Someone on Twitter just sent me a video of conservomonster Bill O’Reilly using his errr… ‘talent’ on Amsterdam. Completely ridiculous, yet so awesome. I’ll let the video speak for itself.
Don’t even mention us again, Billyboy.
Thanks @panciuc.
Tag: Netherlands
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How I’ve Lived – Part 2
Part two of How I’ve Lived where I talk about all the places where I’ve lived since moving out of my parents’ place 3.5 years ago. Part 1 is here.
Zaagmolenkade, Huize Te Laat (Map)
When I got back to Holland I first moved back to my parents but really want to live in my old city, Utrecht, again.How I Got There
I looked at a few places online and replied to some, was invited to one. They were renting out a furnished room for 5 months, since one of the guys was moving abroad for his study. I figured I’d take the offer and just find something new in the summer – but it turned out I was moving to Istanbul, so everything worked out perfectly.
How I’ve Lived There
It was an all-male house and in the half year I lived there I lived with Remco, Niels, Jurre, Tim and Pim. It was an all-male house with a nice living room and everyone had quite spacious rooms. The bathroom and kitchen were also quite big. This is the only time I’ve lived in an all-male house and I never expected to enjoy it like I did. After this place I moved to yet another all-male place…
Turkish Prison, Istanbul (Map)
Well, not really Turkish prison, it was a state dormitory in Istanbul and one of the better ones. It just wasn’t for me though.
How I Got There
I decided that in Bulgaria I didn’t get the culture shock I anticipated, so I decided to take it one step further. The language course I was taking housed me in this place for 3 weeks. I couldn’t wait to find my own apartment.
How I’ve Lived There
Well, I got some flu from the climate change, so I spent a lot of time near the toilets, which were not European toilets, no they were holes in the floor, with a little tap for water and a little bucket to use for washing your ass… with your hand. There were no power outlets in the room, so I had to go to communal study areas to charge my telephone or to use my laptop. There was also no wireless internet, but there was an internet cafe in which I spent quite a lot of time. See the video below for my impression of this place:
There were some fun parts. Every morning I’d meet with the international students for breakfast and we were off to the language course and in the evening we’d often leave the place to go have a beer somewhere. It was nice, but it still sucked. More than Uilenstede. Much, much more.
Moda, Kadıköy, Istanbul (Map)
How I Got There
I got in touch with an agent and looked for a few flats. We were in a rush because we had to move out of the dorms, but plans fell through and in the end we couldn’t finance the flat we found. I got to work with some friends at my university and called a whole bunch of places, but with no luck. I ran into a Danish guy I knew and he gave me the card of his landlord and told me the guy had more places. I then called him and he said “ok, can you meet me in 1 hour at the Starbucks in Moda? Ok, bye”. Well, I rushed my way to find the place, since I had never been there before. I found it on time and the guy showed me three affordable apartments. I said I’d probably be interested in one of them and the guy immediately gave me the keys. I told him I’d have the rent in a week as I needed to find some flatmates, which was no problem.
How I’ve Lived There
I found 3 flatmates; one from Germany, one from Italy and one from Poland. 2 guys, 2 girls. I figured it would work well, however I should have listened to my feelings when getting my flatmates in. There was one person that didn’t sit too well with me from the beginning, but I ignored my gut feeling, because I really needed to fill the flat up and let this person in. Because of this, I could never really feel at peace or at home in the apartment, which was a shame, because it was in a beautiful location. Looking back, I also realize I had a slight culture shock and it was hard to deal with that if there’s no place where I can really be at ease and feel at home. Also, just when I arrived I got some stomach flu – maybe because of the change in climates – and it stayed with me for about 4 months (maybe it was stress though). It was a great half year though, living in Istanbul. I had a really light schedule in university and had plenty of time doing things that really mattered; like developing my knowledge about topics I’m interested in and networking with people there – oh and of course hanging out with fellow students.
