Eastern Docklands

If I had had my camera with me when the contents of this post happened, you'd be staring at the sun setting in orange, yellow, purple, red over open water, bright wispy jet trails, a darker cloud from adjacent smokestack floating in front. You would be wishing you were in Amsterdam.

As it happens, I did NOT have my camera with me last night, so you'll have to imagine it. I wanted to watch Shortbus, but there was nowhere to go, so C+I decided to take a walk down to KNSM Eiland instead. My secret inner plan was to pull over at the cafe where we played Dutch Monopoly a few weeks back and devour a platter of nachos, but nope. We got over there and it looked crowded. Two small Asian girls were sitting on the steps. They started to wave at us and shout "Hey!!! Hello!!!" My first thought was that some kind of event was going on inside, and they were the promoters. "Let's humor them," I thought, hoping that free beer or free music or something was in the cards.

They were not promoters. They were French teenagers, and I'm pretty sure they just wanted to practice their English. They asked where we were from, if we lived with our parents, if we played guitar, if we skateboarded, if we were 50 years old. They were from outside Paris, wanted to buy "I Love New York" shirts, and "didn't think the museum was very interesting." It was sort of cool and pretty bizarre being waylaid by them. I felt like we were going to run out of things to talk about, the cafe was still crowded, an enthusiastic pair of middle aged men was beckoning us from the window, and the night was young (it was 9:30, still light out, which is pretty standard here these days), so we moved on sans nachos.

The Eastern Docklands are "our" area of Amsterdam, but I haven't really explored them much. They're a group of islands in the "Y-Lake," which, as far as I understand, is sort of like an ocean delta that the city is situated on, connected by glamorous hypermodern bridges with majestic white arches. A combination of old harbor warehouses and incredibly stunning super modern architecture, artists' lofts and public housing. They're totally different from any other part of Amsterdam that I've been to - feel more like home, in ways. Quieter, less people. Open water and the smell of the ocean, big waves, buildings that make my heart pound, sights and smells of heavy industry lining the opposite shore (Niagara River, anyone?), fast cars bumping hip-hop and brash skateboarders. We walked for about an hour, eventually finding our way back to Funen after circling most of KNSM and sitting and contemplating the ridiculous sunset on a seaside bench for a while. As we circled away from the water and back towards our branch of civilization, we saw a motorboat with three dancing figures silhouetted against the water, an unmistakably familiar wail and bassline. "Is that - are they really playing that?" asked C, and they were. Sipping on coke and rum
I'm like so what, I'm drunk,
It's the freakin'weekend baby
I'm 'bout to have me some fun...
Oh, R. Kelly. Made my night to hear that bouncing off the waves - an extra little taste of home!

We walked back past a house that looked like it was made of Legos, across one of the bridges, along the train tracks and past an apartment building that had rapidly sparkling lights flashing to some kind of rhythm built into the ground of its courtyard.

Got chips at the Texaco (Sweet Chili Pepper Doritos, which much to my chagrin do not exist in America), home, bed.

Whitney arrives today, and Jordan tomorrow!