Quick Update From Austria,

I am at my friend Casbi's house in Graz, Austria. This is my last day here, so I do not want to waste it updating my blog, but here's a quick synopsis of my time in this amazing country. I really do love Austria, like I love most countries. I love.

My trip did not start well. The metro in Amsterdam was broken and I was late for my flight, as per usual, so I had to take a €30 cab ride from my house to Schiphol. Then my flight sat on the tarmac for over an hour because it was a busy day of some sorts. I was in a great mood. Finally made it to Vienna after a noticeably bumpy flight and to my friend Hanna's house.

She's great and her flat is great. Right in the middle of Vienna on the top floor of an old building, so there is a big roof terrace in which you can see all of Vienna. It's really something. We watched the sunset a few times; it was like being your own Hollywood stereotype, in Vienna. The first night we went to an open air cinema in park near an old WWII bunker to see "Rock and Roll Never Dies," a brilliant Finnish film about, well, rock and roll, and pie. The problem was, it was colder than a witches' teat, and it rained, and I caught a cold, one I am still battling as I write this. Apparently they were out of blankets. Bastards.

The next day was spent walking around Veinna and sight-seeing, while thinking a lot about work. It is a beautiful city, more expensive than I thought and to be honest, very familiar. It looks like, well, pretty much any other big European city. Prague is more majestic architecturally. There are some nice buildings, like the Belvedere and government house, but all in all, nothing special. At night we went to a jazz club to see RJD2. Brilliant DJ, talkative crowd, great night.

The next day, or two days ago, we went to this tiny town on the Danube called Spitz for Hanna's brother's garden party. He lives in the middle of Austrian wine country, a truly glorious location. His house backs onto the Danube and he has a HUGE garden with shitloads of veggies and fruits. I called it a 'Vegetarian's Wet Dream' because it truly was. He has a fig tree, a kiwi tree, all sorts of squash, berries, tomatoes, tons of Apricots (they grow everywhere here) and other goodies. The party was, well, amazing.. but I was sick. Very sick. We stayed for a while before darting off to Krems, a town of 25,000 where Hanna grew up, and she showed me around. I had a mean case of the sniffles so we headed back to Vienna and I went to sleep.

Yesterday I went to Graz, which is where I am now. Graz is a college town about 3 hours south of Vienna in Steria, another province. It is truly something else, a sleepy little town that comes to life with students. My friend Casbi who owns a record label lives here, and he showed me around while we talked business (working/holiday). Nice views, nice city, picturesque, and one of the locals' favourites. Hanna loves Graz, and I can see why. Made dinner last night for everyone - salad and potato gratin with sundried tomatoes - and drank and chatted, mostly in German, while I struggled with the language. Today we're going to see a castle apparently before heading back to Vienna. I've been promised an excursion to the best veggie restaurant in Vienna and some clubbing before I hop a plane tomorrow and get down and dirty in piles and piles of work the rest of the week.

In addition, a very symbolic day in coming - this THR - and I plan to spend it not working, so I have to really get on things when I get home. Better enjoy Graz now.

I love Austria. I'm coming back in October. yeah!

much love.

Off To Austria...

I have quite the schedule this summer... If all goes well, I will be hitting up 5 big music festivals across Europe, and then returning home for a CD Release Tour. My schedule is a bit crazy, but I will get to go back to London for a few days to see my brother, and Phil, my brother-in-law, will be there as well as our schedules will overlap. My close friend Dave is coming at the end of August, and I will be going to a close friend's wedding in Deep River, ON at the end of August as well. Gonna be busy. As its looking, I'll be in Austria, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Holland (of course), UK, Switzerland and The Faroe Islands, before returning to Canada and the US at the end of the summer. My thesis is doomed. I hope Mireille, my adviser, isn't reading this.

This is mostly because of DrownedinSound, whom I am working with as much as I can. Great bunch of cats over there. We just eclipsed 300,000 hits a week, so we are the biggest independent music website in Europe. How's say?

