This is the story that prompted me to return to Australia with Penelope, buy a guitar without knowing how to play and everything else. I started writing it in Sydney on a Moleskine, the notebook used by guys like Kerouac and Hemingway. At that time obsession with looking my way. I realized only later that your way is as good as the dream of a dog, something totally undefined.
In short I arrived in Amsterdam on January 9. It was raining. M'avviai right away to know the city, attend local, make friends with Dutch blondes, look for a job and a house. Stuff for nothing. I bought the first bike from a homeless man for ten money. She spun a wonder and I turned round to the channels open with the map of the city in the rain and the biting winter wind. I began to approach the city.
After three days I stole the bicycle. I bought another one, by the same tramp, for ten more money.
- This is me from the bike stolen! - I did the bum.
- is something that friend. Ten money and you take her away.
Approcciai the city.
The guy who offered me hospitality was called Gaetano. He had bought the house with the garden to MarcoPolo straat, a little 'out of reach from the center, why do not all children are born Sheikh. Lived with the Dutch company, Hamber, so I settled on the couch. In those days, despite me Gaetano had been assured of hospitality as long as I had not found a job, housing research was my only goal. The only thing I could think. More than eating, sleeping, drinking and making love. The guests are like fish and bla bla bla.
I began to do, especially on the Internet. I traced a couple of sites where you posted the most houses for rent in Amsterdam and several butchers quick appointments.
One of these was one evening when we discussed with Gary and Hamber on becoming, smoking pipes repeatedly wrapped in a warm and comfortable. I was sorry to have to go out there, but I had to find accommodation for me. Inforcai the bike and left. Executioner was a cold and a slight drizzle mingled with filthy mist. The streets all looked the same, and I lost. Cycling in the case sforai half-hour appointment. I called the phone type:
- Mr. Zimmerman are under the door. Please open me, it's cold.
- The appointment was a half hour ago young man. I am sorry. The house I rented to another.
Zeus was amused a world, the prankster. Just the kind Mr. Zimmerman attacked the receiver came down a tremendous storm. It was nine o'clock in the evening. It seemed there was a curfew. Pedalai for opposing a wind their way back bastard and buckets of ice water like a salmon upstream. I went home drunk. Hamber, mother's heart, he prepared a warm tea and took me to the dry. Gaetano confirmed to me the hospitality without betraying any hassle. He was pleased to speak in dialect, and wished to be informed on the latest happenings in Castellammare acccaduti. Tell him I did not know. He invented some of them to return the favor: a shooting, a couple of weddings, a landslide.
next few days I had the opportunity to visit other houses and rooms te huur. Rents were high and the rooms uninhabitable. Smelled the stench in the air of speculation. In Amsterdam, even a broom closet to the window without cost a fortune. What do you us, closed a door will open a door, I told myself. And this damn door opened. It was a house near the center, in De Costadestraat, just after Singel, the channel that defines the center of the suburb. The guy who rented was American, even decades. Only goes in speeches like "the owner ... I left the house because it was comrade in Vietnam with my father ... I do not know if the price suits you ... I know that here to find an accommodation is a problem ... I too have had to sweat to find a shred of room, then came this fortune and have taken me ... "I cut short
: - How much is the rent?
- fifteenth money for this month. Then we go away that the owner takes back the house.
- I'm.
The apartment was small but nice. It was located on the top floor of the building, had Blè carpeting, modern furniture, large windows that opened in the roof held up by thick wooden beams. I did not care to stay there temporarily, what mattered was make a move. Winged on the same evening. Gary thanked, greeted Hamber, and took the bag. I invited them to dinner the next day.
climbed on the bike and went back to De Costadestraat. I knocked on the door of the new house, climbed the steep stairs to the top floor, and entered. The American was there waiting for me. The sganciai the money for the rent. What was glad when they had the son of a bitch. The ball he had it good, what to say. But the ball good passes from hand to hand, and one day, of course, I would find myself in his place.
All were happy, I, Gary, American. And the gladness of mind always brings good results. I found work in an American multinational. Custumer service said, and who knows what seemed important. Instead it was stuff I knew well: glued to the computer eight hours a day and learn the hard heart. But I'm not complaining. I needed a job to start this season nomadic, and receiving found. How long I used to pull down the shed and relocated in another place, was to be seen.
