TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Friday, May 11, 2007

3:03 PM
Posted by jodi rose

The cats and I have snuggling down to a fine art. Although Malika (the pretty golden Egyptian one) sleeps on the bed and eats inside, while 3-pot (who really does have only three legs and a cute squashy face with half-white paws) eats outside and sleeps on the couch, with a tendency to hiss when they're in the same room.

There's something very calming about hanging out with cats. Do nothing but snooze and purr all day. Lovely.

While I'm really working on this bohemian lifestyle. Yes, although excruciatingly aware that I should be at least attempting to spend my time more productively - writing grant applications, somewhat coherent folio pieces for freelance work, composing, negotiating, follow-up networking - it's all I can do to unravel myself from the covers after watching the rain for hours, run a bath and make breakfast.

Sometimes you do find the quickest way between two points is the least expected path. The one where you meander with seeming lack of intent vaguely towards some undefined point which turns out to be in fact the best way to get there. Which, as my friend noted was a little circuitous and 'just like me'. 'What?', I asked, completely inept, but trying anyway?' 'Well, that too... No, you have a flat tire and start working on the handlebars.' Ah yes, that. Sideways not highways.

It reminded me of the Scottish fairy tales I read in Glasgow last year, where someone wandering along the woods is deciding which path to take. The sunny, easy-looking way along a gentle hill with flowers and butterflies quickly turns into a torturous winding descent into rocky hell; while the steep difficult road strewn with obstacles and thick bracken, eventually opens out into a beautiful meadow. The third path may have been abduction by the fairy queen to her land, returning after only a minute to find seventy years have passed and you have been forgotten by all.

Cheery, those Scots.

Now I'm attempting to collect some Dutch phrases; and if not any fairy tales yet at least I do have an old joke.
Finished 'My 'Dam Life' by Australian writer Sean Condon, who claims the phrases 'he has a silver roof' and 'sleeping with the bicycles' refer to a heavy mortgage and being taken care of by the Dutch mafia into a canal, respectively. Although the one Dutch person I've polled had never heard of them, he thought they were worthwhile inventions.

Last night's gem was from the band leader Martin, a dapper man with trimmed silver mo and a gorgeous 1926 pearl-inlaid banjo who apparently introduced one song with; 'If the clarinet and tenor saxophone duo doesn't bring a tear to your eye, you can f#&*g leave now'. 'What's the definition of serendipity?' I don't know. 'Looking for a needle in a haystack and finding the farmers daughter.' Aha. It was that kind of crowd.
Very cute old-style pub outside Lieden (half an hour from Sloterdijk) with a magnificent assortment of old tools brass instruments, coffee grinders, kitsch paintings, billiard trophies, old mugs, wooden implements... and cows in the paddock next door.

The band played New Orleans meets Dixieland jazz, working up a nice swing to the evening, and the over 70's crowd was warm, enthusiastic and beautifully turned out. I chatted with a couple of musicians who played the month before and had wry insight into the ego/agenda clashes of their band (which had just broken up after the gig); another distinguished gentleman pianist with cigar did his best to stroke my cheeks and flatter me with completely over the top admiration, from which I was luckily rescued by a friend with the house special for dinner - outisje? - dark rye toast with a slice of cheese and fried egg mmm delicious. The final story of my evening was unexpectedly intense, as someone started chatting to me in Dutch, and when I apologised that I spoke only English, told me about his year living in Singapore and another in Guinea. On the KLM flight out in 1951 or 57, the pilot flew straight into the ocean, and of 160 passengers, this man was one of the ten survivors. He laughed, and said 'Do you know why I survived?' 'No', I replied, horrified and intrigued. 'Because I asked to be seated next to the hostess. I like being near a pretty girl on a flight, and so we were in the back of the plane. When the tail broke off on impact with the water, we floated long enough to be rescued.' My god. At which point I had to leave. But I thanked him and we took a moment to reflect on still being alive, fifty years later. My Grandfather would have loved that story, he was a geography professor and traveled the world extensively in the fifties, largely (on his own admission) to admire the pretty girls. Ah men.

Still, there are plenty of beautiful people here to admire, the Dutch being on the whole ridiculously tall and good-looking. As Mr Condon points out repeatedly.
It kind of makes you feel exotic I guess :)