Not a happy camper

An update on the handing-out-home-baked-cookies-on-the-market-incident. Honestly, I felt like a fraud. It was these happy brigade womens passion; they did loads more volunteerwork with the disabled, fundraisers and other good causes. I ignore charity-donation-workers in the shoppingstreet (it's better for all parties to leave me alone on a saturday when I come out of the H&M) and lie to people going door to door for money, saying that I already sponsor the other charity involved with children, animals, fill in any random disease. Although I do donate to the WWF and buy Pink Ribbon Magazine, hell, I even took pictures of my naked boobs and posted them on the Viva-website for breastcancer. But this was something else...
For some reason people think you want to poison them if you just give them the cookies. For fun. To make them smile. Without any marketing trick. They are not used to it anymore, which is quite sad when you think about it. So they end up shaking their head and ignoring me with my biscuit-tin and hawaii-necklace. I actually found it difficult to walk up to people and offer them my glazed biscuits, to my own surprise. In total it was a good thing, it did make people happy (just not me as much as I'd hoped) and I have learned that trying to make people happy costs a lot of energy. The most heard comment was: 'no, thank you'. Which pleased me a lot, because people obviously still say thank you.
Within an hour or so, we got through our stash of heart-shaped cookies, sweets, waffles and cakes and I was frozen. One of the women suggested to get some more, and I swear I could have killed her. Not a very optimistic, happy respons, I know. I just wanted to sit down somewhere, warm up and drink hot chocolate with whipped cream. And I have to say, I might not be optimistic, but I am persuasive, because within 10 minutes we were packed up and ready to get out of there.

Happy camper

I am not a natural optimist (soothing and consoling, yes, optimistic, no). For most of you, this will not come as a surprise.
I am intense (Reno).
I eat too much chocolate (Rob).
I am rude to clients (my current colleagues).
I am nice, but not as nice as my mother (Pieter).
I am caring (just like his mother; Teun).
But that's just other people's opinions, although the second one is probably true. And needless to say the last one didn't get much further than one coffee-date. I know I'm a lot to take in, and there has been a manual available on how to deal with me at Lowlands (ask Tanja) since 2006. Apart from priding myself with a good sense of humour, I congratulate myself with a fine taste in music. Maybe add drama-queen to that list (and plenty of other qualities that make me worth my while).
The psychological test I had to take for my job pointed out that I have a more than average inclination for depression. I knew that, but combine it with what I see at work everyday it's lethal combination ending up in pessimism. Although I prefer to call myself a realist, who always has a Plan B ready (B stands for backup, people).
But now a friend of ours is diagnosed with a braintumour and he needs all the positive thoughts he can get (next to surgery). My realism; "baby, it's a braintumour, not a splinter, he could die", makes my best friend cry, and we can't have that. So in order to practice some altruistic, happy, over-the-top-optimism, I am going to hand out heart-shaped-home-made cookies on the Rotterdam market tomorrow morning. Not by myself, oh no, there's actual groups doing this. For fun. I feel like I'm Wednesday Addams going to Camp Chippewa, but I'm pretty sure the 'blije brigade' (happy brigade) will be gentle with me, opti-virgo.


Yes, I spent my friday night baking. Ah well, I found myself drinking bottled water and munching on carrots last saturdaynight behind the till at Bazar Curieux, so it's progress.

This one is for Wouter (aka Walter Walletshaker).
To be continued...

Thereasily entertained

I always knew I was easy to entertain. As an ex-boyfriend of mine pointed out when we were having the 'this isn't going to work'-conversation: "We have nothing in common. You are just happy sitting in the park with your friends eating french stick with cheese. It doesn't take much to make you happy". I still wonder what his point was, but at that moment he reduced a virtue greatly appreciated by my parents when I was a child ('here honey, have some paper and crayons.' 'Whoehoe! Fun!') to something questionable.
Of course I laughed at him, shook my head and blocked him from my MSN-list.
The same goes for my opinion on movies. Friends have stopped asking me whether I like a film or not, because I usually do. There is always an actor, scene or musical fragment that I appreciate. As long as I don't fall asleep, it's a decent film. Accept for David Lynch: I do not like his work, sorry. (Warning to my friends: this is open for debate, but not discussion; I gave up on Lynch as soon as that blue box hit Mullholland Drive.) I like anything that moves and do not discriminate on genre.

