Tattoo’s on the Inside

     In my first travel’s ten years ago I use to scratch out theories of time, space, and psychology into my note books. My favourite movies play on these themes; the brilliance of how time travel theoretically couldn’t alter the past: “Twelve Monkeys”; how the creation and re-creation of self is based on memories often skewed and distorted to our own needs: “Memento”, and the bizarre, surrealistic interplay of memories in the dream state: “Mulholland Drive.” A little nerdy, yeah... but with that said, I’d like to talk today about one theory of time and the experience of time I have.   

    The first 17 years of my life seemed to happen a lot slower than the post ceding 16 years. As a young person everything was so real. All the firsts – my first steps, my first words, my first friend, my first kiss, my first taste of longing, my first heart break, my first time being drunk...  In each of these moments I didn’t have a blue print of how I was supposed to respond or feel. The feelings from those moments were uproarious and definite. With age there aren’t as many firsts; our brain makes it such as in adolescents synaptic connections- and the potential for newness -  are pruned to give more order and pattern to thinking, and even society tries to channel people towards more sedate, productive lives. Like it or not, pattern is thrust upon us.

    From my experience new events, or at least the events that generate strong feelings, are what gives time its sense of longevity. In periods of strife or joy time has the sensation of slowing down as the brain/mind learns and changes from the experience. These are the moments that are recounted in stories to friends and reflected upon privately, they stand as markers to life lived and because of that live deep and long in our consciousness. A person is totally present in those moments. In contrast routine life doesn’t create this memorable character that is why it slips out of memory so easily.

    Where the illusion of time passing faster occurs is when there aren’t that many visceral memories to reflect on. Years stuck in similar patterns of work, socializing, and thinking will become indistinguishable from periods of the same. I’ve had this experience with a few jobs I wasn’t interested in. Later I would scarcely remember specifics as my brain consolidated those memories into one grey, homogenized glob. Alternatively time spent challenging oneself, embracing newness, and risking new intense emotions will leave specific memory points. With memory points, that period lives on inside of you; without them there won’t be anything to grasp on to. One year goes by, then another...  Revisiting the idea of youth, my first 17 years seemed longer because there were so many more memory points in close succession to each other.        

      The solution to slowing down the experience of time is to allow oneself a child like wonder again.  The pursuit of firsts must continue even just meeting new people, seeing and learning new things and going to new places.  It’s trendy in some circles to be blasé and try to avoid emotion or risk – but fuck that! Routine should be avoided, despite the security of it, as much as possible. Safety is in conformity and pattern, but to look back at a life and barely even be able to identify new moments aside from misfortune is sad. Life is based around change and challenge. These are things that bring risk and fear but the pursuit of it leaves one’s life filled with genuine moments. Moments that will give length to one’s life as these memories cannot be amalgamated - they’re permanent like tattoos on the inside.

The Changing Face of Travel

    The other day I visited an Australian friend who was working at the reception at a hostel here in Copenhagen. We had a few cheeky beers and compared notes on the places we’d traveled, the Australian/ Canadian bond, and the experience of being expats. Where things got interesting however was when the talk turned to how we felt hostels have changed.  Our consensus was that new technologies have negatively altered how people interact. The major culprits being laptops and Facebook.

    Ten years ago no one would ever travel with a laptop. They were WAY to expensive and the threat of losing or having one stolen was far too risky.  Even 3 – 4 years ago they were still too expensive to risk. Now though the cost has come down so much that maybe even half, or more..., of the travelers have one. As a result travelers sit typing away to their friends and family in another part of the world rather than talk to somebody sitting at the next table in the hostel. What’s worse is that a norm has developed too; it’s generally seen as rude to interrupt someone using their laptop. They’re wired in and not to be disturbed kind of like in the old days of internet cafes.

   
     The debate about Facebook wages on. There’s no doubt, it’s a unique way to stay in touch with people. Having been a traveler in the early 2000’s I know that a person has to be a really good friend to maintain a regular emailing relationship.  Facebook bridges that gap by giving smatterings of information about your friend’s lives while still being personal unlike a group email. When you pair this with statuses you have the perfect medium for quick sound bites that show that you are paying attention. Where things get negative is Facebook’s addictive quality. Who hasn’t had the experience of continually refreshing their Facebook news feed despite no new posts?...  it’s like surfing channels when nothing’s on.

