Anecdotes of Identity



“Many a man travels the world to find happiness, and return home to find it.”

“Home is where the heart is.”
It sounds simple enough: Go back to the country of your birth and discover yourself in a whole new light. But as the legendary Dutch footballer once said: "Voetballen is simpel, maar het moeilijkste wat er is, is simpel voetballen." [playing football is simple, but the most difficult thing that there is, is playing simple football]. In other words, nothing is simple.

Last August I was in Edinburgh during the comedy festival. Me and my New Zealand friend went to a free show, and one of the comedians, an American started picking on the crowd. He says: “You with the hat, where are you from?”

I was wearing the hat. Damn it. I was on the spot. I didn’t know. What should I answer? Unwilling to try and explain my unique situation, probably under the influence of my friend, I said “…uh… New Zealand”. Now, the comedian picked up on my hesitancy. That’s what comedians do.

“You didn’t sound too sure yourself.” he said. Truer words have never been said to me. In reality, if I had of tried to explain my situation, I would have had to have said everything that I have written in this entry. That would really have killed the comedy.

It has been almost 1 1/2 years since I came back to Holland, and the question I get asked a lot where I’ll end up next (often it is asked by that annoying voice in my head, when he isn’t telling me to kill hobos). I still don’t have an answer. In fact, I am going back to New Zealand for the first time in 3 1/2 years, and I have lost hope that it will give me any answers. because I am starting to wonder if the question isn’t fundamentally wrong.

Now, I don’t think I am by any means unique. There are generations of immigrants, refuges, 2nd and 3rd generation-naturalised citizens all over the world. It is just my annoyingly over-analytical mind which has caused me trouble. See, I was born in Holland, lived in New Zealand between 4 1/2 and 21, excluding a one-year exchange. For most people, they would think that I was young enough to grow up as a normal New Zealand kid. And for the most part I was (well... except for the ‘normal’ part). The only difference was, at home I had to speak Dutch. I am still so thankful I was forced to speak Dutch, often against my will, often on the verge of tears of frustration, often to the point where I feared going out in public because at any moment, my father could tell me off in Dutch. In retrospect, it was a very good parenting technique. It really kept me in line, and you could tell off your kids anything, anytime and no-one would ever understand. So, Dutch is the language of my youth at home. It still sounds childish to me. That is why I cannot take Dutch pornography seriously. It would be like seeing Minnie Mouse giving a lap dance. (actually, I think they have websites for that.)

As a four-year old, I assimilated almost instantly, but as soon as I went to regular school at age five, I completely shut down. I wouldn't talk to anyone, apart from two classmates who came to school on the same day. This went on for a long time, enough to make my parents and teachers extremely worried. However, almost everyone thought that my English wasn't good enough. People tried to trick me into speaking to them. They asked me to whisper. They asked me if I wanted to read aloud while behind the bookshelf. I hid under a pile of bags during break time. People teased me, and rightfully so: I was the wierd foreign kid. One day, it was decided that I would go to the special reading class. It was called "Rainbow Readers"... yes, it was for "special" students. I was comfortable around that lady, and she gave me a book to read to her, I guess to test my reading ability. It was a book of Spot.



Man, I read that book so fast that I remember the lady being surprised at me being in the special reading class. Then, after the first summer holidays, I was moved up a class and made a conscious decision to just start talking. It surprised everyone at first, but soon nobody was to think of me as 'the weird foreign kid' ever again. Even as a young teenager, I was pretty normal although I liked to stand out in small ways. I wasn’t an attention-whore by any means, but complete assimilation wasn’t for me. For example, I would leave my shoelaces untied to buck the system of school uniforms. Later, I even painted brown shoes to the regulation black and wore them to school, letting the shoe polish wear off to give the shoes a rusted-look. It was a ga me to see how bro wn they could get before a teacher pointed them out. I know, it’s petty. It’s kind-of douchey. Shut up, I was a kid… Also, I always thought it was a bit of a shame that I didn’t have a slight Dutch accent. I now am SOOOO glad that I don’t. Seriously, a badly preformed Dutch accent makes me wonder if it possible to laugh and throw up at the same time. I was at Starbucks recently, and a Dutch woman sat at a nearby table. She was speaking to some other lady in English, forcing me to take out my MP3 player. Anyway, I grew up in New Zealand without an unusual accent. Of course, maybe now my English accent has changed – that’s one of the things I am looking forward to finding out when I go back.

I also had an unnatural attraction to orange clothes. I owned three different Dutch football shirts, and several other orange clothes, or items with orange in them. I still do, although in Holland I don’t like to wear it as much because people might think I am a hooligan. I also liked the red-white-blue combination (which is NOT an American thing) The most ridiculous example is that I once bought a cheap rug – you know the ones made up out of strips of old clothing? Well, I based my decision on choosing which one to buy from the pile because on one, all that was visible in the fold was red, white and blue.

So privately, I probably always thought myself as Dutch, although no-one else did. For me, I think the defining moment in my youth that prevented me from accepting New Zealand as my homeland was when I was 16. See, basketball was the most important thing in my life. It was something I became pretty good at, thanks to several top-class coaches, talented friends, brother, rivals, and at times, practices five times a week. I always represented our city in regional and national tournaments and even got selected for an unofficial under-16 representative team that traveled to Australia. My eventual goal was to play for the College (high school) A-team, and for several years I was close to making the team. I always thought that once I became a senior, I would be on the team. I felt it was my right of passage. Well, I did make the team, however, there was a little rule in the New Zealand inter-college rulebook stating that each team was allowed to have only one import. Since I only had a Dutch nationality and passport, I was legally classified as an import. It’s true, I was not a New Zealander; I was a permanent resident. There was a senior at our school from Alaska also on the team, so I was dropped from the competition team. It was as ridiculous as it was frustrating. The rules of citizenship at the time was that Holland did not allow citizens to have a double passport, meaning that if I were to become a New Zealander, I would lose my Dutch one. There are no other repercussions for permanent residents, and I wasn’t going to give up my EU passport, so that was the end of the story.

I felt like I had basically been told by the New Zealand government that I could not play the sport I loved for my own school. That hurt. Miraculously, the next year Holland relaxed its rules, to giving its citizens the choice of a dual-nationality as long as they gained the 2nd nationality before they turned 18. So, with nothing to lose, I became a citizen a few months before I turned 17, among a group of young Cambodians, and some older English people. Slightly cheekily, I wore my bright orange Dutch football shirt at the ceremony, as I stood in front of the Mayor and recited the pledge of allegiance to the Queen of England. Here is the physical evidence of that event.

I was able to join the A-team the next year, and anti-climactically nothing really came of it (this is another story). Nevertheless, I still felt I had been slighted. In a way I still do. At the least, I became sensitive to the issue of what I was, and the arbitrary definitions of nationality.


Choosing Your Own Nationality

Since graduating high school, I spent one year in Japan before starting my 3-year bachelor’s degree. I was so eager to leave New Zealand that I finished my degree in two years. Sure, I wanted to go to Japan again, but I was actually bored with New Zealand. Not that I didn’t enjoy those two years, I really did, but I was just… bored. The two years in rural Japan really heightened my unawareness of what I was. The only thing was, I hated it when Japanese would speak English to me, so to combat that, my general policy was to tell people that I was Dutch. That way, if they spoke English to me, I could call them a dumbass because the Dutch have their own language. Technically, I came to Japan as New Zealand on my New Zealand passport (because you need to be from a native English speaking country). I was really starting to blur the boundaries.

