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Happy 2010!

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:56:04 GMT

Barcelona, Spain

I wish you all the very best for the New Year. Lots of health, happiness and love.

Here are my New Year's resolutions for this blog and for my Flickr site:

All pictures in 2010 will be in black and white
All pictures will be cropped to be a perfect square (500 x 500 pixels on this blog)
Pictures will be, as much as possible, made with a very wide angle lens
More creative pictures
Less text

Happy 2010!

2009, a recap. From...

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 21:08:00 GMT

Barcelona, Spain

January

January was the month of an ice cold Amsterdam, with beautiful frozen canals. It was also when, almost by tradition, I went to Rotterdam for two days for the International Film Festival, staying at the Rotterdam Hilton for a mere 45 euros (65 USD). Most of all, however, it was the month that started in Barcelona. I had flown to the Catalan capital on 30 December (picture above shows Torre Agbar in Barcelona) and I was on the Plaça de Catalunya when the clock reached midnight on New Year's Eve. It was a wonderful and relaxing stay in Barcelona - exactly the reason why I repeated that trip at the end of 2009. Slightly exaggerated, you could say that 2009 was really the year when I lived in Barcelona, with some time in Amsterdam and other places spent in between. No complaints there.

February

The Richard Avedon exposition in FOAM was the best one of the year in either FOAM or Huis Marseille. It was very beautiful, very busy and very inspirational - as can be seen from this month's picture. Photography, of course, has remained my most important hobby. This year I uploaded 3,841 pictures to Flickr.com - much less than last year's 5,340 or 2007's 6,623. It's not that I'm making less pictures (at least I don't think so), it's just that I'm getting pickier with what I upload. This was the year that I switched from taking pictures as JPGs. All pictures taken with my D200 are now in RAW format, and through iTunes podcasts I keep working on my Photoshop skills. My photography will always be a work in progress.

March

March was a relatively busy month of travel. I flew to Glasgow in the middle of the month. We visited my first distillery of the year, Auchentoshan in the west of the city, and met up with Raymond - both equal pleasures in what remains my second home town. I still, after so many years, enjoy going to Glasgow so much. It's not just the brilliant, and much appreciated hospitality of Andy and Colin - it's also the feel of the city, the country, the people (in the latter case not to be taken literally). I always look forward to my next trip even though I am very much aware of the fact that I should not impose myself on my friends' lives too much. The second trip this month was to that other fantastic British city, London. Unfortunately it had to be cut short because of work duties. But, London, with four visits this year, is of course one of my all time favourite travel destinations.

April

I returned from a wonderful weekend with Andy, Colin and David in Canterbury, Kent and a subsequent night with Christophe and Jacques in London, to find my flat in disarray and some miniature bottles of whisky emptied. That was the last straw. Unfortunately things between me and my room mate weren't working out so I asked him to leave. He did so, returning to England, two weeks later - just before Queen's Day. I think it's really a shame things didn't work out because he really wasn't a bad person at all. I hope he's doing well in his new life. Of course, I would never have expected to take in another room mate this year (not after this experience), but yes, less than half a year after one room mate left, Darren, the next one, walked in. Experience with him has been fortunately much, much better. Quite a relief. And despite tragedy elsewhere in the country, Queen's Day in a blissfully unaware Amsterdam, was extremely sunny and very nice.

May

At the end of May I flew to New York City to meet up with Sarah - who spent this summer in the Big Apple. It most certainly was an impulse flight: booked less than 10 days before I actually set foot in Newark Airport. It also turned out to be my only intercontinental flight this year. In fact, this year has once more seen a decrease in my number of flights. I was on board a plane 22 times, with Edinburgh being the highest on the list of destinations (5), followed by London Gatwick (3), Barcelona (2) and as said Newark (1). And that was all! No new destinations this year. In 2006 I flew 55 times, in 2007 it was 38. Last year it was 30 times, so with 22 flights I'm keeping my promise of reducing my carbon footprint. I'm not sure for how much longer I can keep that promise though. This was fairly minimalist, you know...

June

The last couple of days in New York City continued to be great - and it was very exciting to see Sarah there, but the most unforgettable event of the month had to be the London weekend in the middle of the month. I saw the Queen, I was in the audience to see an excellent play in a local theatre, I cycled through central London. The weather was superb, the city was great. It was, in fact, so good that I booked flights for the same weekend next year as soon as they became available. At the end of the month Sarah was in Amsterdam for a brief visit and I met up with her here. Her mood was changing noticeably from slight homesickness to being happy for being in NYC - a mood that continued to change throughout the year. Excellent!

