Nightman

Richie is close to finishing his second nightman shift and his last training shift. Tonight he will have to go it alone and prevent himself from boredom through youtube, books, and the internet.

This last night was a good one though. The man training him (Marco) is good company and this girl phoned who used to work for the shelter and she needed to sleep at the hostel for the night. She was real chatty when she showed up so Richie, Marco and her all hung out until about 3 am when she got tired and went to sleep. Then it was the typical stalk around the floors, clean the bathrooms, prepare the kitchen, take out the trash, etc. Richie's normal nightman duties.

Richie also found several new bands using Paste Magazine so the tunes kept the night moving. The new bands included: Passion Pit, Blind Spot, Gregory Alan Isakov, and Fanfarlo. Some better than others.

Another thing that has occured in the life of Richie is the departure of many of the friends he met in the first two weeks of service here at the Shelter Jordaan. Sadly he had to see his friends Yvonne, Ard, Jen, Evert, Hannah, and Rachael leave. Now he must make new friends with the new staff members. A task that he hopes to find not overly difficult. Thankfully he still has his friend and roommate Joost to keep him company. Joost is a good man with a great heart, a sincere laugh, and a good sense of humor. A good dutch man.

So now Richie is about to go home and once again sleep the day away probably until around 4 in the afternoon. He will probably wake up like he did yesterday ready to get out of the old Willemstraat and see some of the city only to find most interesting things (like museums) close too early for him to go to them. But whatever, it is a rainy day today so maybe his attitude will be different from yesterday. He also has a good book to read, however, he can read anywhere and Amsterdam will not move with him.

Oh yes, he also had one nice adventure recently. He went with Yvonne, and her father and her friend to a cheap German grocery store in Amsterdam, an expensive place to see windmills, to the beach and then to Rotterdam. The expensive windmill tourist place was not as good as Kinderdijk, the German grocery seemed like a typical grocery store to Richie, the beach was good, and Rotterdam was a very modern city and reminded him of an American city. There were of course some older buildings, but Richie knew that the city was bombed to the ground in WWII so it makes sense that it might feel a little bit like an American city since it is more modern. Additionally, the feel of this city was completely different than Amsterdam for Richie. Difficult to describe, but the mall area seemed rather stuffy with people that were rather pompous and maybe a little bit insecure. Richie likes the feel of Amsterdam quite a bit more, better aged, appearing friendlier. It is kind of like the difference between the Dodgers and the Angels with the Dodgers being Amsterdam and the Angels Rotterdam. Richie understands that he just limited the understanding of this to only baseball fans who have a good knowledge of the tension between the Angels and the Dodgers, but he does not see this as something to worry about.