The Westerkerk's bell is ominous. . .

I haven't been blogging because this trip to be honest, I haven't been doing much of anything except staring at a Word document and wishing words of brilliance would just magically appear (they don't). Sitting in a bamboo chair with a bright purple cushion, staring out at the balcony full of plants (including a naughty plant), and the words aren't coming.

The backs of the houses I can see surround a private garden shared by those who have property on the street level called a hofje in Dutch that is sort of like a courtyard. In Amsterdam the most famous hofje is located on the Spui, called the Begijnhof. There will be, next to the Esprit Cafe a beautiful wooden door and a miniscule little sign. You might see people coming in and out of it. Go inside and take a look.

But for me this view is a bit like Hitchcock's Rear Window, except of course I hope I don't witness a murder. I can see so much of what is going on inside that it's too tempting to not look from time to time (and to be fair I leave the curtains open in case anyone wants to have a look at me). It does inspire me a bit since back at home the view I get when I look at the window is mostly windowless building walls.

So yesterday I got it in my head that I wanted to go scour the Waterlooplein market for vintage clothes. If you love vintage clothes, Amsterdam is a good city for it. Amongst the 9 Straatjes, the Nine Streets (in the Jordaan area) you have lots of shops, but also along the route to Waterlooplein on Nieuwe Hoogstraat there are plenty more including another location for Zipper, which does great mens vintage. On the Waterlooplein you can also find another Episode vintage store, but I think the one on Berenstraat is much better.

I start wandering toward the Waterlooplein, but first I need to withdraw cash. One thing that drives me a bit batty about Holland is that my French bank card isn't accepted at the Albert Hein grocery store or pretty much anywhere else and some of my other complaints are that finding a cash machine, post office, or tobacco shop are pretty tough to do without memorising what is where and how far from this or that.

For example I stay in the Jordan area near Elandsgracht. There are two cash machines on Elandsgracht. One inside the Albert Hein and one outside. There is a tobacco shop on the Elandsgracht, but it's for some reason usually closed which means I either have to go up to the Rozengracht (at Westerkerk) because there's a post office drop off box along the Prisengracht and a tobacconist on the Rozengracht near the other Albert Hein, which doesn't have a cash machine.

And that's just when I'm located at the flat. When I'm out and about, all the other locations come into play. I'm pretty sure how the Dutch handle it is they do everything in their neighbourhood before they go anywhere else. I've been trying to watch the ebb and flow of the locals in my neighbourhood a little bit, and I'm starting to get the sense that why the Amsterdam morning starts later than in Paris is partly for this reason. People are waiting for the tobacconist, post office, and banks to open up at 10 and 11 and since the cafes open at around 8 or 9 (compared to 5 or 6 in Paris), they have coffees and read newspapers while they wait?

These are just some of my observations and they certainly don't apply to all the Amsterdammers. I've seen men hauling garbage and cleaning sidewalks along Warmoerstraat as early as 6 am and there is one place that opens early to accomodate people who work earlier than people living in the posh Jordaan area called Renee's Croissants (it opens at 6h30).

I withdraw cash at Dam Square and continue eastwards. After hitting the shops at Nieuwe Hoogstraat, I continue on to Waterlooplein, but the first thing I pick up in one of the piles on the ground (which can sometimes be as cheap as 1,00 euro a stuk,  piece) that smells like . . . there is no other word for it than butt. It smelled like a dirty butt.

The smell turned me off of looking at clothes (must remember this for the future as was so turned off I could barely even look at my own clothes to put on pj's last night) and thus I turned to books. I turned to books big time.

By the time I arrived home (after a quick stop at the Albert Hein to buy things to cook for dinner) I bought:

The Finnegans Wake Experience, Roland McHugh, Irish Academic Press, 1 euro (Waterlooplein)

A Dictionary of Historical Slang, Eric Partridge, Penguin Reference Books, 5 euros (Book passage*)

Flash and Filligree & The Magic Christian, Terry Southern, 1 euro (Waterlooplein)

White Fang, Jack London, Nelson's Library edition, 4 euros (Book passage*)

Happy Days, Samuel Beckett, Evergreen/Grove, 4,50 euros (Book Exchange)

The Dream Life of Balso Snell &

A Cool Million, Nathaniel West, New Directions, 4 euros (Book passage*)

There's No Business, Charles Bukowski illustrated by R.Crumb, Ecco edition, 6 euros (Book passage*)

* Now let me tell you where this book passage is because it's not far from Waterlooplein and just south on the same canal as Book Exchange on Kloveniersburgwal.

The same booksellers that sell in the "book passage" seem to also make an appearance at the Friday booksale on the Spui. I went of course on Friday and bought three books.

A Good Man is Hard to Find & Other Stories, Flannery O'Connor, 4 euros

Enduring Love, Ian McEwan, 6 euros

The Best of Roald Dahl, hardcover, 5 euros

My favourites out of my two days worth of purchases so far are the Flannery O'Connor stories and the opening to Nathaniel West's The Dream Life of Balso Snell. They're both writers of the grotesques so that might be what appeals to me at this moment. I'm also still enjoying my flirtation with the Beats Burroughs and Kerouac. I'm also remembering why Roald Dahl is such an inspiration to me, hoping to find Anton Corjbin's art book Control in a used bookshop, and planning to write like mad today.

Or at least read.

The cat eats the naughty plant, and apparently that's okay for the kitty. Since I'm housesitting I'm also tending to the naughty plant and you have to break off any of the yellowing leaves, so I couldn't resist setting up this photo (and pressing one of the leaves into my notebook).

Speaking of which, I'll be blogging about my new notebook purchase next!