Points

It's not that hard to write the beginning of a blog post. Catchy statement, funny anecdote, and you're done. The middle bit is also relatively easy, as long as you write coherent sentences and don't stray from your original story too much you're fine. The end is something completely different. Wrap it up, bring all loose ends together, but most importantly: make a point, or you're screwed.

This is an unfinished, point-less blog post. If anyone has any suggestions for a point, lets have 'em!
oh, and it's in dutch. Having two languages in my head is messy.

De hipster en de slaaf

Ik was dus op vakantie. In een niet nader te noemen land met bergen. In dat land is fietsen niet zo vanzelfsprekend als in ons vertrouwde kikkerlandje. De fietsers in de paar steden die ik heb bezocht waren stuk voor stuk hipsters op kekke fixies, maar wel met handrem.  En allemaal een helm op. Als konijntjes op de vlucht voor een schot hagel zoefden ze de angstaanjagend steile hellingen af, zigzaggend de boze blikken van automobilisten ontwijkend.  Terug naar de bergen.
We waren ’s ochtends vroeg uit de tent gekropen om om een meer heen te lopen.  Op weg er naartoe kwamen we twee fietsers tegen. De voorste was in het dagelijks leven duidelijk een hipster. Hij reed op een moderne mountainbike, vierkante nerdbril en het perfecte baardje. Met zijn iPhone 4 schoot hij foto’s, ik vermoed om ze via instagram op z’n tumblr te posten zodra er weer ergens wifi was. Een meter of twintig reed zijn reisgenoot, grote fietstassen aan de wielen van zijn stalen shetlandpony.
Later die dag zagen we ze weer. Hipster met fietsbroekje en bijpassende gele trui, zonnebril nog steeds op z’n neus, reed in een lage versnelling rustig de berg op. In zijn stofwolk zwoegde zijn sherpa omhoog met, well, basically alle spullen.

Learning. About people.

So I've been to this pub in town a couple times now, and every single time there was a guy behind the bar and waiting tables. He reminds me of my cousin, but with a lot of piercings in strange places on his face. I'd seen him smoking outside a few times on my way to the library, but never realised he worked there. He is the kind of person I look up to, the kind of person I wish would be interested in even talking to me. Not because of the piercings or anything, but because of the way he carries himself: confidently, like he 'owns the place'. I wish I could be like that in more situations.
Anyway. Today I went over to the bar to ask if they still had the magic card we'd accidentally left there two weeks ago. He went on searching for it but couldn't find it. "It's not here, luv.' he called from the back, and it sounded surprisingly sweet coming from a 20something instead of the 40+ people who usually use term with me. Later, when he came to pick up our empty glasses, he smiled and handed me the card, saying that he'd found it after all. But instead of cool, or detatched, or matter-of-factly, he seemed shy, or vulnerable. And suddenly I felt the nature of the desire to befriend him change. I was now interested in him as an actual person instead of someone who would help me feel better about myself by giving me attention. That made me realise that, even though it's sort of integral to the brain to judge people immidiately on the little information we can deduce in a second, I should really try not to.

 

Sorry, I've been ill and I'm really really tired..

The Broken Strings, Whatever Works

I was cycling through one of the citys shopping streets when a beautiful, warm, vibrating wave of sound found my ear. I looked around, and behind a wall of chinese students I found him. An older man, in his fifties maybe, with a guitar and an amplifier. I cycled past him, enjoying the music, the made up my mind and turned around, for I'd seen a few cd's in the open case at his feet. A small sign read: 'Free cd, donations welcome'. I dropped a handfull of coins in the case and picked up a cd. The man smiled and nodded.
Later that day, while home alone, I played the cd and immidiatelt fell in love with it when I hear the first notes of Mad World drift out from the speakers.
I know nothing else about this man but that he looks like the guy from breaking bad and that he makes wonderful guitar covers.

I'm trying to find a way to upload the music somewhere so that I can put a link to them here. So that wil follow.

And here is a lovely video to go with Mad World:

As someone remarks in the comments: never will this brave bird die but fly forever in my heart

Marc

Alright Marc, here you go. An entire post dedicated to you.

Here is a collage with photo's. I did unspeakable things to your face on them.
Also, you now own a blue and pink beanie.

As you can tell, I've spent quite some time with this guy. He's a bit of a weirdo, but that's alright because so am I. He skates, plays magic and he even came to the event I helped organise. Then he painted me with mud. That was actually sweeter than it sounds.

Yeah, that's mud.

 

Tussendoor I

Alrighty,  die gestructureerde blog met boodschap en witty opmerkingen gaat voorlopig niet lukken, dus ik gooi er maar even een kort verslagje in van wat ik de afgelopen twee weken heb gedaan. Een aantal highlights:


Bikeride in the peaks
We (my lovely cousin and his wife and two boys and I, I'm going to call them E, V, A and Z) took our bikes out into the peaks. We cycled down a trail through beautiful scenery, rolling hills, stone walls and moorland. At the end of the trail, we decided that my cousin and I would cycle back to get the car and V waited with A and Z. The way back was uphill and we had the wind pushing us back, but we still did the eleven miles in less than an hour. It was good to know that my basic physical condition is not as bad as I thought. Also the bike I was riding has more gears than I could comprehend.

The library
One of my favourite places in this city to be is the library. I love walking between the high shelves, scanning the spines. I love the hushed speaking, the archives, the inspiring quotes on the walls. I love peeking into the forbidden room on the second floor, with the tall windows and the shelves with the long rows of thick volumes bound in leather or cased cloth. A small part of me actually considers renting that room for an hour, not for a lecture or meeting, but just to ly on the floor, bring out number twenty eight of the encyclopedia and smell the pages. The only problem would be finding a way to explain that desire to the librarians, many of whom look like they're only there to earn money to feed their clowder of cats. (Wow, my English teacher would be proud of me for using all three the-s in one sentence). Then there is the Winter Garden across the street.

