All oranged out

"Today is not about dressing up and looking pretty, it's about wearing orange and getting drunk." - Andrew



In spite of the colder than usual weather, yesterday turned out to be the best Queen's day I've had here. We wore orange, we wandered, we drank beer, we ate street food, we spent four hours at a free mini-festival outside Paradiso, and we rounded the evening off in a hammock at Sarah's fabulously orange apartment. All in all, good Queen's day fun. Oh, and I abseiled across a canal:



That's me, hanging from a wire high over the Reguliersgracht. A bunch of mountain-climbing and abseiling enthusiasts decided to run a wire from the attic of a student house on one side of the canal to a big tree on the other. We spent about ten minutes watching people zoom across and I figured it didn't look so scary. So I paid my three euro, climbed six flights of extremely steep and narrow stairs, and jumped out an attic window. I was in flight for a total of about ten seconds but it was great fun. And for the record, I didn't scream once.

This being the Netherlands, we don't get tomorrow off in lieu of the holiday falling on a weekend. So it's back to work tomorrow, although safe to say nationwide productivity will be taking a big nosedive.

Happy birthday dear Queenie...

It's been a quiet week around here, not a lot going on and a shameful lack of mini-marathon training to report. All my energy is being directed towards planning for this Saturday, when the population of Amsterdam is set to triple for 24 hours and everyone will dress in orange and sell all their junk on the streets while downing massive volumes of Heineken.

The occasion? Like the UK, the Netherlands marks its queen's birthday twice. Her actual birthday is sometime in December, but it's officially marked on 30th April - otherwise known as Koninginnedag or Queen's Day - every year (although the 30th falls on a Sunday this year so the party has been moved to the day before). This is the only day of the year when goods can be sold on the streets without a licence, so everyone takes advantage - from the kids in the Vondelpark getting rid of their old toys to the enterprising Brazilians on the Prinsengracht serving home-made (and extremely potent) caipirinhas. Add to this street performers on every corner and boats of every shape and size from canal wall to canal wall, and you end up with one massive, clamouring, clangorous, crazy day.

This year marks my third Q-day in Amsterdam and I've been like a kid before Christmas all week, I'm so excited. I'm skiving off work early this evening (sh!) to get the final few bits and pieces of orange clothing I need (yes, this is the only day of the year when my clothes and hair will match). The party starts in earnest tomorrow evening (Queen's night) on Nieuwmarkt, where we will attempt to curb our drinking somewhat in advance of an early start on Saturday. Our route for the day may or may not end up looking like this:



The general plan is to see more local stuff this year, around the Albert Cuypstraat and Utrechtsestraat. I'm guessing there'll be the obligatory ramble along Prinsengracht to gawk at the party boats, and we'll have to check out the Drag Queen Olympics on Westermarkt. After that it's anyone's guess, but we may end up on a certain tulip-filled patio off the Prinsengracht...? Only time (and Heineken) will tell. Photos of orange, orange and more orange to follow!

Miserable & Mean

I am allowing myself to break my "no blogging about work" rule just this once for a good cause. New guy at the desk next to mine has been scarfing peanut M&Ms and fruit Mentos from giant cinema-sized bags all afternoon and hasn't offered me a single one! How rude! I don't think I'd mind as much if it weren't for the smell of the peanut M&Ms. If he leaves them out much longer I may have to reach over, grab the bag and upend it into my mouth. I need help...

Sweetened

Remember all my whining and moaning about the rubbish painters a couple of weeks back? Well, they finally finished on Good Friday but not before I'd lost the rag at them (which meant I had to revert to English, my pidgin Dutch only stretches as far as politeness with a touch of subservience). They left a mess on the living room floor and paint on the radiators but we were shut of them so didn't mind much. I'd almost forgotten about the whole sorry saga until our landlord's daughter popped in unexpectedly yesterday evening. She handed Oran a bottle bag and an envelope and apologised for the mayhem. The bottle bag contained some good champagne and the envelope (with another apology scrawled on the front) had €100 in it! I could be really cynical about the whole thing, but I'd rather think that maybe people aren't so crabby/stingy/inconsiderate after all. Unless they're trying to cajole us into extending our lease...

Corollary

Mini heatwave or no, it is starting to warm up here on the whole. And for anyone in Amsterdam who lives even remotely close to any of the city's many bodies of water (i.e. 99% of the population) this can only mean one thing: the mozzies are back.

