Thoughts about Holland vol.9.
2006.07.29. My birthday

Gefeliciteerd!

Oh well I am a year older. This is my first birthday alone, and this was the time when I realized that not the big dates are important whether you have somebody there or not. Today I felt a lot better that yesterday when a bit of languidity caught me and was not in a good mood at all. Thank God I have friends who can hoick me out of this state. (Bea, Kristóf, Tomi köszi a lelkisegélyért!!) So, with renewed energy I started off the day with going to the bank in order to open an account.

Cultural shock!!! I stepped in, the guy at the information desk asked me what I wanted to do, and after telling him he assured me he would arrange an appointment for me, and offered me a seat (even helped while seating!!!!!) and also asked if I wanted to drink a coffee or anything else. Still dizzy of the shock I said thank you I am fine. (haha my pronunciation of dank u wel is perfect) I only had to wait for a minute and a girl came, well how should I put she was probably not originally dutch.. and she introduced herself, we shook hands and she took me to her desk. Seated me and sat down herself. She turned the monitor so I could also see what she was doing. Explaining every small detail very patiently, I was amazed. What's more, I will be allowed to choose a PIN code for my bank card.

This went really easy, everybody was so polite and couteous, meant a real recreation to go to the bank.

After this I went to Rotterdam, because today there was the Zomercarnaval, a huge street parade with all kinds of world music, so it was not only latin and brazilian, but there was an arabic truck as well. I walked along the whole route and saw I think only half of the whole caravan, but then I decided to follow the brazilian truck, because they played a lot of the music I knew, so I had a good time. A girl on the truck spotted out that I am following them and also dancing so she waved me that I should get on the truck. I thought for first it is not a good idea, but after she waved me for the secong time I though why not, at least they would decorate me with flags and stuff plus would get water and energy drinks for free. Finally the security guy didn't let me up, but still I didn't mind it was funny.

After almost 4 hours of waking and dancing around on the sun (was quite a caribic weather today) I felt I had enough if it, but if I wouldn't have had a headache I am pretty sure I would have stayed longer. I always felt so safe even in the crowd, so it was far from the BudapestParádé.. where even the music is crappy but all the stupid mass goes there and does not care about anything or anyone. Here it was nice. Even alone, because everyone was friendly and genuinely happy. (have to admit that you could smell people smoking weed quite a lot of times) And I even liked Rotterdam. Everyone says its ugly and too modern. Yes modern it is, but hey at least it is something for a change. Or maybe I see it like this as I was always living in a big city, so these are the places where I really feel myself at home and enjoy staying. Dunno. Still, after the bombing they rebuilt some buildings, so it is not only tall and modern stuff all around. I personally liked it, but have to go back and look around properly because this time it was too crowded to do sightseeing. There is also a museum I want to visit there.

That was it for Rotterdam, went home and cooked dinner.

In the evening two flatmates (Remko and Jeroen) took me out to drink a couple of beers. We wanted to sit down at the Beestemarkt (imagine Liszt Ferenc tér in Budapest but smaller and cosier) but it was full, so instead we went to a really small pub, which had a nice internal garden and about 20 types of draught beer, and another 30 types bottled. (ok maybe not that much, it seemed a lot, but I didn't count....just like the letters of our abc) The guy behing the bar knew a lot about specialty beers and could even explain in English. I know I shouldn't be surprised anymore at this beacuse I think even the cleaning ladies and other hygenic workers (wcs néni...) speak English here. So we got to try nice specialty beers, both Dutch and Belgian ones. I think it is needless to mention that the guys drank double the amount as I did.. but it is risky to get drunk if you have to cycle home... There was a nice type of beer I really liked, the name is Kwak, the sound the duck makes... it really tasted like a nice ale I had in London, of course I didn't want to share this thought with the guys probably they would have shot me :)) (Kristóf ha jössz akkor tudod hova viszlek!!!)

This is how I spent my birthday, now I will go and cook lunch.

Eet smakelijk!

J.