Kracken Amsterdam

Day three here, a lot has changed.

Intending to stay in town until at least the 30th (my friend Ian is coming here on the 29th, and I want to chill with him in a crazy foreign city), I was beginning to worry about accomodations - hostels run around $40 cdn per night, which is pretty much my budget for an entire day. Couchsurfing.com was not turning up anything, and I am super paranoid about leaving my bike anywhere out of sight with the panniers on it, pretty much limiting my mobility (can't very well take it into public bathrooms now, can I?).

That was, until I cracked the Kracks. Krack is dutch for Squat - they have a vibrant squat community here with roots back to the late 1970s, when activists fed up with the lack of housing began to occupy empty buildings. The tradition has carried on since then, and while the police conduct 'eviction waves' to clear squats that have lost their court cases, there is a resilliant base of squatters who continue to occupy buildings all over town. They are a tight knit community, and tend to be politically active in a variety of other ways as well.

I found out where one of the squatter hangouts was - the Voku Molli (means people's kitchen) where they host a thursday night vegan dinner for 2euros, showed up, and made the push to get over my fear of the unknown. Started talking to the kids who were showing up, and soon enough had befriended a couple. I happened to have bike tools with me and helped a guy named Bart fix up a bike he had salvaged from the street. Next thing you know we've got my map out and they are pinpointing squats around town, good places to hang out (squat bars, where most of the community congregates to hang out and drink cheap beer), his girlfriend has my notepad and is writing down contact info for squatters in Barcelona. It's not too long before I am offered a place to stay for the night. So now I'm crashing in a third floor, street facing room of a squatted building with some ultra friendly dutch kids - apparently the invite is open for a little while at least (and perhaps as long as I need?). While there seems to be no 'bike culture'in the sense we know (bikes being so dominant here, the concept seems a little meaningless) there is radical culture, and the way the squatters interact reminds me a lot of our community. I've Kracked a local scene, plugged myself in, and am feeling as good about it as I was bad about being a lame-ass tourist stuck in hosteltown. I've also been invited out to another squat bar tonight, and was given the lowdown on another people's kitchen this evening so I wont have to break the bank to eat.

What else to say about Amsterdam? Pictures are worth a thousand words - but they're all stuck on my camera right now. I had the good fortune to get hooked up with internet at the university (through Jeroen, one of the kids I met last night), but was too stupid to bring my USB cable with me, and am unlikely to find a connection this good again for a little while, so they might have to wait. Lots of good stuff though, including mad-packed bike racks, the very few stylin bikes I've seen (I'll say this - while Amsterdam may be the city of bikes, it seems to have taken on the mantle inspite of itself. Bikes are a major part of transportation here, but they are all ugly as hell and in terrible shape - everyone's bike rattles, clanks, and has rust all over the place - people genuinely don't seem to care about them!), student housing built out of shipping containers, and the inside of the squat building I'm crashed at. I have seen ONE fixed gear bike (being ridden by a messenger), and several fakies (singlespeeds with coaster brakes) - these bikes stand out in the sea of rusted out citybikes, and even mountain bikes stand out enough to catch my eye. There is NO BIKE POLO in Amsterdam. I have asked anyone who might have heard about it that I've come in contact with (messenger guy, people in bike shops, the squatters), and I think if it was going on someone would have at least heard about it. Alas, my mallet rests at the ready, perhaps in Paris I'll do better.

That's pretty much where my head is at now - I've landed on my feet and this crazy city doesnt scare me anymore (I was overwhelmed at first, I'll admit).

Things I want to do in the next couple of days:
-Go to at leat one art museum - They have a rembrandt museum here, but I believe there is also a Breugel exhibit at a different museum and I would much rather see that!
-Check out the Amsterdam Velodrome - I stopped in the only bike store I've seen yet with a track bike in it, and asked about velodromes. If I had been here a month earlier they would have had open training sessions in which I could have rented a bike and ridden the track - its all pro for May-September, unfortunately. Still going to try and get out there to watch a couple of races. I also drooled over a really hot orange Rabobank bike jersey in the shop, but at 60 euros (roughly $90), I think its a souvenier out of my price range... we'll see.
-Check out the Chopperdome (Holland's answer to the freak bike madness of Mini Bike Winter in Portland) - Some detective work, going through the dead baby bike club from Seattle and getting passed onto the Choppaderos has given me an address that might help find Mutant bikers in Amsterdam. So far, the only chopper I've seen was parked in front of a squat that I don't know anyone staying at.
-Find a swimming pool. Gotta clean off somewhere, as I'm starting to get a bit ripe. Its HOT here.
-Take a long ride out of town - 40-60 K loop in the surrounding countryside.

Thats about all I can think of for now. Miss you guys lots, and was thinking of you this morning while y'all were Midnight Massing (9 am here). More updates to come, and hopefully I'll be able to get some pictures online soon.

-midnight/on the road