So, what to chat about in my non-sensical world, which isn't a word by the way, but whatever. Well, I'm glad as a poet on payday that I am leaving the weather here. It has rained EVERY SINGLE DAY since I got back home, and that was June 13. Everyday is a mized bag, bipolar, as in some moments it pours and others it is sunny. My last two baseball games and one training have been rained out. I wonder why I play when my field is below sea level, so half the time it is under water. We still in second place, and I wish my lads more than well in the month I'm away. I'm sure they will kick ass, as I do bat 9th and play right field. I'm replaceable.

Other news in the world of Shain... well, our album is being released on AUG 21 and a tour is in the works. We'll have copies before Aug 1. I am fucking excited for this. No matter what happens, K and I have made it and made a new record, and we're damn proud of it. Please buy it if you like the songs.

So I leave in a few hours, writing this as I drink black coffee because we are out of milk. I am certainly going to miss Amsterdam, as I am gone minus 10 days until Sep 23, and I'm away much of October as well. But this is life, as 2007 is the year on the road it seems, and I am growing considerably because of it.. Or at least I think so. I will be back for a few days next week in time to see Bright Eyes at the Melkweg on July 11. I love Bright Eyes.

Oh, Happy Birthday Matt, Renee and everyone else I love. till next time..

I've seen A LOT of live music this past week, and it's been my two weeks off. Odd. I guess I'm hooked. I saw Smokey Robinson last night. No Shit. Like Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. He played with a massive band, and it was very much a variety show and a bit depressing, but fun. He played "I Second That Emotion," "My Girl" and a bunch of others. I left early cause of a meeting.

I saw the Dilated Peoples on Monday. Both The Alchemist and Jeru The Damaga guested, the latter being kickass, as the trio with Baboo at the DJ ripped through 75 minutes of straight hip-hop. Was Amazing.

I also saw Ted Leo, You Say Party We Say Die, Joan as Police Woman and Dinosaur Jr. last week. busy busy.

Candle...

I lit a candle last night. It is still burning. Emotional stuff indeed.

I gave a tour this morning, part of working as a guide. I'm chugging away with this job, even though it takes up quite a bit of time. I do know EVERYTHING about Amsterdam now, so you can ask me when you visit. Road starts THR. enjoying quiet time at home now.

Oh Sweet, Punishing Irony;

Sadly my close friend Jared moved back to Canada yesterday. I ended up with all his spices, some food and a BBQ. I had to go pick up the free BBQ this morning, but was in a rush. There was construction on the main street - replacing some tram lines or something - so I biked on the sidewalk. As I looked up, a cop was waiting for me. He pulled me over and issued a fine for €30 for biking on the sidewalk. The BBQ cot €49.95. Aw well. I'll call it a small victory.

Glad I added some cash to the pockets of one of the richest countries in the world. I love Holland.

Oh Happy Day... Well, Minus The Weather.

I got my residence permit today. After a year of wrangling, deportation letters, frighteningly governmental dutch people, bills to pay and crying, it arrived. I am legal. Till Sept 1st. Then I'll renew.. and it begins.

Rain, Rain, Rain.

I love The Rheostatics. That is all.

Well, actually I will write more, as this week is busy and this blog is not on my to-do pile, well, not at the top at least. It continues to rain, every single day. Thankfully there was a three-hour break which allowed us to play baseball. We won, beating the last place team http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif13-7 or something like that, bringing us into second. We play the best team next week at home; gonna be a doozy. For more info, visit our home on the web HERE.

A lot of people are leaving, moving away this week. Already I've lost four people, and two more leave this week. I guess that's life living internationally. People come in and out of your life more than usual, and friends come and go; the true friends are those who you keep in touch with, regardless of where you are. I don't have many of them, but I value every single one. People who don't travel crazy amounts enjoy stationary friendships more, obviously. There are good and bad things about traveling.

The new flat is great; come and visit it some time. My flatmates are wonderful, as it feels more like a family than a bunch of people living together. Being away so much, it's the perfect thing to come back to; a semblance of home. More trips are now being planned as well, including Aug 15-19 in Cologne, Germany and Aug 25 - Sept 6 or 7 in Toronto and surrounding areas. I have no idea when this thesis is going to write itself.