I always imagined that I would come back to Holland one day. All my non-direct family is here, I still speak the language (somewhat), and it just seems right to come back and see what my home country is like. I am so lucky that I stumbled on the course which I am about to complete. Legally, as a Dutch student, I got 260 Euro per month, and free travel on weekends. I am so glad to be Dutch sometimes. However, I sometimes act like an international student. See, my English is far better than my Dutch (which is no where near academic standards), and more importantly, my English is far better than my lecturers’ English. It is my policy to speak and write English to them, because it puts me in a position of authority.

Okay, so here is a quick summary of my nationality in different situations.

1. I am a New Zealander in order to go to Japan
2. I am Dutch while in Japan
3. I am Dutch in Holland when claiming student-related perks
4. I am a New Zealander as an academic

Is it fair to choose my nationality like this? Yes. Absolutely it is. However, others can absolutely not choose it for you. Here is a story which illustrates this point from my yet-unused manuscript I wrote while in Japan:

“May I please interview you on your thoughts about Japan?”, a pretty Japanese girl asked in well-practiced English. “It will take only five minutes.” We went outside the international youth hostel, along with a cameraman and another man managing to look busy as only the Japanese can do, holding a clipboard. They started rolling as she asked me some standard questions. “Where are you from?” “Toyama.” I replied. Maybe I was trying to be difficult, but I wanted to let them know that I wasn’t an overseas tourist. “I’m a teacher in Toyama, and I’ve come for the weekend to Tokyo.” She translated to the clipboard guy, and exchanged disappointed grunts. She knew she was going to have to try a little bit harder. “What country are you from?” she asked, emphasising the word country. “Holland”, I replied. This time, I was not trying to be difficult. Yes, while it is true that I grew up in New Zealand, have a New Zealand education and a New Zealand accent, came to Japan on my New Zealand passport and all my friends consider me a New Zealander, I am Dutch. I was born there, all of my family is there, and I speak fluent Dutch with them, albeit childishly. I only became a New Zealander when I was seventeen. In fact, I couldn’t play for my high school basketball team because I was technically classified as an import. I even own much more orange than black clothing. It isn’t a simple justification, and certainly not one I need to make to a stranger, but I am Dutch. “But”, the intervieweress started again, “Why do you speak English?” This interview was getting off to a slow start. I quickly told her the story that my immediate family immigrated to New Zealand when I was four and a half years old. She listened carefully, nodded vigorously, and translated for the clipboard guy. “Ah!” he exclaimed, his world suddenly making sense again. I then watched in horror as he scribbled out “ORANDA-jin” [Dutch] and wrote “NYŪJIRANDO-jin.[New Zealander]”

For many people, the question of what you are is simple, and look at me and try to answer the question for me. But for me, it is not black and white: It's some strange mix of black and orange.


Blood

Okay, admittedly I look very stereotypically Dutch – comically Dutch even. Tall, thin, blonde, blue eyes. I am absolutely a “Nederlander” in the ethnographic sense. Of course, there are millions of Dutch people who don’t look like me. Last year, I was working at the Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam on Christmas. It is a giant stadium and a big operation every single game. A group of four of us temporary workers were assigned to a car park, directing cars to the available spaces. The leader of our group, a bitter, old Dutch man with a filthy moustache said he needed one person to stand at the entrance and stop cars to ask them for their parking card, or direct them to where they needed to go. This was the job that involved conversing with the drivers. The old guy looked at us four. One guy was black. The girl was black. The other guy was probably Moroccan or Turkish (Forgive my ignorance). Guess who got chosen to stop the cars? Yeah. I was chosen despite my Dutch surely being the worst of us four.

Still, my bloodlines are 3/4 pure Dutch, of which 1/4 is Frisian (yes, like the cow), and my other grandmother was originally born in Austria. Still, Austria isn't so much different really, and besides, 75% is pretty high. I’ll take those odds. Since New Zealand is also a predominantly European nation and basically only an immigrant nation, this has never been much of an issue, but it surely should play a large part.


Name

An email from a lecturer a few weeks back said it very well. I had asked her a question, and she replied a quick email asking if she can reply in Dutch. She wrote back “OK, yes, your Dutch name made me expect a Dutch nationality". Exactly.


Legally

I have a dual citizenship, but the fact remains that I only got the New Zealand one out of convenience, and even that was a stroke of luck that made it possible. Of course, I can’t be faulted for taking up both citizenships, because it made me going to Japan as a teacher possible. However, now that I think about it, had I never been able to get the New Zealand citizenship, this entire question of what I am wouldn’t even be an issue. At this point in history, Holland is having issues with immigration, and this has led to particularly some anti-Moroccan sentiment. On more than a few occasions, I have heard Dutch people complaining about Moroccan kids in Holland who keep their Moroccan citizenship; they think that these kids should just choose one and stick with it. When one old guy I was working with said this, I told him I have two passports. “Do you have a problem with that?”


It turns out that he didn’t. He reasoning was that I was born in Holland and have Dutch family. I think he meant to say that I wasn’t brown, or Muslim. I guess what this means to me is that re-assimilation is much more attainable for me.


Language

So, my English as mentioned earlier is native New Zealand. I am a big believer in the language ego (your own conception of your identity is inextricably linked with and formed in the language you think in). But Any New Zealander will claim me as one of them. My Dutch, on the other hand, although fully conversable, is still awkward, and to most Dutch people, I am "the New Zealander" (or Australian, if they are stupid. They often are).

I finally have that accent I always wanted! However, the accent causes me great pains sometimes. In daily life, I don’t want to be foreign. See, in Japan people would always use me as an English language target practice. It is the phenomenon I call the English Backtalker. It was such a buzz-kill to me when a stranger said something like “thank you” to me. Even if they mean well, the implication will always be “You don’t belong here”. So, when the same thing happens in Holland, it is just as bad, if not worse. I might be a dick about this, but at least I am a consistent dick.

A big F-you goes out to:

* The fat, slobby cashier lady at a supermarket replied to me in English when I forgot to put the stickers on the bananas I was buying.
* The bike repair-man I mentioned last year out in bumble-fuck who replied in English when I made a cute mistake of saying I have a “leaky-tyre” instead of a “flat-tyre”.
* The rare customer at work who replies in English. I mean, I am employed in Holland among other Dutch people. Wouldn’t it occur to you that although what I said might have sounded a bit funny, I do understand Dutch?
* The kindly old lady who helped me with directions when I was lost on my bike and it was raining.

