What's that smell?
Amsterdam's smelly and dirty. So what's new? No really, it's smelly and dirty because the city cleansing department is on strike. It's the summer of 1999 and it's getting fairly disgusting out there – the litter is just terrible. What are all the tourists going to think? I am ashamed. ( >> )

Get in line!
Way past the midnight hour I walked towards Central Station to grab a taxi home. It was a Friday night, the pubs were closing – a long queue formed at the taxi rink. People were in a good mood it seemed, nobody was in a hurry and everybody waited for their turn. It is unusual to see such long lines in this country, and even more unusual to see people queue up so effectively. We are not a queuing nation. ( >> )

Getting reacquainted
I walked down from Central Station along the river Amstel on a quiet Thursday evening, a soft drizzle wetting my hair. I marvelled at the bridges appearing from behind the slight fog. '1609' says the sign on a tilting building near City Hall. Everything is old. Everything is tilted in this town. You see the world in angles. ( >> )

No Naise
I have bad memory, which is a lousy thing for a storyteller to have. Consequently, I don't remember much of my earliest years. This is one of the things I remember.

We lived just outside of Amsterdam, in a town called Amstelveen. It was a little flat on Van Heuven Goedhartlaan, and when we lived there, there was farm land opposite the flat. Not for long. ( >> )

Opa en oma
Mijn oma Lien was ziek. Wat ze had was niet duidelijk. Algehele malaise. Dat had ze wel meer. Dan lag ze in de slaapkamer in het donker en was bijna niet aanspreekbaar. ( >> )