The apartment was really close to the sea, so every day on my way to school I’d pass by palm trees and a stunning view of the Bosphorus. Annnnd another video of the apartment:
That’s it. Part 3 soon… Including a video of my newest apartment here in Sofia, Bulgaria! 🙂
BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region, but like to ponder about the future also. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
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How I’ve Lived – Part 1
Sounds like a title for a memoir, but it’s not. Ever since I started studying in Amsterdam 4 years ago, I’ve been on the move a lot. The longest I’ve lived in one place since then is about 11 months I believe. This is an overview of the places I’ve lived in, at home and abroad, and the people I lived with.
How I’ve Lived
Uilenstede (Map)
The first place I moved to is probably the most dreadful, although some people like it there. It’s a student campus just outside Amsterdam in the suburb town called Amstelveen – although its residents would prefer me to call it a city.How I got there
I was living with my parents and every day I had to take the bike to the busstation, the bus to the trainstation, the train to another trainstation and a metro to the stop at my university. Meanwhile I was going a little crazy at home, with two parents and two other brothers and all three of us were getting a little too big to stay under one roof… So I convinced my parents that I could do much more homework if I lived by myself, closer to school and after a lot of dinner conversations dominated by the topic, they agreed. I arranged the housing via my university and a little later… I was moving into this flat on the first floor (not the ground floor).
How I’ve Lived There
I made sure that it at least looked like I was not being lazy and scored a 100% for my first university exam which was in Global Marketing. Besides, I didn’t have internet in my campus room, there was no student internet cafe, so there was not much to do besides reading, studying, sleeping, eating and playing a game every now and then. The communal kitchen sucked, and I tried not to go there. I hardly met any of the other people living in my hallway. Two nights a week I was awoken by the couple upstairs having their nightly pleasures. I went to my parents every weekend and took my laundry with me… Partied it up in my hometown and went back to Uilenstede. There was a lot of green around though and it was a great area for running, which I loved to do back then. I read a lot about Buddhism and even though I disliked the place, the loneliness pushed me to start my spiritual development. I think I also had a girlfriend back then who lived in the south of Holland so I spent quite some time with her also – missing a bunch of classes, but it didn’t show in my school results.
I had a bedroom/studyroom/livingroom, my own bathroom and a hallway with a big closet. Kitchen was shared, but I had my own cooker and fridge in my room. I also had a microwave, which I used, a lot.
Schepenbuurt (Map)
When I could terminate or extend my contract after half a year, I knew there was only one way to go. Terminate that sucker Arnold Schwarzenegger style! So I moved back to my parents and looked for a new place for a while. I was looking in both Amsterdam as well as Utrecht, one being the city where I studied and the other being the city where I had most of my friends. By train, they’re just 25 minutes away from each other. That looking for a new place for ‘a while’ turned out to be 2 months; because it can be really hard to find a place in those two cities.How I Got There
A friend told me about a friend of his who was living in a studenthouse and they had a room that was freeing up. I went there and both myself and another girl were clearly the contestors for the room, as far as the students were concerned. Their landlord however, had placed two people in their house, one being an alcoholic who had his wife and children walk out on him and the other was a 35 year old unemployed Arab guy who barely spoke Dutch. They decided to go for some quiet girl and they would not have it any other way. The friend of my friend (Marc) apologized to the girl and myself and said he knew another house in that neighbourhood where two rooms were freeing up and he would try to get us in there.
A few days later I was once more sitting in a living room full of students and we talked and all of us tried to show the best side of ourselves. After a short while the people that were living in the house left the living room to discuss who they liked most. They came back and both the girl from the previous time and myself were picked. Hooray!
How I’ve Lived There
I had a tiny attic room, but when it was time for signing the contracts the other girl told my landlord that it turned out she could not terminate her previous contract and she left. I then got the slightly bigger, but still very tiny attic room (more later). We then had to pick a new candidate for the other room. We had a few girls come by… Two girls were absolutely awful, so we decided to call someone else who reacted but didn’t show up and beg her to please come by. She came in and we immediately knew she had the place. I lived there for about 1 year and I saw many people come by. I moved in with:
Jesse, Jaap, Ruud, Iris and Rosa and the girl we picked was called Ayla. We lived with 7 people and shared one toilet, one shower and one kitchen. Then people started moving out and within half a year I was the last one left with a whole bunch of new people: Laurens (for 1/2 months), Petter, Dani, Laura and Wieger and one more girl whose name I can’t recall.
