The Adventures of Peter Black
I mentioned last week that I attended my first couchsurfers meeting and had one of my most “radically open” sessions since being on locale. Having had such a positive experience, I felt that my friends Ashlee and Pete, also looking for intercultural development, would benefit from an outing with the couchsurfers. However, what good is stepping out of your comfort zone if you do so with safety pads on. To that end we decided to not see each other while at the meeting and to be aware of our “other selves” while there, so that if we did meet in a group, it would be as if we had just met. I would be from Boston since people already knew me, Ashlee would be from Pittsburgh since she has family there. Pete decided to be from Montana. I don’t know why, but we saw a brand new Pete
Peter Black is a 22 year old accountant from a farm town in Montana (because what else is there, he assumes). His company put him up in a flat in the west part of the city. He has been starting to travel and wants to go to more exotic locations, but his firm sent him to Amsterdam. He can’t ride a bike well because he is too used to horses. He wishes he could be back in school so he could do a study abroad program and meet up with people like couchsurfers. After all, there were more people in the bar that night than in his Montana hometown.
Peter Black is a 20 year old Boston College student from a farm thirty minutes south of Boston. He lives in a dorm-style apartment that BC arranged, but he pays for. He has never been outside North America, but his Spanish is good enough to be considered conversational in Amsterdam. Given the choice, Amsterdam was probably his first choice locale. He can’t ride a bike because the one he bought was too deformed from the person before him and he was forced to buy another. He is in college and plans to attend couchsurfer meetings regularly, though having someone stay over probably won’t happen. Can’t say I blame him.
Polly Want a GPS?
Today is the first sunny day in a week and I have to wait in my apartment so my landlord company can come and have me sign off on my lease. However, determined to get outside for a little bit, I decided to explore a bit of Noord, as I probably should have done by now, but other than the market up the street, I haven’t. The city is much more appealing, but going to the ferry by bike, I’ve noticed a lot of places that I would have otherwise overlooked, so I decided to go to a corner bar and throw some darts while being warmed by a bier and a tosti for lunch. While getting ready I ended up sitting in a chair I don’t normally sit in so I could put on my shoes. This chair is angled to look out the window. Out the window there is a tree. In the tree there were two parrots.
Parrots.
Green parrots.
People of Amsterdam, is this common?
PARROTS.
WILD. PARROTS.
I know they were wild because I looked around and saw no falconer, and I thought I had seen birds similar in the past month, but was never really certain, thought they might be finches or something. Now, it would be one thing if I had studied somewhere in Africa, as I’m sure they have any degree of colorful wildlife, but I’m not even close. Forget the cracker, Polly needs a map.
***disclaimer – according to my neighbor, the parrots in this region are “green parakeets” that are native to the Tibetan mountain region. Some guy brought a bunch over in ’96 and released them into the wild and because the climate here is so similar, they were able to reproduce. Dad says the same thing happened with a pet shop in Rhode Island***
Romeo and Juliet
Including parrots, there are a number of regional birds here. Due to the canals in the city and around my apartment, I’ve been afforded the opportunity to see these birds, which are rather odd as compared to the same wildlife in New England (I’ve also yet to see a squirrel, I imagine they aren’t here). Otherwise there are Magpies, Crows, unusual looking (and sounding) seagulls, and big black ducks which travel in packs that look like something from a Hitchcock film. There are also herons. Big. Freakin’. Herons. I thought the pigeons in Boston were daring, flying wherever they want and waiting until near-death to fly away from something, but these herons are borderline domesticated. They also get some serious air, perching in trees in flocks and landing on buildings.
Anyway, this has offered me an opportunity to get up relatively close to them in this time, the weird part, however, is that every time I see the herons in my apartment complex, there is always one on a roof with the other immediately beneath it on the ground. The title pretty much speaks for itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment