France bound and a quick refreshing memory.

In an hour I'm going to pile into Remito's car and head towards Tours. Kendji was kind enough to invite me along and since Richard is beginning his own miniature five week adventure in the beachside town of La Rochelle, it'll give me a chance to catch up with him under the southern sun while the seven hour drive should give me an opportunity to squint over my notebook and make some notes that have needed an escape route onto paper.

These photos are old, circa mid-march...but I'd never made the time to get them up and visible.
This is a patch of land off the beaten path, past the Berg-en-Dahl area. Ago and Claire and I had a little bike ride planned for the morning, but stopped short when we stumbled upon this mini paradise that felt like a behemoth summit compared to the never ending flatlands. I didn't think Dutch people knew how to climb uphill.

Ago -- Always posing. 

Case in point.

Forest girl - camera armed.

 M

MM

MMMMhmm picnic remnants...sandwiches and a demonstration of Ago's ability to split apples in two with his bare hands. Pure might.

Someone who appeared to be flying a motorcycle with a parachute. If anyone would like to enlighten me as to this DaVinci contraption, you know where to find me.

Stream gazing.

First blooms. Tulip country, ladies and gentleman.

Pre-ice cream indulging in the park.

Koninginnedag -- Long Live The Queen.

Coury Dorn showed up in Nijmegen last Friday, travel-worn and pulsing from his last three weeks backpacking through Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. I met him at the train station around 10:00 and straightaway took him to a Koninginnenacht feest (Queen's night party) at Cristi's flat. There were about ten dutch kids there, milling about the room drinking wine and snacking on cheese twists. One fellow was particularly drunk and after falling back through the patio door onto the coffee table, he cornered Coury into conversation about how shitty America was -- replete with strange attempts at Texan accents and Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions. It was comical, but we didn't stay long and made it out of there in good time, keeping in mind our need for an early rise to make it to Amsterdam in the morning.

Koninginnedag was wild and fiery orange with millions of people milling through the streets of Amsterdam, heading lazily towards the museum plein with beers in hand. You had people wearing every possible article of clothing, all the national color of pride: oranje. Men in suits, beer hats, belts, costumes -- you name it. We stayed a good six hours, then headed back to Nijmegen, more exhausted than we thought possible and more broke than we would've cared to be (the result of buying beers at exorbitant rates from kids who looked no older than 13, slanging six packs of Heineken from wagons).

Burnt-out and en route to Amsterdam. Saturday morning. Obviously lots of playing with editing.   

  

These two photos of Josh are wicked cool and his orange shirt is even more ace.

Mike -- Need I say more? I was wearing nothing orange and I felt like a fraud in his presence.

There I am, rocking the dutch flag, cheek stamps...uh?

Ballin'

(I think I'm almost ready to get the gold "Mick" necklace)

Crowded streets, overflowing with people. Gabor and Zsofia

Carnival...of course, it paled in comparison to the Karneval I met face to face in March

Fiets, feest, oranje, all op een gracht. Klein schips. Zo Nederland

I was picking up signals that I'd never tuned into before.

Last night, Claire and Brinton and I hopped off a train from Berlin and bicycled home through a bitter wind. This last weekend was a brilliant hurrah and the best spontaneous trip I've ever taken.

I walked away with memories of barbecues in Görlitzer park with kids from all over, burning scavenged wood and cooking cheap cuts of vegetables and chicken, drinking beers while it turned from twilight to night and we argued over whose turn it was to hunt for more kindling.

And, walking through a dusty, über grosse flea market in Mauerpark, finding a rickety old booth where I held a camera that surely outlived my great grandfather, and I ended up buying a melodica as an homage to recent days and when I was first saw Blue Valentine. A fun little toy I can put to work anywhere at anytime -- which I did when we walked through Kreuzberg and sat on worn statutes off the sidewalk across from an onslaught of buzzing neon and kebab shops.

More about Berlin when I get my disposable camera developed -- one week, I'm guessing.

Two weeks ago Richard visited and we had picnics, concerts, and a handful of late night talks. And, even a failed effort to throw a "beer-pong" party.

It was 24 beers vs. Richard and I.

Luckily, Kendji and Alex showed up to help the good fight. In the end, we reigned victorious, and drifted into chairs, talking and smoking cigarettes over a floor littered with small, glass bottles.

We picnicked on a small street across from a grassy field. There we were, on this road, with cheese, wine, crackers, and stroopwaffels, sitting indian style on Claire's scarf and in that field we suddenly heard men and dogs in a monstrous ruckus. Our best bet? Dog fighting training/and or police dog school. It was borderline disturbing. But, memorable no doubt.

The concert evening was nice. I missed packing into the corner at SB's Late Night Lunchbox and singing These Days. Even the time I almost fell out of my chair after we sang 4th Time Around with a harmony we'd barely composed minutes before.

Photos anyone?

Richard a couple hours after I met him at the train station. We were about to head into the city.

That morning, the living room table had vanished (not entirely unusual). We were planning our day out. Claire is eyeing the program for the cinema -- short film festival 2011.

This turned out better than I thought. I like this quite a lot.

We wanted to make it to the film festival by 3:00, so we stopped short of Ooij (a quaint, little village I remembered from last summer) and chose this place off the main roadside. The grass was flooded with miniature spiders. A total onslaught. So, we opted for the road and feasted for a pittance. Twice we had to move our makeshift table in a rush, -- cars kept coming down the little avenue, but they were always smiling older folks. The weather was ace.

Ready to hit the road and watch some really excellent, if not ridiculously strange, short films at the Lux.

 

The view from the waalbrug -- come around sundown.

Mini-portrait photos.

House concert: we had three different guitars, no real plan, and more ridiculous laughter than music. Alex and I sang The Tallest Man On Earth and Richard and I sang Dylan. We picked and strummed and drank red wine and stole chairs from different flats to pull it off. 

Alex, singing "Night Train"

I want to remember this exact photo when twenty years down the line, I'm asked, "What did you do when you were young? Did you have fun?" I'll show them this.

Richard, a day or two before he headed back stateside. We couldn't stop plucking on that Ukelele. I wrote a song on it. I'll record it next time I get my hands on one.

All the times I heard "I'm sorry" didn't change a single thing.

Once again.

It's late in the evening and I closed my windows so those midnight trains wouldn't keep me up.

I listened to Kids on the Run and Like The Wheel -- because of the sentiment -- that almost unexplainable idea that nobody seems to understand.  I've never felt so incompatible before. So, ideas that isolate me aren't outside the boundaries of the ordinary.

I sipped in equal portions and took care of the ones who needed attention and I put up with the foolishness of the ones who didn't.

I heard two things this week that shook me up, filled me with some sort of passing self-respect (a faux pas) and ended with my head on the pillow, my eyes on the ceiling and post-it notes plastered across my bulletin board -- catchy phrases and underdeveloped titles for poems and novels.

The two things I heard:

1. "You're the person everybody goes to man, you're like the leader of the group. I feel like a little brother to you and I lay in bed thinking by myself: 'What am I not doing right?' "

2. That is one of the things I like about you -- that you're going to get hurt -- that you're willing to get hurt for it.

How can I be a leader when I spend my time gazing out the window,  through a nicotine haze, writing songs about missed opportunities across bridges that haven't been crossed. I'm no leader, I just listen and shoot my fingers out when I think I can offer a hand-up. But, all these refined and effective measures are incased in shiny glass that looks nice and remarkable, but paper-thin from another angle.

It's in those songs that I'll sing with a raspy off-pitch voice that mocks the zeitgeist i want.

In Estonia, he said "You're tragic man." and I laughed it off with false pride.
But, no matter how "tragic" rolls off the tongue, sometimes it's bitter being poetic like a joke and vulnerable and attached to the "what could be" rather than simply "what is".

It's the melting of the dream into the sea.


At night I make plans for a city laid down
Like the hips of a girl on the spring covered ground
Spirals and capitals like the twist of a script
Streets named for heroes that could almost exist
The fruit trees of Eden and the gardens that seem
To float like the smoke from a lithium dream
Cedar trees growing in the cool of the squares
The young women walking in the portals of prayer
And the future glass buildings and the past an address
And the weddings in pollen and the wine bottomless
And all wrongs forgotten and all vengeance made right
The suffering verbs put to sleep in the night
The future descending like a bright chandelier
And the world just beginning and the guests in good cheer
In Royal City I fell into a trance
Oh it's hell to believe there ain't a hell of a chance
-Josh Ritter

When it rains, it never pours here, but the sun is always dim.

And it's common for the rain to come five times a day.  Always unexpected, but it can never blind you while you're going from place to place, just present an inconvenience -- add a ruffle to your hair or a speed to your step.

But, at the same time, the sun teases from behind silver linings, never showing its face, it's daylight twilight.

Richard is coming today all the way from the states and this is pretty exciting, it'll be nice to have an old friend. New and temporary relationships are different creatures. But, old friendships are gold if they're solid.

How you were the light over me, for eine kleine weile

Well, I wasn't supposed to miss you this quickly. It's a shame actually.
But, on the bike ride home I realized I'd never returned back to Lent on a tuesday night.
I'd always fallen asleep with you.
It's okay. But, "The Dreamer" was stuck in my head and I remembered the first time I heard that.
Then, I thought of that morning when you were putting your make-up on and I first heard "Kids on the Run". You put it on Grooveshark. And you stopped when he said, "Let's break some hearts" and turned towards me in an epic stance and sang it out. In the moment it was fun and sort of careless. But, now it rings out differently.

I can't wait for Philosophy of Law in a few hours. (That's American sarcasm. See, it does exist.).

I Think We're All On The Run

I'm about to go have some ghetto classic hot dogs, pot boiled, at Alex's place.
And then we're going to Pieckan later. Every Tuesday night is international night and we pile in and dance like fools and drink overpriced beers. Then, I moan and groan about having to bicycle all the way back from lent. But, how can I complain when there's a dance club on campus. As if that would happen back home at good ol' NMSU.

I've had a million little crystal moments and I can't count how lovely they've been. I think I've decided that everyone is confused and struggling together and there's peace in that. I've never been living the dream like I'm living it now.

Listen to The Tallest Man On Earth. He's from Sweden and his music is gonna rip you in half.

Then, listen to me try and do it justice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kAAUEEYBR0

By the way, boys and girls, my address here is:

Griftdijk Noord - 16
H - 112 Lent
6663 AC
The Netherlands

Send me some love, or perhaps a care package filled with green chiles and real salsa.

Mick

The Company

(This post was begun two weeks ago: I'm lazy and should make this a daily activity, lest it become bi-annual)

It's Saturday night at 8:00 and I'm parking my borrowed bicycle outside the Café Samson. It's dimly-lit and looks a bit seedy from the outside. There are a few older gents leaning low over their beers carrying on a conversation and on the other side of the patio there's six or seven kids that look my age laughing and sitting back leisurely. I like it already.


It's good and busy inside. There are people lining the wood-top bar and the barman is working hard to keep drinks full and just right. The whole decorum is wooden tables and tumbledown chairs -- it reminds me a little bit of the hostel in Prague. I'm looking for Simone, the girl that the university assigned to me as my guide to Nijmegen. We hadn't met yet -- just some facebook conversation, but she was sipping on a glass of red wine at a table in the back so I shoot her a wave and sit down. The beer menu is intimidating. They're organized into countries of origin and beside each name is the alcohol percentage. My native PBR was nowhere to be found, but there were quite a few fancy looking choices with 10% or 11% in small font. I realize I'd been here once before over the summer and had been so overwhelmed by the selection that I opted for a Coca Cola and Vieux. But, now I was ready to conquer. Sort of. Actually...hmm... maybe I'll just ask the waiter what he recommends. He brings me a Château-Neubourg in its own signature glass. Tall and skinny and the bubbles are flying up from the bottom of the glass like a geyser. Apparently every single beer has its own unique glass and there must've been fifty different options on that menu. That's a lot of glassware.

The beer tastes great and Simone and I talk about philosophy and Dutch society and Las Cruces (she studied there last year). More people pile into the bar and by nine it's totally poppin' in there. Miriam was back in Nijmegen after her late winter break trip to Germany and she meets us there a little after 9:00. She brings her two friends, Karin, and Cristi. There was wine and beer and I had a martini (with a mysterious maraschino cherry floating on top) and tried to sort through the flurry of Nedenglish conversation that was passing back and forth across the table. There was something comical about it. I'd say something in Dutch to Simone, who respond in English, then Miriam would chime into the conversation with some Dutch and I'd respond in English. It was a mental workout. And I was an amateur at it, but it got a good round of laughs out of our group. I'd purchased some clip on lights before I met up with Simone in an effort to avoid a €40 fine for riding at night without proper lighting accoutrement and I'd stuck the lights in my pocket when I got to the cafe. There was a priceless moment when I pulled my light out of my pocket and told the girls that I wasn't sure what the storage protocol was. Then, in fine form, they each shot their hands into their pockets and within the seconds the table was littered with little LEDS in cheap, plastic cases.

People don't go out around here until at least 1:00. It's bad form to start bar-hopping earlier than that -- there's nothing to do. I was jonesin' to have a taste of the different venues lining the Molenstraat, a Dutch equivalent (both in name and purpose) to the Mill Street of sweltering Mesa, AZ or the central avenue of any university city where all the semi-affordable, almost classy cafés and clubs make their names known. So, finally after two or three hours at the table in the back we headed out and my head was a little bit light from the last, rich blonde bier that had been in my cup.

I grab my bicycle and we walk towards the Molenstraat. Karin says I should practice bicycling slowly so we make a single file line of cycles past the construction in Plein 1944 and make our way to La Compagnie. It's modern inside with silver, neon decorum and loud music, none of the songs I recognize. But, the girls drink their Róse wine from short stemmed glasses and I order a biertje (meaning whatever the cheapest brand is they have on tap).

Quick dutch lesson of the day:
The dutch love their diminutives. So, there's a handful of words that are made cuter for no reason. But, it'd be wrong to remove this little sound from the tail end. Biertje, kaartje (ticket, card, etc), oh and if you're a 14 Dutch girl who drinks Bacardi Breezers and sluts it up at the bar... well you're a Breezersletje.