In the end it was perfect. The fire department came by and determined only 5 people could live there. It was Petter, Dani, Laura, Wieger and me for quite some time and we all became good friends. The house was in harmony. Then we got the bad news: the landlord was selling the house, we could either move to another house of theirs or find something for ourselves within a month. I said bye to my tiny attic room with just 2 square meters where I could stand up straight and a very low corner where I put my matress to sleep, my bedcave. 🙂
There was the occasional coffee smell in the neighbourhood since there’s a coffee factory right next to it.
Kanaalweg 92 (Map)
How I Got There
Not sure how I found out, but I was informed of a place that rented out rooms in an old office building. It was going to be demolished some day, but until then, they got a permit to let people live in there. So they built a bunch of student rooms into the building and moved in 240 creative people. I contacted the foundation that was running it (Stichting Tijdelijk Wonen) and could move in one or two days later.
How I’ve Lived There
This must have been one of the best times in my life. I had some friends living in the same building and two of my friends moved in a little bit later. I only lived there for a few months, but it was great. My room overlooked a small canal in front of the building. Oh and my room was pink.
I had a lot of fun, a lot of nights sitting in my room with one of my best mates Bouwe, drinking some beers, listening to music. Besides my computer, the most used item in my room was my microwave/oven (in the evening for my meals, in the morning for my bread), closely followed by my bed. I really loved this place, it was excellent. Showers were shared and so was the kitchen, but there was a lot of space and the people living there were cool and progressive. How progressive they were I found out once more through Googling the address… Turns out there was a Foundation for the Development of Lesbian Culture housed in the building.
After four months or so, I moved to Sofia, Bulgaria for the first time and had to say goodbye to the building. It was being torn down 2 months later, so I would never see it again. 😥
Sofia, Bulgaria #1 (Map)
Well, it didn’t hurt for long, since I was moving abroad and was so enveloped in this new place that I forgot all about my life back in Holland.
How I Got There
This is a long story, but in one sentence, I was inspired by the Balkan music one afternoon and decided to go live there. When I got there I got into contact with an agent who showed me a few flats in the center of Sofia and I picked my favourite.
How I’ve Lived There
Oh how I hit the jackpot. For the same price as all those places above, I got my own big living room with a kitchen, a bedroom and bathroom… Everything was included! Tables, chairs, couches, TV (which I never used), well, everything. You can have a look at it in the video below.
I lived by myself for the first time since Uilenstede and this time I LOVED IT! I was mixing a lot of music in my living room, eating at restaurants in the area, partying a lot, and working a lot. I had a great time that half year, which led to me moving back 1 year later.
Which I will post about soon… in part 2 🙂 What are the coolest places where you’ve lived? And the strangest? Leave your story in the comments or post about it on your blog and leave the link here.
BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region, but like to ponder about the future also. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
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Dutch Journalists Tricked by ‘Magic’ Mushroom Ban Opponents
You would think that journalists’ intelligence and street smarts prevents them from falling for hoaxes, but recent attempts to show the insanity of the Dutch ‘magic’ mushroom ban by opponents of the ban show otherwise.
Ridiculing the mushroom ban, a website called PaddoBestrijding.nl (Shroom Removal) has been created promoting a service that supposedly helps keep innocent people safe from the long arm of the law. PaddoBestrijding’s press release reports that home-, land- and gardenowners as well as nature preservation organisations risk prosecution over ownership of one of the 186 mushroom types banned in The Netherlands, starting the 1st of December. This could lead to sentence of up to 6 year imprisonment or a 740,000 euro fine.