The reason I think it is worse in Holland is, while in Japan this phenomenon is based on (probably) innocent racial profiling, in Holland, it is pure arrogance. They like to prove how good their English is. See, if I wanted to, I could probably learn to put on a thick Rotterdam accent, but I want to speak how I do. As Jackie Chan said “I speak Jackie Chan English”. Because I might pronounce a word with an English-language accent, or not have the proper elocution that might be typified by an English speaker, the English Backtalker in Holland thinks they are smarter than me. And because probably 95% of the time I understand Dutch better than they speak English, it gets to me. It just destroys your confidence in your own ability. What have I done wrong? Nothing. The problem lies with them. See, if I had a weird accent but was brown, I think this would happen a lot less often, because many people get annoyed at brown people (or people wearing head-scarves) who can't speak Dutch. But since I look like I could be an Englishman or American, to them, my accent is an opportunity to them to claim superiority and/or try to look cool. I especially hate it when they speak with a forced American or English accent. The general accent is bad enough…

However, this is one aspect which I have direct control over. My Dutch is improving, through social interaction at work mainly, and I intend to study Dutch much more intensively next year. I won’t force an accent, but I can surely improve enough to make it okay.

Cultural Knowledge
One thing I have noticed between me and the Dutch is the disparity of pop-cultural familiarity, which is often the basis for a lot of humour and even friendships. I am now on a volleyball team and for the begin-year party, every team made a presentation. Our team decided to do a rendition of this as our performance (don't watch it all because it is really lame):



It was an old kid’s program that probably every Dutch person over 20 grew up with. The team was loving the idea, laughing at every suggestion. But for me, this was the gayest shit ever. I mean. Come on. Still, I joined in, but I maintain that I didn’t enjoy it.

The only time this year that I have truly, truly laughed until I was spent was when my New Zealand friend was here. He kept making jokes about the Drink Driving government-paid warnings on TV. If you can watch this ad without laughing, you are not a NZer.



It was so refreshingly funny to have someone who shares a communal nostalgia. You can’t equal that, you really can’t.

This seems to be the reason I don’t really get along very well with many Dutch people. Even my volleyball teammates, who are all nice people, I just don’t watch the same TV programs – the basis for all true friendships. (Admittedly, this could also be the vast cultural gap between volleyball players and me, who is still ideologically a basketball player.) I don’t get along at all with other non-Dutch northern Europeans who I always seem to piss off. But I’m always instantly able to have fun with Americans, as I seem to have a pretty good knowledge of enough quality American TV.


Music
I was bar-hopping with some friends in Leiden. The law is that after 1pm (on most nights) the bar is not allowed to let new people in. It was already a bit late, but one bar is known to flaunt this rule, and we briskly walked in before the lax bouncer could block us. We got some drinks, and the music was… Terrible. It was playing a popular song, a techno song, and then it would play a Dutch Pop song (known as “Neder-Pop” or “crap music”). Seriously, every Neder-Pop song sounds like the Smurf song. It was so frustrating. But the thing is, drunk Dutch people love this music. They know all the words, and sing them loudly. Hard to believe, but the song ends up sounding even worse. However, at one stage one of these songs came on. As I was leaving the dance-floor, a girl came out of nowhere, flung her arms around me and started dancing with me while singing along loudly. Even better, she was dressed in an anime costume of Link, from the Legend of Zelda. Like this:

Now, I am no gamer, but I know hot when I see it. She was dressed as a Wood Nymph! I decided there and then that I would stay on the dance-floor. Very brave of me.

Judging by how loud she was singing, this girl was enjoying the song a lot (i.e. she was drunk). I looked over to my friends, and mouthed “I don’t know this song”. I must have looked very confused. The girl then looked at me accusingly, so I started singing something. (“La la la-la-la-la”) She did a double-take. She stopped dancing. She looked at me to check if I actually was singing the song. It was obvious that I wasn't. She hit me in my chest with the palm of her hand and said in Dutch: “You don’t even know this song!” And with that, the dance was finished, and she began dancing with some douche-bag who did know the lyrics and was enjoying the song very much (he was also very drunk).

I felt a little depressed after that. In theory, that should have been the easiest close ever. But my lack of knowledge of truly awful Dutch music cock-blocked me. It seemed to me then, that I wasn’t Dutch enough. My friend reassured me by saying “If the definition of being Dutch is knowing that music, you don’t want to be Dutch, do you?” Tough call…

Other People's Opinion of my Nationality
However, there is no question that almost everyone I know considers me to be a New Zealander. It just isn't that simple, as this long post has shown. I even had a random thought of a method how other people might come to consider me as Dutch: Join the army. (Holland has an army? Yeah, they do. I was as surprised as you are.) This was a completely honest thought that I had. My hippy up-bringing and my naturally rebellious-to-arbitrary authority notwithstanding, this would unquestionably make me Dutch. I mean, serving the country... But, the only thing I will ever serve is food and tennis/volley balls. I mentioned the Moroccans earlier, and many of the youths are said to be causing trouble and committing crime because they aren't considered Dutch here, and aren't considered Moroccan when they go back to Morocco. I don't see how crime and vandalism can help solve this problem, but maybe I should try it some time. It can't hurt (apart from myself, and society)

Some people ask me, what do you "feel"? I still don't have an answer. I love supporting Dutch football, and New Zealand Basketball. (if the Dutch football team and the New Zealand basketball team ever played against each other, I would incredibly confused...) I just hope the Queen of England and the Queen of Holland never get into a fist-fight (well, I imagine if they fought, it would probably involve them glove-slapping each other, or hitting each other with bunches of flowers, like on Jerry Springer. I mean, I would only NEED to make a decision of my nationality if there was a war between the two countries, and then I would probably be thought of as a spy.

I think, in the end, I think I prefer to slip between the two. And this sensitivity to nationality has become an obsession of mine, inspiring a complete manuscript, and being a huge portion of my master's thesis. In a way I envy those who have a conception that you must be ONE nationality. This general conception is that nationality is a like a giant bubble, in which the rest of your identity resides. But for me, it is a small part of the whole. I don't want to say I am a universalist, because that isn't true either. The closest description I have ever heard is this one by my hero George Carlin:


I truly am happy that I am both Dutch and a New Zealander, and the perspective and amazing opportunities it has given me. While the idea of an ultimate place to call "home" and going "back to my roots" may be a beautiful and poetic one, and one that I sometimes wish I had, in reality it does not mean anything to me. And I think, this realisation and resolution is what I have learned during these last 1 1/2 years on Back 'n Dutch.

Bonus Videos on the topic
So Dutch


The chorus of this song by Mos Def and Q-Tip is perfect in its simplicity




On a final note, this is the conclusion for Back 'n Dutch. I will continue for the next month as 'The Victory Tour 2010', and then as something new. Thanks for your patience, especially for this post - if you got this far. And thanks for sharing in this, ultimately pointless journey into my being back 'n Dutch. It's been great.

Christmas Spirit

Spare yourself the barrage of crappy Christmas movies. I think I found your Christmas spirit right here. It was a week before Christmas, and still our apartment didn't have a tree, or anything red or green. (Although, to be fair, I didn't look under the fridge or the couch. Noone ever does.) I once, accidentally set up a Christmas tree within the home of a Jehova's witness family, so no way in hell I was going to go without in my one student home. So after getting my day's study done, I gathered up everything green I could find, and what the flatmates gave, and I gathered as much potentially useful stuff that I could.

