Day 13 to 16 – steady sailing

[Note: I started writing this post on September 17, which is a week ago, and it covers days 13-22. Since it nearly past 5000 words I split it into two posts. The next post afterwards will catch up on the rest.]

Okay, so I realize the time that spans between posts is increasing ever so steadily. Now it’s been 10 days since my last post. That could either mean I’m either too busy to post, or that I’m lazy. Or both! Anyways I will try to recap the last ten days to the best of my ability:

[Day 13//08.09.10]

Very vague. The only thing I can remember about this day was that I went to school in the morning to fill out papers for my resident permit. And I only remember this because while I was filling out the date some girl was like “look, it’s 8-9-10! What a special day!”. Yeah, definitely.

During the meeting I bumped into an Aussie exchange student (Smriti, who I befriended at Rotown), a Korean (who goes by Namso but also Sohyeon? I dunno. She’s very skinny) and a guy from Montreal doing his masters at Piet Zwart. According to him alot of Emily Carr kids go to Concordia University and vice versa. Oh, and the lady next to him kept budding in with random things, it was a bit annoying. [Sidenote: as I'm writing this Lady Gaga's first album is blaring out of someone's speakers outside. LOL whatever not complaining.]

Seemingly nothing significant happened afterwards. I think I stayed in school and did things.

[Day 14//09.09.10]

Hmm, Thursday. Ah yes, I had typography. It was fun because we didn’t really do anything. Well technically we were supposed to discuss our concepts in groups which our group (which consisted of Timothy, Pauliina and Joao, the other exchange student if I haven’t established this before) obviously did not. Nor did the others. But anyways Joao and Pauliina (but mostly Joao) kept talking about all these different illustrators/graphic designers they liked and it led me to bookmark a bunch of pages. I’ll link them at the end of this post*. Joao also kept going on and on about his country (Portugal) and his hometown (Funchal) and it was pretty interesting. Funchal is on a small island! Apparently they hold the Guinness world record for their new year firework shows. Again, I will link it at the end because it’s SO AWESOME. Can’t remember much else but it’s clear to me now that Joao likes his home. Very much.

Towards the end of class Joao invited me to go to his friend Tiago’s birthday dinner at a place on Witte de With straat called De Bazar at 9 pm. So late. But I went anyways. Funny enough I didn’t get the memo that my bus only runs every 30 minutes in the evenings so I missed my bus by two minutes. Low and behold, I bumped into a guy I met at my apartment’s bbq (I don’t remember his name but he came towards the end and told me to visit coffee shops and strip clubs). He helped me get to the place by directing me to the tram, which was very nice of him, despite my impression from our earlier conversation. Also when I tried to confirm with the tram director if they went to Witte de With he replied “only for you”. LOL, okay then.

So after a few stops I reached Witte de With safe and sound (to my relief, I really didn’t know where the hell the tram was taking me), and I had to find Bazar. Because the Witte de With festival was on its way to start I saw a bunch of umbrellas in the canal accompanied with glowing light things. It was cool though I had no idea what they were for at the time.

Had no idea where the hell I was going, as usual. The screenshot of google maps I took indicated that it was at the end of the street. Lol I passed it without knowing it was the place (granted it said HOTEL Bazar, not DE Bazar) and I also encountered a coffee shop for the first time. In a conversation I had with a Dutch man later that night I learned that there aren’t as many coffee shops in Rotterdam as in Amsterdam. Ha.

So anyways I met up with them eventually and turns out a lot of people that didn’t RSVP came (probably around 20-25? Twas a big group.) Met a lot of faces that night, some were familiar while others weren’t. There was a Romanian from London, a few Norwegians, Aussies, the usual Italians, and yeah. Although we intended to have everyone together, we ended up splitting into two groups, one inside the other outside. I was inside with the birthday boy, Joao, the Romanian (Sandra?) with her Dutch boyfriend, and a few other Italians (Roberto, Fabio and Julia, I think). Boy, it was loud. But the atmosphere was GREAT. In the inside they played samba music and had an eclectic assortment of lamps on the ceiling. You could say it was like.. a bazaar. Lol. Also, the food was HELLA BIG. No joke. For 12 euros I had the chicken kebab, which came with salad, fries, rice and nice dipping sauce (mmm). Obviously I could not finish, but it was well worth it. I would definitely recommend it. Julia (I remember her because she was the first I met at Rotown) had something called Ghora or something that involved a tomato-based sauce with rice in a tortilla-looking shell. It was 9 Euros and also looked really appetizing. Maybe I’ll have it next time.