The ban is quite controversial as I’ve stated before in the following two articles:
- Netherlands to ban ‘magic’ mushrooms starting December 1
- Dutch smartshops take legal action against ban on magic mushrooms
One of the mushrooms getting banned is the Fly Agaric, or Amanita muscaria (picture below, by Roger B.), a popular mushroom in European folklore (and in Super Mario), one of our nature’s beauties, and a popular sacrament in ritual shamanic use. Looks like the Christian Democrats are still on a witchhunt, with the aid of the Labour Party.
It took me a second to figure out that PaddoBestrijding was an eleborate hoax, but three sections of the site really give it away and I’m stumped that journalists didn’t get the joke. Then again, the Dutch government did try to ban the use of satire once (1, 2, 3). The pages that really give the spoof away are the methods, testimonials and shroom of the month. Some translated quotes from the various pages:
ShroomRemoval about methods:
“Depending on the scale of infection and the soil type, we choose for a surface-, or a depth treatment. With the latter a fungicide is sprayed into the soil under high pressure as deep as 70 cm. Thankfully this is not always necessary and most of the time a surface spray can be utilized, after which the fungi killing substances slowly seep into the soil. Modern fungicides are extremely poisonous, meaning that only a small amount has to be used; a comforting thought.“
If that last sentence doesn’t give it away, maybe one of the silly testimonials might:
“When we could access our garden again, eight weeks after the mushroom removal, all mushrooms were gone. We were warned about dead animals, but luckily it wasn’t that bad. The plantgrowth has recovered a bit by now and every now and then we’re also seeing some birds in our garden again. In a few years we will once again be able to safely eat from our garden.”
Hellooooo gullible journalists… you got it yet?! No? How about the mushroom of the month, where an opposition to the new mushroom ban is subcommunicated. Strange, for a company that can profit so much from this, no? Here it goes:
“Even though the ‘orange funnel’ (Rickenella fibula) doesn’t contain psylocibin or other related tryptamines, it has still been put on the list of banned mushroom types under the aged synonym ‘gerronema fibula‘.”
All of this, combined with pictures of people in yellow suits and gas masks spraying toxic chemicals should raise some doubts in the mind of journalists, but nope, they fell for the hoax. An eleborate and modern version of the type of jokes Provo’s played on Dutch society, which I blogged about before.
I must admit that as I started writing this article I wasn’t 100% sure about this being a joke. Since I don’t want to spread misinformation, I did some research, like any self-respecting journalist should. Through some very simple domain name research I found out that MushMush.nl registered PaddoBestrijding.nl. MushMush was selling magic mushroom growkits until the ban and talks about growing methods. So of course it is a hoax!
So far ShroomRemoval has been featured in the following media:
- Spits (Rush Hour), one of the biggest (if not the biggest) free newspapers in Holland. [web article, newspaper clipping (from the frontpage apparently)]
- NOS Headlines on 3FM (Radio), one of Holland’s most popular radio stations. [online, direct download]
- FunX (Radio), popular radio station for teenagers and other people with a poor taste in music. The two DJ’s spoke with a representative of PaddoBestrijding on the air and showed particularly gullible behaviour and nauseating stupidity. 😉 [direct download]
Just shows how gullible the media is and makes one think twice about the trustworthiness of news. With one I mean me, and hopefully you too.
BasBasBas.com is about a Dutch student living in Istanbul. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul and travels in the region. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
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Drugs, Prostitution and Same-Sex Marriage
That’s the title of a 10-15 minute presentation I’m giving soon for my Intercultural Communication classes at Yeditepe University, here in Istanbul. I designed it in such a way that it can also be enjoyed without my vocal explanations and here it is!
The Intercultural Communication course is likely to be the most innovative course I’ve taken during my higher education (sadly — universities should make more use of modern technologies). Every Tuesday, we get into a classroom at 4 o’ clock in the afternoon and have a video conference with a class in Lincoln, Nebraska, US. We present ourselves, our culture, customs, daily lives and our countries to each other. It’s fascinating, because both the Turkish class as well as the American class have students from many different backgrounds.