Winter Garden
Imagine a very large viking ship with a wooden frame. Now turn it upside down and replace the planks with glass so you just have a wooden skeleton. Add some iron bars, a hipster biological wholefood vegetable smoothie bar, and a bunch of tropical plants. That's the Winter Gardens. I love going there after a library session, order a slice of buttered toast and read a book on a bench under an obscure 'brand' of tree. My my, I'm starting to sound like my mother..

CVP
A seemingly small park tucked away behind the ring road, just outside the city. It has a wide, smooth road perfect for dancing, with a very slight slope that will keep you going in between steps or tricks but is barely noticable when you skate back to the top. It's also wonderful for luging down on a 1.55 warship dancer, IF you have gloves. Around a corner there's a steeper road that's usually covered in slimy muck from the overhanging trees but is great for sliding. I was a little nervous the first time I went there, not sure what the bunch of 25+ guys that had promised to show up would be like. They turned out to be great. We skated the whole day, did capoeira and climbed trees, had a spontaneous barbeque for lunch and I earned myself a nickname I will not repeat here... The day after we went to skate in:

The Peaks
Honestly, I haven't spent as much time in the peaks as I would have liked. Yet.. But so far I have loved every second. The hills (we don't have nonnathose where I'm from), purple heather, beautiful plains, rock faces, waving grass, and stone walls, oh, the stone walls. And every few miles there's a pub called 'The Pheasant' or 'Old Queens Head' or 'Old Hall Inn'. My skaterbuddies and I hit a few of the freshly tarmacced roads, with them dropping the hills, throwing in clean pendulum slides and standies, and me footbraking and in awkward tuck in my pink full face helmet and with elbowpads on my knees. They also took me for my first sunday carvory, then laughed at me the whole time for not taking any gravy with my food. Then they threw grass at me. I still love them though.

Board game night
Gap years are cool. You meet people and stuff. On a soggy wednesday I went out to skate with one of the guys and this german girl who had just arrived in England came along. It was raining so CVP was too wet. We skated down to the city centre to hit a car park but got kicked out before the first run. So we decided to do what all English people do after anything they do: go to a pub. We had a drink or two, and then cowardly took a tram back up to the park. Then the German girl and I headed over to her appartment for dinner. Bear in mind that I had met her that morning. After washing up we walked to another pub where we met up with a bunch  of couch surfing people and played some board games, one of which I even managed to win! That is really what taking a gap year is all about for me (meeting loads of cool people, not winning games of carcassone just because the Irish girl gave up a helluda points just to annoy the south african guy, even though he really had it coming).


It's a quarter past two at night and tomorrowmorning I've got.. Oh right, nothing to do! But I'm still going to sleep, mainly because I'm extremely hungry and I'm afraid I will succumb and go downstairs to get some food and that will wake the baby... I will continue my recap in another post.

G walking up after a great run

The Big Bread Experiment

I live in one of those villages where it's really not done to do anything on a sunday but go to church and invite people over for tea. This mean that I couldn't paint, and I was kind of fed up with watching series and mindlessly clicking around on facebook. One of the series I've been watching lately is Masterchef Australia: a real guilty pleasure because I usually dislike both game shows and cooking shows... So that sunday morning I decided I would cook or bake something. I would bake bread. With flavours.

I made the amount of dough needed for one big bread and divided it over six bowls, then left it to rise. Which it didn't.
Then I added some spices/fruits/sweets and other ingrediënts to each lump of dough and baked them.
The ingredients and the result:

Fresh basil and tomato

Anise seeds and Star Anise

Chocolate

 

I just realised I don't have a picture of the apple cinnamon

so I just grabbed one from google images.

Apple and cinnamon

  

 

Honey and walnut

 

And last but not least, my crazy friend came up with an

equally crazy suggestion: peanutbutter and banana bread.

And believe it or not, it turned out very well!

Peanutbutter and banana

   The result was six delicious small breads, very dense but full of flavour.
   My favourites were the anise, walnut honey and the peanutbutter banana.

My dad, who got the honour of tasting with me, told me it had taken him two long finnish winters to get it exactly right: the dough, the amount of spice or other ingredients, the baking time and heat of the oven. Good thing I have another full year ahead of me to perfect my skills!

'A state of'

It's 2:46 as I start writing this blog. At night. I just returned from a party with my dear scouting friends. It's the fourth time in just two weeks that I've gone over, pretty spontaneously, to chat&drink&laugh/play a really really nerdy game called Magic the Gathering.
Back home I sleep, I paint the house for moneys, and the rest of the time is spent reading, listening to records and working on several 'projects', which I will probably never finish but I'll do a blog on that later.
There is no drama in my life. No problems within friendships, no real conflicts, no stress, no deep pain, none of the things that have been bothering me the past few... years?
In my last entry I shared some of my happy moments. Those moments when you feel the happiness bubbling inside you, you can't stop smiling, or you forget that there were ever difficult times in your life. Moments that go well with Don't Stop Me Now, On Top of the World, Animal Arithmetic and that kind of movie music that makes your heart swell up with joy, like Touch the Sky
The way I am feeling right now is more like  Featherstone, Time to Sleep, Gracious or Northern Sky.
So no, I'm not feeling exstatic all the time, and it's easy to simply keep going. But I think it's important that I realise now that I am actually in a 'state of'.
It's important to realise that I Am Happy.