The Romanian girl Sandra decided to test out the breakfast menu so she ended up having yoghurt with fruit. LOL.

Can’t recall the scope of our conversations very well. Actually something I forgot to recall earlier was a conversation with Mary-Alice about the difference between Sinterklaus and Christmas. Apparently on December 5 the Dutch celebrate Sinterklaus, which is obviously what Santa Claus takes after, except here it’s a patron saint of Amsterdam named St. Nicholas who delivers presents on a horse door-to-door with some little black kid. (Or slave? I dunno. I suspect it might have to do with the country’s history of African colonization). Christmas is another day of gift giving, except it probably has more to do with Jesus than Coke Santa (unlike in Amuuurica). Anyways the reason why I brought this up was because I wanted to confirm this with the Dutch man. According to him there was once a controversy over the black kid so people started colouring their faces in other colours than black one year.

The night ended with a rude surprise. While we were paying our bill, it appeared that the other table’s drinks were put on our tab! 11 beers, several glasses of wine and the like = 42 euros. We were like WTF where’d the hell this come from and fair enough, one of the guys from the other table came back to pay the rest. Other than that everything was fine. (:

[Day 15//10.09.10]

Friday. Crosslab! We had to show our videos for the webcam-profile-picture-slash-business-card assignment. In terms of content, the range of quality varied. Some people filmed and fast-forwarded their daily lives, others did creative random things. One girl filmed her bunny sitting under a chair for a whole minute and claimed that’s how she felt with her design assignments. I feel like she could’ve taken this clip and said the same thing. :\ (But one thing I should note is this girl REALLY looks like Lily Allen! I’m still trying to sum up the courage to say that to her in person.) One guy (Fernando) did this cool thing where he set up a blog TV thing in his room and made it like a surveillance camera, but I guess the teacher wasn’t so amused because it technically didn’t happen (“missed opportunity”). But for it to work he’d have to skip class, so I’m not feeling her criticism.

Since I interpreted the assignment as doing a video-business card, my concept was to show a business card being made. So I did a pixelation with an avatar/icon I made of my face, to show that I’m interested in the process in design. Towards the end I had my face (in a mirror) juxtaposed next to it because when you give BCs out it’s important to have a lasting identity. I couldn’t tell what the teacher thought of mines, she said I had to link the icon with my face more. It’s hard to read her expression. I think I also interpreted the assignment incorrectly. But I dun curr. It’s just an intro assignment anyway. Maybe I’ll post it later too.

Later that evening I went to a remix festival thing with Mary-Alice (upon my teacher’s recommendation) at 362 Nieuwe Binnenweg. We biked there, and it was then I discovered that N-B is a HUGE place undiscovered. It certainly felt different from the other places I’ve been to, more sketch/ghetto-like. I certainly saw more coffee shops there. I also nearly fell off my bike as the wheel caught onto the tram tracks. Eek.

But other than that we went to the place unscathed, where we ate pizza out of wood oven (I forgot what they called it, but it wasn’t made of wood. It was in a stone oven heated by wood) + salad for 7 euros. Since the theme of the night was “remix” we got to choose our toppings! One funny thing I’ve discovered is that people here eat mozzarella cheese in big chunks, and the bucket of mozzarella chunks did not look very appealing.

So after the pizzas were done MA and I sat ourselves down in a little table near the cakes and drinks. Haha. They decorated the tables as if it were an intimate pizzeria. In the back were an assembly of old (but real!) trams! Since that area wasn’t lit it was very scary, but at the same time so cool. I took a look and it looked like they were from the late 19th/early 20th century. It’s a pity I didn’t bring my camera. Anyways Mary-Alice was hungry so she practically devoured her plate within minutes. LOL. We took turns buying drinks and cake, which were totally not worth 3 euros each (especially the cake — it was dry!). But other than that the atmosphere was very nice. Surprisingly a lot of young families were around! Lots of little blonde kids running around.