      In hostels now people are pathologically wired into Facebook and disconnected from the social world right there. Talking for a few minutes to your friends back home and putting up some pictures is cool, but stretching those few minutes to hours at the expense of meeting all the international people in the hostel? Seems like a bad trade off. Really, it makes me long to see people carrying a good book. At least the majority of people want to put a book down and chat and it’s not that rude to get them to do so. Travel is about challenging and redefining your own character and personality, not further honing your cyber persona. Ironically too a person’s Facebook intrigue is highest while they’re traveling so they receive more attention and are even more so drawn to it. The new generation of travelers need to quit chasing red status notifications, and the brief flicker of self esteem it brings, and start trying to make more lasting friends in the hostel. The rewards for that can be life long...

There's a Sucker Born Every Minute

So hungover! I had two blogs half done. One about the change in hostel life in the last few years because of new technologies and the other about my own personal theory of time...  I’m going to save those for the next few days. Right now, it’s time to turn my sights to something more interesting – sex, hooking up, and a skank competition I just heard about this week.  

     This story can’t begin without a brief description of my closest mate here. Won’t use his name, but the guy is a lady’s man like I’ve never seen before. He’s getting girls, and LOTS of girls, the right way... by being open, having the look they love, and making them choose him. I’ve never, and I’ve been around a lot of guys who talk up how great they are with the ladies, seen someone pull so effortlessly. It’s both interesting and a little annoying, as I have to work so much harder... :P Really though his style is a nice contrast to the Irish and English aggressive style I saw when I lived in Australia. That style basically involved pushing a girl to her limits of saying no – with the hope that by being aggressive she won’t. This is generally an approach that works best with girls with low self esteem. And you wonder why woman often don’t trust men.  But then again... here in Copenhagen women are much more sexually liberated and that trust game can very well go the other way too.

    I had to laugh when the mate I just mentioned told me about a girl he had hooked up with talking about going through what she called – her skanky period. She told him how a friend and her had decided to try to find themselves... via, plenty of cock! They created a scoring system in order to determine who the biggest skank of the two is; a system that apparently works by a combination of the status of the guy they sleep with and the things he does to them.  So the laugh came when my friend noticed that she all of a sudden, after adding to her score with him, was listed a couple days later as being in a relationship. The two of us collectively scratched our heads. When he talked to her online later, it turned out she had been with the same guy for five years. They were just on a break the last few months. I wondered to myself, what he would think of how she used her break from him...? :P Makes me think of the famous PT Barnum quote: “There’s a sucker born every minute.” All the same, kind of have to admire her honesty not only to experiment that way, but talk so candidly about it. Most girls would lie about that till their death bed. So for some last comic relief last night partying with two black reggae guys, the first words out of their mouths when they heard about the competition: “Give her my number!”

A Detente of Separation

     Remembering a night in Edmonton, back in Canada, the guys I’ve known for years are wrestling each other on the floor. Who can dominate the other ones with cut downs and sheer physical strength - important things for guys in Edmonton. A few of us are together, this is rare, my friends wives allow them occasionally to watch sporting events with their old friends – tonight’s is UFC.  I don’t even like UFC, but I have to grab the opportunity to see my old friends. The setting is that you have guys down stairs watching guy’s things, talking about guy’s things, doing guy’s things while the girls sit up stairs doing girl’s things, talking about girl’s things. Thirty plus years of life and this is the advancement of the gender relations – an agreed detente of separation.

     

      I remember coming back from Europe five years ago and making the comment after three months back: why aren’t there more mixed guy/girl groups in Canada? I said this because I’d been living in Amsterdam for so long to me it was just the norm. Almost never did I go out with just the guys when I was there. Always there were girls with us – our friends. I remembered it bothered me to no end. I like having female friends. I like hanging with the guys, and talking our usual shit..., but I think mixed group conversations overall are more fun. Especially with open, say anything types... there’s a little battle of the sexes, but always in jest.

   

    In Denmark, things are in line with Amsterdam. Girls are cool here, there isn’t such a separation between the genders. When the gender divide is up and running both sexes will inherently stereotype and objectify the other sex.  I figure the central difference is that in Northern Europe each gender moves closer to each other in terms of the masculine and feminine. Guys are more feminine and girls are more masculine. Without such a stark divide of socially induced difference people are allowed to be more freely themselves as opposed to acting within the walls of gender expectation. There’s no need to or reason for considering a girl or boy via the litany of smoke screens that exist otherwise. What I mean by that is the whole idea of woman as sex objects and men as status objects. Both of those points of view devalue each gender, are the engine of insecurities for both parties, and ultimately lead to shallow, inherently incorrect, points of view about the opposite gender. Time they went out with the bathwater I say...

