in the last month, we’ve managed to: participate in a Red Cross Walkathon, travel to the small Dutch town of Delft, bike 30+ km to the small town of Zaandstad (twice), get lost in the Red Light District a few times, and generally have more amazing experiences than any expats should be able to have without getting arrested.

I (Scott) don’t mind telling you… there have been more than a few times where I’ve been riding my bicycle home quite late at night (usually quite well into my cups) and ridden past a cathedral, or bridge, or some other brick structure older than Canada, or taken a high-speed train from one town to the next, or have been tending the net at a field hockey matchup and thought to myself, “this activity, that I’m doing right now, I’m doing WHILE. LIVING. IN. EUROPE.”

After 3.5 months, I’m not (snicker) homesick for Calgary (guffaw), or miss hearing about mid-April snowstorms in the prairies, or even remotely upset that I didn’t get to watch my home team miss the playoffs for a 3rd straight season.

I’m mostly STILL blown away that, after 32 years of life, I’m actually living on another side of the planet.

Still blows my mind.

Anyways, as it goes, the cats have settled in nicely, the street in front of our apartment has been torn up for reconstruction, and tomorrow is Koninginnedag, a national holiday, where (from what I understand), the entire city of Amsterdam looks much like this:

And how have you been.

amsterdam, you big tourist bicycles, cats, field hockey, immigration, red light district

This was one of those random “THAT’S something you don’t see every day” moments that makes living in Europe so awesome.

We had just returned back home from an afternoon at the market to find an anonymous jazz marching band coming up our street. No idea who they were, where they were going, what (if anything) they were celebrating, but on a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon… who cares?

Between outdoor markets, pub patios in the sun, and random marching bands, it’s been a pretty stellar day so far, and it’s just past 4:00 in the afternoon. I wonder what the rest of the day holds?

amsterdam, you big tourist market, Prinsengracht, pubs, would you shave already

The last week has been one where sporting events have taken a bigger role in my life.

As a Canadian, the game of hockey has always been a big part of my life. I grew up watching the Edmonton Oilers win every Stanley Cup in the universe, beating the pants off of every other team in the NHL throughout the 1980s, making our neighboring Shelbyville Flames look every bit as bad as they’ve always been. Though wins have been pretty hard to come by for the last… um… 18 years for the Oilers, and despite the fact that the current inept regime of coaching and management seems hell-bent on destroying what was once a proud, honorable franchise, I’m still a huge hockey fan, and always will be.

So, when an opportunity to play on the company hockey team arose, I naturally jumped at the opportunity.

Wait, what? What kind of hockey?

Field hockey?

On Monday night, I strapped on the keeper’s pads and stood in stark defiance against the forces of… some other team… in defending the net of the 180 Amsterdam company (field) hockey team.

Field hockey. A sport I’ve never played before. Goalkeeper. A position I last played (in indoor ball hockey) twelve years ago.

Thankfully, my night went a little better than it did for this guy.

Actually, my night went pretty good, comparatively.

Not only did our team win my very first game as a goalkeeper, we got a shutout.

Scott’s lifetime record as a field hockey goaltender: 1-0. Lifetime goals against average: 0.00. I’m like the Jussi Markkanen of the Amsterdam co-ed recreational field hockey world.

–

So that was Monday. Wednesday was an entirely different beast.

On Wednesday, I went to my first pro European football (soccer, for the North American audience) match. The hometown Ajax FC were playing the second game of their 2-game set against l’Olympique de Marseille, and a co-worker of mine had bought me a ticket in thanks for helping him move a few weeks back.

Now, I’ve been to NHL playoff games. I was in Rexall Place in Edmonton the night that the crowd set the record for the highest decibel level ever recorded in an NHL arena. I’ve been to sporting events where you couldn’t hear yourself yell over the crowd. I’ve been inside arenas where the atmosphere can only be described as “electric.”

Last night’s football match made any NHL arena I’ve ever been in seem like a library.

