I Amsterdam
Many years ago, I lied about Amsterdam; it’s time to put the record straight.
When asked as a student, a long time ago, if I had “been to Amsterdam?”, I said, “of course I had” and things escalated quickly from there.
Why?
Because it was always one of those places you had to have been to, if you want to appear cool, and back then, I wanted to appear cool, that’s for sure.
Amsterdam was non-negotiable, a required travel experience, the obligatory life enhancing short hop that any younger person should have accomplished before their 21st birthday; not optional, more like mandatory; admitting failure to accomplish this most basic of travel accomplishments was therefore to be avoided at any cost if a shred of credibility was to be retained.
So of course I had been, and seen the sights and experienced the charms and smoked the pot.
At a stroke, decades before we were to learn what constitutes a humble-brag, my imaginary dutch trip constituted nothing more than a downright lie.
Why do we say things that are not true?; there are always specifics one can post-rationalise around to satisfy your own peculiar curated narrative of events.
I certainly need to explore why I ever thought pretending I’d been to Amsterdam was a good idea. Looking back, it was one of those places post student days that I thought I should’ve been to because everyone else had, but hadn’t got round to visiting because I wasn’t as cool as everyone else.
Years rolled by and I entered the workplace, fully realising everyone had been to Amsterdam except for me, it seemed churlish not to carry on the student pretence into my twenties and fondly look back on the Ed van der Elsken films, the edgy subculture, red light districts and "festival of fools", which we had all experienced (or not in my case).
It was probably a good decade later, having met my wife to be, braving the continued saga of bare faced lies, that I found myself confronted with travel planning as a couple, and the dreaded Holland, amongst others, being considered as potential destination, that I was to face up to the terrible truth.
Why don’t we go via Amsterdam, you’ve been there, what did you think about it?
dat was het einde, de kat was uit de zak, ik kon er niet meer over liegen, fuck it.That was the end of that, the cat was out of the bag, I could lie about it no more, Fuck it!
I had never been to Amsterdam, or Holland, or anywhere near it; the game was indeed up; and I would be going to Amsterdam for the very first time in 2006.
It wasn’t such a big deal really; a few bookings on easyJet and a budget family guided tour of Europe started in Liverpool, progressing through Amsterdam, onwards to Berlin, taking in Geneva, before connecting to Barcelona and then finally returning to Liverpool
These were the easyJet halcyon days of Stelios ruling the skies; twenty individual flights, two parents and two children, taking in four European locations, starting and returning to the UK; would you believe that entire flight extravaganza cost less than £300 for the lot?
Okay it was 2006.
This was the first time I realised that going to one place and then leaving for another was the way to plan real exciting travel, and Amsterdam was only part of it.
And as it turns out, way too small a part of it, because having a tight schedule, two younger kids in tow and some of Kay‘s family to meet up with; we inevitably didn’t do it justice and were forced to move on as the next easyJet departure board awaited us well before we had even scratched the surface.
Therefore 18 years later I’m poised to return in a not so secret way to Amsterdam with a number of interesting opportunities presenting themselves both to be revisited and put to rest. Wondering the streets with my camera and notepad are perhaps the most enjoyable times for me and what I look forward to so much with this trip.
A good use of time, having a few hours of sketching and street photography while Kay visits museums (which I often frequent too, but being of a lower intelligence, don’t need the same amount of time to get round )is then to meet and compare notes; sit and reflect with a coffee or a beer at some prearranged off grid location before sloping off for dinner, wine and fun.
One of my heroes of course is Bill Nighy and no trip to Amsterdam would be complete without revisiting the incredible series The Men’s Room, the thrilling five part drama telling a scandalous tale of marriage, sex and betrayal spanning the Thatcher years starring Harriet Walter and Bill.
I never had to beg on the streets of Paris like him, nor do I have his savvy fashion style or brilliant acting charm, but as penance for lying about Amsterdam, I have been made to watch this touching, bitter story so many times, I almost know off by heart the scene at the end when the loving couple have agreed to meet up, having repeatedly ruined each other’s lives for so many years.
And where will they meet?
In the future, many years later, in the year 2000 in fact, on a canal bridge; in Amsterdam of course!
I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s a scene I very much want to replicate this month (and will be enduring the DVD gain tonight for good measure no doubt)
Eighteen years is a long time to keep up the pretence that you have been somewhere when you have in fact never been there; another eighteen years is even longer to leave it before you go back, the beautiful symmetry here is that we’ve been together 36 years this year and it therefore seems somewhat appropriate to put the “I” back into I Love Amsterdam
I hope Bill would approve of that.
So when we fabricate dutch trips or their look-a-like counterparts; are we really pretending to others or to ourselves?
There will always be things/trips/tasks/achievements that we feel we should have and could have done; many will be far greater than spending a weekend in Amsterdam – in truth we probably just can’t admit to ourselves that we potentially fall short in any number of areas that we deem to be important; it may look like a good idea to appear cool and have done all those crazy things in Amsterdam; but only because we have decided so, because we cannot accept falling short, and we are of course, are our own harshest critics, for NO good reason in this and so many other cases.
Well let’s not pretend to ourselves anymore; we don’t need to pretend; YOU don’t need to pretend; You can do anything….
Let’s get on a boat and wrap up warm; we are going to Amsterdam.