I hadn't expected them for another week or so but was rudely awakened at 3.30 this morning by the familiar whiny buzzy noise round my head. I drowsily pulled the mosquito net around our bed and went straight back to sleep. Cue another wakeup call an hour later - not by the buzzing this time but by an extremely itchy sensation on my right arm. Bite number one from the mozzie now trapped inside the net. I managed to smoosh him (but not without waking Oran) and again, back to sleep. There were birds singing outside our window when I was woken again, by mozzie number two. This one had been feasting on any bits of exposed flesh he could find for quite a while and killing him was a rather messy affair. Final bite count: six for me (left cheek, left middle finger, left wrist, left elbow, right arm x 2), one for Oran. My pale freckled skin must be highly attractive to the little gits. I'll be going on another killing spree tonight before bedtime, for sure. Eugh.

Here comes the sun

The BBC weather forecast for this weekend:










They'd better not be having a laugh. Come on sun, baby needs a new pair of freckles...

Run, run, as fast as you can

I've just signed up for this year's Dublin mini-marathon and am already starting to tremble in my AirMax. I've never actually run 10k before; I can manage about 6k right now without passing out, albeit on the treadmill, which is much easier than on tarmac. When I originally thought about doing the race, I reckoned I could manage it in less than an hour. A combination of laziness and a recurring back problem has set my training back somewhat, though, and now I think I'll be lucky if I can finish in one piece.

How and ever, there's nothing like a challenge, and I have the added motivation of hopefully raising a few euro for the Gary Kelly Cancer Support Centre in Drogheda (go on the town). Training proper starts this week...

I heart Jason Donovan

We've had a Playstation 2 for about two years now, and up until about two months ago I showed very little interest in the thing. This is chiefly because I'm rubbish at everything except cart racing games and my thumbs hurt like hell after about ten minutes of Crash Nitro Kart. Now we're the proud owners of Buzz: The Music Quiz and Buzz: The Big Quiz and I've finally found my PS2 calling, as well as an outlet for my freakish useless-information memory. Both quizzes are hosted by a hilariously camp Jason Donovan, far more attractive now in cartoon form than in real life! Throw in a bunch of mates and a couple of bottles of wine and it's the perfect night in:

Tulips near Amsterdam

It's still too cold for allofthetulips, but we managed to see a few yesterday:




Tomorrow: Easter Sunday brunch and possibly my body weight in chocolate mini eggs. Monday: cocoa hangover and pub quiz, in that order. I love five day weekends.

Pretty stupid for a (supposedly) smart girl

Jennifer & I put in some quality time on the Kalverstraat this afternoon, visiting three of its five H&Ms among other things. Midway through browsing in one shop I noticed my bag felt lighter than it had and on rummaging through it, discovered our camera was gone. I spent the next half hour panicking and the half hour after that retracing our steps back up the street, checking every shop we'd been in to see if they'd found a camera. Alas and alack, they hadn't and I wearily trudged onto the tram home feeling very sorry for myself. Our camera might have been a heap of junk but it worked... and contained a memory card full of photos.

You can imagine my surprise/shock/doubt of own intellect when I walked in our door just now to find the damn thing sitting on our dining table. I must've taken it out when we came back earlier in the day to drop off our first batch of purchases.

Not the cleverest I've ever felt. But at least I have something to photograph all the tulips with tomorrow.

Forty shades of grey

Eugh. What a horrible day. I got a lift to the tram with a colleague this evening - a welcome respite from the horizontal rain - and the thermometer in his car read five degrees. Five bloody degrees! I could see my breath as I stepped out the front door this morning.

In other non-weather-related news, the aforementioned shyster painters continue to make a ham job of the windows in our building. They're currently working at a rate of about 1.2 windows per day, so I reckon we have at least another week of scaffolding out front (see above). They were in our kitchen yesterday morning at 8.30 - ironing work clothes in pyjamas mere inches from two boilersuited fiftysomethings was not the best way to kick off my week. I'm hoping they finish up on our floor tomorrow, if only to spare my sister from having to suffer a similar fate - she arrives tomorrow evening and will be sleeping on the three star futon in our living room.

I've taken Thursday off to play hostess which gives me a mammoth five day weekend (yay Easter!). We're planning to visit the Keukenhof gardens on Friday, where there'll hopefully be a little less grey and a little more of this (taken there last year):


I won't hold my (freezing) breath.

Shiver me timbers

I cannot seem to get warm at all today. I've had that deep down cold feeling since getting out of bed this morning that no amount of hot green tea or layers of clothing or huge bear hugs can shift. I can't imagine cycling to and from work in a chilly force four headwind helped much - it's still an unseasonable 8/9 degrees here but feels more like 5 with wind chill, and cycling in conditions like this leaves one both freezing and sweaty. I can't believe it's April 6th and I'm still wearing gloves...

So much for a warm and cosy apartment, too - the damned useless painters our landlord has hired left the windows open all day so it's still arctic in here. I think flannel pyjamas + socks + duvet + fleecy throw may be the only solution...

