(written on 26 March 2013)

The weekend has started and the weather is wonderful. Forecast for the weekend is not half bad either and my weight is still, well, not half bad. All in all I felt great today after work as I left the house almost immediately again after coming home, in order to go to EYE. Standing on the ferry, without a coat or a jacket but just with a T-shirt, in sunny Amsterdam, it all felt pretty great. I went to see Meek's Cutoff, a film about travelling families in the west of North America in the 18th century, as they try to find a route west. They end up in a very arid desert and the thirst they experienced was almost tangible. I loved the film, even though it wasn't the most cheerful film I've ever seen.

(written on 25 March 2013)

The great thing about this time of the year is of course the abundance of fresh food in the supermarkets. Nectarines are suddenly everywhere - and this has definitely become the year in which I found out how much I love nectarines! But not just them, but also blueberries, brambles, strawberries, plums, you name it and I'm eating it. I've not eaten as much fruit in my life as this year. Every visit to the supermarket results in me carrying fresh food back by the truckloads. Well, as a matter of speech then. The strawberries in the picture were my desert for tonight. Every since I reached my target weight I've been relaxing my diet a bit. The swimming pool is also closed in the month of August, so I'm quite curious what this is going to do with my weight. But for now I'm just enjoying the abundance of delicious food.

(written on 25 March 2013)

A slightly restless night due to a rather persistent mosquito. A couple of bites on my arms reminded me of last night throughout the day and I had to warn people on Facebook that a rather blood-soaked mosquito was on the loose in town. Hitting it with a newspaper against a white wall would turn that wall pink at the least.

The picture shows one of the plants on Paul's balcony. This time I did get into his apartment undisturbed and I managed to water all the plants, and get some pizzas and wine in the nearby supermarket for Günter's visit tonight just in time before Günter arrived.

Things with the ground floor seem to have come to a bit of a standstill. For a while it seemed certain that there would be a sushi restaurant opening there, now that the coffeeshop has been closed since 1 March. But i think the neighbours on the first floor may not have reacted soon enough to indicate that they have no objection against a sushi restaurant... and the people wanting to open it have decided not to any longer. It's all a bit uncertain now what will happen. Time will tell.

(written on 25 March 2013)

The weather was rather bipolar today. Heavy rain showers could be seen from the office all day, at some point taking away the entire view from our floor and covering Amsterdam in a white and wet blanket. Then, just as quickly, the sun came out and it seemed as if it was really summer outside. 

The picture was taken in the evening and it shows Oude Waal, an old canal in front of Paul's apartment. Paul is in Germany for two weeks for work (he works in theatres as a sound and lights technician) and has asked me to water the plants in his apartment and on his balcony. "Preferably on Wednesdays and Fridays," he had told me, which I thought was rather a strange distribution for the poor plants. Besides, Wednesdays is when Günter typically comes over, so today I decided that this week's visits would be today and Friday, rather than tomorrow and Friday. That way I wouldn't have to rush ahead of Günter's visit tomorrow. I walked over to Paul's place, a mere five minute walk, and tried to open the door... but couldn't. Perplexed, I tried a couple of keys on a couple of locks.

"One moment! I just got out of the shower!" a man's voice behind the door - Paul's door! - said. Huh. Apparently he had a guest! And indeed, as the door opened not too long after, a cute guy tantalisingly wearing only a towel beamed a Mediterranean smile at me. Turned out he was staying at Paul's for the weekend and I only needed to take care of the plants when he was not there. Which explained the Wednesday and Friday frequency. Ah well. I smiled friendly and left the apartment again, taking the above picture, and had a quiet evening at home.

(written on 15 March 2013)

From this picture you might get the impression that I spend most of my summer days on Amsterdam's canals. That's not true though. What is true, is that I've not been on canal boats so often as this year, but Hanno and I were not actually on a canal boat when I took this picture. We were on a ferry that took us from the back of Central Station to EYE, the new film museum and cinema in an amazing building which you can see on the left in this picture.

The weather was great and we actually sat outside at EYE before the film started, sipping beers and catching up. The film we did see was a Chilean road movie about a couple that traveled on the endless south to north road in the narrow Latin American country. I liked the film quite a lot (but then again, films about endless journeys typically fascinate me) but Hanno was less impressed, I think. He loved the building though (it was his first visit to EYE) and it was great seeing him again. We'll be visiting London in October so it was also good to anticipate on that trip already. A very nice evening indeed!

