Richie First Weeks

Richie has now been in Amsterdam for two weeks and has had several wonderful adventures.

Richie first flew into Geneva Switzerland where he had to take the train to Basel, Switzerland and then on to Amsterdam on a City Night Line train. He saw much of the country side of Switzerland as he gazed out the window of the train, and he contemplated Heidi and thought of wild goats.

On arrival in Basel, he did not know of the luggage lockers at the station (something he only heard of later from a friend of the name Nate). So he walked and sweated around the town, took some pictures, ate some raw fish and had a beer. He moseyed over to a little park to rest from the load he was bearing and as he sat he watched loads of people walking down a particular street. Curiosity got the better of him and he chose to follow, once again carrying his baggage. Following this crowd lead him to a wonderful and touristy section of Basel. It was all quite nice for him except for the weight of his backpack.

He then returned to the train station and got on the CNL for Amsterdam. Once he had bored the train he soon discovered that he was on the wrong end and had to walk across the train to the other end in order to find his seat. He was pleased to have gone to the other end of the train because he sat next two a couple who was quite nice. There were about his age one in the army in the Netherlands and his girlfriend was studying in the Netherlands. He spoke with them for a time and then they were interupted by an interesting man who praised the Netherlands as the best country. Richie thought of him as being on repeat since he continually spoke of the Netherlands as the best country with the best economy in the EU. He was very much in love. He finally left and went back to his seat and Richie was relieved and had a good laugh with his new found friends who were sitting across from him. Then he went to sleep.

Richie's train arrived in Amsterdam one hour late so the people who were supposed to meet him at the train station to show him to the house were no longer there. Richie was not frightened or flustered. He merely went into the Victoria hotel and asked the man at the front desk how to get to the street Willemstraat. The man kindly showed him on a map and gave the map to Richie. So Richie left the Victoria hotel and walked to the front door of the Willemstraat and it is here that he met his first friend, Jono.

Jono is an Australian who is also working at one of the Shelter Hostels in Amsterdam, but rather than working at the one Richie was assigned by management, Jono is working at the Shelter City. Richie had no plans for the day so he joined Jono in his activities. They went to the Saturday market where Jono bought 8 pairs of underwear and 5 pairs of socks for about 20 euro (quite a good deal Richie thought). They then went to the Shelter City and Jono showed Richie around. While at the shelter city Richie played table tennis with a man from (I believe this is right) Somalia. He is muslim and was a nice table tennis partner, but then he had to leave for prayer so that event was over for Richie. Richie has not interacted with him since.

After this table tennis time Richie played soccer in a small area near Neumarket in Amsterdam with some people from the Hostel. He played with them until almost five oclock when he went back to the Willemstraat house to shower for his first shift at 18:15.

Yvonne was Richie's first trainer and quite a good one. She was friendly and easy to chat with so they became instant friends. Yvonne showed Richie the rules and tasks he had to complete in the kitchen and all was well. Richie, however, became very tired as the shift went on and was happy to return home and go to bed.

Now that Richie has given a detail of the first couple days of his trip he will not only give a brief outline of the last couple weeks because he no longer cares to write in detail.

Richie went bridge jumping in his first week and jumped from an 8m bridge. He had quite a thrill while doing this.

Richie was glad he knew Yvonne and was friends with her because she met a guy who owns a boat and last Saturday he was able to go with her and this guy on the boat and have a little tour of Amsterdam. They saw the first draw bridge ever and the place where seven bridges can be seen in a row. They also ate dinner out on the water. A very nice evening and for free. Richie however was a little uncomfortable pulling his camera out of his bag so no pictures were taken of this event.

Richie has also gone to Kinderdijk where he saw many windmills and enjoyed the country.

Richie was also able to help Yvonne and Maaike continue toelling stories to each other about a princess in a castle. He gave Yvonne an idea to get the girl to become a feminist after finding out the boy she thought she liked was boring. He also ended the story in a rather awkward fashion for the two girls.

Another new friend of Richie's is Ard who is a nice man who plans on going to Bible School in Germany in September.

Last, Richie has been trained at reception for the hostel. He enjoys this work but wonders why people seem to always come in floods and then die out. That is to say, two or three groups will arrive at once and then there will be no one for the next couple ours and then another two or three groups will arrive. This sort of thing makes little sense to his logical mind. In a perfectly ordered universe Richie believes they would arrive at evenly spread intervals giving him just enough time to check in one group before the next group arrives.

When there are no people to check in or help, however, Richie finds reception to be very dull and that is why he happens to be writing in this blog.

Richie has also enjoyed reading and finishing two books in the last two weeks. One book on economics and the other called Finding a Job You Can Love. The latter book focused on finding one's motivational pattern so that one knows how one can be motivated in the work place. Richie sees this as an interesting idea, but when mentioning this to two other workers, Jen and Maaike, they opened his eyes to the need to also know passions in addition to motivations in order to find a job one can love. Richie is now trying to determine what motivates him and the truth is looking rather uninteresting.

As far as witnessing is concerned, Richie has talked to many guests and has primarily been friendly, rather than intense about talking to them about Jesus. Should he try to be more intentional? Richie was able to have a long discussion while with Ivonne and the man who owned the boat (Richie forgets his name at the moment) about Jesus and the Bible. The man who owned the boat asked how Yvonne and Richie could both practive the same religion as they grew up on different continents. This spawned much discussion.