   

      It has been nice being here in Copenhagen and having extremely attractive girls just talk to me and actually ask me questions. At the end of the day it’s conversation not a contest of worthiness of being in the same level or class to talk to someone else. Further, with openness that way so much of the seediness, conniving, and objectification that women, often correctly, place on men dissipates away. The sexual tension is reduced as the elephant in the room is talked and laughed about freely. Screw this detente of separation, I always hated it anyway, let’s just have everyone come together, get along, and show their true selves freely and with fun. I want to have girls around at other times then when I’m trying to have sex with them. I like the company, I like the difference in view and position... it’s the way it’s suppose to be.  

The Copenhagen Puzzle

     The battle... in the past I always look back at these moments in hindsight through a romantic lense. I played up how the struggles were what made the victory of succeeding in a foreign country so sweet. This time around, in the name of interesting writing and authenticity, I want to be more honest about it and blog about the process as it’s happening. With that said being on the edge of a society is both intriguing and scary. The intrigue comes from going out socializing seeing the people and the culture. When you’re out and you’re identified by the locals as being more than a tourist people become fascinated by you.  A friend once called this effect - holding the traveler card. Already, so many times, I’ve been asked – “why would you come to Denmark?... we’re so small.” My answer is the freedom, the creativity I see in people, and the intrigue of the newness of everything. Locals like this answer it endures you to them. For me that “newness” is a kind of drug, it’s enthralling and exciting. Again on this trip there were times when I felt like I didn’t need much sleep or to eat as much as I would usually. My body was literally being fed on experience. Now where the fear factor comes into play is the question – can I actually make it? Everyone I have met here says getting a job without speaking Danish is extremely difficult.

    The natural comparison point is my arrival in Amsterdam seven years ago. Then, same as here, there was a learning curve that needed to be met.  Similar to Denmark Dutch people speak English, but they expect to speak Dutch in all service related exchanges in their own country. I struggled mightily at first in Amsterdam working a number of dishwashing jobs in the office buildings of ABN Ambro. Eventually it all worked out though when I got a sweet job as a creative copy writer for an Advertising company called: Media Republic. That opportunity came around through a combination of sheer luck and meeting Dutch people around the city who pointed me in the right directions.

      In Copenhagen I’ve met a lot of people and my social life even in a week is diverse and fun. Already, I have the opportunity to write for the local English weekly News paper; potentially a job this summer to work at the Roskilde festival, and the chance to help a bunch of young people re-establish a famous music venue and club called the Stengade. However, the real issues still remain -even if hidden under the guise of good times and fun – finding a permanent place to stay and finding a real job.  When I think about this fear sets in; the kind of fear that paralyses you and makes you want to sit and watch TV and waste time idly. The fear I’ve felt before when I’ve literally eclipsed all my recourses. That point hasn’t come yet, and won’t for a little while, however in the name of maturity – with my birthday a mere 8 days away – I want to avoid that if I can.  I’ll need to put some muscle to my hustle. As it has been in the past with other cities Copenhagen is like a puzzle with things to be learned. All I can do is start to see the picture as a whole as I continue to lay pieces down. Key though is I have to act even though everything hasn't yet been revealed...

Dutch don't Invent they Re-invent

    In an ill fated attempt, probably a blue print for disaster, I feel impelled to try to describe a few of my thoughts about the Amsterdam Dutch. What I consider their central characteristic is an innate ability to reference other cultures and reinterpret and reinvent these cultures. What I mean is that I have never seen a place where there’s such a smorgasbord of language, cultural imagery, media, and fashion mashed together. Maybe this trend came from the time when Amsterdam was the hub of world trade – the so called golden age of Amsterdam. Or, maybe it’s just the fact that this small but densely populated country has so many big brooding neighbours around it. Regardless, the result is an inspiring dialectic of culture which synthesises into something originally Dutch. Now before I confuse everyone, including myself, it’s time for some examples of what I mean.

