The Amsterdammer

I'm having a bit of a clean up. I've got a crew coming around on Wednesday to do a shoot and I kinda feel like I need to get the place looking less single guy like.

In my clean up I came across this.

Oddly enough there's a story that goes with it.

Many many years ago I went to Amsterdam. I went there with my then girlfriend. New Zealand had just started a working holiday scheme with The Netherlands. We intended to take full advantage of it.

Unfortunately because the scheme was so new it wasn't working properly. We had to go through the exact same procedure as if we were wanting to emigrate to The Netherlands. It was complex, lengthy, costly, and a pain in the arse. It required us to have jobs before getting residency. And potential employers required us to have residency before offering us a job. It was not a working holiday scheme.

So we had three weeks in Amsterdam then went back to London. My work visa for the UK had expired, but somehow I managed to get through immigration after a tense ten minute discussion during which I fully expected to be sent packing. Having been allowed in we proceeded to find work and stayed for another few months before heading back to lil' ol' NZ.

Anyway the above photo was taken in Amsterdam. At Nieuwendijk 196 C, Amsterdam apparently. By Combi Chic apparently. Also apparently it is an Audio Foto. Go figure.

Hard to believe that was nine years ago.

Hard to believe that was once my life.