It took a few hours (finishing at 2am) with the help of flatmates, but wow. I looked up and thought: it's beautiful. It really is.
Okay, Okayy, objectively, I do realise that it looks like a piece of crap, so much so, that I couldn't be bothered to rotate this image. Actually, the bottom of the tree fell out a few days ago, but I had to make emergency repairs every morning, as it wasn't so structurally sound. We created it from a broom, on which we taped carboard, on which we taped the plastic portion of 5 shopping bags, and other random pieces of green. I did splash out to get some lights, but it was totally worth it. I know, you're thinking:

A) Does that mean that since your broom is now a Christmas tree, there won't be any sweeping done at your place? And,

B) This piece of crap took you 3 hours to make?

A), cleaning? In a student house? and B), it may be a piece of crap, but it's a BIG piece of crap! And look at the detailing.

Observe the cardboard apple-box, the barcode on the shopping bag (the Dutch make you pay for plastic bags!), the McDonald's Christmas ball, and the card from the below neighbours.

Because I learned something through this experience. The true meaning of Christmas is about the little things, and about turning pieces of crap into BIG pieces of crap.

Merry Crapmas to you all!

(see, wasn't this much more painless than sitting through a 90 minute Christmas special?)

The Countdown
Officially, my deadline to finish university is January 31st, however, that has been moved up significantly to before Christmas... By choice... My own choice... My own studip choice... To go on the Victory Tour in January.

So until then, every day I'm writing, editing, thinking... And more editing. Sometimes the only thing keeping me going is the thought being back in New Zealand, in the summertime (and away from the fireworks), seeing my dog, the holiday in Japan. And at the end of every day of writing and editing, I open up another window on my Christmas Countdown Chocolate Calendar. The thought that I am one day closer to finishing thesis AND going on holiday... All I can say is, nothing, nothing tastes as sweet. Nothing.

V-Ball

Lately, I have been busy on three fronts:

1. Finishing my masters thesis and paper
2. Working 3 days a week - totaling about 15-20 hours
3. Playing and practicing volleyball.

I have been largely silent about all three of these aspects, the first two because they are sort of boring. The third, because it's sort of embarrassing.

See, we suck. We have been playing since October, and it took until our eighth game to procure our first win. And let me tell you, it was not pretty. One set, we lost 25-1. In the new system of scoring! You know, even a missed serve for them would be a point for us. It was ridiculous, embarrassing, shocking. At the end of the set, when teams need only one point to win, they often chant "1!, 1!, 1!". In this situation, I wasn't sure if they were chanting for themselves, or making a complete mockery of us. Mind you, the week before, we played so badly that a teammate said "at least it can't get any worse than this"...

But now, with our first win, I can break my vow of silence. Here is the table, as it stands now. Our team is SKC. Notice that we are not last anymore, and this is a huge victory for us.

Now, I joined club SKC at the start of the semester. I had no idea what SKC stood for. A few weeks ago, I heard that a long time ago, it did stand for something, but now it doesn't - kind of like how KFC doesn't stand for Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore. Basically, it is a big volleyball club which has 6 men's teams and 11 women's teams, and it is based at the University Sports Centre. I am in the 4th men's team.

See, I used to play volleyball on school teams every winter from when I was 12 till 17-ish. I wasn't great, but I could play to a reasonable standard. So, in an effort to be more socially active in Holland, I decided to play either basketball or volleyball. The basketball club was full of douchebags, so I decided to play volleyball. When I started playing, I realised that it had been seven years since I last played. For the first time in my life I felt old. And for the first time in my life, I experienced losing like I never thought possible. Until our first win, I was regretting the decision. See, I still think I am a basketball player. I have the shoes, but I mean, philosophically, I am a basketball player. Especially when we are losing so badly at volleyball.

But we are slowly getting better, and while my front-court play could use a lot of improvement, I have my mojo in the backcourt. Observe the brilliance of this pass. I should set it up a little bit. See, this was the first set in our last game, but the opposition was up. In fact, they were on a set-point right here. If I didn't complete this pass, we would have lost the first set, and then maybe the entire game, and my vow of silence would still be going. I didn't. The pass, with only my left hand, was perfect, right on top of the setter's head. Glorious. I feel like we can only go up from here... (I am the guy with the headband and the long hair on the green team.)



But with this, I feel happy to have finally revealed my dirty secret.

My name is Ruben, and I am a volleyball player.

Winner!

I am not a winner. I never win anything. Actually, that's not exactly true. Once when I was about 1o years old, I was at a fundraiser for the SPCA, and there was a raffle. There was a huge jar of jelly-beans, and every entry would let you guess how many jellybeans there were inside. My mother, being a teacher, showed me a very logical method for figuring it out. (no, not opening the jar and counting them! Not that logical.) She counted how many there were on the bottom of the jar, and then counted how high they went, and then she did something in her head (I think it was magic), and came up with a number. I don't remember what number that was, but it ended in 20. If I were to take a guess, I think she said 320. Yeah, that sounds about right. Anyway, I thought to myself: "Sure, that fancy magic may get you an actual figure, but that can't be exactly right". I was much smarter than that, even back then. So, I decided to not make it an even number, and I wrote down "316". I felt pretty good about my chances, and sure enough the next day I got a phone-call. Yes, me, a 10-year old got a phone call. It was exciting. It was the SPCA, and they told me that I had won! I was a winner! She told me that my guess was the closest to the actual amount of jellybeans in the jar - 320.

For a while, I wondered what my prize would be. Perhaps a new bike, I thought. Well, no. When I got my prize - the same jar of jellybeans - it sudddenly didn't seem like such a "huge" jar anymore. So that is about the extent of me winning anything, and even then, it was my mother's magical powers that made it happen. She was kind enough to let me keep the jellybeans.

That is why, last week, I was very surprised to get an email saying I had won tickets to see Yellowman. Now, I often enter into a draw for free tickets to concerts through a reggae website in Holland, without much regard to who is playing. But Yellowman I knew through the curse of the compilation CD. Basically, I knew who he was, what type of music he plays, and one or two songs. I am more a reggae kind-of-guy, and Yellowman is one of the legends of dancehall.
Here is one of the more reggae songs from the set he played:



In fact, I won two tickets, and so I posted this message on the facial-books to see if anybody would want to join me:
"Any Elephant Man fans out there willing and able to go to his concert on Saturday in Eindhoven? I won two tickets, is all. Oh wait, I should write this message in cool dance-hall lingo... Big up dem massive! boo-yaka sha! Me dem ere getty dem tickats two ta si Elephant Man! Giv tanks an prase! Holla mi bak."

Did anybody notice something strange here? Yes, dancehall is so far out of my musical range that I got Yellowman mixed up with Elephant man. Silly me, mixing up an albino dancehall star with one who has elephantisis.

Okay, Elephant man does not have elephantisis as far as I know (which obviously isn't a lot), but seriously, Yellowman is an albino. One of his songs, and I'm not making this up, is called "Mi Yellow like Cheese". I have never seen such a wierd looking man. Google image this guy with precaution. He looks like Grendel from Beowulf. As Stewie Griffin once said "I feel bad for looking without paying." And since I won the ticket, I felt bad for looking.

But me going on about his looks is pretty immature and a dick thing to do of me. After all, he is also a cancer survivor. Besides, he has done immense good for our type: albinos. And since he is thought to be one of the most sexist recording artists of all time, I think he is perfectly comfortable with who he is.

