When it rains, it pours part 2 - the flood

Last Wednesday morning I walked the ten minutes through a community of low-rise low-cost apartments to Lelylaan Station. I waited on the side of the platform for the 9:19am train from Schipol airport. There I met Andrew for our day together in Amsterdam.

Our first stop was my apartment as Andrew had brought me some gum I particularly like and I wanted to show him the view. In this city it’s a rare thing to have a view from the twelfth storey. You can clearly see across the flat city that there are only a handful of buildings at eye level. And from this vantage point you can see the East and Southern reaches of the city.

We walked out into Rembrandt Park. Not so much because it was the quickest way, but because I love the fact that I open the backdoor of the building and within a single step, I am in the park.

At the end of Rembrandt Park you have to enter the city for 5 minutes until you are at the edge of Vondelpark. You can essentially walk from my apartment to the outside ring of central Amsterdam through parks. And I love that.

We covered a fair bit of ground. We walked through Leidseplane, Spui Square, Dam Square, Dad’s herring stand, Nieuwmarkt, over bridges and walked along countless canals. We sat in a café sipping cassis sodas, a product I really wish we had in Canada.

The previous weekend Nina and I had gone to a particular street in Amsterdam with a few dozen restaurants. We picked an Italian one and had a great meal. So I took Andrew to that same street and we picked a restaurant at the end of the block. He had an enormous vegetarian spring roll and I enjoyed some succulent medallions of lamb. And, of course, a fantastic crème brûlée for desert.

Last weekend Nina came back to Amsterdam to visit for the second weekend in a row. After a pasta dinner at the apartment on Friday night, we headed to a neighbourhood bar. The first one was too crowded and you couldn’t see the TV at all. Just down the street was another pub with a large courtyard. There we were able to get seats and see the TV at the other end. We arrived at the beginning of the second period for the Netherlands vs France Euro2008 game. At that point it was 1-0 and in the course of the next 45 minutes we saw a total of 4 goals making for a very exciting game.

Soccer is the one sport I can actually watch. I remember seeing the Whitecaps play at BC Place stadium as a kid and have never had the same negative reaction to watching it that I have for most other sports. In fact, I even played it for a year or two when I was 13. Well… to be fair, I don’t know if I actually ‘played’ soccer. But I did stand out on the field with the other players.

On Saturday evening I took Nina to the same restaurant as Andrew since I had had such a great meal 3 nights earlier. Nina also had the vegetarian spring roll while I enjoyed a rare treat in Europe; a rib eye steak. Here you rarely see the name of the cut in restaurants or grocery stores. Directly translated the labels usually read “Good piece of beef”.

This week has been the first working all three jobs. So far I have been able to juggle it well and my work with Stefan has included my new tasks and responsibilities. I like the variety in the work I am doing with him and the fact that I am now logging more hours. What was originally going to be a 3-way split between my 3 jobs has ended up being 80% with Stefan and the other 20% between the two customer service jobs.

Tuesday night was the Netherlands vs Romania game as well as the France vs Italy game. My room-mate Marc and I went to a pub a few blocks away. It was a neighbourhood place with a dozen people watching the games. The big screen TV had the Netherlands game and a small TV on the other wall had the Italy vs France match. 9 out of the 10 of us in the place were watching the Netherlands play a game of keep-away while Romania was frantically trying to score every chance they got. It was well over 20 minutes into the game before the first attempt on goal occurred. There were a lot of bad attempts by both teams, but the Netherlands’ used their B players and still managed to score the only two goals in the game. I am really enjoying being in the country that is doing so well.

As this blog goes to print my situation has changed a bit. I wrote this entry Wednesday evening and was intending on posting it (after a quick read-through) on Thursday afternoon. When I woke up Thursday morning to chat with Shawn — happy birthday by the way, the big 32 today — I had an Email from Wayne waiting for me. Wayne, of course, the is the guy I did my BCIT industry project with this past winter. He has a new project and he wants me to be a part of it. So after a call to hash out the details I am spearheading a project to produce a manual for a martial arts studio. It's a month long project and I am essentially taking it on singlehandedly. Wayne will support the project by giving me any missing information I require. I am really excited about the level of responsibility he is entrusting me with. This will be very good for my resume.

So, now the job count = 4. When it rains, it really pours...