So when I heard the magic words 'Glitterclub, Wipneus and Pim', the 19-year old locked inside me, went 'Whoehoe! Fun!', because I hadn't seen those two dj's in twelve years. Just give me an Indian headband, a room filled with balloons and a technicolor plastic palmtree and I'm good to go. I didn't realise how good, untill the dj needed someone from the audience to come on stage and be the fourth member of the Village People. I found it necessary to scream 'ME!', jump up and down with my finger up in the air. Proud as a parrot, having waited years for this moment, I was invited to join a cowboy, a cop and a builder.
On stage, with previously mentioned Indian feathered hat strapped proudly around my head, I realised, while doing the YMCA shapes, that my new H&M dress, really wasn't so much a dress as more of an elongated shirt. My YMCA dance moves involved some extra gestures; mainly pulling down my black silk shirt-dress... That didn't stop me from shaking it for all I was worth.
According to Tanja, nobody saw a thing and for the rest of the night we were dancing, and playing with whatever came out of Wipneus and Pims toychest; balloons, air-guitars, whistles and cheesy songs.

It doesn't take much to make me happy, but friends and glitter make it even better!

Asia for beginners

Inspired by my traveling friends, I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and book a holiday myself. After carefull consideration I crossed India of my list (for now). Mainly because eating a lot of chicken Korma, drinking mango lassies and watching Bollywood movies is not going to prepare me for the big cultural shock people keep warning me about.

So I booked a return-ticket to Bangkok instead.

After all, Thailand is like Asia for beginners. My friend Leyla went by herself last year, and if she can do it, so can I. And even though I'm very excited and reading in my Nelles guide about Buddistic history and Thai royalty, I think my environment is even more thrilled than I am. My mum for one, really likes that I'm going. My dad, well, he's still stuck on the image of me on a motorbike, but he'll just draw me a Saint Christopher and he'll be fine.

My colleagues love that I'm going to Thailand. They keep throwing tips, information and unpronouncable cities at me. One has started to look online for hooker-free Thai places, which proved more of a challenge than achieving world peace. Apparently Phuket is nothing like the Beach, infested with prostitutes (pun intended) and Ko Chang the place to be. Check, check and double check.

Of course I am worried about al sorts of things. Missing my flight, mosquitos, getting upset by seeing the ugly fat old men with the 12-year old girls, what to pack, what to wear and getting lost. I mean, I don't even know where Naaldwijk is, I thought the 'Afsluitdijk' was a tunnel and for years imagened that Rotterdam was in the geographical place of The Hague (and the other way around).. So how am I supposed to find Ko Samui or know where Chiang Mai and Ko Phangan are? Not to mention the languague-barriere, accidentally insult locals (by wearing flipflops or something) and getting stomachbugs.

But for now, I am going to stop worrying, keep on reading (currently at page 52: the Great Palace in Bangkok) and ask you, fellow-travelers and stay-at-homers for your help; what to do, where to go and what to definitely avoid?

Fart

Week 44 wasn't just about misinterpreting children's lyrics. My friday was more interesting than Perez Hiltons newsfeed. We had a company outing. And although I appreciate the value of teambuilding, I was relieved when the email we received stated that the programme of the day was going to be relaxed, involve coffee and cake and even more relaxed. So I wasn't worried that I 'had to bring gymclothes and a towel'; hey, that's what my yoga-teacher says!
Imagine my surprise that we got a lecture on the pro's and cons of pepperspray including the 'once in a lifetime' offer of experiencing it ourselves.
Needless to say I declined.
I did do the stormtrack, ran laps (blindfolded), take the fitness-test, did rugbyexcersizes and I shot with a Walther P5 semi-automatic (my shootingskills suck, by the way, but I have no intention of ever holding a gun ever again, I prefer my Wii-remote).

Later that evening I had another First Time.
How often does the folowing scenario occor?
Scenery: hallway of a small hotel in the middle of Rotterdam. Dimmed lights.
There's a handwritten note on the door and you follow the instructions; knock on the door, three times. A hooker, or lady of leisure if you will, -like creature in a black see-through negligé opens the door. She asks you and your friend to take of your coat and sit on the bed, where there's another one of them.
Intrigued you try to look at the girls, but you don't get past the massive sunglases. Naive you shrug (its probably a Russian thing), take of your bag and coat. The girl on the bed tugs your vest, but, you refuse to take it of. So she strokes your clothed shoulders and pulls your hair back, to place yet another massive pair of sunglasses on your nose, before inviting to to rest your head on the pillow of her lap.
It is quite comfortable actualy and the second you decide to relax and just enjoy this ride, the girls shout: 'bunny, bunny, bunny'. A guy dressed as a green easter-bunny jumps out of the closet, which you didn't even notice was there in the first place, and takes a polaroid picture of the four of you.
As you are rushed out of the room, you pay a small fee to become sole owner of the evidence of this 'incident'...