Ten more days in Amsterdam. Then, it begins again, the living out of a bag. I'll be taking ten flights in July - I am so the environmentalist - and then going intercontinental again in August. Plus, one of my best friends, the amazing Dave Osborne, is coming to visit me Aug 20-23, in b/w Germany and Canada. Gonna be a doozy.

Until then, the grind continues. and so on and so on and so on...

I also like Wintersleep.

And to end, some SHAMELESS self promotion. Three NEW Kae Sun songs are available on our MySpace. Go listen, comment and lemme know if you like them. We're taking over the world.

The work never gets finished...

Ah, nope, it never does. But thankfully, the weather here has been bipolar for a few weeks now, making it easy to stay in and do work. I was supposed to go to a party yesterday, but standing at home at 11:30PM having been rained on 3 times already in the day made me stay home. I slept well. It's nice to sleep to the pitter-patter of rain.

Ten more days in Amsterdam before I am off on the road again. I'll be all over the place in July, I mean ALL over the place, and I'm not complaining. Shall be tiring though, and by months end will be yearning for my own bed and coffee pot. July 5 - 31 is the time I am away.

So apparently it is monsoon season here. Like literal mon-fucking-soon season. So it rains really, really hard, for fifteen minutes, then gets sunny and repeats the process several times a day until you've given up on predicting or beating the weather. Been fun.

The trials of my life the last week have revolved around my bike. My back tire cracked in half, like the metal part, and it needed to be replaced. Not to mention the €60 cost to do this, it has taken nearly a week for the place to fix it. I finally went in yesterday and demanded the bike, and they gave me a loaner - with no brakes or accelerating power. Biking home last night after seeing Ted Leo at the Paradiso was fun. It was pouring, I had one hand on the bike and the on an umbrella shielding myself, praying I didn't need to stop suddenly. It was more than fine.

So next week I'm seeing a bunch of shows. You Say Party, We Say Die! Joan as Policewoman and Dinosaur Jr., all in three days and all for reviews. DiS is putting me to work, which is good. Being the only 'employed' writer not based in the London office makes me feel a bit out of touch, so I want to write as much as possible.

Baseball tomorrow - if it doesn't rain.. again. fuck this weather.

Quick Update...

My adoring fans would hate me if I didn't update this every now and again, right? I wish I had something interesting to tell you, an anecdote or funny thing that happened to me, but alas, no. I do like the word 'alas.' It is so Dickensian. Fun.

I've been giving tours of Amsterdam in my spare time for a company linked HERE. I've been making good money on these tours, and telling people lots of stories along the way. I know a shitload about this city now... not as much as other guides, but enough to bullshit my way through a three-hour walking tour. Come on one with me if you want.

My bike is also broken. Really, really broken. It needs to be fixed. The back tire not only moving like a wheel, but also side-to-side, as the spokes are loose and my gears are broken. Its an expensive fix. Thank god for tour guiding.

A long week...

I haven't had much time update, because I have been busier than Paris Hilton's parole counselor. zing. Oh topical humour. It's a lark. But I digress. I am sitting here in my new flat, watching the weather change every ten minutes from sun to downpour and back trying to catch up on some work. I moved on Tuesday. What fun that was. or was it Wednesday.

Well, when I arrived back from Canada, sans-sleep, I had a quick brekkie at the only cafe that was open at 8AM, loaded all my stuff into a cab and headed to my new place, on the other end of town. I live in Amsterdam East, or Oost as the Dutch call it, and all my other places have been in the West or South. This place is great though, albiet tough to describe. I live in the attic, but the rest of the flat is on the second floor, so I have to bypass another apt altogether to get to the bathroom and kitchen. It's more than fine, and my flatmates, both asleep beside me right now, are fantastic. I feel adopted into a little family, and I'm not sure if they read this, but I hope they feel the same way.