Detox, day ten

So, ten days in. Here's how it's been:

- days to go: seven (I've decided to extend!)
- times caved: two (apple pie last Thursday + a handful of chocolate M&Ms at the cinema on Sunday)
- litres of water consumed: about 35 so far, I'm guessing
- punnets of berries eaten: four
- creativity levels with various forms of non-dressed salad: vastly improved
- opinion of tuna: oh tuna, how I love thee, all is forgiven. Your friends the sardines are pretty tasty too.
- cravings for red meat/pasta/bread: surprisingly, non-existent
- smugness at a hangover-free weekend: still gloating, and it's Wednesday!
- gym sessions: one, dammit (I can thank my third lumbar vertebra for that)
- energy levels: much higher than previously, even with copious amounts of caffeine factored in
- kilos lost: three (that's 6.6 pounds to ye imperially-minded)
- likelihood that I'll stay on some form of regime for quite some time to come: growing
- number of biertjes it will take to get me drunk when I start drinking again on April 27th: right now I'm guessing six, but am taking bets...

Pub quiz teasers

Here are three questions we didn't get right tonight. Any takers? (no Google cheating!)

1. In what country was Bruce Willis born?
2. Which is the only country to cross both the equator and the tropic of Capricorn?
3. Which European city has the greatest length of canals?

If we'd gotten some or all of the above (plus Paul Anka, Bryan Ferry and John Denver as artists in the music round), we would've had a top three finish. Mind you, we say this every week and for every "maybe" answer we don't put down, we generally gain points back through sheer flukes. As it was we came fifth - not bad considering the horrible start we had.

For next week, I am swotting up on obscure capital cities. Armenia? Chad? Kiribati? I'll have 'em all sussed. Maybe.

London calling at the top of the dial

I've spent a large part of this weekend holed up in Paradiso listening to bands most people have never heard of. The occasion? A bi-annual mini-festival dubbed London Calling which showcases the best of new British (and lately Irish and US) musical talent. I managed to catch twelve bands in total between Friday and Saturday night. Not bad for €20. Some of the bands were quite samey, but here's a run down of the ones I can still remember (and I can't even use alcohol as an excuse for my patchy memory...):

Bromheads Jacket. We caught the end of their set first thing on Friday night. Musically speaking, they're a cross between the Libertines and the Streets and I mean that in an only-okay way. Quite an entertaining set though as the lead singer was very obviously under the influence of Amsterdam's finest and at one point stage dove while still holding his guitar. He managed to smash both guitar and head, but continued playing with just bass and drums (and a trickle of blood making its way down his nose) until an intrepid roadie appeared with a new guitar. Rock and roll.

My Latest Novel. In four words: shouty orchestral folk pop. They reminded me of the Frames and the Arcade Fire. A bit too acoustic and unconventional for the very young and very mainstream indie rock crowd though, and didn't go over too well. I got chatting to a couple of them later on and they were very lovely, very wee and very Scottish. Aw.

The Futureheads. These guys were in a different class to every other band we saw on Friday. They've just come off a US tour supporting the Foo Fighters and are obviously still coasting on the adrenaline. They were amazingly polished and confident and their songs sound even better live. Total show stealers.

First up on Saturday were The Long Blondes. Currently milking the tag of "best unsigned band in Britain" for all it's worth (at least to my cynical mind). Their lead singer and Alex Kapranos from Franz Ferdinand need to get together and start having gorgeous indie babies now.

Howling Bells. Another band with a pretty frontwoman! Hurrah! Very bluesy, very unusual, and very attractive. Think they eventually won the crowd over.

The Kooks. By far the most disappointing band over the two nights. I really like their album but the lead singer was surly and completely uncharismatic, and their set was pretty messy. So much so that Sarah and I spent most of it pointing and giggling at a girl on the opposite balcony who was dancing rather inappropriately (read filthily) to every song. And she knew all the words! I was karmically rewarded for my meanness later on in the evening when she came all the way round to where I was sitting just to ask me if there were any more bands on. Caught rapid.

Now where was I? Oh yes. Mystery Jets. Wacky and quite wonderful. Their frontman plays the computer case and the steel pipe, and his dad is in the band (and very popular with the sixteen year olds in the front row). The already overactive crowd surfers in the pit were almost fighting for a go by the end of their set... then the drummer and bassist both decided to dive in. I think I'll be buying their album, if only to remind me of the live show.

Last but not least were The Sunshine Underground at 2am, by which time 99% of the crowd were completely ossified and I was feeling quite serene. The organisers seem to save the graveyard slot for a completely unknown band they think are going to do well (The Infadels played last time round) and they hit the nail on the head with these boys. Catchy dancey rock and lots of cowbell. What's not to love?

The next London Calling event is scheduled for November, by which time I'm guessing three or four of these bands will have made it big (for however long), one will have spontaneously combusted, and the rest will still be coasting along under the radar. Only time will tell...