Before I went to Belgium for Christmas break I spent a couple of days in Amsterdam. I flew in to Amsterdam so I could see Morrissey and I stuck around for a couple of days.
Maybe I’ll blog later about the Morrissey gig. It had been a long time since I had been in a European city by myself, so I tried to recapture the spirit of my back packing city trip days from when I was a student. Back then, exploring an unknown city always held, but rarely delivered, the promise of adventure and freedom. This, of course, is a very provincial attitude to have towards the city; the wide-eyed country boy looking for big adventure in the big city….
To an extent I still have that, to be honest, a feeling of out-of-placeness when I visit a big city such as London or Paris or even Toronto or San Francisco: everyone seems so well dressed and up to date and rushing from art gallery opening to sushi bar frantically yelling in their cell phones, unaware of their surroundings and looking gorgeous and self assured, just because they can. I always get a bit jealous when I see that. I don’t know why. I have lived in Ghent, Antwerp, Florence and Minneapolis, all nice enough cities, but hardly metropoles.
But I have to say, that in Amsterdam I did not get that feeling of country boy lost in the big city either. It is a nice city, but in a way it is also somewhat provincial. It is the coziness of a small town transferred to a bigger town and does not have the edginess of a world city. But I liked hanging out there for a couple of days. One thing struck me though: Each time I walked in to a restaurant or bar to eat or drink something, the staff would talk to me in English, even before I opened my mouth. I tried to figure out why this could be. I wasn’t wearing American style clothes and I was at places that seemed to be pretty local in character, so why did they assume I was a tourist. I am not sure, but I think that it is because I was by myself. Somehow, I don’t think that going into a bar or restaurant by yourself is very common in Holland.
The second night of my stay I went to the theater. On a whim, to be honest, I passed by De Stadschouwburg on the Leidseplein and decided to buy a ticket for that evening’s performance of “scenes from a wedding” by I. Bergman. That is what I like about traveling by yourself: no discussing with other people about what they want to do, no compromises to be made, everything you do is your own choice, good or bad. And this was a good choice. I am not a big fan of theater usually, it is so…. theatrical. When I see an actor on stage playing Hamlet, I never think that he IS Hamlet, I always am very aware that I am looking at an actor playing Hamlet. I never quite suspend my disbelief. Theater acting seems to be over acting by definition to me, how can you get a subtle emotion across to an audience that is up to 30 yards away? I am sure that theater was a great way to entertain the masses in Shakespeare’s time, but now that we have flatscreen televisions, DVDs and movie theaters, what’s the point?
Still, I had to rethink some of my prejudices, as the performance really blew me away. I think that the problem with theater is that it is so difficult to do it well, but if done well it can be really powerful. I am not in the mood to write a theater review here, I hate to write reviews period, but it was a very good piece of theater, you will have to trust me on this one.
After the theater, I went to a cozy bar nearby with pen and paper and made a list of things to do in 2007. I forgot what I wrote down, but I am sure that “go to the theater more” was on it. And by the way, if you drink a couple, Heineken really is not all that bad…