Things are busy as all hell with work. In addition to writing papers, or faking the writing of papers, I am booking a tour for Kae Sun, organizing an album release dealing with shitloads of legalese, writing for DrownedinSound - well, not that much cause Mike does everything - and trying to have some semblance of a social life. It's good fun. Today I took a break and went food shopping, one of the many things I have to do to fully 'move in' to this place. I went to a few Turkish places, got all sorts of fun things, like Plantains and Pumpkin and delicious things like that... dinner is planned tonite. I'm going to make pumpkin soup; or at least try.

Lots of things on tap until July 5, when I leave Amsterdam again for a few weeks. I am back in Holland for a few days, including July 12 to go to North Sea Jazz, before leaving from July 13 - 31. I'm going all over, and will update the blog. Until then, I have to make soup and forget how behind I am on my work.

much love.

My Primavera Sound Review along with Mike Diver and Kev Kharas...

http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/2061026

enjoy
Shain

Been a while...

I can't believe Professor Robert Hamilton, probably the sole person responsible for my move to Holland reads my blog. I am amazed at the amount of people who actually read this verbal bullshit I spew. Really. I feel horrible for not updating it all that often, nor reading much of anyone else's blog. I mean well, but I'm super busy and lack proper internet access sometimes on my travels. Well, here goes with another blog entry, and I promise it to be a doozy, as I'll explain my week covering Primavera Sound in Barcelona.

Low cost airlines have the craziest flight times. I was due to arrive in Barcelona at 12AM on WED May 30, or early THR morning, whichever suits your fancy. We were twenty minutes late, so I arrived around 12:30AM. I met a lovely Greek girl on the plane who lives in Barcelona, and she helped me take the night airport bus into Catalunya Square, where I took the N11 bus to the last stop to meet my friend who lives in Badalona, which is way the fuck in the suburbs. What he didn't know is that the last stop changed, and I was taken up this mountain and dropped off at a hospital, alone, at 3AM. I called him laughing, and he couldn't believe where I was. I walked in, asked for a cab and took a €10 ride back down this black mountain to his house, where he was standing outside in hysterics. I passed out immediately.

Another guy was staying at his house, Chabby from Austria, and I spent much of the next day with him until I was to meet up with Mike and Kev from DiS to begin our Primavera coverage. We went shopping in the morning, explored Badalona and then took the Rodales city train into Catalunya and floated around the old town, stopping for a Durum Kebab. We strolled down La Ramblas, got some juice at the Boquiera market and went to the beach. It was nice.

Around 5PM I headed off on the metro to Selva De Mar to meet Mike and Kev. We had a few beers and strolled to the Forum, where the festival was. I then waited in line for two fucking hours to get my ticket, as we picked the wrong line to wait in and the pace was slow. It all ended well, I had my ticket, and we spent the rest of the night drinking, seeing live music and floating around the festival site. That continued for four days.

I met up with a fellow writer, Claire, who lived much closer than Badalona from the festiva (even though I found out Badalona was the next suburb over) and I went back to hers at 8AM it seemed and fell asleep. She has to go to work the next morning so I was back out, exploring Barcelona.

I had to move house that day, from Badalona to the centre, so I meandered through trains and subways and four hours later I was in the centre at my new couch surfing home, Nick. His place was fantastic, and he proved a gracious host. Then I was back to Primavera for another night.

At Primavera there was a seperate area specifically for press that had free booze, sponsored by Estrella Dam and Red Bull. The thing was, the area (which we called the island at that is pretty much what it was) was only audible to the main stage and was restricted, so we couldn't bring beer out. That meant a lot of hanging out on the island, including seeing The Smashing Pumpkins, the Fall, Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, Wilco and Maximo Park, among many others. The festival itself was great, tons and tons of music, average food, 5 stages, a music bazaar... Saw many a bands, in which will be published tomorrow, so I won't talk much about it. I will say that the venue was a concrete wasteland, quite postmodern, right on the sea, so a few stages actually backed onto the sea. It was beautiful and ugly at once, and there was a nice breeze filled with saltwater that made my glasses foggy. They also had tons of handicapped porty-potteys, so I peed pretty for four days. I hate those open urinals.. just not for me.

