Busted

Saturday night’s plans for Rotterdam were busted—and not by me, but by the authorities.

It seems that the owner of the Gay Palace has been accused of selling drugs and otherwise using the facility for nefarious business dealings. Therefore I was left three minutes from the now closed Palace with no evening plans.

I hopped online and took a look at my options—apparently the club night, DJs and all, has moved to another place in Rotterdam, but it looked challenging to get to from where I was, and my interest was waning, so I ended up going to the movies–something I’ve done a lot of in the last week.

Friday night I’d gone to see “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints”, an autobiographical biopic about punk rocker Dito Montiel’s childhood in New York City. It is another one of these films that jumps around a lot: one minute you’re in the now, and then the next you’re in 1986. Seeing how this kid was lucky enough to survive his childhood was a bit disconcerting; despite street fights, he managed to escape relatively unscathed—and he chose to escape to California, but not before his Scottish friend was killed on the streets.

Saturday was “Superbad”, a film that I went to because it had a good review in the Brussels tri-lingual magazine. It also had decent reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, so I presented myself at the box office and went to the movie. The movie went over well with the Dutch audience—I was perhaps one of a few people who recognized some of the more obscure jokes in the movie (like the ditsy girl thinking that the guy from her high school was really from Hawaii). It was a great way to enjoy my Saturday evening.

After the film was over, I thought about popping in one of the numerous gay bars between the theater and the hotel: five that I passed directly, plus another three that would not have required onerous detours. Ultimately passed: between the energy required for going to a bar, whether familiar (3 in this category) or not, and the fact that the bars would have been smoky, I decided to just go back to the hotel and pack.

When my alarm went off, I was quick to realize the wisdom in my decision. It’s always a chore to get from Rotterdam to Weimar—and on Sundays it is even worse.