Sawing Wood

 Blog 06-19-22 Sunday Amsterdam


I was resolved to get eight hours of sleep last night after several days of insufficient snoozing. My six-bed hostel room was empty except for me when I retired a bit after midnight. 

At about 2am the door opened, the overhead light came on, and I heard what sounded like two or three guys came in speaking a guttural language that I didn’t recognize, Serbian? Ukrainian? They fussed about for a few minutes then, blissfully, extinguished the light and went to bed. The disturbance to my rest was minimal.

Fifteen minutes later the snoring began. One of the guys sawed wood loudly and forcefully. It bothered me a bit but I remembered that I’d slept under the catapult of the USS John F Kennedy (CVA 67) for nearly a year. I knew how to handle noise that would disrupt the repose of lesser beings. 

The problem was that his companion was less forgiving. “Wake up, you’re snoring!” That’s what I translated from the sounds emanating from the guy’s distress. The snoring continued, but the other guy wasn’t easily dissuaded. Louder this time, he insisted his friend wake up. He did. It was quiet for ten minutes.

Repeat this scenario for the next few hours. There were interludes of maybe twenty minutes when I could try to sleep. Then the two guys would repeat their Abbott & Costello routine. 

I had a morning appointment to join a walking tour of downtown Amsterdam so I couldn’t remain in bed to make up the lost slumber. 


Today’s tour was pedestrian (pun intended). The most interesting thing I learned was that there is a lot of bike thievery in Amsterdam, so much that people generally buy cheap used bikes rather than risk losing a big investment. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Virus

  08-29-22 Monday I landed at JFK after my economical flight on Azores Airlines. I had a second-floor apartment reserved via Airbnb in Brooklyn so it only remained to get there. It took three subways to deposit me on a street corner in SW Brooklyn, the middle class Bay Ridge neighborhood that was somewhat familiar to me. My best friend from high school had moved there in 1967 and we spent some pleasant afternoons playing stickball thereabouts.  I exhibited my usual lousy navigational skills, hefting my heavy backpack in the wrong direction until a local set me right. I found I was to share a 1950-s era flat with two women. They greeted me cheerfully even at the late hour I arrived, near 10 pm on a Friday night.. I got a tour of the facilities, a shared kitchen, a bathroom crowded with their toiletries, and my spartan room — bed, dresser, closet, TV. The next morning I got my clothes cleaned at the local laundromat, had some NY pizza, got a new SIM card for my phone, and in th...
Read more

Porto, Portugal

Image
  Blog 07-25-22 Monday Ponta Delgada, Azores I spent a couple days in Porto on the north coast of Portugal. While I was there the temperature in England set records, first time over forty degrees I think I read. As a result, I assume, Porto, where it was in the mid twenties (low seventies Fahrenheit) was full of Brits. There were also scads of other tourists. The place was packed.  I can’t explain why I didn’t find Porto interesting. My pension was comfortable. The weather was great, especially after the oven in Bilbao. The extremely-hilly streets were narrow and touristic. There was no reason not to be delighted with the city. But I wasn’t. I bought some gifts. I had a couple nice meals. And I left. 
Read more

Bilbao

Image
  Blog 07-18-22 Monday Bilbao Bilbao I left the (air-conditioned) hostel at 10:30 last night. The street thermometer said 45 degrees (113 degrees F). I almost believed it, but three other such indicators read 41 degrees (105.8 F), more believable.  I tried to beat the heat by getting out early today. At 8:30 it was 29 degrees (84.2 F) but by 11:30 it was well over 100 degrees. I gave up and retired to my hostel for the rest of the day. For three days it’s been like this, pushing 110 F at its peak, never below the mid 80’s. Walking drained me in minutes.  Thus I have failed at being the tourist in Bilbao. I did get to the Guggenheim, which has a story to tell that is crucial to the city’s history.  This is Basque country, a place that celebrates its resentment toward the Spanish. Like Scotland and Quebec and numerous other domains around the world this region has carved out a measure of independence from the central authority. Madrid, smartly, has kept a light hand o...
Read more