Saturday involved some beach time. I went to the beach near Mike and Kev's hotel, which happened to be a nude beach. Ah, when in roam right... It was a bit odd being completely surrounded by naked people, but it felt kinda free and in some ways, right. It was like people weren't hiding who they were, at all... Forty minutes of naked sun-burning and I was spent.

Back to the hotel and back to the festival on Saturday, which ended extremely late, so Sunday was a late day. I did a bit of sightseeing - but I reserved much of that for Monday - and had a fantastic dinner with Nick and his friends, in which I cooked up a storm. I made daal (thanks Alan), basmati rice, stuffed tomatoes with Okra and drinks and appetizers. Dessert was provided by two amazing French girls and some kickass chocolate, and we drank like freshman. It was truly an amazing experience, one I'll remember for a long time, and one I thank Nick for. After that, I went to see Malajube and Of Montreal at the Apolo, which for a lack of a better word, was AMAZING.

On Monday I went to Parc Guell, which is a park designed by Gaudi. It was glorious. Then I met another friend (Katie) and strolled around Gracia, her area. We had beer, got soccer balls kick at us by rowdy kids and ate falafel and gelato. well I had gelato. After that it was a lovely dinner with my friend Nick and bed, before I headed off to the airport for a 6AM flight.

Yesterday I flew back to AMS, went home for an hour, moved some stuff into a storage room and then flew to Toronto. NXNE and Joe's wedding in tomorrow. lots of work to do this weekend. more updating later. here are a few pics :)

Busy Busy Busy..

This will be the last blog update for a while, as I am swamped this weekend and early next week, leading up to my trip to Barcelona on WED night. I have lots of work, in addition me moving on TUE to a new flat in Amsterdam. Again. I'm downsizing for the summer, as I don't need a luxurious place when I'm rarely around to live in it. At least that's the thought.

Lastly, I want to say how much good music I've been privy to this week. I saw Antibalas and Hanne Hukkelberg last week, and followed that with Andrew Bird and K-Os, in which my friend Ben plays bass, last night. Primavera Sound is kickass too, which will be a fun work/vacation.

till later.

Home,

I am staring at flowers that were given to me and are now dying. They are on my kitchen table; I got them a week ago, so them dying isn't a metaphor or anything, just life. I don't feel this blog post has to be about anything in particular. I'm just wasting 10 minutes before I have to run off, and I thought a bunch of useless ramblings would be fun to jot down.

Nothing much is happening here. I'm off to Barcelona for work next week, and then back to Canada for a week for Joe's wedding, one of my closest friends. He's a year older than me and getting married; I guess I'm getting old. Plus other friends have already gotten married, had kids, all that jazz. More feeling old. Work is progressing. The new Kae Sun album is done. If you want, we posted two songs at our Sonicbids page, "Stay Up" and "Where Did Everybody Go." Both are political songs, to a different extent, and if you like them, lemme know :)

It's been gloomy today, as it was yesterday. Typical Dutch weather, I guess. I see Dutch weather and Dutch food in the same light. They are both white, grey or yellow, don't do much for the soul and aren't worth writing home about. Minus stroopwafels of course, and suikerwafels.

More Later...

International Life...

This week especially, I feel international. Yesterday I had coffee with two Turkish girls from Couch Surfing, and dinner and a tour of Alkmaar from a Fijian, with promises that she's bringing her friend from Nepal around next time. Today I have drinks with my new flatmates, who are from Portugal and Greece. Tonite I'm seeing Antibalas, a band from Brooklyn, with a British couple, my Canadian friend and my Trinidadian flatmate. Wow, I feel insignificant. Being Canadian feels so boring.

