Coming from Amsterdam
I've had my fair share of encounters with tramps. The best one was the black dude on Surinameplein though. (a large square with roundabout outside the centre).
He was always there when i passed it on my way back home from work. And i also had to change trams there occasionally so i had the misfortune of being close enough to smell him a few times (the basic piss, poo, sweat and alcohol aroma. You get the drift).

Anyways, summer or winter, he always used to wear at least two winter coats with some sort of crust on the outside and trousers to match. He didn't seem to mind though, he was always merrily bantering away and always smiling while "controlling traffic", blessing the trees, looking for something (his sanity probably) in the large flower pots the city used to put there during the summer or managing his collection of footballs he used to keep in the bushes.

One time though, i spotted him while i was on the bus and i was actually afraid of being passed for being a bit loopy myself, coz i could barely stop myself laughing out loud.

He was doing his usual thing, can of beer in hand, laughing and bantering away. When suddenly he stopped in his tracks and gave his can a rather bewildered look. He peered into it, gave it a bit of a shake, started talking into the can and then held it to his ear. He repeated this a couple of times, talking louder and louder every time and getting increasingly worried every time he peered into his can. Until he started panicking a bit, shouting into his can and shacking it franticly.

My guess is he heard the echo of his own merry banter in his (nearly) empty can, thinking a tiny person was trapped in it.

I wonder if he's still there, i haven't seen him since i was lucky enough to move to a nicer part of town. All i can find on him is a blog entry dating 2002 and some official city document mentioning complaints coz he used to kip in the central hall of a nearby block of flats. The last also mentions he used to say "I once killed a man you know!" to the passing residents for no apparent reason, smell must have been awful in there too.
(Whatsit, Wed 8 Jul 2009, 18:25, Reply)