I'm having an amazing time catching up with old friends and getting to know current friends even better. It's wonderful. Yesterday morning I went back to Two for Joy for breakfast, which was a short bike ride away over morning canals and past loading trucks. It was cold but I discovered some nice leather gloves in my sister's wardrobe that look like they might have belonged to either our Mum or Aunt or even our Oma. They are great as they are warm enough to keep the tingle-fingers away but I can still operate my iPod Touch (Or Phiroze's iPhone) while wearing them! Amazing.
The coffee, however, wasn't as fabulous as the day before, but still nice enough, and the Hazelnut Dark Chocolate Granola was quite nice.Then I rode my bike to Phiroze's (enjoyable half hour bike ride, aided with directions from my iPod) to help him do his dreaded expense report, the thing he was procrastinating from on Tuesday. It was a very useful way to get to know each other better, while actually getting something done at the same time. It was a very big job and we didn't finish it until today, but we so kicked that expense report's arse. When two super organised people get together with the right tools (i.e. Apple products), the biggest jobs can be achieved reasonably quickly and with determination. Luckily there were food breaks and yesterday evening I went home to play host to another very good friend.
My friend Renée works here in Amsterdam, and she came to stay the night last night - we had a nice meal together and talked and talked and talked. We marvelled at how long we've been friends, and how amazing it is considering we met quite randomly in Melbourne training to work in a bar that didn't even open before Renée had to leave again. But over the years we've become very good friends and have met both here and there and have always clicked back together and spoken so easily and freely as if it was only a day ago that we saw each other last. We talked until we fell asleep and then got up and talked some more, over croissants and tea for breakfast, and then a coffee at Two for Joy - disappointingly the coffee was again not as good as that very first cup on Tuesday. The weather today was very Dutch, very wet and cool.
Last week I had thought today would have been a day of wandering around Amsterdam by myself and maybe doing something touristy, but the weather was miserable and so instead I had already decided to go back to Phiroze's (who has admitted to manipulating the weather so I wouldn't want to be outside) and helped him finish that wretched expense report. It truly was quite fun for me to do. I like organising things in neat little piles and in chronological order. It beats reorganising boxes at my Mum's for a while! Seeing the diverse amount of places he visits within a one week time frame is quite mind boggling. He is a man whose body doesn't know a time zone because he is never in one long enough to adjust to it.
We had defeated the expense report beast around 4 pm today, and rewarded ourselves with another movie and some dinner. We watched Barney's version, which was surprisingly non-comedic and slightly tearjerky but very good. Then we happily meandered along the gracht to the good old Nassaukade where my sister's apartment is and I am right now.
Before Phiroze left for hom we Googled the answer to a question that's been on our minds since early Tuesday, which is what the three crosses stand for in the Amsterdam coat of arms. I feel as a Dutch person I should know this, but then I'm really not as Dutch as most of the Dutch. The website Phiroze found said they represent St Andrew, who was a fisherman from the 1st Century AD and who was crucified on an X shaped cross, and as Amsterdam was a fishermen's town in 1505 and it became its coat of arms. But as I just Googled it in Dutch, I got to the Dutch wikipedia page and it says something completely different! It says the coat of arms reflects that of the family of Jan Persijn who was the lord of the city of Amsterdam between 1280 and 1282, and who also ruled Amstelveen and Oudekerk aan de Amstel which have similar coats of arms. There are also stories that the three crosses represent the three desasters that struck Amstedam, flood, fire and pestilence, or that they stood for the three places in the Amstel river one could cross on foot. Both can not be verified. So, pick whichever history you like!
I am really, really enjoying my time here in Amsterdam. And once again I have the feeling that my life in Australia could just be a figment of my imagination - it feels like'unreal that I have two lives, with two languages, and two histories with friends and events. It's quite bizarre but I always get to feeling this way when I;m in Holland for a while, that I could have just dreamed my Australian life up, and vice versa when I'm there. It's not unpleasant.
Now, I am tired and happy and my vision's gone a bit blurry so I think I might just try to be asleep before midnight today. God knows it's not going to happen tomorrow, as first I'm going to Almere by train to visit Melanie and then I'm catching up with Emily for chocolate fondue for dinner and a sleepover here...knowing our history of sleepovers we will be chatting and laughing until one of use fades out and the other one gives up talking, which is not often before midnight. It's how we do it.
Oh, I uploaded some photos to the Tuesday post, as promised.
Sleep well, friends. I love friends. Friends are wonderful, wonderful creatures.
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