What Playing Poker in Amsterdam Taught Me About Making Friends

After I graduated from school, my buddies and I obtained actually into poker. Each Sunday night time, we’d meet at our buddy Joe’s house and play for a pair hundred bucks complete. 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 this present day, he nonetheless performs professionally), and his ardour for the sport spilled over to me (although not his abilities). Whereas I used to be by no means a top-tier participant, I cherished the problem it supplied, and making an attempt to determine the chance of the playing cards and how you can learn folks’s tells. I learn books on poker and did every thing I might to get higher. Poker was — and nonetheless is — an mental problem to me.

On the US highway journey that began my round-the-world journey in 2006, I ended regularly at casinos to play — and gained sufficient to pay for a lot of my trip.

Finally, 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 outlets all day and get baked. There was a complete metropolis on the market to see and discover.

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

In the future, I handed a on line casino. I didn’t even know there was a on line casino.

“I’m wondering in the event that they play poker right here,” I stated to myself. Although I used to be on a traveler’s finances and hadn’t performed in months, I believed it may be enjoyable to indulge somewhat bit out of the country.

I sat down at a full desk of locals taking part in 2-5 No Restrict (meaning the primary bets are 2 and 5 EUR). The stakes had been larger than I needed, however that was all that was obtainable, so I purchased in for the minimal.

After I lastly determined to affix a hand, the seller stated one thing to me in Dutch. “I’m sorry, are you able to 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 needed to understand how I ended up on the poker desk and never within the espresso outlets, the place the opposite vacationers appeared to go.

So I advised them: Smoking limitless 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 needed to do one thing totally different.

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

Together 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 saved coming again. Poker was our bond, and for these transient hours we had been collectively every night time, 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.

In any case, I used to be touring the world with a view 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.

However these gamers had been my guides. They advised 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 realized extra about Amsterdam in these first nights than I had for all the first week I’d been on the town.

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

As the times handed, I saved delaying my departure with a view to return to the poker desk. Greg and Lennart typically provided to take me out, however I used to be naturally suspicious of two guys who needed 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 apprehensive they’d attempt to rob me.

So I declined their presents 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.

However, ultimately, I agreed, as they wore me down and turned out to be common individuals who simply needed to point out a customer some hospitality.

They confirmed me Oosterpark, on the japanese facet of city. It was a small, quiet, and lined with willow timber, that includes small ponds with geese, which seniors sat round feeding. It was a spot locals favored, as a result of they might 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 ultimately 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 believed you had been gone,” they stated.

“I used to be however I missed Amsterdam an excessive amount of so I got here again,” I replied.

Weeks handed. I fell right into a routine. I realized primary Dutch phrases from the opposite gamers on the on line casino, slept late, and used my winnings to finance an limitless provide of good meals, museum journeys, and hashish. I walked for hours upon hours, reaching the town’s fringes, making an attempt to get misplaced on the canals and slim streets that make Amsterdam so well-known — the sort of factor you would possibly do when, behind your head, you retain saying, “I might stay right here,” and also you out of the blue end up evaluating neighborhoods.

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

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

They acknowledged that reality too. They appreciated that Amsterdam is greater than the Crimson Mild District and tulips and windmills and occasional outlets. That’s all vacationers and backpackers consider after they come to Amsterdam, they stated.

Although, 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 fulfill vacationers.

Once we parted methods on the finish of the night time, they invited me all the way down to Utrecht on my subsequent journey via the continent. Amsterdam is nice, they stated, however it’s not the actual Netherlands. There may be 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. However as a traveler, you possibly can typically get tunnel imaginative and prescient a few vacation spot, the partitions of that are outlined by the fabric in your guidebook and the information from fellow vacationers who got here earlier than you.

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

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

As a result of I used to be so guarded, I virtually missed that likelihood. My newish nature on the highway virtually value me two friendships.

Since then, I’ve remembered to provide folks the advantage of the doubt and belief them extra.

Particularly, as a result of, just a few months later, whereas I used to be in Vietnam, Lennart referred to 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 strategy to preserve the night time going and, when phrase of this obtained out, different folks came visiting to rob everybody, realizing that they’d have plenty of cash. In an ensuing scuffle, Greg was shot and died on the scene.

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

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

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

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