Snowboarding IN Amsterdam

Yes, it's actually possible. You can snowboard within the city limits at Indoor Ski & Squash Watergraafsmeer. Can you believe it took me this long to actually do it? It's only a 25 minute bike ride from my place, it cost 12 Euro to participate in an hour-long group lesson, and they supply all the gear.

But there's a catch (of course there's a catch!) The catch is...there's no snow. The "hill" is a carpeted conveyer belt that is sprayed with stuff to make it slippery.

Check out the photo. There were six of us snowboarding in this tiny space at once!

Our instructor started by putting long metal bars down, and then had 3 of us stand behind the front bar and 3 behind the back bar, all in what he called "gliding" position, as if we were pointing straight downhill. He pressed a big black button on the side and suddenly the ground started to move away underneath us.

Gradually, after we all got used to the idea that we could stand upright while the conveyer belt was running, we did exercises to learn how to slow down on the mountain. In other words, we turned the board so that it was perpendicular to the slope to simulate a heel-side stop. We did the same thing facing uphill to simulate a toe-side stop. Next we did some toe-edge and heel-edge turns, but we could only angle the board enough to move from one end of the bar to the other. Then some of us were able to let go of the bar, and do the falling leaf in place. The final part of the lesson -- strictly for those of us who already knew how to snowboard -- was to move the top bar further back and have us do linked turns from one bar down to the next.

The instructor warned us that even seasoned snowboarders would have trouble at first. He wasn't kidding. 12 of us participated altogether, and 9 were complete beginners. Even the three of us who had been snowboarding for 7 years or more fell on our knees, butts, and backs a few times.

One main difference was, the belt didn't slow down or stop, so you never really got the feeling of how being perpendicular would actually slow you down. Also, it was very weird to be in such a constricted space with a metal bar at waist-level and two other people on either side. On a snowy hill with that kind of slope I wouldn't normally be afraid of falling, but with the conveyer belt constantly going, you had to trust the instructor to stop it before you hit the back wall.

That said, I'd say it was a fantastic way for beginners to learn the body movement required for snowboarding. It was cheap, it wasn't cold, we didn't have to drive or fly for hours to get there, and the bar was literally three steps away from the hill. And of course, this being Amsterdam, the apres-ski was especially good! We shared a few bottles of wine and pasta at an Italian restaurant in Rembrandtplein and then mega-strong cocktails upstairs at Harry's Bar. Just like after any other day on the slopes, we talked about the best falls of the day and our future snowboarding trips. We'll probably hit a few of the other indoor slopes in the Netherlands (there are 4!) within the next few months so that the beginners will have a chance to give it a try on real snow. Having never been to one of these indoor snow domes, I'm really curious about what they are like. So watch this space for more about indoor boarding in the near future...

Giant Disco Ball from Outer Space

I feel compelled to post about my night at the Sugar Factory, a club off the Leidseplein in Amsterdam. "Interactive Disco Opera" was the collaborative masterpiece of artist Eric Staller, filmmaker Miss T, and costumer Nepco. It was described as "Fellini-esque" in the paper, so I knew it would be surreal. But since I've never seen a Fellini movie myself, I wasn't sure what to expect. I will definitely go out and rent one now.

The theme of the night seemed to be alien B-movies from the 50s. When I walked in, they were showing the short film "Strip Tease on Mars", which was basically a gorgeous woman getting naked to 50s cocktail jazz on what seemed to be a desert planet, while eyeballs attached to long antennae quivered behind every rock. This was followed by a live saw harpist playing along to a film of vinyl records hovering above the Nemo & other obvious Amsterdam landmarks, a really clever localized send-up of the horrible special effects that make B-movies so fun to watch. Along those lines, I never realized what I was missing in life until I saw a cross-eyed Godzilla melting a toy windmill with his fiery breath in the wildly exciting action-horror short "Godzilla vs. Amsterdam".

There was also the Burka Boogie Woogie Band, where women dressed in burkas played in a band, with the burkas strategically fastened so that the shapes of the trumpet, trombones, bass, and other instruments poked out from the sides. One of my favorite pieces involved 4 women just standing still on the balcony in the darkness wearing beauty parlor helmets with lights that blinked in rhythm with the music; they looked like deep sea creatures. And there was a bizarro film featuring pink plastic breasts each moving separately, and then you were gradually made to realize that each breast was actually a woman wearing a huge plastic ball and a hat resembling a nipple. The grand finale, which was truly magnificent, involved 4 beautiful women in white glittering leotards, high heels, and disco ball helmets dancing around a shivering mass of silver, which eventually jelled (to the tune of "Last Dance") into an enormous disco ball man, about 3 times my height in diameter and at various times seeming about to roll off the stage into the transfixed audience.

Now that I'm typing all of this out, I realize...well...you really had to be there. There's just no way to describe it in a coherent way. It was abso-#$%@-ing incredible. I'm so going to all of Eric Staller's future disco operas. And you should too, if he ever comes to your city.

I can also highly recommend Hans Eijkelboom's photography, which is on exhibition now at Foam. Not nearly so dramatic, but also very interesting.