I now have the wonderful Liz Smith in the tour party for tour management and good company. We met up in Amsterdam. Of course it was in the rather large Central Station and of course it was rush hour but we managed to find each other eventually and quickly set about being in Amsterdam. I would like to tell you that we did not go directly to a coffee shop, buy a bag of marijuana and light up in public simply for the novelty of the situation… but that is exactly what we did. And it was the last time we smoked anything for our entire week in the city - regardless of the city’s best attempts - including us being given bags of the stuff everywhere and finding a bag in our hotel room. By day two, I was completely sick of the smell  - a smell I’ve always rather enjoyed - due to the constant barrage of the stench while walking around the tourist area we were first based in. We discovered that Amsterdam has two sides. One, dirty and seedy, full of tourists, prostitutes parading in windows, condomeries and coffee shops. The other, clean and beautiful, full of locals, incredible museums, markets and tilting canal houses.

Amsterdam Highlights:
Visiting the Van Gogh museum and discovering a new-found appreciation for paintings of bunches of flowers in vases:

At one point, I found myself suddenly alone in a small room full of Van Gogh still lifes. I took a seat in the centre of the room on one of the small wooden squares. I looked at each painting carefully, swiveling on the spot and became transfixed on a large piece that consisted of a bunch of flowers in a vase. After some minutes I noticed a security guard enter the room and broke my gaze to look up and smile. He grinned back and kept walking until he came between me and the object of my transfixion. His arms made a motion of gathering up the wide bunch of flowers in the painting and he turned and reached out towards me in a sweet and comical mime, offering me the bunch. Then the moment was lost as other art lovers meandered into the space, arms folded, eyes traversing the walls and creating a low hum of murmured opinions.

A spontaneous late night boat ride on the canals as part of an Antipodean rabble:

We met up with an old family friend of mine who was living in Amsterdam, Caleb. I hadn’t seen Caleb for 20 years but recognised him immediately. He took us to an Australian themed bar apologetically and explained that it was close to his work and had a long happy hour. There we met Caleb’s friends - a collection of incredibly sweet and funny Australasians who, after a couple of happy hour drinks, offered to take us out on their canal vessel. We mounted our bikes and sped through the streets like a bike gang to where to the “Slippery Otter” was waiting. The Slippery Otter, it turned out, was a row boat with a small engine that could fit up to six people. We were seven. We clambered aboard with our new friends and set out on a magical mystery tour of the canals. We putted through the red light district, through large flocks of swans swanning around, down narrow canal passages with no road access, under bridges and out to the Amstel river where we snapped photos of multi-coloured canal houses and stone architecture.

Scootering with guitar:

In Amsterdam, no-one drives. Everyone bikes or scooters everywhere. So when my Netherlands promoter Andy Sceats, offered to give me a ride to a radio interview on his scooter, I jumped at the opportunity. He arrived very early in the morning and handed me his spare helmet. We discussed several options of how best to carry my guitar but decided on the classic one-handed, off-to-the-side approach. Because of the exhaust pipe location, I had to hold the 7kg guitar case with a bent arm.  After 5 minutes my bicep was burning. After 10 minutes I started to reach my other hand through to take some of the weight - riding as a hands-free passanger. After 15 minutes, when Andy started to stop and ask people on the street if they knew where the radio station was, I started to worry that I might not be able to hold on but luckily we arrived at the station 5 minutes later. Unfortunately by this time I couldn’t even lift my hand to drink some coffee let alone play the guitar on air! Andy was very sweet and concerned but was pleased that I’d experienced something so “Amsterdammy.”
My gig at the Winston Kingdom was followed the next night by Dave Dobbyn, who happened to be playing in town at the same time. This scenario gave Andy (as the promoter for both shows) the idea of a package deal called the “Kiwi Meal Deal.” Ex-pats were encouraged to buy a ticket that gave them access to both gigs as well as a big-screen showing of the All Blacks game before the Dave Dobbyn show. Although the only food involved were the meat pies available during the rugby game, it seemed appropriate to be part of a meal deal on The Cookbook Tour!