Oh the humanity...

Well, the last weekend has both shaken what little faith I have left in my fellow humans, and restored a little of that faith. To be very clear, these were two separate occasions.
The first, more depressing part was that I got into a "sort of fight". Sort of, because it wasnt fists thrown about, and it was a fight because I almost got physically thrown out of a snack bar.
Ok, this is what happened.

I live in the Netherlands. You know, the quaint little country in Northern Europe where up until recently, life was sweet and just a little boring. Politics were predictable, people might grumble at each other but were essentially good natured (or too civilised to show how bad natured they were) and things went pretty smoothly. The government invested heavily in education (which has btw been undone in the last 10 years, causing untold damage to the future of the Dutch economy and reinstating class based education, as kids from less fortunate families simply wont be able to afford higher schooling anymore), racism was frowned upon, not used as political tool to sway the dumb into a scare-vote (AAAHH Holland is being overrun by foreigners!! Eeeehhmmm... Holland has in its history ALWAYS been overrun by foreigners! thats what made it rich!) , Europe was a pleasant trading partner and politicians were wise-father-like.

To be more precise, I live in Leiden, a town in the west of Holland.

I drive a motorbike (as can be seen elsewhere on this blog), or rather three by now (not at the same time obviously), which I park in a garage some 10 minutes biking (that is peddle biking) from my house.
And that is exactly what I did last Saturday.
When I arrived by my garage, the entrance was blocked by a parked car.

Ok, let me take a moment to explain the situation to you.
my garage is situated on a small terrain with 22 other garages. The terrain is closed off by a fence, which the garage owners have a key to. Next to the exit of the terrain is a snackbar / cafe, and the snackbar guests have an annoying tendency to park their cars/vans etc in such a way that I cant get past them onto the terrain.

As usual, I walked into the snackbar, and asked if the owner of the car could remove it, so I could get to my garage. The owner (who looked like a 18 year old kid with a bad attitude and a worse haircut) finally showed up, and whilst aiming some derogatory remarks at me, slowly moved his car.

I collected my motorbike and set off for the day. It was a lovely day on the road, visiting some friends and enjoying the crisp freezing coldness as one can experience it only on a motorbike at high speed. Finally tired and content, I returned to the garage.

Guess what? This time a van was blocking the drive.

Sigh, into the snackbar, "can the owner of the van please move it", get back out onto the bike and wait for the brainless abusive remarks the "ever-so-cool-and-tough" owner of the van would make towards me as he shifted his van.
Now dont get me wrong, I dont usually let such comments get to me, especially not coming from a mental midget with the IQ of a fencepost (Thanks Tom ;-) ). Today however, I was just getting a bit fed up of the sheer number of selfish, stupid, ignorant assholes who think they can spew abuse at anyone who gets in their way, but are hypersensitive to any form of criticism levelled at them. These people remind me mostly of miniature versions of gorillas beating their own chests, but I dont think saying that is very fair to gorillas.

Anyway, he moved his van, I parked my bike, and I decided to try to be an adult about it.
Id have a chat with the owner of the bar, to see what we could do to solve the problem more permanently.

So, I went inside and asked for the owner. This guy shows up, looking not too friendly, but not too stupid either. I felt it was a good start.
I hadnt even finished my first sentence ("say, about those cars parks in from of the garages") when he started yelling at me that it was actually his poor clientele who had to suffer from the people trying to get in and out of their garages. "if I could pay 4 grand for a garage that I shouldnt complain and poor hardworking him and blah blah". Btw, for your info, I rent the garage, cause I cant afford to buy it.
Somewhat taken aback I tried to get him to realise that a solution was therefore in everyone's interest.
However, instead of listening, he started threatening me. Suddenly there were 5 rather large guys standing around me, claiming they were going to beat me up (this was about the time I felt it might not end too well). One of them tried to pick me up and throw me out of the bar (unsuccessfully btw), while the others kept up their litany of threats and abuse. I finally walked out, feeling there was not much point trying to reason with people too stupid to understand it was in their own interest.

Once outside i called the cops. I was fed up and wanted to send a message.

The cops (surprisingly) showed up and walked into the bar. The owner had quickly run out the back (coward), so there was not alot they could do with regards to him. Still, I think the message that if they behave this aggressively, the cops are at their door 5 minutes later is a good one.

So now the situation kind of hangs there. I havent had a chance to go for a ride since Saturday, it will be fun if there is a car parked in front of the garages again. Im not going to let these idiots intimidate me, and if I need to press charges against the owner of the bar, so be it. Lets see how tough he is in court.

That was the depressing state of mankind experience.



The uplifting one is unfortunately alot shorter. But it is genuinely sweet (well, to me that is).

Leiden has alot of takeaways, restaurants etc. Im privileged that if Im too lazy to cook, I can choose from a wide variety of oriental food, fast food, italian, greek, etc etc. Lots of variation, but no Dutch food.
Well, thats hardly surprising as the reputation of the Dutch kitchen is only slightly beter than that of the British one (btw, see the success of the British TV-chefs and that might have to be reconsidered).
There are however some delightful dishes in the dutch kitchen, especially in the winter food category.
Things like Stamppot, boerenkool met worst, etc are really good on a cold winter day when you've been doing some physical excersise (just the kind of day you dont feel like cooking), and I sometimes come home a little sad with my takeaway wok-dish, craving these more wholesome dishes.

Well, I need crave no more!

Leiden has just been blessed with a "Dutch food takeaway"! It has great sausage, meatballs, boerenkool, andijvie stamppot etc. Also good is the onion soup the proprietor let me taste while I waited for hime to warm up my meal. Im really going to enjoy this, especially as the winter has truly arrived (-10C predicted this week).
Hmmmm..... Happy days!

And another little irony I like about this place, is that its not run by a blond, blue-eyes type.
No, its painted yellow and green, and its run by someone from the caribbean with a smile even warmer than his uber-Dutch stamppot.

Brilliant!!