This happened at the Fart (fashion&art)-party at Hotel Central. The event was so hip, the press-people ratio was 1:10. So S-M-L-XL camera's were blocking our views of even more naked girls dancing on single-beds (most popular room in the hotel, for some reason), various corpses, paintings, films of paintings, holidayslides, dressed mannequins, free compliments and a roomsize Twistergame. Too bad my newly discovered Twisterskills didn't do much for us, whilst trying to get out of the hotel, it was so crowded.
But, we enjoyed ourselves a lot, and as I asked one of the Natasha's: I hope it was as good for you as it was for me.

week 44

Another week has gone by and nothing newsworthy has happened over here. Jan Smit had an earinfection, Agassi's hair turned out to be fake and our prime-minister is rumoured to be asked for a high position in Europe. Whatever.
The only piece of information that holds the daily news hostage which is worth mentioning, is the Kinderen voor Kinderen riot. Apparently 16 (yes, sixteen) years ago this famous Dutch children's choir sang a song containing the words 'Allah Akbar' (this blog will now ruin my future career by merely mention this) in combination with Marocco, baklava and rijstevla (a custard-like substance). Now the PVV considers this indoctrination and unwanted propaganda of the islam by public television. Please bare in mind that this choir also sang tophits like 'on an unmanned island', 'mothers wish is law' and 'one leg on the curb'. Terrifying, right? I do have to say that the titles of my cultural youth heritage get lost in translation, I cannot find anything radical about it.

Law and Order: special coffee victim

Meanwhile back home, they added a new member to the Law and Order family. And even though it's hardly a reason to come back early from a trip to the Philipines or miss out on sleeping in mountains with gorilla's, it is a welcome change for me. After 'criminal intent', 'special victims unit', trial by jury' and 'the one with Mister Big', there is now a UK-edition, and because my motto is 'you cannot have to many British detectives', I am a happy camper.

I celebrated this birth with a cup of coffee. I've been having a lot of coffee lately, actually; there is something comforting about it. I had coffee with friends while discussing either non-existing lovelives or the flourishing ones. I have coffee alone, in the morning to get myself out of the shower (is it bribery if you use it to convince yourself? I wonder, over yet another mug enriched with honey). A smaller espresso at an emotional birthdayparty on saturday evening, to acompany the chocolatecake and cheese (in any particular order). It took me two mugs of coffee and a cup of tea to get through my best friends paper on 'secret language and graphical design', which I had promised to review. Now, this also got me reacquainted with the concept of 'work-delaying behavior'. I now have a clean bathroom (well, it smells like all-purpose cleaner, which is good enough for me) and I took the trash out. Twice. Furthermore I put tile-stickers on my kitchenwall, fabricated two pink felt muffin-shaped cups and written a whole blog on Law, Order, coffee and other life-consuming events that happen back home.

ps. don't worry, I did finish checking the paper

just an average weekend in Rotterdam

Once every fortnight I get to extend my weekend with one day; one small twenty-four hours which I consider sacred. This monday was extra special. Not just because I had coffee with Sander, which was very nice; good company, nice coffee (Indonesian blend, as a tribute to Roxan). Or because I picked up my parents from the airport (I took a sunbed to match their tan. Fat change, obviously; 14 minutes of Turbo Jumbo compared to 6 days of Teneriffe).
No. I had my first motorcycle lesson.
This was one of the things that I put on my 'list' of things I want to do while other people are away on holiday. What can I say? I always wanted to try it, so now I will, although it makes my hands smelly, it scared the shit out of me and I look like a right doughnut with the jacket, trousers and gloves. The hardest part was not telling anybody, because I wanted to keep it a secret to reveal in this blog.
The rest of the weekend was fantastic as well, I've been to new bars and old clubs, tried new things (coconut pancakes and Lemon Pie Martinis), had refreshing conversations about toilets, Kim Jong Ill and red gnomes (that would be Tanja and me in our new wintercoats). Furthermore, I got to spend time with old friends and meet new acquaintances, which I will probably never see again. And that's how a weekend in Rotterdam should be.

Meanwhile, back home

At this moment, when leaves (and banks) are falling and my new wintercoat isn't enough to keep me warm, multiple of my (Facebook)friends have decided to use their newfound freedom (read: unemployment) to go travel.
Whether it took weeks of planning, trips to and from the travelagency or was drawn on the back of a beermat, they are gone. And not just one week to Berlin. Nooo, where's the fun in that? (Hold on, I'll ask Anastasia) No. They have left to (re)discover places that I wouldn't be able to find on a globe if my life depended on it.
The map with travelplans that Nanko put on their
Reizblog certainly provides helpfull information, especially
for someone
as geographically challenged like me. Although in the world
of criminal analysis stripey lines mean 'unconfirmed'. But
I'm not worried; I'm the one who gets lost in de South of Rotterdam, Rox can find Thailand blind (too bad they're
not going to Thailand).



Becauwe they (all of y'all in Africa, Asia and other parts of Europe) need to realise that you can just as well not have money here, enjoy a Latte at the Urban, watch elephants in the Blijdorp Zoo and feel outdoors at the Kralingse Plas, I decided to keep all of them up to date with all the exciting things that are happening here, in Rotterdam. Just to let you know waht will be right here waiting for them, when they get back home.