Shain

VNO-NCW Conference,

Today I stood up in front of about 800 people at the VNO-NCW West Business Conference in Holland and told a bunch of big wigs how flawed their immigration system is. To add some context, I was added as a guest speaker along with two other students to this business conference, which is essentially aimed at making Amsterdam more internationally friendly for corporations. The VNO-NCW is the chamber of commerce, and this was their big gala ceremony. The CEO of Siemens, a great guy mind you, asked me a bunch of questions, and we decided it would be best to lambaste the IND (immigration and naturalisation dept) for treating me like a criminal. The Dutch immigration system, like most European countries, is fundamentally flawed, which has caused a whole mess of issues, including me going through hell for a residence permit.

Plus, a lot of student friends who graduate with a 1 year MA from UvA leave and go home. Why the hell would the Dutch want that? Wouldn't the business want to keep the knowledge here, where it was fostered? Wouldn't it be good for the country to employ smart, tax paying expats who excel in specialized positions? I think so, and therefore decided to make my voice heard in front of some important people, including the CEO's on ABN AMRO, KPMG Europe, ING and the vice-mayor of Amsterdam.

It's funny. Everyone agreed with me. Thanked me even. Yet, I have no faith the system will change in my lifetime, even though these powerful folks have the means to do so. This is an amazing country, with a troubled integration policy. Canada is the same in many respects.

I also discovered, thanks to my lovely friend Nina, that when you eat asparagus, your urine smells. She pointed it out to me at the best possible time, right in the middle of a delicious Dutch style asparagus gratin with Gouda. At least the dessert was brilliant - aardbei (strawberries) with slagroom (whipped cream) and hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles). Plus an open bar.

A very open bar. sweet.

Work...

I have a shitload of work to do tonite. So much so it is worthy of the description 'shitload.' It's nothing out of the ordinary, but it does seem like there is more tonite. Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif is a busy month for Uni in Holland, and so on and so on and so on.

I lost my baseball game today. We deserved to lose. For those interested parties, visit My Club's Site to learn about us. Most of the info is in Dutch, but you'll get it. Now I'm home telling myself I shouldn't be updating my blog. I should be working.

On a side note, I've been spending a good amount of time this week with my friends Patrick Watson. They are a great band from Montreal, and I've seen them twice in Amsterdam and once in Utrecht this week, with one more show tomorrow when they open for Interpol. They are a brilliant band and brilliant guys, so if you like Coldplay, Jeff Buckley or Devandra Banhart, check out Patrick Watson.

I updated my journalism website as well.. Go read my work HERE.

ta-da.

Quick Story...

I was on the Amsterdam metro yesterday - yes, Amsterdam has a subway - and I was running for a train, which I thought I was going to miss. As I was running, my cell phone leaped out of my pocket, seemingly on its own, and right onto the train tracks. Then the phone rang.

So I stared, contemplating how to get my phone back. I ended up calling over someone working at the Amsterdam metro who called ahead, stopped all the trains and then got a technician to go onto the tracks and get my phone. It was a bit scratched up, I was a bit embarrassed, but a good laugh was had by all, in Dutch and English.

I'm an idiot sometimes.

Please Lord, Not The Bees...

It seems each time I update this, I am in a different country, or on top of a different country. This time I am in Toronto. Been busy with Kae Sun.

Today I came to the conclusion that this world is full of idiots, and there is no hope. I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with the plight of the honeybee, but there are some serious issues right now concerning a massive, unexplained drop in honeybee populations, and there is very little news about it. If we have no honeybees, then nothing, or very little will pollinate the flowers. Then the flowers die. Then we're screwed. This world is really going down the road feeling bad, and we're completely oblivious. One third of the food we eat is dependent on the honeybee population. ONE-THIRD! I'm worried.

To educate:

Great All Around Article.. A Bit Long, but Worth It

Article About Problem

Wikipedia Explanation

Associated Press

A blog entry whilst writing on the airplane…another airplane.

I spent a whole week at home in Amsterdam. It was lovely. The weather was perfect, so perfect we are beginning to wonder if the end of the world is coming and the forces that be are simply placating us with sun before they turn the switch off. I actually sunned, and felt it afterwards. My friend Meghan from Geneva/Canada came to visit for the weekend, staying until today. She was still there when I left this morning. We spent much of the weekend enjoying the gorgeous weather, sitting in the Westerpark, drinking, staging dinner parties and then leftover dinner parties, and catching up.

