Early Lessons, Early Luck

After a couple of days in Paris, I was ready to start this thing. Travel partner? Check; enter François. In fact, his parents drove us close to Lille, our launching pad. Travel gear? Check; extra pants and extra sweater. Norway will be cold, mofos!

And wouldn't you know it, I caught a mad case of the giggles as I stood near the highway entrance in Lille, with a sign showing "AMSTERDAM" and a little smiley face on it, feeling increasingly self-conscious as people gazed on. This will never work. I can't believe I'm doing this. Do I have to go all the way to the North of Norway? Then again, we didn't pick the friendliest hitchhiking spot for our departure.

Soon enough, our first ride. Orange vous accompagne en Belgique. (My new French phone kept texting me whenever we entered a new country. Such a friendly phone.) Encouraged by our progress, we eventually made it to Amsterdam by the end of our first successful hitchhiking day. So exciting! Oh my goodness! This is great! Where are we sleeping? Who cares, this is fantastic! What are we eating? Who cares, this-- oh. Right. As we didn't have any accommodation and it was getting late, I felt that it was up to me to find a roof for the night, since François found all the rides. Never fear! Poi girl is here!

I naively tell him: "Just you wait and see. We will make enough money to pay a hotel for the both of us! How much could it cost? I am super confident in my skills. I'm pretty sure people would pay for the show. In Vancouver I was offered--", I hesitated, increasingly doubtful of the dream. Different continents, different circumstances. Nevertheless, not many other options, and can't hurt to try. So after some toil, we found a bottle of cheap lamp oil and set towards the Dam Square. Let the show begin...

...well, on the plus side, it was lovely to be spinning fire again. Quite magical to be doing it at dusk, in another country. But I can't deny that my plan was a complete failure. On my first spin, not even a coin. Some people stopped to take photos but that's about all. And some dude began playing depressing guitar songs close by, which did not fit so well with the dancing flames. Eventually he gathered a rather sizeable crowd around him, as I sat there, trying to gather the pieces of my shattered ego. This is definitely not as easy as I expected. What was I thinking?! I suppose we will have to sleep outside now, and it's my fault.

François was quite impressed by the show though, and as my number one fan, he offered that the approach and location may not have been ideal. After some deliberating, we moved across the square to be closer to foot traffic, and, realising that you need noise to attract crowds, I set my tiny portable speaker at the front near my busker's hat. Round Two...

I must've almost burned myself when I saw the first few coins dropped in the hat. My first money made as an artist (well, except for that time when I was 5 and drew some stick figures of Michael Jackson to be sold at my parents' shop; they told me people bought them), a street artist! Geez, how do people make a living at this? At least I've always got science to fall back on. At the end of the show, people sitting on the monument steps applauded. Encouragement! We sit down and look at our coins. There's some Norwegian crowns in there. Norwegian! We're going to Norway; this is too lovely of a coincidence! We will probably not make enough for a hotel in one night, but at least I tried.

Enter Tim, the first of many Deus Ex Machina on this voyage: “Hi, you're the girl doing the firepoi earlier, yeah? I was wondering if I could do some fire staff with you; I have my stuff at home and I can go pick it up and run back here. Will you guys still be around?”. Tim is from Germany and has been studying in Amsterdam for some time now. We chat a bit and decide to wait for him; a show with another person would be fun at this point so why not. He soon returns with his toys and we go about setting up our duo fire extravaganza. He has travelled and busked before, so he shared some of his wisdom.

Tim's advice: 

1. You need noise! Be it recorded music or a drum or a violin, you need to be loud to attract attention.
2. Use your voice. Regardless of what you say or whether people understand the language, speaking loudly piques curiosity and captures attention.
3. Light up a torch some minutes before the show, to announce that something will soon be happening here, time to gather 'round.
4. Actively ask people for money during or after the show. This is the most important. Often people will not think to give money to buskers, but when asked, the chances are greater that they will.
5. Have something else prepared in case authorities show up and forbid you to play with fire (at least until they go away). This happened to us that night actually. In Tim's case, he had glowing juggling balls.
6. Sunday noon grannies give a lot of money.
7. Don't give up! You won't always earn money. Every location and every time is different. Don't pay too much attention to what others around you think or how they may react.

What I came to realise during that night and following performances is the importance of performer-audience interaction. Charisma and attention-grabbing is definitely more important than the quality of your skills. I still have a lot of work to improve on that aspect.

We ended up making some 30€ in total, which we split amongst ourselves. Definitely not enough for a hotel or hostel, but we didn't need it anymore. As it turned out, Tim was also a couchsurfer, and although he rarely accepts online requests, he often hosts people that he meets in the street. So he kindly let us crash at his place for the night. We were even more thankful when we were awoken early the following morning by the sound of torrential rain pouring in the streets. Pretty good for a first day on the road? I think so.