July

While most of the country, or at least that part with children, was abroad for their summer holidays, I spent most of this hot month in Amsterdam, with only one weekend off to Glasgow. In Scotland we went for a bike ride along the river Clyde and we met up with Raymond for drinks in the Three Judges after he had very kindly gotten us tickets to see the Doctor Who exhibition in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery. I got back to Amsterdam to find out that smoking was once more allowed in Spijker, for the most adorable maintenance guy to come and check the flat's hot water system, to watch people getting absolutely soaked in torrential summer rain storms, to enjoy the city as seen from the outside terrace at De Engel, to prepare the spare bedroom for the arrival of Arno... and to meet Miss Porta Monet (pictured above) as she participated in the Drag Queen Olympics on the very last evening of the year.

August

August was the laziest and most enjoyable month of them all. A beautiful summer Saturday in its first weekend saw a fantastic Gay Pride parade that I watched with many people from the 'Gay Expats' Facebook group. This was of course, after the night of the Drag Queen Olympics (see July). Arno came over from Manchester for what was truly a great weekend. Two weeks later the same group of people gathered for yet another sun-drenched event: a wonderful Hartjesdagen weekend on Zeedijk. It was only a week later that my summer holiday started. I left warm Amsterdam to go to Scotland for a week in Nairn (slightly less warm than Amsterdam as the picture clearly shows) with Colin, Andy and David. Even though the weather wasn't always good, the week in Nairn was absolutely great. We visited distilleries and lovely places close to Nairn and just has a very nice, relaxed week.

September

Three places in the UK that I'd never been to. That was the mission for the first week in September - which was also the second week of my UK summer holiday. Barrow-in-Furness was wet, grey and industrial but still a good experience. The Cumbrian coast and the Ravenglass and Eskdale railway were beautiful, regardless of the weather. Leeds was a magnificent city. I stayed in a brand new hotel and had two great days in this West Yorkshire city. And then there was Aberystwyth - my first ever visit to Wales ended up in a most charming coastal town. Really a pleasure to be there. In the middle of the month I returned to Barcelona with Günter - my second visit to the Catalan capital with him (the first one was in 1997) and again it was a very nice time. Sun, sea, excellent food, and nice company - of course it was good! Oh, and I passed my own whisky test at home at the end of the month.

October

Just before the start of October I turned 43. In the middle of the month, Valentin turned 29 and very kindly invited me to a dinner and subsequent drinks party with a strong French influence, and at the end of the month my mom turned 69 and the entire family was invited to a weekend in Apeldoorn (80 kms east of Amsterdam) where we had a celebration dinner, spent a day in Apeldoorn town, and also a day in Royal Palace Het Loo, just in the outskirts of Apeldoorn. We took many family pictures that, just a couple of weeks later were slightly outdated again after my sister and her girlfriend broke up. Never mind - it was a very nice weekend nonetheless, even though my body was not doing all too well (flu like symptoms - the only health issue, I should add, of 2009).

November

I started my new function on 1 November, although for the first couple of weeks my old job kept peeping around the corner quite a bit. Things started getting very busy. Too busy. I made very long days in the office, worked on part time days and at the end of the month had to cancel a long anticipated weekend to Switzerland (booked before I knew about the new function) because the amount of work on my desk was simply too much. Apart from a weekend in Glasgow at the beginning of the month, I spent quite a bit of time in Amstelveen in November.

