I like street food.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, it’s fun to lounge in a high-end restaurant, savoring the victuals, but who’s got the time?\u00c2\u00a0 Just think, you can buy a morsel of mouthwatering food right on the street and go on your merry way, barely missing a beat, and it’s cheap!<\/p>\n
But not everything’s mouthwatering.\u00c2\u00a0 How do you choose?<\/p>\n
I finished a master class at the Conservatory.\u00c2\u00a0 No, Mr. Mustard did not kill anybody with a dagger, it’s a music school behind the Oosterpoort, where most of the meetings took place.\u00c2\u00a0 I spoke to managers, for the government.\u00c2\u00a0 Outside the United States every country has its hands in the arts.\u00c2\u00a0 I believe in letting the commercial world decide who’s rewarded, then again, the Netherlands sees the benefit in exporting its culture.<\/p>\n
And I learned some interesting stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 Like Angus Young lives in the Netherlands, he’s married to a Dutch woman.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t forget, the Netherlands is where the heavyweights go to stash their cash.\u00c2\u00a0 People like the Rolling Stones and U2.\u00c2\u00a0 Technically, I think it’s the Dutch Antilles, but you can be rich in the Netherlands, top tax rate is now only thirty two percent.\u00c2\u00a0 And no one bitches about paying taxes.\u00c2\u00a0 Because of what you get back.\u00c2\u00a0 I spoke with these dudes from Denmark, there the tax rate is fifty percent and there’s a twenty five percent tax on purchases…but the quality of life is oh-so-high.\u00c2\u00a0 And everybody’s equal.\u00c2\u00a0 A far cry from our American society where the gap is so wide that no entertainer can bridge it.\u00c2\u00a0 Look at it this way, Bon Jovi made $108 million on the road last year, they were number one.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you split the money into four equal shares, which Bon Jovi doesn’t, not every player gets the same amount, you end up with net…not equal to $20 million a band member.\u00c2\u00a0 Bankers make this each and every year!\u00c2\u00a0 Which might be why rockers are whored out to corporations.\u00c2\u00a0 If you really want to take a stand, don’t sell out, be yourself, make it about art first…but then you might end up poor, and that wasn’t the dream.<\/p>\n
Anyway, when I exited the Conservatory I had about ninety minutes to kill, so I walked to the center of town where I was confronted with the decision whether to climb the Martini Tower.\u00c2\u00a0 On one hand it was like Everest, it was there, on the other hand the sky was gray and about to spit rain and what was there to see anyway?<\/p>\n
I prayed that the tickets were really expensive so I could rationalize not climbing.\u00c2\u00a0 But when it turned out it only cost three euros, how could I say no?<\/p>\n
Have you seen "The Hunchback Of Notre Dame"?\u00c2\u00a0 It could have been filmed at the Martini Tower.<\/p>\n
I pass through the gate and I’m confronted with the narrowest of brick staircases.\u00c2\u00a0 Which looked like it hadn’t been maintained since construction, centuries ago.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m thinking the tower’s gonna collapse upon me, then again, what are the odds it’s gonna happen today?\u00c2\u00a0 But then I get concerned I’m gonna get claustrophobia and freak out or pass out and like Humpty Dumpty fall all the way to the bottom.\u00c2\u00a0 It could happen, the stairway is just that steep.\u00c2\u00a0 And circular.\u00c2\u00a0 This better not be the same way down.<\/p>\n
But it is.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s the etiquette when patrons are descending?\u00c2\u00a0 If I’ve got nothing to hold on to…<\/p>\n
Oh, I forgot to tell you, as I’m winding up and up I’m holding on to a rope.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no railing.\u00c2\u00a0 This ain’t the stinkin’ United States.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, in the U.S. the tower would have long ago been condemned, replaced by a parking lot or a fast food restaurant encased in a miniature rendition of the edifice.<\/p>\n
You see in America, we’ve got trust.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone’s looking out for us.\u00c2\u00a0 But who’s looking out for me in the Netherlands?<\/p>\n