This part of the Intercultural Communication course, called Global Classroom, has been quite fun so far. We’ve managed to make 2 students from the Nebraskan class dance in front of the camera and they’ve managed to make 2 of our students wrestle in front of the camera (or was it Jiu-Jitsu?).
There’s only a few sessions left, so I hope I actually get to do my presentation, as our lecturer wanted everyone to prepare one, but there will be no time to actually execute all of them.
I hope the presentation has given you an insight into Holland’s liberal policies and if you have any questions please feel free to reply. I love answering questions about these issues.
How about in your countries, how is your government dealing with these issues? What is your personal opinion on these matters? Has the war on drugs failed? Is same-sex marriage morally wrong or is keeping it illegal a form of discrimination? What about prostitution?
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Mosque Street Shot
A typical shot of a street on the Asian side of Istanbul in Kadıköy, where I live. I didn’t want to feature this picture until I realized that this very every day scene for me might not be so ‘every day’ for the my many visitors from around the world. Click on the picture or here to get a larger and higher quality version of the photograph. In Holland we have a huge debate about the towers of the mosques, called minarets, spoiling the way the street/neighbourhood looks.
What do you think, would one (or a few) of these towers spoil the sight of your neighbourhood? Why (not)?
If you’re not yet subscribed to updates from this blog and you’d like to be, do so now either by RSS or through email updates. If you have any questions about Istanbul, about me, anything else, or you’d just like to tell me how your day was, do not hesitate to email me at
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Dutch smartshops take legal action against ban on magic mushrooms
This is a follow-up article on “Netherlands to ban ‘magic’ mushrooms starting December 1“.
Amsterdam, Saturday 8th November 2008
The Association of Smartshopowners has been surprised and is disappointed about the decision of the government of last Friday to implement the intended ban on magic mushrooms as from December 1st. The Association will take legal action.
The Association condemns the decision of the Government since both Ministers of Justice and of Public Health refuse to listen to the stream of warnings from the experts, scientists and from the Association. The warnings consistently refer to the increased dangers of unwanted side effects of such a ban. The Association was in regular discussions with the Government over the past ten years in order to properly regulate the market for hallucinogenic mushrooms and pleaded consistently for proper regulation rather than banning the ‘shrooms’. The Association deplores that, by the decision of the government, further co-operation is made impossible and that her members and their customers are facing an accomplished fact in a rather raw manner.
The Dutch Opiumwet (druglaw) requires that there must be a proof of damage to the public health and the community at large. Against a yearly turnover of some 1,5 million portions of magic mushrooms there is only a very small amount of incidents. Moreover, these incidents cannot be traced back to the exclusive use of ‘shrooms’. There has been no scientific investigation of such incidents nor has there been any toxicological examination. The Minister ignores the clear advice of his own advisory body (CAM) and bases his decision on unfounded assumptions and takes his own suppositions for granted.
The members of the Association are feeling highly derogated by this decision and by the clearly unreasonable attitude of the Minister.
A general ban on the sale of shrooms will inevitably lead to the closure of many smartshops whilst the remaining shops will incur a sizable financial loss. This aspect was hardly discussed in the parliamentary discussions about the proposed ban.
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Netherlands to ban ‘magic’ mushrooms starting December 1
Dutch Christian Democrat minister of Public Health, Ab Klink, has announced the ban of selling and growing ‘magic mushrooms’, or shrooms, will take place on December 1. This knee-jerk reaction follows a media and political hype caused last year by the suicide of a 17-year old French tourist who was said to be under the influence of mushrooms at that time. It was also her second suicide attempt.
Politicians got riled up as the media started covering every mushroom mishap in Amsterdam. Since nobody really stopped campaigning since the last government was formed – as they’re doomed to fail – they saw this as a good chance to speak up, speak out and win votes. At the cost of liberty and sanity.