December

And so another year is over. As beautiful snow descends over Amsterdam and miraculously stays on the ground for a while, it's time to say goodbye to 2009 and look forward to 2010. Was 2009 a good year? Someone in Spijker asked me to give the year a mark between 0 and 10 and I could only muster a 5... let's say on the generous side of 5. Sure, there were many highlights this year. I've made quite a number of new friends in Amsterdam this year, and with the risk of unintentionally insulting some by not mentioning their names here, it must be said that it was especially nice to spend time with Bart and Michel, with Paul, and with the many 'gay expats' predominantly among them Valentin, Shaun and Ernst... I'm happy and thankful that my existing friendships, both in Amsterdam and in Scotland continued ever as strong as before. I'm happy that things in my family were relatively problem free after some more difficult years and I'm thankful for their support. I did some wonderfully interesting things this year... London, New York, Scotland - to name but a few. And still, and still. 2009 was not a good year because, more than in many previous year, I missed the love and affection a relationship could and should give me. More than many years in the past, I've actually felt lonely on too many occasions. It's not something that can be helped, and it's not something that anyone can do anything about, but it is something that has coloured this year too blue too often. Especially with work being so demanding (another trip, to Scotland this time, was cancelled by me because of work pressure in December - without my Glaswegian friends even knowing that I would have been in Scotland) it is sometimes very difficult and frustrating... that defeatist feeling of 'what am I doing all this for?'... or 'what is the point?'. If anything, I hope that 2010 will give new direction in my life, mostly in that respect. To find a point again. And to share that point with someone special.

¡Finalmente! En...

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:41:00 GMT

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, Netherlands

You have no idea how much I've been looking forward to being in the location you see in the picture: Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. In the news this week because of the failed terrorist attack on the Northwest flight headed from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day - but that's not why I am here. I'm here, waiting for the flight that will take me to Barcelona, Spain, where I'll spend the first week or so of 2010.

That means the work year is over! I did indeed work from home today - and even under more pressure in the afternoon than what I had expected or hoped for, but at half past 3 I switched on my 'out-of-office' assistant, closed my laptop, packed the last things I needed to take with me, and got on my bike to the railway station and from there 10 minutes on a train to the airport. Where the picture was taken. I spent last year's New Year's Eve in Spain's most vibrant city and that was such a relaxing, nice week, that I decided to do it again this year. Tonight's flight was already booked on 21 July. I wanted it that badly. Barcelona - here I come!

Dead batteries. In...

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:58:00 GMT

Amsterdam, Netherlands

There's a Dutch saying that goes "de laatste loodjes wegen het zwaarst", meaning that the last of a series of tasks become harder and harder to do. The dead batteries in the picture above symbolise perfectly how I feel about work these days. It's not getting any easier to drag myself to the office. I've put a lot of effort in my new job, but I still seem far away from getting any rewards from it. The number of things on my to-do list is overwhelming... and a bit scary. I stayed in the office until 6:45 today and decided that this would be the last day in Amstelveen this year. I'm still working tomorrow but that will be working from home. Just as productive, but more comfortable.

Another reason to work from home tomorrow came from the sky. As I cycled to Spijker at around 9:30, just after a phone call with Andy and Colin, for my last couple of drinks this year, there was already some light snow falling. During my stay in Spijker the world turned completely white though. Cycling home was a bit slippery but my mood was way too giddy to care. The idea of working from home does that to you.

Silence is golden. In...

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:48:00 GMT

Amsterdam, Netherlands

When you see the many lights burning in the office buildings in Amsterdam's financial area (de Zuidas), you may be mistaken in believing that the entire country was back at work today. Not so. Nor was the entire planet, by the looks of it, because when I sent out a mail some time in the afternoon to about 7 colleagues around the globe, I received 5 instant 'out-of-office' messages back.

No surprise, of course, because even in our own office it was distinctly quieter than usual, with just my Serbian colleague Dragana and myself occupying an office area that normally easily houses 13. The peace and quiet are good though, I actually enjoy working between Christmas and New Year because I get much less disturbed in my job and productivity is actually higher - or so it seems to me.

I did, however, leave the office at five - something that's quite rare these days, because Günter came over for some food, wine, and - it turned out - long discussions on the theory of evolution. Don't ask. I think the clue is in the word 'wine'.

Third Christmas Day. In...

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:31:01 GMT

Amsterdam, Netherlands

25 December, Christmas Day in English, is called Eerste Kerstdag, or 'First Christmas Day' in Dutch. The following day, Boxing Day in English, is simply called Tweede Kerstdag in Dutch - Second Christmas Day, you guessed it. Today has no official name but with 27 December this year being the Sunday immediately after Christmas, is nicknamed Derde Kerstdag. The third one in a row. Me, I'm happy that Christmas really is another 363 days away.

I stayed in for most of the day, doing some work on a project that needs to get finished very soon (as well as taking silly pictures of myself), and only left the house early in the evening for a traditional Sunday meetup with Bart at the pinball machine. He beat me very humiliatingly and I must admit I'm contemplating never speaking to him again... but then again it was good fun! Hehe. I left Spijker at 11:30, some 90 minutes before closing time because, even though I'm trying to let Monday be my part time day... I will have to go into the office tomorrow.