So, back to my biertje. After I order it, I hold it close to my chest with my elbow bent as I return to the girls -- a sort of pointing and pushing device to maneuver through the crowd.

After La Compagnie we made an appearance at The Underground, at Twee Keer Bellen, and finally settled down for a while in Malle Babbe. I liked Malle Babbe. A classic dive bar. And, if you wanted you could snake your way to the corner where some dedicated smokers pulled their cigarettes out of their packs and huddled around a shelf on the wall. The bartenders seemed to turn a blind eye to it.

I'm not much of a dancer. But, I have fun doing a series of repetitive and ridiculous movements on the dance floor. And, in the haze from surreptitious smokers and the shafts of rotating yellow party lights, I looked around at the company I was keeping and I looked down at the time -- it was 4:00 in the morning -- and I thought about the someday and the now and how I'm glad I'll have this to remember then. Everyone looked really young and beautiful and radiant and careless.

Do I live on a farm, oh wait, no, it's actually a refugee camp.

Here goes. Thanks to my fine facebook comrades who said I should do this. If one of you non-believers end up reading this I hope you find it more enjoyable than suspected.

The funny part is that I ended up on European soil before I actually saw it. Last Wednesday at 8:00 in the morning, my plane was roaring into Stockholm Arlanda airport a few minutes ahead of schedule and I couldn't see a single thing out the window. The screen built-in to the economy seat in front of me read 300 meters above the ground and I'd never seen so much fog in my life. For all I knew, we were about to land in a stand of trees, an ocean, or perhaps a parking lot. 

Then, when the plane bounced down the runway, the fog cleared and there was nothing but snow and forest surrounding the airport in every direction, for miles. Stockholm felt like the coldest place in the world but man is it a beautiful city -- The Venice of the north. And the five days I spent there were filled with metro rides, Mariestad beers, good company, and even an accidentally sojourn into a seven level gay club. I made sure to have a Fika every day and formed an addiction to Mad Men. But, Stockholm was just the warm-up for my arrival here in Nijmegen, home of Radboud University, where apparently I'm supposed to learn something for the next six months. The first thing I learned? That my house is in the middle of BFE.

When I requested student housing I was working under the impression that it was somewhat near the university campus. Maybe not right in the center, but at least near-by-- a pleasant five-minute bike ride through quaint little avenues.

It turns out the assumptions really do make fools of us, because I'm writing this from housing complex Lent, a 30-40 minute bike ride away from campus and it's definitely an experience getting to and from the university daily. But, once I got over the initial shock, I realized the ride is really fantastic. There's a long bike path that runs parrallel to the train-tracks, a two minute ride from my place and it takes me over this bridge here:

View from the bridge coming home:

Then over the bridge, past the Centraal Stationen and to grandmother's house we go.

Last night, I stayed in town a little longer than I should have because I was buying some assorted groceries at Albert Heijn (the chain supermarket of Holland) and it was nightfall when I rode home. I was the only bicyclist without lights and was convinced I would end up tangled in someone else's spokes. Because you know what it's all about in The Netherlands? It's all about cycling in the Netherlands (shit man, there's even a wikipedia page devoted to it -- imagine the Cycling in Las Cruces page.) There are entire parking lots devoted to bikes that extend forever. They have their own traffic lights. And they have me, weaving awkwardly in between people. Check this, the first day I would nod and wave at people as we crossed paths and they would stare sort-of confused. Then, I told my dad about it and he said, "Well son. That's how they get around. You don't see driver's in Las Cruces pull up next to each other at the traffic light and wave saying, "Hey, we're driving! Fuck yeah!".

Back to my housing in the boondocks.  It's a refugee camp from the 90's and the interior is sterile and hospital like. But the windows open nicely and I can smoke cigarettes in my room and the heater works. I have a view of a farm field out my window and right now the sun is rising over the train-tracks 150 meters away. Thanks to efficient public transport trains run every 15 minutes here. Up and down the line, 2-story passenger trains come barreling down the tracks. And, when the window is open they practically shake the frame. But, it's not too bad in the night when I close up shop. Although that's when the freight trains run.

Yesterday I googled "tabakwinkel" (Winkel in Dutch = shop... I laugh everytime) and set out in search of a place to get some good rolling tobacco. (I was breaking the bank buying packs for 7€ a day) and after 45 minutes bicycling through windy streets and trying to adhere to strict Dutch bicycling rules, I arrived. There was no sign on the door, but I wandered in and asked the older guy behind the counter what he recommended. He hooked me up with a sack of Samson tobacco and Rizla papers. I was, smoking a fine cigarette and enjoying the sunny weather on the ride back when it started hailing on me. It was pretty fucking strange. There it was bright and sunny -- and there was some seriously mean hail -- hitting me in the face. Welcome to The Netherlands.