And the rope…\u00c2\u00a0 It’s wet.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it’s always raining here.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like I can feel 17th century precipitation oozing from the hemp.\u00c2\u00a0 When was the last time they replaced this thing?\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m getting dizzy…<\/p>\n
I’ll turn around.<\/p>\n
But then I’ll be afraid of claustrophobic walkways forever more, unable to traverse them, so I soldier on.\u00c2\u00a0 Up and up and up…<\/p>\n
And I get to a landing.\u00c2\u00a0 Where they’ve got giant bells.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m walking on WOOD!\u00c2\u00a0 Can’t they lay some concrete?\u00c2\u00a0 Wood rots, I could fall right through!<\/p>\n
And I keep going up until I finally reach the top.\u00c2\u00a0 Where I can’t find my way out.\u00c2\u00a0 Eventually I find some shutters and emerge into the vastness. I’d like to tell you the view was spectacular, but I was feeling so damn good about my accomplishment it didn’t matter.<\/p>\n
And I’d like to tell you the descent was easy.\u00c2\u00a0 But I learned that when someone was coming up you had to let go of the rope, it was only fair. And that Dutchmen must have been munchkins centuries ago, because I’m almost always about to bump my head.\u00c2\u00a0 And it makes no sense, because one surprising thing about Dutch people is how TALL they are.<\/p>\n
I felt racist, I thought it was only me.\u00c2\u00a0 Then I was talking to Matt from CMJ, and he’s 6’2", and he said he had trouble seeing over heads at gigs, that he heard someone complain that they couldn’t reach the urinals.\u00c2\u00a0 So now I’ve got confirmation.\u00c2\u00a0 We think the U.S. is the master race, that we’re the tallest because we’ve got the best food, but you’ll forget all this when you come to the Netherlands.\u00c2\u00a0 And Matt said Groningen is the tallest of the tall.\u00c2\u00a0 A tall tale?\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know.<\/p>\n
And now I needed sustenance.\u00c2\u00a0 And what they’ve got on the plaza are all these trailers, manned by people in white coats.\u00c2\u00a0 In America, street food…you’ve got to overlook the grunge.\u00c2\u00a0 But here, all the purveyors and their rolling establishments were spic-and-span.<\/p>\n
But I wanted something healthy, and Viennese Frites wouldn’t do the trick.\u00c2\u00a0 So I kept wandering until I found a stand selling nuts.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, I’ll buy some trail mix.\u00c2\u00a0 Then I realized this vendor was selling pet food.<\/p>\n
But when I turned around, they were selling chocolate "Wafels".\u00c2\u00a0 You know those cookies, the really soft ones that snap so easily, with one waffle-imprinted wafer on either side and cream in the middle?\u00c2\u00a0 It was like that.\u00c2\u00a0 But big and round and real waffle and chocolate in the middle.\u00c2\u00a0 Pure heaven.\u00c2\u00a0 A ten.\u00c2\u00a0 Warm to boot.<\/p>\n
But I needed protein.\u00c2\u00a0 But I was afraid of too many of the meats.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially since there were no lines to buy them.<\/p>\n
But I noticed a crowd at the fish trailer.\u00c2\u00a0 Run by a family.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew it was a family, because they called the older woman "Mum".\u00c2\u00a0 I stood there long enough until I figured it out.\u00c2\u00a0 They’d fry fish for you right on the spot.<\/p>\n
Well, that’s not too healthy, but they’ve got shrimp.<\/p>\n
But I can’t read the menu.<\/p>\n
But even this kid spoke English.\u00c2\u00a0 Makes you feel inadequate that you don’t know their language…<\/p>\n
And I paid three euros and got him to fry up some shrimp, meanwhile everybody else is consuming these giant slabs of fish, I mean whole fish, served on brown cardboard plates.\u00c2\u00a0 And then my shrimp came.\u00c2\u00a0 And they were good, but what put it over the top was the sauces.\u00c2\u00a0 There were multiple varieties, and they were better than anything you’d get at a roadside stand in the States.<\/p>\n
So now I’m feeling proud of myself, having figured out how to get fed, so I go to the cleanest, longest trailer around, the bakery trailer. Confronted with too many choices I ended up with this kind of blueberry muffin, which they rolled in sugar, which promptly blew all over me and my jacket, but I was smiling, I felt like a real Dutchman.<\/p>\n
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