Attitude of Gratitude

When Stacie first told me that writing about everyday events here in A’dam would be interesting to the reader, I thought that nothing that unusual happens here, it is just like everywhere else. Boy, how wrong I was. Just a word about Dutch inefficiencies….

The center of A’dam is mainly concentrated within three main canals – the Herengracht (the Gentleman’s Canal), Keisersgracht (the Emperor’s Canal), and Prinsengracht (the Prince’s Canal) going from innermost to outer. I live off the Keisersgracht at its most west point. My friend’s Steph and Bry are ideally situated on the most beautiful canal (and where the most happens) on the Prinsengracht.

I was headed over to visit Steph and Bry when I got a phone call from Steph saying that there was a fire across the canal from them and be careful on my way over. As I walked over, you could hear sirens coming from all directions and helicopters flying overhead. Before I start, I will say that no one was hurt.

By the time I got to Steph’s, it looked as if the fire was already under control however there was still a large presence of emergency vehicles. There were a variety of different ambulances, fire trucks, police cars, helicopters, police horses and policeman on foot. They had pushed everyone back on the streets to over at least 100 meters away, which was ridiculous because we were on the opposite canal and nowhere near the fire. All this time, the fire is smoldering lightly, and it appeared the worst was over. Meanwhile, more emergency vehicles were coming from all directions. They even unloaded some sort of all-in-one mini-hospital off the back of a truck to take care of any wounded. These guys had setup camp and they were here to stay.

All this commotion made us late for our dinner reservations because we couldn’t walk around the corner to the restaurant. Mind you, the fire was totally in control before we left for dinner, but they still had all the streets barricaded off, police everywhere, and helicopters circling. Right when we got to dinner the police came by and insisted that all patrons must interrupt their dinners and immediately move from outside to the inside of the restaurant. After all, all those people sitting outside clearly posed some threat to the firemen who were working half a mile away.

We continued to have a lovely three course dinner at an Italian restaurant called Palladio. During which, an endless supply of additional emergency vehicles clamored onto the already saturated scene of vehicles and emergency personnel. As I always say, in Europe, dinner is the event, so our dinner lasted at least 2.5 hours (and therefore most the evening), during which time the vehicles never stopped streaming onto the site.

When we finally left, we were able to walk back towards the scene and see what was going on. During our dinner, they had setup a booth giving refreshments out to the obviously weary 30 or so firemen who were milling about. It consisted of all types of refreshing beverages from the obvious coke products all the way to the milk line (Chocomel) to fit everyone’s discerning taste. I asked what the status of the fire was, to which they told me, “We almost have it contained.”

I gotta tell you, with all those resources, that fire would have been extinguished in about 1.5 seconds in the USA, and they would have packed up and been outta there in about 20. I could not believe the guy was even telling me that it was almost contained. It was more like a party atmosphere than a fire. I think that fire was the only event these firemen have seen in 2007.

Like I said, no one was hurt, but Amsterdam did have a loss on Friday, August 3rd 2007. They lost three beautiful, irreplaceable, historic canal houses on the Prinsengracht. That, and the Dutch lost another ounce of my respect for needing hundreds of resources – people and vehicles – to do something that should have taken much, much less. Oh well, no one can say they aren’t thorough.