A New Year’s Eve in Amsterdam

Real life story

“Anjeliersdwarsstraat”

My new home.

“It means; in between Carnation Street”

I am reliably informed.  It’s the end of 1997, I’ve only lived in Amsterdam a few days and am very much enjoying the novelty of my surroundings and the stretchy, bobbly yarn of new language.

It’s New Year’s Eve and I took the first flight I could get on after Boxing Day. All the streets in this district are named after blooms because of their proximity to the flower market. My new home - a modest flat above an Indian takeaway - is in a perfect nook, hiding like a shy, scuffed Delftware plate amongst the more touristy streets that are home to coffee shops, souvenir stores and notably, the Anne Frank House. It is, I’m told, a prime location. Not that I’ve a clue where anything is yet. The city buzzes, rolls, clicks and trings - a tinny Toyland of circling trams and weaving bicycles, and I am in awe of it. Even the rain seems more glamorous than rain in Northern England. It plink-plonks and I doubt anyone would ever use the vile expression “it’s spitting”.

I have moved in with Elaine, a young teacher from Warrington. We both secured jobs at the British school here, at the same time.

Elaine has long, honey-blonde hair that pours on to her shoulders, gleaming like the caramel centre of a glossy chocolate. She wears the sort of things I can’t - oatmeal cable-knit sweaters and ‘boyfriend style’ jeans. I mean, I could, but Elaine makes them look good. She is the sort of girl who shops at Gap or Esprit. A young woman who turns ‘neutrals’ into ‘beautifuls’ because the clothes wear her, morphing into admiring, unworthy strips of fabric fawning in her petite goddess presence.

“I think I got the job because when they asked me what my weakness was, I told them I can be too hard on myself because I’m such a perfectionist.”

She trills as she loafs around in cream looking effortlessly gorgeous.

“Ahh….That was clever! I like it! Good thinking! Must remember that one!”

I wink. She looks puzzled.

“No….but I actually am….”

Oh bloody hell. So I’ll be living with a perfectionist, will I? Yikes! Might not end well…..

Elaine and I hardly know each other. We were  ‘matched’ by school as two new employees relocating and needing accommodation. After a successful coffee together - during which we both concluded the other didn’t display signs of being a serial killer - we decided we could indeed try a flatshare.

In just over a week’s time, we will be working in the same Nursery unit of ‘The British School of Amsterdam’, she as a teacher and I as Nursery Nurse.

I can tell she’ll be wonderful. She is everything a child would want a first teacher to be - smiley, princess haired and jolly. Elaine is like a real life ‘Blue Peter’ presenter, bubbly, craft-loving, organised and passionate about her career.

The rest of my new colleagues, whom I’ve met briefly, at a welcome drinks gathering, all make me feel very grown up. They’re not crazy party animals like my mates were in Cyprus. This, will be a very different experience. They’re ‘professional’ types,  in their mid twenties or thirties and it being a British school, all ex-pats.

There is Helen - a sturdy, bobbed haired lady - the only person I’ve ever known to polish cutlery, Claudia; an olive-eyed willowy twist of a woman whose voice isn’t so much plummy but cloying cherry compote. Then there is Isobel - still the most gifted teacher I’ve ever worked with, exuding the sort of calm I’ve always envied in people, winning them over with a quiet composure that gives way like a velvet curtain to a stage of unrivalled dry wit.

Tom, the twenty eight year old deputy head is my favourite and will become a close friend. He is a middle class southerner of dinky proportion who lives in a swanky apartment on Prinsengracht, with his French boyfriend Nicholas. They make an elegant pairing and have already taken Elaine and I under their brotherly wing.

Tom is warm and confident with an undercurrent of sadness that sits like a wobbly, off-key note in a love song. I will learn this comes from his god-fearing parents disowning him because of his sexuality. It is heart breaking to me, that this still happens in the 1990’s, that such a kind, generous spirit could be rejected by anyone, let alone their mother and father. Nicholas, (pronounced ‘Nicola’ because ‘ee eez French) his partner is by far the most sophisticated person I’ve ever met. He has the poise of a Siamese cat,  a man made to slink between Ming vases and arch his back against bookshelves. He has slightly slanted eyes that pan for melancholy through dark rimmed spectacles and he wears muted tones that are probably called ‘barely mink’ and ‘oyster’.

This evening, New Year’s Eve, Tom and his beau have offered to take us out for dinner and we call for them enroute. Their flat is show-home fabulous. I’ve never seen so many dimmed lights and well placed throws. It’s all the expensive stuff I ever wanted in ‘The Pier’ - a mancave  of dark lacquered wood, paired with the lightness of casual French chic.

A brief scan of their living room reveals more classical music CD’s than we had in our entire local library in Rochdale.

“Zey are ‘ol mine. I am ze one ‘oo likes classical musique. Do you like classical?” 

Nicholas asks in hushed whispers that sound like the soft rustle you make when unwrapping a Ferrero Rocher. 

