What Playing Poker in Amsterdam Taught Me About Making Friends

After I graduated from faculty, my mates and I obtained actually into poker. Every Sunday evening, we might meet at our buddy Joe’s residence and play for a pair hundred bucks whole. It was our weekly ritual. With the HBO present Entourage within the background, we’d order meals and, huddled round a small desk, catch up earlier than on the brink of go to our boring post-college workplace jobs the next day.

Joe was essentially the most enthusiastic of us all (to at the present time, he nonetheless performs professionally), and his ardour for the sport spilled over to me (although not his abilities). While I used to be by no means a top-tier participant, I cherished the problem it offered, and attempting to determine the chance of the playing cards and how one can learn folks’s tells. I learn books on poker and did all the things I may to get higher. Poker was — and nonetheless is — an mental problem to me.

On the US street journey that began my round-the-world journey in 2006, I finished regularly at casinos to play — and gained sufficient to pay for lots of my journey.

Eventually, after I arrived in Amsterdam later that yr, I grew bored of the fixed weed smoking that was so outstanding amongst my fellow vacationers. As a lot as I cherished getting excessive, I wasn’t touring to take a seat in espresso retailers all day and get baked. There was an entire metropolis on the market to see and discover.

So (barely stoned) I might usually embark on lengthy solitary walks round city. (To at the present time, I walked extra throughout that go to than I did in all my subsequent ones.)

One day, I handed a on line casino. I didn’t even know there was a on line casino.

“I wonder if they play poker here,” I mentioned to myself. Though I used to be on a traveler’s finances and hadn’t performed in months, I assumed it is likely to be enjoyable to indulge somewhat bit abroad.

I sat down at a full desk of locals taking part in 2-5 No Limit (which means the primary bets are 2 and 5 EUR). The stakes had been greater than I wished, however that was all that was accessible, so I purchased in for the minimal.

When I lastly determined to hitch a hand, the vendor mentioned one thing to me in Dutch. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that in English?” I requested.

I had outed myself as a foreigner — and this created quite a lot of curiosity among the many different gamers. I used to be younger and clearly a backpacker, they usually wished to understand how I ended up on the poker desk and never within the espresso retailers, the place the opposite vacationers appeared to go.

So I instructed them: Smoking infinite quantities of pot had misplaced its luster, and so I used to be wandering every day, exploring the districts and museums. And, as a poker lover, I additionally wished to do one thing totally different.

Two of the gamers and I actually hit it off. Greg was older gentleman with an excellent sense of style who was all the time cracking jokes. The different, Lennart, was nearer to my age and tall, and had a shaved head. He drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney.

Along with the opposite gamers at our desk, they made me really feel like I used to be a part of one thing extra. So I stored coming again. Poker was our bond, and for these temporary hours we had been collectively every evening, I felt like I too was an area, not only a backpacker getting excessive in hostel bars and strolling round taking footage of museums. I used to be a traveler, getting beneath the floor of the place and attending to know the individuals who lived there.

After all, I used to be touring the world as a way to study it. As a lot as I cherished seeing museums, taking strolling excursions, and having quick conversations with folks I crossed paths with, none of that actually gave me a deep understanding of any cease on my journey.

But these gamers had been my guides. They instructed me about life within the metropolis and eating places and bars that vacationers didn’t find out about that I ought to go to. I felt like I had discovered extra about Amsterdam in these first nights than I had for the entire first week I’d been on the town.

As a vacationer, you don’t usually work together in deep methods with locals. You see them briefly after which off you go to the following vacation spot. Getting to know a spot — and the folks in it — requires spending quite a lot of time not touring.

As the times handed, I stored delaying my departure as a way to return to the poker desk. Greg and Lennart usually supplied to take me out, however I used to be naturally suspicious of two guys who wished to hang around after the on line casino closed and had been asking probing questions. I used to be younger. I used to be in a spot I didn’t know. And the world was all the time darkish and empty once we left. I used to be fearful they might attempt to rob me.

