Amsterdam & the Beatles

For the new year break, I spent a few days in Amsterdam, the sin city that I had already visited two years ago. I don’t know if this is me getting swedish and longing for blue sky all the time, but I feel frustrated visiting a city when the sky is grey. And that was the case 90% of the time spent there… Anyway, I discovered the city from another angle than last time, since I “knew” someone doing Erasmus studies there. This time, I was not impressed by the number of bikes downtown though, it seemed almost natural after two years spent around Lund and Copenhagen. Amsterdam is a beautiful rebel city; unfortunately, the sex&drug tourism makes it a little bit artificial… A perfect place for a week end anyway!

For new year’s eve, the whole city turns into a huge field where fireworks are simply everywhere. In the center, the majority of the crowd was obviously under the influence of one or several drugs, and it did not feel really safe to walk with explosions all around… We finally gave up and decided to retreat and enjoy the countdown far from the crowd. From 23 to 02, fireworks were continously illuminating the sky, making it impossible for us to distinguish official fireworks from the rest. A crazy city, really…

Apart from the sightseeing, I had a great time there listening for the first time to the terribly addictive Love album from the Beatles. Under the supervision of the two remaining Beatles, around 130 recordings have been mixed together in this 80-minutes album. The album should probably be called “Beatles in a nutshell”. It is not just a best of, since for some songs, up to 3 different versions have been mixed together to create a “brand new” version. Other songs such as the one you can listen to in this post are combinations/bootlegs of several existing songs. A masterpiece, both technically and artistically.