working on good habits
so, my first couch surfing experience was out of control positive - Rob from San Fran, super sweet vegan fixie bike rider - made my teeth ache laughing at his one liners. We went to the psychedelicatessen show at Overtoom 301 on Friday, after breaking back into my room with an Albert Heijn card with the assistance of my international team of badass lockpickers. The first time I locked myself out! I suppose it had to happen at least once. But my oh so nice neighbor from Macedonia saved the day after 20 minutes of jiggling shaking bleeding and cursing. Mission accomplished, keys retrieved, day saved etc. Much dancing was had to DJ Marcelle, an amazing woman who looks like she could be someone's Mom spinning hot tracks and nodding her head in a oversized yellow tshirt and watching Russian animations from the 1940's. It was a pretty fab night, all in all.
Sunday was the Roots festival in Oosterpark - got drenched in a downpour on the way there, but dried off in the sun shaking it to balkan beats and fuego latino tunes. Ate my first corn on the cob of the season - and oh oh oh, it tasted of buttery mid west summers sitting in my grandma's gazebo and dreaming of making laterns out of fireflies and mason jars. In anycase - we had a good time. I was going to take the train to Brussels with him today, but while waiting for the train I flipped through my guidebook and realized everything is closed on Monday - so instead I am camping in the lib for the day, making good progress and will head south for waffles and high percentage beers tomorrow morning. well, maybe the beers will wait until the later afternoon - you know how it goes. It will be nice to get out of the city for a day and explore solo.
My sister will be here on FRIDAY. did i mention that? and I am so so so pumped for our familial epic adventures through western europe. My journal is starting to take on it's character and it feels good to fill it with sketches, stinky white out paintings and clips of small stories, inner dialogues, desires, reading lists, plans plans plans, learnings etc. etc. Sarah and I will be bouncing up to Prague after we get off the boat in Vienna, spending a few days drooling over the city of Milan Kundera. and then Five days in Berlin, which will be fantastic and overwhelming and I can't wait. She will then scoot home to Cali, and I will continue to Copenhagen, Denmark to crash wtih Cynthia, and then a little solo trek to Oslo, Norway before returning to Amsterdam. AH!!! and then, and then, Fire Island - living 5 miles away from Cherry Grove and exhausting myself by chasing babies in the sun and biking all day around the island. Life is beautiful and unexpected. Perhaps it is always most difficult to find the balance between allowing things to happen to us and taking the helm, steering the rudder, directing the sails etc etc. None the less, they are falling together for me in some kind of living the dream business.
In anycase - couchsurfing.com
highly recommended! I wish I had been doing this all semester, really.