What Playing Poker in Amsterdam Taught Me About Making Friends

After I graduated from school, my mates and I received actually into poker. Each Sunday evening, we’d meet at our buddy Joe’s condominium 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 point of go to our boring post-college workplace jobs the next day.

Joe was essentially the most enthusiastic of us all (to today, 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 liked the problem it supplied, and making an attempt to determine the likelihood 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 continuously at casinos to play — and received sufficient to pay for lots of my journey.

Finally, after I arrived in Amsterdam later that 12 months, I grew bored of the fixed weed smoking that was so distinguished amongst my fellow vacationers. As a lot as I liked getting excessive, I wasn’t touring to sit down in espresso retailers 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 today, I walked extra throughout that go to than I did in all my subsequent ones.)

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

“I ponder in the event that they play poker right here,” I mentioned to myself. Although I used to be on a traveler’s finances and hadn’t performed in months, I believed it is perhaps enjoyable to indulge a bit of bit in another country.

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

Once I lastly determined to affix a hand, the vendor mentioned 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 a number 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 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 wished to do one thing totally different.

Two of the gamers and I actually hit it off. Greg was older gentleman with a terrific sense of trend 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 stored coming again. Poker was our bond, and for these temporary hours we have been collectively every evening, I felt like I too was a neighborhood, not only a backpacker getting excessive in hostel bars and strolling round taking photos of museums. I used to be a traveler, getting under the floor of the place and attending to know the individuals who lived there.

In any case, I used to be touring the world in an effort to study it. As a lot as I liked 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 have 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 all the first week I’d been on the town.

As a vacationer, you don’t typically work together in deep methods 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 a number of time not touring.

As the times handed, I stored delaying my departure in an effort 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 wished to hang around after the on line casino closed and have 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 might attempt to rob me.

So I declined their gives to hang around the primary few instances. As a pure introvert, this was my first expertise with nontravelers, and I used to be a bit of cautious.

However, ultimately, 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 timber, that includes small ponds with geese, which seniors sat round feeding. It was a spot locals preferred, 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 ultimately did go to Spain for per week, I missed Amsterdam a lot, I simply flew again. They have been shocked after I got here again to the poker desk.

“I believed you have been gone,” they mentioned.

“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 discovered 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 town’s fringes, making an attempt to get misplaced on the canals and slender streets that make Amsterdam so well-known — the sort of factor you may do when, behind your head, you retain saying, “I might dwell right here,” and also you all of a sudden 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 evening on the town, my no-longer-new mates and I went out for dinner, performed some poker, after which went for a last 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 highway. We reminisced — one thing you’ll be able to’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 Crimson Mild District and tulips and windmills and occasional retailers. That’s all vacationers and backpackers consider once they come to Amsterdam, they mentioned.

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

After we parted methods on the finish of the evening, they invited me all the way 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’s a lot extra to the nation than that.

One is aware of that intellectually. All it takes is one have a look at a map to know that Amsterdam is only a small a part of the Netherlands. However as a traveler, you’ll be able to typically 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.

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 price me two friendships.

Since then, I’ve remembered to offer 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 technique to preserve the evening going and, when phrase of this received out, different folks came to visit to rob everybody, realizing that they might 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 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 highway. Every time I’m unsure, I simply suppose to myself, “What would Greg do right here?”

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