So I declined their provides to hang around the primary few occasions. As a pure introvert, this was my first expertise with nontravelers, and I used to be somewhat cautious.

But, finally, I agreed, as they wore me down and turned out to be common individuals who simply wished to point out a customer some hospitality.

They confirmed me Oosterpark, on the japanese aspect of city. It was a small, quiet, and lined with willow bushes, that includes small ponds with geese, which seniors sat round feeding. It was a spot locals favored, as a result of they may keep away from all of the vacationers and stoners who litter Vondelpark.

They launched me to bitterballen, the bite-sized, deep-fried Dutch meatball snack that appears like falafel on the surface however tastes like Sunday pot roast on the within.

And, after I finally did go to Spain for per week, I missed Amsterdam a lot, I simply flew again. They had been shocked after I got here again to the poker desk.

“I thought you were gone,” they mentioned.

“I was but I missed Amsterdam too much so I came back,” I replied.

Weeks handed. I fell right into a routine. I discovered fundamental Dutch phrases from the opposite gamers on the on line casino, slept late, and used my winnings to finance an infinite provide of good meals, museum journeys, and hashish. I walked for hours upon hours, reaching town’s fringes, attempting to get misplaced on the canals and slim streets that make Amsterdam so well-known — the form of factor you may do when, behind your head, you retain saying, “I could live here,” and also you instantly end up evaluating neighborhoods.

But all good issues come to an finish, together with my European visa, and it was quickly time to go to Southeast Asia. After shut to 2 months in Amsterdam, I couldn’t keep in Europe any longer.

On my final evening on the town, my no-longer-new mates and I went out for dinner, performed some poker, after which went for a remaining spherical of drinks. I instructed them the place I used to be headed and the way for much longer I deliberate to be on the street. We reminisced — one thing you possibly can’t actually do once you don’t spend greater than a pair days in a single place, or with one group of individuals.

They acknowledged that truth too. They appreciated that Amsterdam is greater than the Red Light District and tulips and windmills and low retailers. That’s all vacationers and backpackers consider once they come to Amsterdam, they mentioned.

Though, by their very own admission, they had been solely guessing. They’d by no means really met a backpacker, not to mention had conversations with one. And why would they’ve? Backpackers by no means strayed this far off the crushed path, and locals are busy main their day-to-day life, which doesn’t create quite a lot of alternatives to satisfy vacationers.

When we parted methods on the finish of the evening, they invited me right down to Utrecht on my subsequent journey by way of the continent. Amsterdam is nice, they mentioned, but it surely’s not the actual Netherlands. There is a lot extra to the nation than that.

One is aware of that intellectually. All it takes is one take a look at a map to know that Amsterdam is only a small a part of the Netherlands. But as a traveler, you possibly can usually get tunnel imaginative and prescient a few vacation spot, the partitions of that are outlined by the fabric in your guidebook and the guidelines from fellow vacationers who got here earlier than you.

Only the locals know what the actual story is — and till you get to know one, you’ll by no means be taught it.

But, greater than something, Greg and Lennart taught me to belief in strangers.

Because I used to be so guarded, I virtually missed that likelihood. My newish nature on the street virtually price me two friendships.

Since then, I’ve remembered to provide folks the good thing about the doubt and belief them extra.

Especially, as a result of, a couple of months later, whereas I used to be in Vietnam, Lennart known as me to inform me Greg had been killed in a theft. Greg used to have lots of people over after the on line casino closed as a approach to hold the evening going and, when phrase of this obtained out, different folks came visiting to rob everybody, understanding that they might have a lot of cash. In an ensuing scuffle, Greg was shot and died on the scene.

I consider Greg usually, particularly his heat smile, humorous jokes, and gregarious nature. He was by no means afraid to make a good friend. He taught me to not be both.

And it’s due to him that I’ve discovered to be extra outgoing and trusting on the street. Whenever I’m doubtful, I simply suppose to myself, “What would Greg do here?”

The reply is all the time: “He’d say hello.”

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