So, since I had him confused with Elephant man the week before the concert, I had been refreshing myself with the wrong music, and when I arrived, I was pleasantly surprised at the reggae-ness of the band. See, early dancehall is still very reggae. In fact, such as in the above song, they often use the same song to sing over. I prefer reggae, but dancehall does sound so much better live. And I loved the effort of a 53-year old cancer survivor, with the biggest pelvic thrusts I've ever seen. His 4-piece band was tight, they played a good range of classic reggae (including covers) and dancehall, and even a cover of Fats Domino's Blueberry Hill. It was the best free night's entertainment I've had in a long time. Unfortunately, the concert was in Eindhoven, which was the villian in the story when I fell asleep on the night train. It was a 2-hour train-ride home, and I wasn't going to risk being stuck at a station at night. I left the small concert hall regretfully, as Yellowman was still going strong after 90 minutes on stage. At one stage he said "Yellowman guarantees satisfaction, satisfaction guaranteed" and "The reason I was put on this earth is to make sure you all have a good time." After what I saw, I believe that he believes that.

So while it wasn't exacly my thing, I saw a living legend in the Jamaican music scene and had a genuinely good time, and I learned that perhaps albinos can be winners after all.

Walk a Sham

As you may recall, for those of you playing at home, my bike was stolen from the station a few weeks ago. I thought some drunk person and/or homeless person had stolen it in a random incident, but now I think there may be a conspiracy against me. Someone -or something- is dearly against me riding a bicycle. I am not a superstitious man, but consider these cold hard facts of the last few weeks.

These last few weeks- and until the end of the year, I am working incredibly hard- working hard beyond recognition. (i.e. it is very unlike me to work this hard.) I go to school every day to write my thesis, and do my homework for my other class. I also still work 12 hours per week earning actual money, as university "credit" doesn't actually get you anything except disdain from people with actual full-time jobs.

Be aware that every single day that I don't have a bike, I have to walk a half hour to town, and from there another 10 or so to school. There is a bus, but it often comes only once an hour, and sometimes it comes early, so on top of the 7 minutes it takes to walk there, you have to be 10 minutes early, and then, it might come very late. It is often worthwhile to just walk. On the way home, I usually took the bus.


My bike was stolen on a Wednesday. I waited until after the weekend to get a new one.

The Tuesday after my bike was stolen, I went to the bike store and asked what 2nd hand bikes were available. I found one that I maybe wanted, but decided to think about it for a day, and maybe compare prices.

Thursday. I was going to go to the bike store to buy it. Only, the shop had a small sign on the window saying his daughter was sick at the hospital, so he was closed all day. It would be a dick-move to complain about this. So I won't.

Friday. I went back, and told him which bike I wanted. He needed to fix it up a little beforehand, and he couldn't make it ready for me today. Also, since he is closed on Mondays, I told him begrudgingly I would pick it up on Tuesday.


After a whole week without wheels, I was getting pretty sick of walking.

Week 2
Monday. The bike store is closed.

Tuesday. There was another sign on the door that said he was closed from 2pm. It was 3pm.

Wednesday. I finally could pick up my bike. Wow, this time I have an old racing bike, and damn it goes fast. I was so happy, that feeling felt like it would last forever.

Thursday. I finished all my study and errands in record time, and I had energy when I got home. I made plans to get up early and do it again the next day.

Friday. As I was about to leave for a jam-packed day of study, I noticed that my front tyre was flat. Shit! After some swearwords, I put out my left foot and took the familiar walk back to town.

Week 3

Tuesday. I wanted to let him fix the tyre properly while it was still under moral-warranty. I was expecting this to be the last time I had to walk to town. So I walked to town with my bike, and went back to the bike shop (because he is closed on Mondays). He was sick again. Fuck. So I locked up my bike outside his shop and left, knowing that I would have to walk to town again tomorrow.

Wednesday. There was a sign on the door saying he was out picking up new bikes until midday. I had work at 2pm. There was no way he would be able to fix up my bike within the first hour of his working week, so I told him I could pick it up the next day at 5pm- at his closing time, and the time my class finishes.

Thursday. I had to wake up very early, and it was raining very hard. Unfortunately, the bus was early and I saw it fly by before I got to the bus stop. So I walked. In the drenching rain. At the end of the day when class finished I walked as quickly as I could to the bike store, arriving at 5:05. I saw him, busy putting all the bikes on the street into the tiny store. He saw me and said, "I'm sorry, your bike is right at the back of the store, I am not going to get it out now."

As he said that, a part of me died inside. Truly. My feet were dead tired, and my mind destroyed. I mean, I had been working so hard these last few weeks, and this let down was almost my breaking point. I loped back to the bus stop...

Friday. Finally, my bike. He didn't charge me for it, which is nice. I mean, I like the guy, but circumstances have been so against me lately, it brought me to the edge of despair.

I will not take my bike for granted. Because there is one thing I have learned from these last three weeks: Even though it is man's primary form of locomotion, I fucking hate walking.

Updated!

Victory Tour 2010



Whoops. Never mind the part where it says 2009. That was a Freudian penis. I meant, of course, 2010. It just slipped out.

The countdown has begun...

The Best Week of Music

Four months ago, I wrote this glowing review about seeing my favourite band play live. It was Groundation's first performance in The Netherlands, and only four months later, I was able to see them for their second Dutch performance. This time, in Den Haag. It was in a small-ish music hall, or as optomistic musicians who can't sell out big concerts like to call it "an intimate audience". Among the spectators was my own father. Awesome. I was converting my dad to a Groundation faithful. On the one hand, I feel lucky to see this band before they make it big, but on the other hand, it is such a shame that such good reggae music goes on largely unnoticed, while only four days later in Amsterdam, a giant reggae festival is going to have thousands of fans.

Of course, I will be among these thousands of fans. Are you kidding me? Let's give you a quick run-down of this line-up.

Shabba Ranks: Not exactly my style, but he is a classic voice in the early reggae-Dance hall transition.

Jah Cure: A cult-figure in reggae, and justifiably with a voice like this.


Serani: I didn't know him before, but this track is pretty sweet.

Tanya Stephens: A big up and comer, with an original sound and as reggae people call it "conscious sound". I am not exaclty sure what that means, but I pretty sure this song has it.


Richie Spice: In March, I went to what I then thought was a big reggae concert, and Richie Spice was the headline act. I thought the concert was then worth it, and this time, he is the 4th act I want to see. Although in March he was a bit of a let-down. I mean, he couln't even hit many of his own high notes. Maybe he wasn't entirely conscious. So I am hoping he sing his boots off and earn back my respect, because his songs deserve them.

Maikel X: I saw him before at Park Pop while I was dressed as MJ, and being a locally based-artist, he is the the weak link in this line-up. But good for him.

Duane Stephenson: Another new-up-and-comer singing true roots reggae. I have been listening to him a lot recently, so this is exciting. He also appears to be "conscious" in this song:


The ony problem is, with such a huge line-up, and a huge night ahead, I hope I can be conscious myself for the entire night. If I can, it will easily have been the biggest week of music of my life.