Ab Klink, minister of Public Health, previously asked the Coördinationpoint for the Assessment and Monitoring of new drugs (CAM) to research illegalizing shrooms. They concluded that these are the risks involving mushrooms:
- Health of the individual: no risk.
- Public health / society: minimal risk.
- Public order / safety: minimal risk.
- Criminal involvement: no risk.
The CAM advised against a ban on mushrooms for the following reasons:
- The smartshops selling the mushrooms might replace them by substances which carry more risk;
- It will lead to shrooms being sold in tablet-form, like XTC pills;
- Users would pick mushrooms in nature, which could lead to serious problems if they mistake the wrong type of mushrooms for the ones they are looking for;
- Users might switch to other drugs, which might be more interesting from a criminal perspective and possibly carry more risk for usage… Leading to more danger to the public;
- The banning of mushrooms is a rather tough sanction given the current problems its causing;
- Maintaining a ban would bring costs.
What did Ab Klink do? Ban them! Of course. The CAM was surprised as this is the first time a minister has ignored the advice of this advice organ. Minister Klink is obviously tripping. Or maybe he’d like to see the Bible as our lawbook?
Dutch ‘smartshops’ that sell magic mushrooms and other legal mind-altering substances are taking this to court. For updates on this matter you can follow Dutch blog Red De Paddo (Save The Shroom).
Recently a Christian Democrat politician called for the closing of all coffeeshops in Holland and illegalizing cannabis. In a follow-up poll, Dutch citizens expressed their opinions about the Dutch policy regarding drugs. 36% want coffeeshops illegalized, but 34% wants to see them completely legalized. Coffeeshops in Holland are currently in a grey area, more can be read about this in the article below or on Wikipedia. In short the sale of softdrugs is legal in Holland, but supplying coffeeshops of them is not.
Last year I wrote about the pending mushroom ban in several articles, one of which is reposted below, the others can be found via these links:
- Dutch minister of health to ban “magic mushrooms” (October 10, 2007)
- Saving the Shroom (October 16, 2007)
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Below a repost of my article “Dutch government to ban cultural identity“. (more…)
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Foreign Hairdressers
It’s always interesting to go to a hairdresser in a different country, or even to go to a hairdresser from a different country in your own country.
I clearly remember the first time I went to a Turkish hairdresser in The Netherlands. As a student, I didn’t have a lot of money to spend on haircuts, so I went to a Turkish one, since they’re a lot cheaper. After he was done cutting my hair, he pulled out a metal stick with some cotton on it. He dipped it in some liquid and I assumed it was to clean the equipment. He then lit the cotton on fire! Now I was very surprised and quite anxious about what he would do next. He then stepped back behind me in that typical hairdresser manner of manoeuvring and started making quick strokes along my face with the burning end of the stick, quickly followed by what can be best described as soft slaps (either because he could get away with it, or to prevent my face from catching fire). I hardly ever find the opportunity to use the word flabbergasted, but that time I was completely flabbergasted by the hairdresser’s shenanigans with his grooming paraphernalia.
Over time I got used to it and quite appreciated it. A warning when he did it the first time would have been nice, but I might have politely declined and missed out on all the adventure. 😉
Another ‘odd’ experience I had with hairdressers was this summer in Strumica, Macedonia. I entered the smallest hairdressing shop I’ve ever been to and it was almost like the scene of a movie like Hostel. Very Eastern European. Very cool. You can read about it here: Strumica: Last Days (incl. pictures!).
So today I got my hair cut here in Istanbul… and it was about time. I decided to go with a simple shave. First I haggled a bit about the price… “Hayır. Benim arkadaş… beş lira!” (“No. My friend… five lira.”) We agreed upon a more reasonable price and he did his job. At the end there was no burning stick, but he did something I haven’t encountered before. He got some cotton out, which immediately made me think he would do the burning stick thing, but then he put the cotton on a comb and held it under the tap for a second… He then combed through my hair a bit. I suppose it was to get all the little hairs out.
So what about your foreign hairdresser experiences? How about in your country? Anything that foreigners would consider ‘unusual’?
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