Huge crowds of swaying, chanting, singing fans (all of whom had likely been drinking for 12 hours leading up to match time), passionate fans of both teams getting in fistfights, people climbing on each other’s shoulders and banging their hands, fists, and heads against anything that would make a noise, painted faces, flag waving, broken lights, thrown firecrackers…

…and that was all in the subway on the way to the game.

click for fullsize

As for the game itself, the home team lost, but it was still an amazing experience. Next time I go, I’ll have to get a solid 12 hours of drinking in ahead of time, as for major matches like this the entire ArenA (yes, that’s the correct capitalization, look it up) becomes an alcohol-free zone. Apparently a number of Marseilles fans were pulled over by the police on their way into Amsterdam for the game and had their weapons confiscated.

I like beer, but given the circumstances, I’m fine drinking soda for the evening if it keeps the armed, angry mob a little more subdued.

–

What did I do tonight? Lost a bunch of money in poker. You?

you big tourist ajax, field hockey, football, goalie, soccer, sport

Last weekend, Shannie and I took advantage of the fact that European countries are small, relatively close together, and connected by high-speed rail lines and spent two days in Belgium with two of my co-workers and one of their significant others. On Saturday morning we met up at Amsterdam Centraal Station with Matt, Kim, and Kyla and hopped a 4-ish hour train ride to the city of Brussels.

The next two days were filled with many walked kilometers, delicious beer, waffles, peeing statues, delicious beer, giant atomic structures, good food, subway rides, chocolate shops, and delicious beer. The weather, which was forecast to involve monsoon-like downpour, held out very nicely and actually gave us a mostly sunny day on Sunday other than some morning showers which mostly took place while we were eating breakfast (waffles, obviously).

Overall, Shannie and I took over 300 photos, a smattering of which are found below. Click on any thumbnail below to view the full photo.

Also, in other news, tonight was supposed to be my international rookie debut as a field hockey goalie on the company team, but unfortunately this evening’s match was cancelled. I like to think that it’s because the other team had to forfeit for some reason, granting us a technical win and, as such, making my lifetime record 1-0. Now the world will have to wait one more week.

you big tourist Belgium, Brussels, churches, pubs, rain, RIOT, statues, travel, walking

Thanks to a properly-legalized form, a short taxi ride, and one HELL of a Fed-Ex bill, Mrs. Shannon Kosman and I are now, once again, legally married in the eyes of God, the Dutch Government, and our Facebook statuses.

(backstory here)

amsterdam boobies, living in sin, taxi

Like true good residents of the most bicycle-friendly city in the world, Shannie and I went out a couple of weeks back and purchased ourselves a couple of bicycles. We don’t own a car in Amsterdam. We have no plans to buy a car here, because for our lifestyle, we COMPLETELY don’t need one. Almost everywhere we’ll ever need to go to is within walking and/or biking distance within our apartment, and for the occasional times we need to go beyond that, both the public transit and high-speed rail system are more than adequate.

As it turns out, we picked one of the coldest, rainiest days since our arrival to go on a bike-buying run.

Shannie hasn’t been able to ride hers that much, due to her tumble down our staircase a few weeks back, but my new bike has found use every day since. If, by looking at the photo above, you think that it looks a bit too small for me, you’re 110% correct. It was the biggest bike the shop had in stock, though, so I’m making do. Our bikes are probably 20 years old, rusty, and built like tanks. However, with the rate that bikes get stolen here, we didn’t want to fork out for anything expensive. I brought my Surly Cross-check with me from Canada, but it stays up in our apartment and isn’t used for daily commuting, since it would take about 30 seconds to get nicked.

Almost all bikes here are virtually identical, which is by design. It’s the bikes that stand out, the ones that look different that get pinched. However, this has the unpleasant side effect of often leaving me scratching my head, forgetting exactly where I’ve parked, wondering which one of the thousands of identical bikes is mine. Luckily, the inner nerd in me found a fairly inconspicuous way of telling mine apart.

I am SUCH a fanboy.

amsterdam, you big tourist bicycles, rain, walking

While I was working my ridiculous schedule over the last couple of weeks, Shannie went around and made a few nice little video tours of various portions of our apartment. Many of our friends and family back in North America have been asking about the apartment we moved into, so here’s a little glimpse into what we call home.

amsterdam apartment, cats, jordaan, living in sin, Prinsengracht