Farewell Giselle

Giselle

Feb 2009 - 15 October 2009

It's never easy when you lose something important to you. But at the same time, you try your best to deal with it, knowing that good things are supposed to end. I always knew this time would come, but it is still difficult when it is taken from you. It doesn't seem fair, when it really nothing could be more fair. It happens to everybody.

My bike, beloved Giselle, was stolen from me after I locked it up at the station last Thursday morning. Bikes in Holland are very frequently stolen; they are more contagious than an STI. I kind of expected it to get stolen this year, which is why I got a cheap bike, but I was still careful to always lock her up. It is sad to lose my bike. Of course, I am not really talking about my bike.

But let's talk about my bike. This was our last adventure together.

Okay, it was Saturday night after 3am, and I was... No, let's phrase this more carefully: I had been drinking. It was a party in town. I was coming home by bike, and I was needing to cross through to the other side of the station. For the purposes of a visual aid to the story, I will include a map.


View Larger Map
Starting from the bottom of the map, I was biking up towards the station (the large white building at the top-left.) However, as I entered the map, a sporty white car came out of the side street from the right. Giselle no longer has a working light, but then, in Holland almost everyone's light is broken, and this was a well-lit and relatively busy street, even at this early morning hour. However, the car didn't stop for me, and I had right-of-way. However, as I say, "right-of-way means very little when you are in hospital." I swerved to the left, and avoided driving straight into the driver's door. But my pedal hit and scraped against the front bumper of the car. Yes, I had officially been in a car-to-bike crash. I didn't fall off, and Giselle had suffered no damage, but I was pretty pissed-off.

Maybe in retrospect, I was acting. Maybe I was just relieved to have avoided a potentially bad crash. And I probably shouldn't have tried to be so tough. But in the moment, I was pretty pissed-off and I gave that driver of the car an earful. It probably contained many words of an offensive nature. It was also in free-flowing angry English, which I'd like to think sounds much more threatening to a Dutch person who would understand most of it, but be unable to reply.

Feeling better, I continued to bike on up the road toward the station. That's when I observed the same car coming up behind me with the lights on full. Shit. About where the "Paviljoenshof" is on the map, I ducked through a small gap onto the footpath to get out of the car's way and let it pass. I biked slowly to let the car go by, but it drove up further onto the pedestrian crossing and onto the wide pedestrian area in front of the station. The car was facing me. It was staring me down.

Shit.

I had pissed the guy off. And let's, for a moment, consider what kind of person drives around the city centre in a flashy car after 3am in the morning. I won't draw any conclusions, but surely you know of similar people in your home town.

This is where all my years of movie-watching paid off. I tore off a chapter from the Bourne Identity, and started biking towards the car, swerved to its left, over the pedestrian crossing and back onto the road. The car was turning around like a slow dinosaur, unable to keep up with my agility. I then quickly turned back towards the station entrance, through the sliding doors and inside. I knew there are cameras there, and also security guards late at night, especially on weekends. I was safe... Also, the station has a back entrance where it is difficult for cars to get to. I simply biked through to the other side and biked home.

I doubt the guy (and I vaguely remember there maybe being a girl in the passenger seat) was actually going to try run me over (because cyclists make dents), but he may have wanted to get out of the car and fight me with more than just words. I say this because I heard a similar story where a car driver got out and ran to try and fight a cyclist he almost hit.

It was a close call, because let's be honest, I couldn't fight my way out of a roomful of newborn puppies. But I am grateful that Giselle was there for me in my time of need, and did everything asked of her. And I will always have stories like this to remember her by. And that is something that noone can take from me.

Happy Leidse Omzet!

This last weekend was the biggest festival day in Leiden, celebrating the hard-won independence from Spain. However, after the last "biggest event of the year" was spoilt after me getting prematurely excited about it, this time I had no expectations. And when you don't have expectations, you should expect great things.

So, on Friday the 2nd of October- the biggest party night, I was busy not expecting anything when my flatmate said- "Hey Ruben, you like cooking, it's the 2nd of October, do you want to make "Hutspot" for us... for 6...8 people?"
I said "Sure... What's hutspot?"



It's basically just mashed potato with onion and carrot. There were some crates of beer, and so, the night organically grew into a great night out. After eating (and drinking) in, we headed into town, which had transformed into a giant carnival and festival with rides, games, outdoor beer vendors, thousands upon thousands of people (sometimes literally), drinking on the streets and in the canals on boats, and outdoor DJs. One of the DJ events we went to was on a small barge in the water, from which many people peed off. Again, I will not divulge whether I partook in this ages-old Leidse tradition, but I will say that it was awesome. The whole night was.

I was in such a good mood that it felt like New Years. But instead of saying "Happy New Year" to all the strangers, I adapted the saying to "Happy Leidse Omzet!" I now know that it is actually "ontzet", but I don't think it mattered much. Most people didn't understand what they were supposed to say back to me. So, after some trial and error and persistence, I adapted it to "Happy Leidse Omzet, WOO!", which got a more-or-less desired result ("Woo").

Actually, after a getting home and spending a full day hung over, we all finished the beer and had another night out in town. Rinse and repeat. The two nights melted into one weekend of pure awesomeness.

I know, this post isn't really leading to a point, but I promise it is leading to something much better: a compromising photograph of myself as a visual representation of how great the weekend was. It was at 4:30 AM after the first night. I had gotten home, and had finished chatting and sobering up with the others who had made it home. This photo shows where I took a rest at the halfway point between my living room couch to my bedroom. I wasn't actually sleeping; I was more "doing a David Hasselhof".

In all fairness, the photo probably looks worse than it is... Anyway, here you are.
Happy Leidse Omzet everyone!

...

Woo!

Summer Holidays Continued:
Trying to find the "real Scotland"

Now, after spending five days and nights in Edinburgh, I was feeling the need to leave the big city. Yes, Edinburgh is a fantastic city, and it was the best time of the year. But after five days in a big city, I needed to get away. I felt it would be insincere to visit a country and only really see the main cities. Although going to the Highlands was too far and expensive, I still wanted to see some small towns, get away from main street and meet some real folks and experience the real Scotland. I also didn't want something like this happening again.

I had no idea of where I could go, so I turned to the trusty googles. My criteria were thusly:
1. A small town, but not touristly cliche.
2. Preferably close to the sea.
3. Somewhere far away enough for the backpackers to not be filled up with tourists for Edinburgh Festival.
4. Close enough for me to get back to Edinburgh Airport for my 10pm flight on Tuesday.

However, I am not a terribly good internet researcher, so I just ended up looking on google maps, finding towns that looked small but had a train station, googled for a backpackers in the area, and I looked through the Scot-rail website to see if I could make it back on time.

This is pretty much the map I made my decision from. It was a town with the second silliest name I have ever been to: "Berwick-Upon-Tweed".
[The prestigious first prize goes to The Dutch city of Bergen-op-Zoom]

I arrived by fast train on Sunday night, which took about an hour and half, and I walked straight to the backpackers. The Australian running it had to leave the gates open past the ungodly hour of 9pm. Yes, this was a conservative, traditional town. Also, the common room had already closed. However, I was a rebel and made a cup of instant coffee, and sat down to write. Besides, there was no-one else staying there.