Since we finished eating early we decided to wait til 8 to see if the film was going to be worth seeing. It was supposed to be a remix of Shakespeare’s Richard III or something. As we were waiting we made shapes with candle wax. Heh heh. But by the time it turned 8 it was evident that the film wouldn’t be worth the watch, as 1) it was in Dutch and 2) although Mary Alice can understand it, translating it would have been a pain in the ass, so our time would’ve been better spent going to the Witte de With Festival. So there we went.

Now now now, this festival was really something else. Even in retrospect I still can’t pinpoint what the festival was supposed to be about, but it involved lots of music, art and drinks. Lively and exciting would be the keywords to describe the atmosphere. It was practically like being in a bar (or multiple bars) but outside. So awesome! We first went to see this party thing by the canal situated in front of an ongoing cardboard building project thing (obviously I am lacking in vocabulary at the moment so I’ll redeem myself with a picture later) where we encountered an Aussie exchange student (Kate, who I previously met in Rotown) with her friend and Namso. Apparently they got free wooden stools! Haha. Some guy from Belgium was making them and giving them away for free. I forget what we talked about, but it was probably interesting.

Later we went to check out some art (the gallery with Surinamese art was interesting) and we eventually met up with Mary-Alice’s sister, whose name is already out the door. What was striking was how young she looked! We chatted a bit and then came her boyfriend and Mary-Alice’s childhood friend. We were planning to go to a club so we waited by the Surinamese gallery, heads grooving to some DJ mixing up something I couldn’t recognize (except for that annoying Don’t Speak Americano song**). I was really amused by one guy’s dancing so I filmed him. White boy dancing = fun to watch.

By the time 11pm (or was it 12?) rolled around we headed for the club. I nearly laughed out loud when I saw the words “GAY PALACE” on the sign above the doors. Turns out that this night would be “straight night” with free cover! Couldn’t pass this chance up!

My first impression was that the club was rather… small, with a lot of mirrors. I think it was trying to compensate for its size. My second impression was that the music was rather… unknown? Something that sounded like Euro-techno-whatever. It was decent, but sometimes you just want to lip sync to trashy top 40s hip hop numbers, you know? So the three of us (MA+friend+me, since MA’s sister+boyfriend went elsewhere) left a bit early, I think at around 1ish, for another club at Nieuwe Binnenweg called Vibe. Totally different atmosphere! Finally trashy hip hop! From the very beginning we lost MA’s friend to her smoking habits (and as it turns out, some stranger whom she bonded over books with) so we were mostly dancing by ourselves, save for the very beginning when this weird random guy started dancing with us. I tried my best to avoid eye contact. He took the hint an hour later.

I can’t say I wasn’t enjoying myself, but it was also really repetitive. Dance-dance-get a drink (water for me)-dance-dance-breather-dance. I started getting restless at 3 am. The highlight of my evening came shortly afterward, when a greasy and noticeably drunk Italian guy came up to us. I think he noticed me staring at him (though that was because I was fascinated by his drunken dancing), so after he whispered something to Mary Alice he turned to me and said the following in my ear:

Him: you are so beautiful!
Me: -confused face-
Him: I am Italian!
Me: -more confused face-
Him: -something in bad Chinese-
Me: -confused face growing into wtf!face-
Him: … are you angry at me?
Me: no no! I’m just confused..
Him: …(sulks away)

I suppose I should’ve felt bad, or perhaps even flattered, but I was more perplexed if anything. I mean I was sweating up a storm! Clearly I looked like shit! I think he was wearing his beer goggles too tight.

Well anyways shortly after that little encounter I left Mary Alice and her friend because I just couldn’t take it anymore. My energy reserves were running short. So there I left, biking home at 4 am. -___-

And that’s how day 15 ended! TGIF!