  

     Dutch fashion is an fascinating mixture of genres. It has a formality to it, with guys often wearing blazers and girls wearing proper classy looking skirts, but usually this formality is mixed with something else. Maybe, that girl dressed in a formal looking long black coat and skirt, finishes her look off with a funky scarf and a pair of Adidas trainers. Or, a guy rocking a blazer has a funny band or film oriented t-shirt under it instead of a shirt.  What I’m saying is for people under 40 there’s almost always a mix of clothing genres together. A Dutch friend of mind once said about Amsterdamer’s love of wearing a blazer and a hoody together. “We like to keep it business in the front and street in the back.” I always liked that expression. To be fair though, fashion is just on the surface, what I’m grasping at here reaches deeper. 

     When it comes to consumption of media the Amsterdamer’s are voracious. The sheer amount and variety of music, film and art they are familiar with is impressive. Several years back I remember being at a friend’s birthday party in Amsterdam. When everyone got drunk, two Dutch guys decided to show me their prowess at English by rapping some songs - acapella. Now they didn’t choose any of the standards, say Dr. Dre, snoop, or 50 cent. No, they started rapping word for word the intellectual rap of the Roots, and Gang Starr. Honestly, the fact they even heard of these groups let alone could repeat their difficult lyrics word for word baffled me. The same can be said of Amsterdamer's knowledge of North American film, music and television. It’s shocking how good it is. The other night in a night club called the Melkweg twenty something’s were singing 90’s songs word for word. This little country has so many different cultural influences and they soak them up like a sponge in a bath tub.  

    The reason why Dutch media is so intriguing and successful is that it has the innate, and often ironic, context of so many other countries cultural imagery. This imagery is then just refined, synthesized and mixed to create something original. The Dutch magic is that this new cultural product still has recognizable features to the original genres. So really it’s something people know, but is intriguing because it’s also different at the same time. Amsterdam is such a media hub, because they have taken and embraced the role of media re-inventors. In essence they say: “we’ll take your imagery and mash into something new that you will find interesting.” In the present postmodern information era we live in this is path forward for media production. Again, like they have been many times before, the Dutch are on the cutting edge,

The Amsterdam Way

    So I've been back in Amsterdam a few days. Some quick impressions. The stats are true - people here are happier. The reason is simple, unhappiness comes from being forced to act, behave, and maybe even consciously think in a way that does not match your internal world. Here in Amsterdam there's so few road blocks to let the real you out. The gift that the Dutch give to each other is, if not agreeing with a view point or position, they always at least accept it as valid. Further, most people here are fit, active and know the importance of taking time for oneself and their friends.

    My experience with Dutch friendship has been a really good one. What I found in the two and half years I lived here previously is that though it takes longer to become friends – the friendship is much deeper. So far in my stay I have enjoyed an unprecedented amount of hospitality. Not only did my best Dutch friend pick me up from the airport, he also said: “here use my flat for a few days I'll just stay at my girlfriends house.” Beyond gestures, I've also found it exceedingly easy to be candid with my Dutch friends. There's no judgement. They are just interested, as I am too, in mining into who they and their friends really are. In my mind's eye, that's the most important thing we can do – be ourselves and expect the same from others. We're all in this together and that pathos always comes through when I'm here in Amsterdam...

     Being back on a bicycle, my second Amsterdam legs, has been brilliant too. It took a moment to get my skills back, as I initially leapt on to my friend's bike, like a wild west hero getting on his trusted horse, only to give myself a little knock on the soft bits. Given a minute though I was on my perch looking over the city amongst the locals. First thing I did was ride away from the chaotic and tourist oriented areas near Dam Square. I rode along the Amstel River past the Amstel Hotel to where I use to live in Amsterdam East. If images of bridge upon bridge, unique architecture complete with wonderful,ornate Dutch window frames, interconnected brick buildings, and of coarse seeing, the real locals, the amazingly attractive Dutch people is something you'd enjoy - a ride out of the centre is a must. Next, I did a quick circuit of some of the cities lovely parks: vondel, wester and ooster parks. Though the weather was a bit brisk still groups of friends sat on the grass talking to one another with bottles of wine. My ride concluded with a trip along one of the major canal circles the Heren gracht where I use to work. Nothing could be further apart than the opulent, prosperous and serene Heren Gracht and the crowded and seedy areas around Dam Square and the Red Light District. This is a different Amsterdam than nearly every tourist sees. In reality, I'm lucky to be back now – but more so I'm lucky to have had a real experience living here previous. Every street brings back a memory and a recognition of what I only could call the Amsterdam way.More on that in a future blog...