(written on 15 March 2013)

As Pride came to a sizzling end today, the Gay Expats Facebook group had organised a boat ride on Amsterdam's canal, and even though I am technically not an expat, I do know many of them, love hanging out with them and besides, Limburg is as close as it gets to 'abroad' in this country. One of the expats, a guy from Duisburg in Germany, lives closer to Amsterdam than I did when I lived in Limburg. Just saying.

So once I again I found myself on a canal boat but this was an exceptional one! Not only was it a very long boat ride (four hours and a bit) but it also was the first one that got stopped by the police about half way. The captain of our boat got checked for valid licence and also because the city is trying to crack down on illegal boat cruises - no doubt under huge pressure from the regular canal boat industry. It took about fifteen minutes while we were moored just behind Central Station but then we were allowed to continue. All was fine. The nice thing of this boat ride was that it went through many city centre canals, avoiding the longer and slightly more boring canals in the suburbs. It was very nice although I must say that I was quite happy that we reached our final destination. It started raining not long after so that was a great cue for me to go home (while some of the others continued partying.) The guy in the picture is Frenchman Olivier, so he definitely qualifies as an expat, but here's the trick; he's not gay, proving for once and for all that you don't have to be an expat or gay to be admitted to the Gay Expats group. 

(written on 14 March)

I agree that this picture is pretty darn close to NSFW-status... but I guess there's no nudity here, so it should be OK. This is Anthony, who has featured on this blog many times, and who today, for the first time in his life, did not watch the Pride parade from the side of Prinsengracht but who was actually on one of the boats participating in the Parade. And not just any old boat, but on the Mr B boat. Mr B being the name of a leather, rubber and kinky shop for gay men in Amsterdam - as you probably would have guessed from the picture. Anthony was in touch with them a lot when he was running his bar (even though that was definitely not a leather bar but quite the opposite) and today they invited him on their boat. Something which he accepted with gusto, it seems.

The Pride parade started early in the afternoon and I watched most of it with the expats at their usual spot just opposite Westerkerk, and then as well with Valentin and his Dutch friends just a bit further up north Prinsengracht. I didn't see much of the parade itself (although we were on the lookout for Anthony of course) but instead just mingled with people or sometimes observed them from a distance (not quite having found my social mood yet it seems) whilst taking a sip of beer or prosecco every now and then.

When the parade wasn't even quite over (but after yet another bad rain shower) I bid my goodbye to my friends and started walking home... until I decided otherwise and forcing myself to stay out just a bit longer. I went to Spijker instead and texted Sean, telling him I was there. He walked into Spijker not much later and we still had a great time, celebrating Pride with a couple of drinks (and then some more.)

Something I wrote on Facebook yesterday came from the bottom of my heart and got quite a lot of 'likes' so I think it's worth repeating it here:

You'd think that 20 years after my coming out, it would have become much easier for me to deal with homophobia and anti-gay sentiments. But, as this week of news and Facebook discussions about Chick-fil-A has once more shown to me, that is definitely not the case. Instead, very raw feelings of rage, fuelled by perceptions of personal attacks on my very being still come up instantly and make me las...h out against anyone and anything standing in the way of a genuine acceptance in society of gay and lesbian people. And these raw feelings always make me feel exhausted afterwards, when the initial rage is over.

More importantly though, they also make me tremendously happy and thankful that I live in a free country, where marriage equality was legalised more than a decade ago and where the fight for true acceptance and equal rights for gays and lesbians - though not over - is insignificant compared to what LGBT people are facing in other countries, the American mid-west and its southern states included.

Happy Pride 2012!

(written on 14 March 2013)

Pride weekend has arrived and I had really been looking forward to it. That makes a different compared to some of the years in the past when I did my best not to be in Amsterdam this weekend. Fortunately for me the massive Fêtes de Genève take place in Geneva at exactly the same weekend so for more than a couple of years it was a favourite destination to escape Pride in Amsterdam. But that attitude changed over time and in the past years it was always very nice to be in town for Pride with last year probably being the pinnacle of that when I had a couchsurfer here, Drew from North Caroline, who joined me for festivities on Rembrandtplein and on Prinsengracht. So, obviously I was in the mood for Pride this year, even though Drew is back in North Carolina and I had no couchsurfers booked for this weekend.

