Saturday night was something to be remembered. It was an evening for a first date with a colleague from work and perhaps we will chalk it up as an experience.
The evening was intended to be a harmless night - dinner and a movie. Notice I use the word intended.
We were to meet at Rotterdam Centraal and go for sushi from there. My metro was stopped for some reason (I would say unknown except that everyone else knew why because they actually speak Dutch) and I was forced to march the rest of foot. No biggie, its not too far and so I was late by about 10 minutes.
Off to dinner - Happy Sushi is a nice restaurant that caters to the desperately hungry with instant food. I mean instant because it rolls right past your face on a conveyor belt and continues to do so no matter how full (or empty) your stomach is. WARNING - not the place to go if you have goldfish syndrome and eat until you 'splode.
Dinner was good and then it was off to a movie, T's choice. T picked Sin City and we were both a little disturbed with the amount of violence in it. I know, do the homework and see who the director(s) were and it would have been a decent clue. But neither one of us paid attention and as a result - a wee bit o' gore for the night.
But the night was young and we wanted to stay out a bit longer.
"Let's go for a walk."
"Sure, where to go?"
"Down to the river, we can see what's set up for tomorrow." (Airplane races)
"Ok, we can grab a drink too."
I spotted a place and we wandered in for a beer. We finished off our first beers when we noticed a commotion at the window. While it was a bit bizarre to see some fog rolling in, it wasn't unheard of here in Holland. Yet these Dutchies were all pointing at this "bizarre" event.
That was until the woman behind the bar started yelling, "BRAND!"
Now I have mentioned that my Dutch is crap but even I know what that means. It means "FIRE!" and the fog is actually smoke and its coming from the building we are in. Luckily we were seated very close to the door and I grabbed our jackets and made it out of the burning building without and problems.
And in true moronic fashion, we walked outside and watched the building burn. Something not quite smart about that but like all people, we do stupid things at the wrong times. We waited until the fire trucks arrived and then made our way back to a safe distance - like we were going to be any help until then... But we quickly got bored and headed towards another bar, this one of her choice since the last one I picked caught fire.
But as luck would have it, the rain started to fall and the evening was officially done. We could take no more, the rain was just the last sign that the date was in need of being finished for the night. We called it quits and went home.
Alas, it wasn't a total loss. I'm about to go for a motorcycle ride with her right now. :)
About Me
- Expat Nomad
- Hardest question to answer? "Where are you from?" I've had problems finding a place to settle down and calling a place home. There's just something about going new places, meeting new people, experiencing new cultures. Maybe one of these days I'll stumble into a permanent place to hang my hat. Until then, I am a wanderin' fool.
9 comments:
That made my monday :)
Happy sushi is indeed a nice place, if not the best sushi. But when around Rotterdam I often jump in there for a quick bite. And conveyor belts! Everything should have conveyor belts!
I won't be bugging you with the whole 'dating a coworker, are you nuts' thing, but I did find myself wondering how different you and she perceived this 'date'... as the dutch do not have a dating culture per se, and Americans sometimes seem like 'dating fetishists'.
Anyway, hope you had fun on the bike ride ;)
Congrats, Expat Nomad, for getting up the nerve to ask her out (if, indeed, this is the same one we once spoke of.)
Chalk it up to experience: what a great story to tell down through the years. Now, did you ask yourself "Is this a sign?" (disabled metro, burning building, rain, etc...)
Remember the comments you recently made here as "Mover and Shaker" ?
You write "I don't see how fate or destiny has put me into the situation that I am in....I exercise my free will every day with the tiny decisions that I make. Those life changing moments don't come out of fate"
A burning building. You happened to be sitting in the front. What if you had been in the back? Might you still be living?
How much control do we really have over the events of our lives?
I know this is off the topic of your posting, so forgive me.
As the "Dating King" of Plymouth, we'll all look forward to hearing of your escapades into that strange, surreal world of dating, a world that so many of us consider be a foreign land that we once visited, and to which we never want to return.
