Happy New Year from Amsterdam
A'dam stuffPosted by Jens A.W. Sorensen Sat, January 01, 2011 12:53PMHope you made it into 2011 without any problems and that your hangover is not too bad (serves you right to suffer!). Although 2010 personally was even more eventful than 2009 I couldn’t help thinking last night that this year seemed to be even shorter than the previous one. Maybe it has something to do with age (I’m actually turning 50 in less than a week), but the concept of time does not seem to be what it used to be. There’s simply not enough of it these days. However short 2010 seemed, it was another damn fine year. Plenty of ‘ups’ and believe it or not no ‘downs’ worth bringing up again. There was the marriage to my beautiful fiancée in the English Reformed Church (let me call her Mrs. Sorensen). There was the honeymoon in South Africa during the World Cup (how lucky and blessed can a man get?). There was the promotion (finally) of my football club Leeds United. There was my confirmation and my 15 years of sobriety in AA. Professionally there was my debut as a TV correspondent at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (fame at last!) and joining the board of Danish Freelance Journalists (never to late to get political active!). You’ll have to admit that 2010 gave me plenty to be grateful for.
2010 was also my first whole year living in the Netherlands and the second New Years Eve as an Amsterdammer. In 2009 Mrs. Anfield (now called Mrs. Sorensen) and I celebrated the evening at a good friends home in the Joordan (let me call him Andrew) with five Americans, three South Africans, three Greeks, two Canadians, two Australians, one French, one Argentinean and two Danes (count me in). It was a truly delightful evening and we were blessed enough to be invited again this year – may it become a tradition! When most of your network consists of expats like yourself there is a good chance that they’re not celebration New Years Eve in Amsterdam, so last night the party was ‘reduced’ to two South Africans, two Danes, two Dutch, one American and one Canadian. I’m not going to bore you with a detailed account of a fantastic evening and night, but I will have to mention Andrews roof terrace. Living in a city where fireworks seem to be almost a religion, it is the perfect ‘Happy New Year’ location. Not only is it in safe distance of the many explosives, it also has a perfect 360 degrees view of the Amsterdam skyline. I’ve experienced News Year Eve in a few other big cities, but never seen anything as extravagant as in Amsterdam. Apparently, the recession and more strict rules should have had a negative effect on the amount of fireworks this year. Consumers could only buy fireworks from licensed dealers since Wednesday and they (the fireworks) could only be ‘used’ between 10am yesterday and 2am this morning. But to me it seemed even more intense than last year and from just before midnight and for almost an hour the streets and skyline of Amsterdam was transformed into a constant inferno that would have been a great inspiration to Dante.
That’s all for now – but there’ll occasionally be more from Amsterdam
and me on this blog in 2011. With the hope that you’ll ‘tune in’ from time to
time, I wish you a prosperous and Happy New Year.
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