You know you're in Amsterdam when ...

a drug dealer compliments you on your Dutch.

In other news, I saw a (cheap!) concert last night at Paradiso featuring Ted Leo & the Pharmacists. The concert was OK (a little too punk-ish for my taste), but most impressive was the collection of beards in the 3-person band. The bass-player was a dead-ringer for Mike Commodore of the Calgary Flames< (circa 2004 Stanley Cup Playoffs). And the drummer had a bit of a tattoed-Rasputin thing going.

Ik ben een dreuzel

I've started reading the first Harry Potter book (Harry Potter en de steen der wijzen -- Philosopher's Stone) in Dutch. While it can be tough sledding sometimes, for the most part it isn't anything my pocket dictionary and the fish can't handle. Trickier, though, are the names in the book. I have a vague enough idea of the story and characters that it can be a bit confusing when some (but not all) of the character's names are translated in a not-always-obvious way.

Here's what I have encountered so far:
(English-->Dutch)
Vernon, Petunia and Dudley Dursley --> Herman, Petunia en Dirk Duffeling
Albus Dumbledore --> Albus Perkamentus
Sirius Black --> Sirius Zwarts (though I guess that one is obvious)
Minerva McGonagall --> Prof. Minerva Anderling
4 Privet Drive (where the Dursley's live) --> Ligusterlaan 4
muggles --> dreuzels

So for all of you who want to read HP in NL, there you go.

Update: Just found this page which has a pretty good breakdown of the non-English names and places in HP.

arcade fire @ melkweg

This past Friday I took in the Arcade Fire's sold out show at the Melkweg ("milky way") in Amsterdam. It was about as exciting as expected, although most of us agreed that it was too short. The band did have to clear the stage, though, for another show that was starting at midnight, so they only played from about 9:25-10:45. Lots of intstrument switching (the violin player was the only one who didn't play another instrument), lots of energy, and minimal banter.

There were lots of pictures taken with my camera, but not many quality ones. Still, check out my flickr page for a few more. And for an idea of what the band is like live, check out their performance on Conan (28.1MB, bittorrent).

Edit: I found some good pictures from the concert. Looks like the photographer was right in front.

I call it winter.

First, we get hit with the area's biggest snowfall in 25 years. 1979, people tell me, was the last time. And now this.

Minus 18.7 as an overnight low is the coldest temperature since 1845. It's not like the Netherlands is a warm country. In Winnipeg, you might go 3 weeks in January without seeing the mercury get that high.

It is interesting how the Dutch people react to this kind of weather. The bike paths are much emptier now, with reason, but a few hardy souls still pedal to work, myself included (it's faster than the tram). There is no concept of snowball-etiquette, though, as adults and children alike have no qualms about throwing snowballs at cyclists navigating the icy streets.

Pictured below is my street.