-slim
Hey there Shamash,
while I agree that there is a lot of stuff not within our control I do not see the connection with 'fate' (if we define fate as:
1. The supposed force, principle, or power that predetermines events.
2. The inevitable events predestined by this force.)
See, there is no predetermination. He wasn't 'meant' to sit here or there, he just did. No greater plan, no ultimate goal. Just a bunch of stuff that happens, and us deperately trying to make sense of it all because we are hardwired for pattern recognition. Or at least that is how I choose to view life; anything else would render me a puppet on strings.
Michiel - the date wasn't with a Dutch woman actually, it was with a Kiwi. Yes, that's right, I dated a fruit.
But the Maori woman from New Zealand is much different than the Dutch women that I have dated and this encounter went well despite the "fate"ness that Shamash eludes to... (sorry slim, couldn't resist)
The date evidently was a success in spite of the problems that were had on it and we have seen each other since then, including a nice ride on the MC to Delft for lunch today.
More on the "fate" that Shamash wrote about later, I gotta get some sleep.
As far as first dates go, yours didn't sound too bad.
But then again....
When I was single, any first date that didn't involve automotive failure, halitosis, food/wine stains, or bankruptcy, was a success.
P.S. My wife looooves my motorcycle. :)
Slim,
You're back to the idea of fate and/or destiny. I'm with Michiel on this one, I just happened to sit by the door because I did. Nothing too dramatic, nothing to do with 'the force', just a matter of fact.
And even if I had sat in the back, I still would have made it out ok - everyone got out with no problems.
As far as it being whom you think it is, its not. This is a different woman from work, a New Zealander.
See ya in a few weeks! :)
EdWonk - you are correct, I have been on first dates that have gone MUCH worse. But in terms of forbidding omens, this date did rank up there.
This Maori princess (she really is a princess!) loves the motorcycle as well. While it isn't the pride and joy that I had when I was living in the US, it will do.
Hope you are enjoying your vacation!
Michiel: Maybe fate is not really the term I'm looking for, especially if we define fate, as you noted, as:
1. The supposed force, principle, or power that predetermines events.
2. The inevitable events predestined by this force.
I don't view humans as a collection of puppets strings, constantly moved by a Giant Puppet Master in the sky, victims to the will of the Master.
And, I do believe, like Expat Nomad noted, that I'm where I am today because of a series of choices that I made.
What I mean by "fate" (and "fate" isn't really the word I'm looking for) has to do with this feeling I get that we’re part of something greater, something that's so much a part of the fabric of our lives, that we don't even see it.
I don't know how to articulate this idea, any more than I can articulate what it means to be in love, any more than I can speak of my foggy dreams after a restless night, any more than I can speak of the soul, or the universe, or what it means to pray.
Rather than a drop of water on the Puppet Master’s table, I feel as though I’m drop of water in a great river across time; I flow with it. What I believe has to do with harmony and trust and inner guidance: a sense of peace that comes from a source other than myself.
I want to remain open to the possibility that I exist as the breath of a great Mystery, something much, much bigger than us all; something that comes before us and continues after us. It has to do with the stars and the universe, and I feel I will never figure it out any more than Einstein did (and god knows he tried.)
I am fascinated with cosmology and quantum mechanics; I also read the writings of the poets and the saints and the mystics. Must the historical division between the scientists and the mystics continue to widen, or is there a place all could meet, recognizing we could learn so much from each other?
Forgive, dear Expat Nomad, for straying from your topic. After the bombs went off at a supermarket that I frequent, after learning that friends were late to the World Trade Center because they missed the bus and thus their lives were saved on 9/11, and after your escape from (what I now know is a harmless) fire, I can’t help but be reminded about how fragile this life is… how tenuous our existence. My favorite film director, Krzysztof Kieslowski, says“…every day we're faced with a choice which could end our entire life yet of which we're completely unaware."
I’ll shut up, now. My suspect I need to post my thoughts on my own blog rather than rambling here…. See you soon, Expat Nomad.
Slim - don't shut up, I would hate for you to be quiet.
As far as rambling on my blog, please do so. Its nice to have comments on what I write.
I'm leaving for Plymouth today, see you there in about a week (or so).
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