June 23, 2012
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(written on 28 February 2013)
As I got up at around 8:30, Daniel and his guest Fernando were still asleep, hidden from my view by the curtain in my studio, but presumably still lying on Daniel’s air bed. I went to the Coffee Company store for my breakfast coffee and muffin and when I got back barely 45 minutes later… they were gone! They had left the house and I hadn’t even noticed, even though the Coffee Company offers a good view of my front door.
With the house to myself, I cleaned it up as much as possible but with two guests having dropped all of their luggage in random locations in my apartment, there wasn’t too much cleaning that actually could get done. The picture is of the Singelgracht and the Holland Casino, with the American Hotel in the distance. It was taken as I came back from my morning swim. Going swimming sometimes seems to have become a bit of an addiction and I was actually thrilled to have gone today – again. My target weight has not been reached yet (I got tantalisingly close last week, but alas) but that’s just a matter of time. That much confidence I do have.
In the evening I met up with Sean and with a Brazilian friend of his. This guy, Fabio, turned out to be ADHD personified. It was all rather overwhelming. Madonna will do two shows in Amsterdam in July (I’ll be going to the second) and Fabio has decided that he wants to meet her. Not only has he decided that, he has taken some serious action as well to achieve that goal. He has set up a website, a Facebook page and a YouTube channel, and on the latter he is posting videos of him singing or lip syncing Madonna songs. And tonight he wanted to record him singing I’m a Sinner in the Red Light District. Initially Sean was supposed to be the cameraman but ultimately it was yours personally who was holding a video camera whilst Fabio performed his version of I’m a Sinner on a bridge over Oudezijds Achterburgwal. Twice. It was all rather embarrassing, really, and I was glad when filming finally came to a stop and we could go to a bar to sit down and have a drink. And it was there, in that bar, that Daniel and Fernando walked in as well at the end of the evening. They’d had a good day, it seems, so all was well that ended well.
