November 29, 2006 - Wednesday

November 29, 2006 - Wednesday
weird talks and social burns
I went out with my cousin Vanessa last Friday. It was a split decision made almost at the point of her leaving to go to Haarlem to celebrate her TALL FRIEND Vicky's birthday at her house with some old college mates. People I didn't know. Faced with the possibility of being incongruous, yet again, amongst total strangers I was a little apprehensive.

Admittedly, I was treated with wariness and hesitation at first but people eventually warmed to me and started engaging me in conversation. It was a large group of well-dressed Dutch youth, all professionals, and not too far from the 25 year-old mark.

One guy I spoke to, Steph, was my height but twice as wide. Built like a brick-shit-house you might say. Our conversation went like this:

"So you're from Scotland?"
"No. I'm from Canada."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
He frowned for a second, "I'd like to go to Canada."
"Really? Why?"
"There's too many people in Holland. It seems like there's room enough there…"
"Sure. There's a lot of room in Canada, but it's boring as fuck."
"But I'm not going to go."
"Ah? Why?"
"Because they kill baby seals there."
That stopped me for a second, "What?"
"They kill baby seals—"

The guy didn't look like an animal lover to me. And besides, he just finished relating a story about having to pick rabbit corpses out of his car radiator after plowing through whole boroughs of them while on a cross-country road rally. I asked him about this and was greeted with mumbling. I told him that, in fact, not all Canadians are bopping seal pups about the head, and for the people that do, it's their livelihood. So why doesn't the government subsidize them so they don't? Well, because it's part of their culture. Well can't they just chase chickens or something across the ice instead?

Aside from enacting the all-Canadians-live-in-igloos-and-wear-bison-pelt stereotype, he had me there.

Later on I mentioned to him that recently The Economist ranked Norway as the number-one place to live in the world.
"That's not true!" he howled.
"Ah? Why do you say that?"
"Because the beer is so expensive…"

Again, in a twisted, convoluted kind of way, he had me there.

Another conversation:

"So what do you do?", this from another of Vanessa's friends. Actually the boyfriend of the animal-lover.
"I'm trying to be a writer"
"That's great! Where are you from?"
"Canada."
"That's great! I heard you lived in Vienna?"
"No. Prague. For seven years."
"That's great! What did you do there?"
"Mostly PR and Marketing. But I didn't like it."
"That's great! Are you looking forward to going home?"
"Yeah. I have a feeling that everything I say, you'll say 'that's great!'"
"That's great! So why did you leave Prague."
"Well I had a bad year, a few people died, I was fairly depressed at the beginning—"
"That's great!"
Etc.

Eventually this well-dressed civil gathering of Dutch yuppies degenerated into the loud drunken babbling and singing horde they were destined to be. We went to a bar called the Polo Lounge which was the farthest thing from 'polo' or 'lounge' you could imagine. Existing as basically a narrow corridor with wood paneling, the bar taking up half of it. There, I discovered the Dutch passion for the other kind of cheese; musical cheese. They had no qualms about singing 'Grease Lightening' and 'You're the One That I Love' in loud, drunken, toneless voices. People raising there arms in the air to enact the glory of the synthesizer line in 'The Final Countdown'. This was interspersed with smatterings of Dutch classics, of which none I'd ever heard before but everyone in the bar new the lyrics to. Eagerly someone would scream in my face (on account of the loud music) if I'd heard the song before.

"Sure. It's by that famous Dutch guy (or girl)." I'd respond.
"Yeah. I love (incomprehensible). You know him (her) really?"
"Sure. He(She)'s famous."

I got into a conversation with a guy my height with a similarly shaven head. This was particularly torturous as he had two of the worst qualities a chatty Dutch person could have: he was a close talker – almost nose-to-nose with me and getting closer, and he spit copiously when he spoke. I couldn't get far away enough from the guy. If I'd had liquid soap I could have taken a gruesome shower courtesy of this leather-clad stranger.

"You like movies?" he sprayed at me.
"Sure."
"Have you seen (incomprehensible)".
"What?"
"Have you seen irr(incomprehensible)able?"
"What?"
"Have you seen irr(incomprehensible)able?", moving closer, determined to make me understand. I struggled in my head for the answer.
"Oh, you mean 'Irreversible'." I said warily.
"Yeah! Did you like it?"
"Uh… doesn't it have a gratuitous twenty-minute rape scene? Kind of sick actually."
"Yeah! Isn't it great? I love french movies. Are you Hetero?"
"What?"
"Are you hetero?"
Me thinking Jesus, "Yeah, I'm straight." at which point he grabbed my hand and shook it furiously. I had to ask: "Why do you ask?"
"Because you're bald."
"Erm," I said, speaking very slowly, "in Holland if you have shaved head you are homosexual?"
"Yeah."
"Well, you have a shaved head."
"Yeah."
We both didn't say anything for a while, sipping our (tiny Dutch issue) beers. Until finally I decided to start messing with him – deliberately mumbling.
"You (incomprehensible)…" I yelled at him.
"What?"
"You (incomprehensible)…" I repeated.
"I'm sorry," he said gesturing around him "all the music-"
"I said, you smell of old leather."
"What?"
"I said, you SMELL of OLD LEATHER."
"Please?"
"I asked you if you were a homosexual." I said.
"No! Why do you ask?"
"Because you're bald." I said.

And so on and so forth.

Shots of tequila started being distributed amongst the birthday revelers. My arm was grabbed before I could put salt on my hand. I looked to see one of Vanessa's friends shaking her head frantically at me.

"No-no! I'll show you the Dutch was of doing it—" and began pouring salt on her cheek.
"Whoa. What the hell are you doing? I was shocked.
"This is how you do Tequila in Holland." she assured me, pressing the shaker into my hand.

Well, when in Rome...And she was very cute.

The idea here, I guess, is that you lick the salt off of the person's cheek before you do the shot. The only problem being that – not understanding – I poured the salt on the wrong cheek eliciting more chicken-headed awkwardness as we tried to get salt off of each other's faces…And I'm pretty sure it's not the Dutch way of doing tequila shots. But hey, what the hell.

Eventually the bar closed and a guy (they called him 'Lillyput' in reference to the little people in Gulliver's travels) that had a crush on Vanessa invited us all back to his place. He offered Vanessa and Salty-Cheeks –who were sitting together on a small couch – some tea which he gave to them still boiling. In a fit of giggling the girls managed to dump it on themselves and suffer pretty grievous burns; part of Salt-Cheeks's thigh looking like a boiled chicken. What followed was a debacle of embarrassment and pain as drunk people offered half-assed advice about what to do about the situation. My only offering was to comment to Lillyput, "Well, this pretty much fucks up your chances of shagging my cousin…"

The next three hours (from 2.30 to 5.30am) found us in the hospital where salty-cheeks was treated for 3rd and 4th degree burns. I have to commend this girl on exhibiting incredible amounts of control, restraint and light-heartedness considering the amount of pain she must have been in. I have to commend the doctor on the amount of control and restraint he exhibited on treating two attractive girls with their trousers off. Clearly a professional.

The funniest thing about this is that on the drive to Haarlem with Vanessa she was complaining about her brother who gets into ridiculous situations, "How do these stupid things happen to him? Is it him? Does he ask for them? I don't know how these types of things could happen. They don't happen to me – "

The irony was enourmous.