Sweet stuff. In...

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 16:18:00 GMT

Amsterdam, Netherlands

In my never ending bid to make Christmas seem as normal a weekend as possible, I spent much of the afternoon in Deco, who fortunately had opened for the afternoon. I read, relaxed, sweated and slept alternately and felt reborn when I cycled home at around 6. I watched the news at 8 and then saw a trailer for a wonderful film, The Queen, with Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II. The film was about to start on another channel and I decided to leave the TV on - quite uncharacteristically. It's is just such a great film that I had to see it again.

Afterwards I got on my bike to Spijker to meet up with some friends. Anthony, Valentin, Mark, Bart, Michel, Sean - they were all there and we had a super time. Then, just after one in the middle of the night, Ernst also walked in. That's the thing with Christmas - there are so many sweet things around.

Family Day. In...

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 16:37:05 GMT

Munstergeleen, Netherlands

It must be said that Christmas Day was action packed this year. Well 'action packed' according to my modest standards anyway. I got up just after 7 in the morning and not too much later I was on a train to Limburg for a Christmas Day with my family. It was a typical, nice day, with lots of well prepared food and other types of Christmas goodies.

Every year I vow not to do anything for Christmas. I can't really describe why, but the thought of all these traditional festivities always seems a bit threatening to me. It's a typical family holiday of course, and maybe the thought that I don't have a partner makes me decide that, if I don't pay too much attention to Christmas by just pretending that it's a normal couple of days, the pain won't be too bad. And there's also the commercial aspect of it, of course, which has long overtaken any religious meaning the festivities may have. Personally I couldn't give a toss about red nosed raindeer.

But every year, as well, Christmas is stronger than me, and every year it is good to be with family. The pre Christmas stress always is more difficult than Christmas Day itself.

A family day. To me, that has a double meaning. Of course my real family lives mostly in Limburg (or that's where I see them most, anyway). My mom and dad, my sisters and their kids. But, even though I do not have a partner, I do feel that I have 'family' here in Amsterdam and in Scotland as well. Family, in that respect, being a circle of good friends - and being with them is equally but differently important (does that make sense?).

When I left my parents' place at a quarter to eight in the evening to catch a train for the 2.5 hrs trip back to Amsterdam, slightly to the dismay of my mother, I did so to go to my other family - the one here in Amsterdam. Already when I had been chatting in the morning with Ant, he had told me that Valentin and Ernst were coming over to Nick and his flat to celebrate Christmas Day and that I should come by if I wanted to - a repeat invitation from last week.

So when I got back to Amsterdam I went to their flat and drank some wine in, what appeared to be, a Christmas pajama slumber party. Good fun though! It was just after midnight when we got on our bikes to go to Spijker, where Michel and Bart also were. Some more family members. We stayed till 2:30, to conclude a very long and, as said, an action packed Christmas Day.

Peace on...

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:06:25 GMT

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Merry Christmas to Everyone!

Weird stuff I eat. Episode next. In...

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:04:00 GMT

Amsterdam, Netherlands

It's a repetitive theme on my blog: posting pictures of some of the things I eat. You've seen it all here. Pasta dishes, cooked breakfasts, cakes, and now it's today's dessert. This is called rijstevla or rijstepap in Dutch, and it's a dessert made of cooked rice and milk which can be sweetened with cinnamon or sugar (as in the picture above). It's not a trendy dessert at all, quite old fashioned really.

I remember it from when I was a kid, and recently, when I was at my parents' place, it was served again. It's funny, because even though I really like it, I never buy it myself (apart from the fact that I hardly ever have desserts when I'm having dinner on my own). Today is an exception though. I recently bought the rijstepap in the supermarket (I know it's easy to make but, hey, come on!) and had some today. Yum!

Met up briefly with Hanno tonight but he wasn't in a particularly social mood, and because I have hardly been at home these days, we were both quite satisfied to call it a day after an hour or so. At home I had to restore my iPod. Because I had downloaded an audiobook application today, the thing was completely jammed, indicating that it was completely full even though there was nothing on it. All went fine though and at the end of the evening I had a completely functioning iPod again. Phew.