My Little Brother Does Amsterdam: Part IX

Week nine of the Amsterdam excursion and Patrick is sad his journey abroad is winding down-yet looking forward to "home."

Far fewer pictures this week as Patrick has been journeying without his camera most days & nights. He spent the week as usual biking around the city and going out to listen to music at night. He also helped Theo, his landlord, install a new washer/dryer combo in the apartment. Theo and Bianca also invited him to the opening of a new restaurant during the week.

Music-wise, he again hung out at OCCII a couple nights and saw/heard a variety of experimental music-such as Jackie-o Mother Fucker, a band from Oregon. Friday night he attended a show in the smaller theater at Paradiso featuring Julie Doiron-a really wonderful singer/songwriter from Sackville, New Brunswick Canada. He stated there were only around 45 people in attendance and initially the evening started out remarkably well: "...their songs were great-she was giggling and jumping about-he was laughing and playing, they both had this great energy...then she stopped mid-song and started talking about how she always wished people would join her and sing-along to the song and then was about to start playing again when this guy yelled out "SHUT THE FUCK UP AND PLAY!" ...this single person changed the whole mood of the evening. Julie had a stunned look and simply replied "Sorry"..and played on. The same guy yelled at them again later on...you could tell it affected Julie & Fred, as they finished their set and quickly departed without an encore." Even in Europe all it takes is one asshole to ruin it for everybody.

A couple revelations for Patrick this week; first, he gained the courage to ride through Vondelpark(Amsterdam's largest park) late at night-as he had seen a young girl come through on her bike in the wee hours, so he figured he was OK to do so as well. The other big revelation: "I don't know what it is but I give off this Gay Man Ju Ju, cause I get men, almost every night, hitting on me and I can't get a Woman to talk to me for more then 10 minutes." Patrick, we should talk-'cause I have the opposite problem...maybe we could somehow trade our "ju ju's."