[Day 16//11.09.10]

If I remember correctly, this was the day of a roof top party hosted by another exchange student. I had no idea who he was except for his name, Daniel. He’s supposed to be in graphic design. Anyhow it started at 2pm so I had time to buy some stuff at the supermarket. I didn’t feel like bringing drinks since I knew there would be eventually (there always seems to be this endless supply of beer here) so I brought Pringles. Lol.

I biked to Oostplein to drop off my bike then metro-ed to Delshaven where I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out where the hell I was before I realized I was walking the opposite way. >_>”

Now, first off, this area is one of the older (pre-bombed?) neighbourhoods of Rotterdam, and hence there were older buildings that didn’t look irregular or geometrical or precarious. Daniel’s place was in one of these buildings, and therefore the stairs were very VERY steep and narrow and very European. Even more steep was the ladder we had to use to get to the roof top. Now, when I heard “roof top” party I didn’t think it would literally BE the roof top (I figured it would be one of those publicly accessible terraces like my apartment’s) but no, we had to use a ladder to get through the freaking skylight to get to the roof. Scary? Yes. Doubled by the fact that the ladder was not attached to anything hence UNSTABLE. I think my heart nearly fainted at that point.

I managed to get to the roof though and my oh my, the view was FANTASTIC. Plus the sky was clear and we were sitting on floatation devices (since the roof is also made with crushed/powdered glass) and sipping on our Heinekens. It was beautiful.

A lot of people came, as always! It was really like a party. Lots of conversations were happening, everywhere; most of the time I played observer, but it was fun nonetheless. Listening to the Aussies talk was funny, as they were chomping at my Pringles (“omg it’s gluten free!” nomnomnom) but it was also sort of nonsensical, since they were talking about insider stuff. I met a few people for the first time, such as a guy from Baltimore named Colin, who looked like the quintessential suburban American boy. The way he carried himself seemed sort of dorky but cute. Lol. I recall a conversation with Joao and Guilla (Italian girl from Rotown) about how Portugese and Italian basically sound the same except accented, and another about the illogic behind engendering nouns in Portugese/French/etc. I’ve always found that part to be the most nonsensical part in French class, and Joao confirmed it! There really isn’t any sort of consistent logic, but they just grow up learning them.

By the time it started to get dark we all headed for the Witte de With fest. I managed to get down the ladder fine! What wasn’t as fine was when I attempted to ride on the back of Joao’s bike. (Had I known we’d be biking there I would’ve brought my bike as well! Ahh hell.) Either I was too heavy or Joao was too weak (or perhaps a combination of the two) because we epic failed. So we just walked it. Luckily Alessia (another Italian I met at Rotown with really poor but cute English) took pity and walked her bike with us, since we didn’t know the way (turns out it was just… straight. Lol.) We had a cute conversation about food. Italian food is incredibly varied! I think she said that the center of Italy is known for their spices, while the north? is known for incorporating fish into their dishes. Everywhere has pasta of course, just different kinds.

Finally after a 20-30 minute walk (through the shady part of Nieuwe Binnenweg) we reached our destination in front of the Witte App (a bar at the start of the street). We stayed in front of a bar inside the street (past a mass of bodies into another mass of bodies) and just drank beer and shit. Then we migrated to another part of the street to do the same thing. Pity we didn’t go further because apparently there was a breaking competition.

I kept getting drinks complimentary of other people so that was nice. Even nicer was when we went to a partything at someone’s flat along the street (everywhere seems to be an apartment) which was selling beer/wine for 1 euro! It was bottled too, not like sippy cups. There was a DJ and seizure-inducing videos and everything in a small packed room. It was awesome so we stayed and danced our night away. Namso was so wasted.

Memories are hazy but I left with Smriti and Stefan (Aussie girl and Swiss guy respectively, whom I met earlier but in different situations) because they lived nearby. I think it was around 2am. Well, time flies when you’re having fun with fun people.

——
*Note: here are the links I was referring to earlier:
Agent PEKKA (lots of awesome Finnish illustrators)
Cristiana Couceiro (this looks like graphic design but is classified as illustration. Still awesome!)

**Note: About the Don’t Speak Americano song, so this annoying remix song is apparently all the rage now in Europe, playing basically well, everywhere. And guess what? Apparently Kate’s friend actually produced that song! Strange coincidence, huh?