DVD extras
Okay, here’s what’s up. As the six of you who are reading this know I have finished writing the book : The Only Way Through is Forward ; How an American Survived Bankruptcy in Amsterdam during Covid-19.
The design edit is being done and the plan at the moment is to release it around the end of May (as we all know though plans are just a way to make the Gods laugh and say, “Look at this idiot, he thinks that everything is under control, release the lightning”).
While I’ve been writing and editing a lot has been left on the cutting room floor so I’ve decided to post a few things as a kind of teaser trailer or a DVD extra. I’ve edited or cut more than 10,000 words from the text so there’s a lot that while it doesn’t fit with the flow of the book it’still stands on it’s own pretty well I feel.
So for the next few months going to be posting a few lines here and there, some may make it into the book, some not.
This bit covers a little of what I was up to New Years Eve, December 31st 2019
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A little side note about fireworks in the Netherlands. For most of the year they are illegal throughout the whole country. But a few days before New Years Eve sales are allowed and everyone begins to stock up. And it’s not just “adults” going to the bar to celebrate or teenagers running around all night blowing up mailboxes. It’s also families purchasing fireworks for their children to set off at midnight. It’s very common to see families with young children step out of the house a little before midnight all bundled up for protection from the cold and let the kids, under supervision and one at a time, light their stash and blow it up like everyone else in the neighborhood.
Technically you’re only allowed to blow off fireworks on New Years Eve from around eight in the evening until one in the morning. The reality is that they start being blown up a few days beforehand and at midnight on New Years Eve the chorus hits its crescendo. It’s really an insane scene. If you haven’t experienced it before the spectacle is something you’ll truly never forget. The entire sky is lit up with fireworks great and small with “boom boom boom” noises echoing up and down the canals of Amsterdam. To get a better idea of what it’s like I recommend checking out the YouTube page for the Dutch Survival Guide and watch their video explaining all about fireworks on New Years Eve.
As we make our way over to the burger place we are tossing a few small fireworks along our path in order to clear the way. We are careful not to hit cars, cyclists, people and so forth. I cannot say the same about some of the little monsters we encounter along the way. We watch one future football hooligan light one and toss it into a city trash bin before backing up giggling with his compatriots in terror. They are supremely disappointed when the trash container doesn’t explode and rocket twenty feet into the air, just a little smoke and smouldering trash are all that happens. Not to worry, I’m sure that by the end of the evening they were all out of gear, matches, lighter fluid and that a few hundred euros of damage had been done.