After a while, someone came in. It was an older guy from Glasgow, very friendly. We talked for a while, and he came to the subject of what he did that day. He said:
"I walked from here into Scotland."

My brain paused for a minute. It was about to explode with a toxic amount of logic.

'Wait a minute. If he walked into Scotland from here... then here... must not be Scotland!'

I had inadvertently crossed the border into England. I mean, if I had known this was England, I would have chosen somewhere else. I didn't want to go to England! It all makes sense now: only the English would give a town name something as lame and gay as "Berwick-Upon-Tweed." I felt such the fool. Of course, I didn't say anything to the guy, and luckily he was content to keep talking.

Now that I've take a closer look at the google map, there is a squiggly line of the border just above Berwck-Upon-Tweed. But I was here in this town, and I was going to make the most of it. That night, I slept so incredibly well. After five consecutive nights of sleeping in backpacker rooms with 8 or 12 other people on plastic matrasses, this real wooden bed with soft down duvet was like sleeping in a gay cloud filled with puppies and bunnies.

I woke up refreshed, and armed with a map, umbrella and a camera. It was a full day of relaxed walking, between fresh bouts of rain and glorious sunshine. It was such a nice town to spend the day in.

Because I took so many photos, I compiled them into a 4 minute video. The song is Big Blue Sea by Bob Schneider (not Rob Schneider). It has no real relation to the content, apart from matching my relaxed, feel-good mood of the day, and I wanted to use a song by an artist that most people probably don't know.




The reason why Berwick-Upon-Tweed is such a pretty town is due to the River Tweed and the trade it brought further north into Scotland. And then, [from Wiki]

Berwick's strategic position on the English-Scottish border during centuries of war between the two nations and its relatively great wealth led to a succession of raids, sieges and take-overs. Between 1147 and 1482 the town changed hands between England and Scotland more than 13 times, and was the location of a number of momentous events in the English-Scottish border wars.

So, there you have it. I went on a trip to find the real Scotland, and ended up in England. If you are Scottish, I'm kidding. Although, I heard and read that in the future, Berwick-Upon-Tweed might change back, and when they do, feel free to call me a visionary.

Laffin' inna rein

Last month was my big summer holiday. Of course, it didn't really feel like a summer holiday. See, most people I know in Holland escape the (usually) crap weather and go on a summer vacation to south France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Peru, Egypt. No, instead, I went to Scotland. As Billy Connolly once said: "There is no such thing as "Bad weather", because otherwise Scotland would be fucked. There's only inappropriate clothing."


Here are some photos of our trip to Sterling (the place where the great battle against the English was, not where the silver comes from). We visited the William Wallace memorial, or at least that's what they told us it was. We couldn't really see it.


Luckily, I packed my umbrella. Thanks Billy Connolly! Obviously, I wasn't going for the weather; I was going for a cultural holiday, and mainly to catch up with some old friends (i.e. They are both older than me). Besides, even though the weather sucks- apparently it rains every 2 out of 3 days- there is no better time to go to Scotland than August. Imagine how miserable it must be in winter. However August is the best time to go not only due to the weather. There is also a little something called the Edinburgh Festival. The timing of this was incidental as my two old(er) friends were at the mercy of their Japanese holiday schedules, so this was a giant bonus, especially with my love for comedy. Despite never having gone to a live stand-up show before. That was about to change.

One of those friends is also a New Zealander, and this one week's holiday was the most New Zealand-ish I have ever felt. Besides hanging out with him for an entire week,a list of the stand-up comedians should explain this New Zealandishness.

1. There was some NZ comedian who lives in London (don't they all?). He also played some musical comedy. He was good at talking to individual members in the audience and grilling them and apparently his cute New Zealand accent allowed him to get away with insulting people. The only thing is, he was completely overdoing his accent, to the point of putting on a Maori accent. The more awkward a silence was, he stronger his fake accent. After the show when I gave him a donation, I asked where he was from. He said "Blenheim."

Now, I don't expect many people to know this, as this is a small town about an hour from where I grew up, but if you come from Blenheim and are white, you should not be talking like he did. I lost respect for him instantly. (However, to be fair, I would have lost respect anybody who comes from Blenheim, regardless of their accent.)

Raybon Kan:

This is New Zealand's greatest humour columnist. In fact, he might be the only one. I always read his articles, to the point where when I was living overseas, my father would cut out his columns from the Sunday paper and send them to me. I had seen him on a few TV shows, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see how good (and controversial) he could be as a standup comedian. It must have been difficult for him too, as the tiny room he played in (half-filled with compatriates) had no air-flow. After 45 minutes, I don't know whether I was exhausted from laughter or heat-stroke. Either way, it was a good night.

He didn't use this bit, but it seems appropriate for this post.


Rhys Derby:

The manager from the HBO show Flight of the Conchords. I cannot tell you how much I love these guys. I lived in Japan for a year, and in the first year, every time I mentioned where I was from, the automatic response was: "Ooh, Lord of the Rings!". Man, I thought the book was okay, and the movies a little lame, but they ruined New Zealand's image. I'm not talking about it being a beautiful country; that hasn't changed. But the impression now is that New Zealand is filled up with Lord of the Rings nerds. And you know what, that isn't too far from the truth. For sauronssakes, during the premiere of the films, they renamed Wellington, our capitol city... they renamed it to "Middle Earth"!!! I was so ashamed.

However, after the first year in Japan, something wonderful started happening. Some people, instead of immediately talking to me as if I some kind of geek that goes to conventions dressed up as Legolas, they would ask me about The Flight of the Conchords. (Besides, we all know I would make a better Arwen.) The Conchords are funny, talented and not lame. So, going to Ryhs Derby's show was probably the high-point in my life of my relationship with New Zealand. Here is a clip of a bit he did in the show we saw.



And so a holiday to Scotland wasn't terribly holiday-like. There were no sunset beaches and palm trees, or there wasn't any adventure tourism. It was, in a way, an unexpected reconnection with the old country, which is nice because Scotland is so much closer.

Tales From A Holiday Not My Own.

So, I had three friends visiting at the end of the summer holidays, and I had to do my best impression of a local guide. Basically, I don't really know much of Holland to show around, but I wanted them to have a very Dutch experience. From this time, I got to see the country from a very different perspective: that of an American tourist. Despite this, it was a fun time and there are some stories I otherwise wouldn't have experience. For example, waking up at 5AM in Eindhoven. Well, they weren't all fun times. I don't like to narrate, but I love telling anecdotes.
Just be warned: I don't do transitional material... anyway...

"Hey, did you hear the one about the Cube Houses?"

My friends were staying at the famous cube houses for a few nights. Yes, right above the very location, the sacred ground where Jackie Chan once fought. This also earned him a square on Rotterdam's Walk of Fame. Yes, we have a walk of fame. Deal with it.

It turns out there is a very reasonably priced hostel in one of the cube houses. The only other way to take a look inside would be to break into someone who lives there, or go to the "cube hostel lookhouse". But for the price of looking thrice, you may as well stay a night (with breakfast). Because my friends had booked together, they had a 4-bed room to themselves. Not bad for some prime real estate, especially for the price they were paying.

However on the 2nd night, we came back late after some doners, walked in the room. There was a guy. An Icelandic guy.
"Hi!" He said.