“Yes!” I say brightly, racking my brains for something that doesn’t make me sound like a thick Northern monkey. ‘Swan Lake’ or ‘The Four Seasons’ must surely sound like a posh fella’s ‘Wonderwall’.

“Saint-Saëns”

I offer, because he’s French. He nods appreciatively and we discuss ‘Danse Macabre’ Yes! He doesn’t think I’m completely devoid of culture!

Not long after, we arrive at the Indonesian restaurant. I’ve never had Indonesian food before and this is a jewel of a place that features dark wooden masks and haunting looking carvings. The staff appear in twos of black and white, waiting piano keys. There is sizzle, fire and everything is served on an oblong tray that I’d have shoved incense sticks on, back in the day.

“You always have to book here…..but it’s the best.”

Tom offers knowledgeably.

“We eat here a lot. Here and Rosa’s Cantina. That’s our other favourite, we’ll have to take them there too, won’t we, Nicholas?”

says Tom, turning to his companion whose mouth forms a small neat bow of smile. I can tell Tom enjoys playing host to newcomers, showing them his charmed life. He is both wine buff and foodie and later in our friendship in a seaside town called Zaandfort, he will introduce me to my first pine nut that I tell him looks like a maggot.

The evening is a successful one. I can tell I intrigue them, a brash butterfly landing boldly upon their teachery world with my wild tales of Ayia Napa. The fascination works both ways. I have a hundred and one questions for them. What are Dutch people like? Where are the best shops/museums/galleries… Will I like the school? Should I bother learning the language…..

We leave the restaurant, Tom and Nicholas generously picking up the bill and head towards Dam Square. Everywhere is full, so beggars can’t be boozers and we find ourselves funnelled up a side street towards a tacky lit shamrock and crammed in some mediocre Irish bar. It’s some Paddy McMurphy McGuiness of a place and as with most Irish bars, it’s riddled with loud Americans filling their big green hunger with ‘The Pogues’ and dire ‘fiddle de dee’ toe tappers.

In the post Midnight chimes of New Year, I seem to have ended up alone. Tom and Nicholas have headed home before everyone else (as couples so often do), whilst Elaine has hooked up with a Dutch friend she met whilst travelling a few years ago.

I have had a few tipples but am certain I can find my way back to the flat, after all it’s just by the canal, near that bridge with the white lights, right?

Oops.

It is on this night that I come to realise that 90% of the streets are ‘by a canal that has a bridge with white lights’.

There doesn’t seem to be a law about fireworks here or certainly not one that’s being enforced in any manner. Suddenly, as revellers become caught up in celebration, the city is ablaze as they are let off randomly off in the street. They leap from corners as I turn them, like playful and slightly annoying jack-in-a-boxes.

The next two hours become a running loop of me asking the way to ‘Anjeliersdwarsstraat’ (which in my drunken dulcet Lancashire tones,  sounds like I’m searching for a woman called ‘Angela Lee Smart’), someone replying in a brash American voice “I’m real sorry, I just got here”, staggering on a little further to be met by yet another screeching zip of firework, all whistled on encouragingly by crowds of inebriated onlookers.

I don’t know how many detours I do that New Year’s Eve to find my way home. Only that it takes hours. At one point, the lights on the bridges are no longer white - they are red and I see pointy shoed, wing-eyed sirens in swishy, cheap wigs wearing leather underwear. They pose in feather boa lined windows like sad yet resilient kittens in pet shops. And as with pet shops, some passers by see only the pretty, fluffy available ‘object’. They jostle their friend, “ooh, I’d like that one”, whilst others - like myself - see a red flash of jaded soul and wonder “What brought you here? Damn, I wish I could rescue every single one of you, take you home and show you kindness.”

It’s raining again now and the weather seems to be dampening appetite for sparks, snaps and frolics. The bangs and strobing stars lessen and I’m left with the sharp dings of impatient bicycle bells, laddish chants and clacking heels.

Occasionally, I hear a smattering of “aaa” and gutural sounds that come from a part of my mouth and throat I haven’t yet met, and I remember I am indeed, in continental Europe.

And finally, I make it back. Yes - there is my flat above the Indian take away! The blue ‘Taj Mahal’ window sticker confirms I’m right, and as my eyes squint at the pearly drops replenishing the canal, I marvel at how everything looks like a mesmerising impressionist painting.

The way the beads of light bleed into the water before turning into flickering, golden ribbon.

The way bright umbrellas shroud matchstick figures so they appear to jut and noodle as neon jellyfish in the depths of the ocean.

The way every bar and cafe sprawls out on to the pavement like a house party guest who took a few cushions and made himself extra comfy.

I unlock and push open the dense, stubborn ox of a door and head up the steep staircase that opens out into the vinyl tiled kitchen.  It is black and white and reminds me of the ‘Flash’ advert.

From nowhere, a song my grandma used to play by ‘Max Bygraves’, about the mouse who lives in a windmill, pops in my head.

“He sang every morning how lucky I am….”

It may not be a windmill, but as I survey my new home and recount my evening, I do indeed feel very lucky, living in old Amsterdam.

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