So, after work, I headed to Westermarkt where, just next to the historic Westerkerk, the Drag Queen Olympics were going to get held once more after two years of absence. The Drag Queen Olympics are just good fun, with such silly 'competitions' as the Stiletto Race, the Handbag Throwing and the Hula-hoop Challenge. About 20 drag queens participated this year and the show was presented by famous Amsterdam drag queen Jennifer Hopelezz. It was busy as I got to Westermarkt, and there seemed to be a great atmosphere... but the thing is... I didn't get into a party mood. On the contrary, I was still a bit shaken from this week's Chick-fil-A discussions and I felt quite exhausted. Plus, the weather wasn't exactly participating, with temperatures too low and very threatening rain clouds slowly moving in. So, after an hour and a half, I returned home (oh the joy of living in the city centre!) and stayed in for the rest of the first day of this party weekend. I hadn't quite expected that of this Pride Friday but that was just the way to cookie crumbled today. And yes, the torrential rain did start not long after I got home. The drag queen in the picture goes by the name of Lady Galore who seems to be getting quite famous quite fast in Amsterdam so I'm sure we'll hear more from her in the coming years.

(written on 14 March 2013)

In the morning it was raining badly still so that meant I took a metro to work. Wouldn't want my hairstyle to get ruined of course. 

Yesterday's discussions on Facebook on the topic of same sex marriage in the US continued overnight of course and they really have a big impact on me. To cheer myself up I watched a video clip of Dame Shirley Bassey singing I Am What I Am repeatedly on YouTube. Amsterdam has a big party weekend coming up, namely Pride, and when you look at that it seems as if being gay is just one big party. It's definitely not that case and actually, when things happen such as the Chick-fil-A saga in the US, it really affects me badly. Some deep rooted feelings of anger and fear mix and make me lash out. This will take some time to settle down.

The picture was taken as I was walking home from work, when suddenly Amsterdam's skies were blue again. It shows the advertisement tower at the RAI congress centre, very close to where I used to live. In the evening, Günter came over for pizza, wine and chatting, and it was very nice to see him again and catch up with all that had happened in the past weeks. That calmed me down as well.

(written on 14 March 2013)

If you thought that August on the Northern Hemisphere means summer then you would be right, but if you thought that implies beautiful sunny weather and blue skies then the above picture can set you right. The weather was just appalling and torrential rain showers came down over the city all day, forcing all tourists in my street (and there are many) to seek shelter under umbrellas or in doorways of buildings.

"I was such a big fan of you and now I'm so disappointed"

It was this comment that Daniel had left on the Facebook page of an American starlet that triggered a fierce debate on various Facebook pages tonight. What had happened? Chick-fil-A, and American fast food chain was in the news because its CEO had voiced opposition to same sex marriage. It turns out that the company had been supporting various organisation such as the Family Research Council (classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center) who are all fiercely anti-gay. In America's heavily polarised and overheated society in this election year, this has caused very strong debates on both sides of the political spectrum.

Mike Huckabee, former governor and now Fox News contributor as well as serious neo-conservative spokesman, had suggested that today should be Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day on which Americans should show their support for the company's anti gay and anti same-sex marriage stance by going to their restaurants en masse. And so the headless chickens went and did just that. The starlet that had so disappointed Daniel had done the same and had put a status update on Facebook about how proud she was that she was now waiting in line at a Chick-fil-A. And that's when Daniel expressed his disappointment.

I also left comments on various Facebook pages, including my own, saying how disgusted I was with the bigoted fools waiting in line at Chick-fil-A all over the US. Reactions from my conservative colleagues in the US and their friends followed and I got more and more furious. Not good for my blood pressure, this evening. I don't deal with hatred very well, especially of course when it's aimed at me and other gay people, and especially if that hatred is based on biblical texts that were cherry picked out of a whole bunch of biblical texts, most of which we have learned to ignore because of their backwardness. After all, that American starlet that started this discussion? According to the Book of Timothy, she had no right to speak to me or other men with any authority because she is a woman and therefore responsible for the original sin (I'm not making this up and definitely don't agree with it of course) and neither should she be wearing jewelry because that's also forbidden by the same book. It drives me crazy when people only pick up on that eternal Leviticus bible passage that seems to forbid homosexuality but so easily ignore the ones that apply to themselves. And that was what tonight was all about.