Luckily he wasn't too weird. He was very enthusiastic about showing some of his culture to us. He opens a tiny bottle of Icelandic vodka, volcanic rock purified. It was very nice. Then he shows us a tin.

"It's tobacco", he says. "...for your nose."
We looked at him funny. "You mean, it's chewing tobacco."
"No, it's nose tobacco."
We looked at each other funny.
"Do you want to try?" He asked. "No? Okay, I'll show you."

As he was putting a small row on the back of his hand he tells us that he doesn't use it himself. We reassured him that he didn't have to show us. I mean, I wouldn't ask a Cuban man to smoke a cigar. But he wasn't listening, or wasn't understanding us, and he snorted two nostril-fuls of tobacco.

He starts coughing.
"I hate it." He says.
"It is burning me behind my eyes!"


Soon he was coughing and sneezing in the bathroom and blowing his nose directly into the toilet. Isn't cultural exchange fun?

I wasn't sure if I should feel bad or if I should laugh. So, I did both. The point is, going on holiday should be about meeting other people, wherever they may be from, and making fun of them.


"So, are any of you guys from Vondelpark?"

Vondelpark is the big park in Amsterdam, which I possibly falsely tell everyone that is the park in Amsterdam where nudity is allowed. I am too lazy to check if this is factually true, and besides, I like not knowing. Ig'nince is fun!

Anyway, although the weather wasn't perfect, we had a bit of a picnic, and there were some other groups of people there too. At one point, one of us says: "Those two girls behind you are making out." Indeed they were. Wow, open holland. They weren't nude, but maybe my "fact" could actually be quite close to the truth. After a while of "canoodling", two more girls joined them. And I mean, they weren't just all sitting together, they were all canoodling together. And only 1 1/2 of them weren't at least reasonably good-looking. I was impressed at myself for showing my friends the true Holland.

As an appendage to this anecdote (and to be fair, this anecdote does desperately need an appendage), here is a photo I found of Vondelpark on the 2nd page of Google Image search. Apparently this wasn't an isolated incident.

"Don't you hate it when strangers ask you to touch their snake? What's the deal with that?"So, we were walking past the Homo Monument in Amsterdam. I mean, not on purpose. I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that. It just happened to be on our way to where-ever we were going next. In all fairness, it is also very near the Anne Frank house. Besides, do you know how hard it would be to avoid the gays in Amsterdam?

Anyway. There was a guy stopped on a bicycle on the side of the road. It was a mountain bike and he had a backpack on. He calls out to me in a very trashy English accent:
"Could y' pick up the snayke on mi bag?"
I thought this was a reasonable request. I mean, I thought it was a Camel Pack. You know, a backback with a bladder of water in it that pretend sporty yuppie douche-bags like to use when they bike to work. By the look of it, these Camel Packs could be quite annoying when on a bike, so I went to hand him the nozzle.

Just as I was about to pick it up, this is what I saw:

"Oh shit, it's a real snake!", I might have accidentally said aloud. To me it was like when some wizard turns Harry Potter's wand into a snake. (Not that I have seen more than this happen in the one Harry Potter movie I was forced to watch, but I can confidently say that this has happened at least once.)

Anyway, I was stunned at a real live snake, and jumped back. The English guy says Englishly:
"It's only a yellow python, it doesn't bite. It doesn't have teef." (mind you, neither did the English guy himself. Don't you love a fulfilled stereotype?). My friend ended up helping the guy by carefully taking the bag off of his back. By this time, I was standing far away. But in my defence, I am a giant wuss.

As we walked away, my friend proudly stated that in Amsterdam, a guy asked us to touch his snake, near the Homo Monument. And you can't get a more Dutch experience than that.

"Anyway, you guys have been a great crowd."

Mosquito Massacre

Now, I have mentioned that I live in an asylum centre, but what I didn't mention is, that the entire complex is built in a swamp. As we all know, in swamps live dastartly creatures...


... like mosquitos. About 2 months ago, I thought I could kill the mosquitos in my room before going to bed. I lasted a few days, going through restless nights of sleep, culminating in a night where they drove me to insanity. I would hear them when the lights went out, and I'd turn it back on and try to find it. When I could find it and swat it, I thought "that's the last of them", and try go to sleep...

"zzz"....

This pattern continued the entire night, until I was trying to swat the mosquitos in the darkness- sometimes trying to swat them against my face. I tried hiding under the covers, but it was too hot. Eventually, I would fall asleep with the lights on for a few minutes until I heard the mosquio noise. Insane.

I didn't want it to come to this. People had told me to get a "klamboe", which is a mosquito net. Here, I'll show you the problem:
Apart from effectively keeping insects out, it also is super-effective at making your bedroom a whole lot gayer. Actually, I had the impression of it turning your bed into a cot. My line of reasoning was this: If I start sleeping in a cot, the next thing I know, I'll be wearing a diaper, pooping myself and getting a paid nurse-actress to clean up after me. But after that awful night's sleep, pooping myself seemed to be a reasonable price to pay. So, I bought a klamboe. It has ribbons. Why don't they make them for adult, heterosexual males? I'd even buy one with dinosaurs on it. But ribbons? Whatever.

So, it did help, although I discovered that it is not 100% effective. You see, every night I would still wake up and find a few mosquitos inside the klamboe. But they were easy to find and kill, and I then I would be able to go back to sleep, my bloodlust satisfied. Also, I learned to sleep inside my duvet cover. That way, my feet won't stick out. Still, I would always wake up with some bites. Only last week was the first morning I can remember here where I haven't had at least one itchy bite.

Now, I know that anyone who does not live in this asylum centre will think I am exaggggerating, but no. This place is literally infested with them. Recently, I have been killing upwards of 20 per day. As proof, I present to you the Mosquito Massacre Gallery- all taken in my bedroom. It also satisfies my need to vent my sadistic hatred for these miserable creatures.


I call this one the "instant fossilisation", because when I hit them, I hit them extra hard. To make sure, and to my myself feel better.


This one was splattered a while ago, but you can see that it was full of my blood.


I managed to hit this one so hard that it left a dirty smear all across the ceiling.

This picture is intended to show the density or carnage of some areas of my room.

When I hit them with my hand, they often stay relatively intact, and leaves wonderful reminders on the walls.

I also love it when you can't actually recognise any part of the insect.

This guy died very theatrically.
This is one of the bastards that found its way into the klamboe. It has the sea-turtle-in-fishing-net look going on. I think it works.

This guy must have been flattened between the net and the wall.
Usually, however, the mosquitos inside the net are already full of my blood. What happens is, I hit them against the wall, and the wall behind gets splattered red. This is the messy remains in the net.
Another fine specimen of the "instant fossilisation" type.

Such wonderful textures.

This one seems to be hairy. Or mouldy. Both ways, it's gross.

While I was shooting this gallery, another one buzzed by. These are the remains of it on my hand.
I don't know what that blob is, but I like to think this one got decapitated. It also has a very nice wing impression.

And here we can even see the intact blood-sucking appendage. I like how this one appears to be hanging on the wall like a trophy.

I hope now that the mosquitos take this as a warning sign. I am not to be messed with. Living in asylum has made me bloodthirsty for the creatures taking my own blood.