Oh god, am I a snob?

Ever since traveling alone for the first time two years ago, sleeping in youth hostels and camping in the muck in Mongolia, I‘ve come to find this is a great snob or spoiled princess defense. Of course you’ll make me happy with a luxurious hotel bed or a cold glass of champ but I’d be just as cheerful sleeping in a hostel or having a beer in the bar. However last weekend I discovered some tantalizing undercover facts that stopped me dead in my tracks, making me wonder: “jezus am I a snob?”

Saturday I was having dinner with friends. Afterwards one friend and I grabbed the bus and the train back home. After just five minutes at the bus stop I was ready to call a taxi. Hanging around some stupid booth at 12.30 AM, freezing cold doesn’t tickle my fancy. I rarely use public transport, I’ m the type of person that only leaves Amsterdam through Schiphol, and if I do leave town I all goes wrong. Not just in Amsterdam but in New York and London too.

I rarely use public transport, I’m the type of person that only leaves Amsterdam through Schiphol.

Especially London by the way, and this mainly happens when I’m with Jet. During our Fashion Week trips we neatly mapped out the subway and bus lines but on every occasion we missed the bus, or ended up at the wrong side of the subway platform, then looked for a taxi to bail us out. Pricey. When we were in Antwerp going the wrong way, again, we turned around and walked another 20 meters before I asked: “taxi?” and Jet said “god yes!” We couldn’t find one so we in the end we still had to walk all the way to the station but the intention was there.

Then there was the time builders were starting work in my building that meant I had to clean out my whole house and all my clothes and shoes. I went to the store for boxes and it didn’t take long to realize I didn’t have enough of them (or I have too much stuff, either way that’s not the issue right now). I discovered that shoeboxes could perfectly well function as mini-moving boxes. I now had boxes of Giuseppe Zanotti, Céline, Isabel Marant, Rupert Sanderson and L.K. Bennett filled with junk, good job. But on the Snob-scale it’s pretty high up there.

The highlight was that morning. As my place would be inhospitable for at least two weeks Disco, my cat, had to go on a sleepover. For logistic reasons that are too complicated to explain she stayed with Jet and I stayed somewhere else. Her traveling case holds her favorite blanket, the dust bag I once got with my Chloé Paraty (the Snob scale is shaking heavily right now). Have you ever transferred a cat, a litter box and bags filled with cat food and toys on a bike? Right. So I ordered a taxi, loaded in all of my cat stuff and Disco and I headed for Jet’s place (the Snob scale is now purple).

So you have a cat that loves Chloé dust bags, you take a taxi after having packed all of your belongings in shoeboxes well then, there’s no denying it, I Liesbeth, dammit, must be a bit of a snob.