On your bike
Dutch people carry two pairs of shoes—one pair for the concert hall and one pair for the bike ride home. After my bedraggled family saw Handel’s Messiah at Het Concertgebouw in Amsterdam on our first night, I saw a lady slipping her feet out of a pair of dainty red heels and into thick boots.
This is the only city I’ve ever been to where I’m more afraid of cyclists than drivers. For good reason, too—in Amsterdam, bicycles actually outnumber people. I’m not kidding: stay off the fucking bike paths.
Unfortunately for my bank account and my spinal cord, I found another used bookstore around the corner from our apartment. What? My mum generously offered some of her bag space to feed by book habit, and who I am to argue?
My new acquisitions are: H.G.Wells’ The War of the Worlds, with illustrations; Nicholson Baker’s The Fermata, which I’ve been meaning to read since a friend recommended it months ago; and Germaine Greer’s The Madwoman’s Underclothes: Essays and Occasional Writings.
I had to snort at the location of the ‘Women’s Studies’ section, in the back corner of the store’s cellar between ‘Gay Studies’ and ‘Black Studies’.
History’s losers need to stick together—even in bookstores.
Books in hand, my flu-addled body spent most of the day with Van Gogh. It’s best saved for another post, but some of the museums that I’ve been to are fascinating. There’s the curatorial side of things, but I’m also drawn to the architecture—the museum space as almost a work in itself. Another day, perhaps.
For now, I’m about to hire a bike and ride it around the city. Godspeed to the fool.