The reason she came, well other than to see me of course, was for Konningnedag, or in English, Queen’s Day. Queen’s Day is Queen Juliana, grandmother of the current Queen, Beatrix’ birthday. It is a celebration that began after the war and has turned into a country-wide flea market meets all-day and night party, one tough to describe. It was plainly insane. It lacked sense, this party, but it was fun. Super fun. Much of the rest of the post will concern itself with describing my Queens Day, the first ever in the Netherlands and certainly not the last. This was so much fun; just a brilliant, energetic, smiling time. I wish every Monday was like this.

For Konningennach, or Queen’s Night, a friend of mine baseball and others joined us for pre-drinking at my place before setting off into town. We just walked, passing many DJ and drinking tents along the grachts (canals) before settling for a beer in Leidseplein. The canals were packed with people; it was almost impossible to move in certain places, and everyone was dancing, drinking, partying, enjoying each other’s company. This continued until about 5AM, as we kept pounding back the liquids to stay hydrated before stumbling home. I left before Meghan and the guys, and I passed out just before 5. The next morning we awoke at the crack of noon and had lunch, put on our shiniest orange shirts and went into town to enjoy Queen’s Day.

It was gorgeous; sunny, bright, lovely, and there was a shitload of people everywhere. Apparently the population of Amsterdam doubles on Queen’s Day, and it surely was noticeable. We passed by a party in the Jordaan, well, several parties and made it all the way to Rembrandtplein, one of the big squares. There were thousands upon thousands of people dancing to DJs and hip-hip from a big stage in the square, drinking and just going crazy. I couldn’t move. It was insane. After some time there, I walked back home (about 90 minutes of Queen’s Day) and met up with Renee to explore the Jordaan. This is where it got even crazier.

I found a toy sword on the ground, one from the Thundercats cartoon show. I went home and put batteries in it, and it worked. Lit up and made a sound. We grabbed some beers, found a tent playing trance and started dancing with the sword. The sword was quite popular. I made quite a few friends flashing it around. One women even picked up a pair of panties from the ground and use the sword as the base for a slingshot, flinging the panties in the air of the crowd. This proceeded to ignite a gigantic clothing fight in the stage, as jeans, pants, shirts and jackets were flung between hundreds of people like glowsticks, followed by flowers and socks. It was, once again, beyond comprehension. I’m in the middle of a street I bike down everyday, listening to a world-class DJ and dancing with a few thousand drunken Dutch. And everyone is wearing orange. Meghan took pictures.

It didn’t end there. After the clothing fight, an old woman who owned a flat next to the crowd opened up the window and started throwing rolls of toilet paper at everyone. More drinking ensued, and by 5PM, the day became a blur. Yet, as the dancing continued, a man came up to me and claimed I found his sword, bought for his kid, and asked for it back. He made a convincing enough case, and not caring too much, I gave him back the sword and he bought Renee and I a bunch of beers.

I know this doesn’t make much sense; I wish it did, but Queen’s Day doesn’t make a lot of sense. A gigantic flea market; everyone was selling everything, absolutely everything, combined with a city-wide street party. Hundreds of tents sprung across the city with bands, DJs, comedy, beer Olympics. And all this in orange.

I went home for a minute as Renee had a dinner date, and met up with another friend Macauley and Meghan again and had crappy Mexican food in the Leidseplein. Then 11:30PM reared its hungover head and we biked home exhausted, confused, thrilled and smiling.

Now I am sitting in a plane going back to Canada. I ended up sitting next to a woman and a young kid sharing one seat, and this kid was perspicacious, so thankfully I was moved to the back of the plane, next to an elderly couple. I am Toronto for a week; lots to do, some shitty things and some nice things, and lots to think about. Things get tough once I get back to the Netherlands, in many ways. I have a lot to think about, which is good, because if I didn’t, I would be bored.