" Bye Bye Ego - Hello Soul"
I was truly in my element this weekend.
After a splendid Friday night staying in and watching the hit musical TV show "Glee" on my computer for most part of the night, I woke up on Saturday morning, singing show tunes.
Every episode of "Glee" is a 42 minute dose of of pure pixelated, high definition ecstacy, sending my absurd dramatic side into overdrive, making me want to leap on couches, and spiral into a never ending delusional state, momentarily living the 'high school' musical dream.
It's witty script, intricate storyline with plenty of depth, fantastic characters and surprising choices of songs to emphasise the story lines make my day, including songs from the corny feel good 80's, and the "wow, i totally forgot about that song" 90's classics from Bel Biv Devoe and Color me Bad, to current hits(a little overdone with the overly produced and synthesised singing, but I'm willing to overlook it.)
I am also totally in love with Mr Schuester.
After a quick hit of some "Glee" in the morning on Saturday, I went and had breakfast with Leon in a cafe called "Latei" on a street called Zeedijk, home to Amsterdam's China town. We arrived to a Buddhist temple procession proceeding down the street, complete with Lion Dancers and, drummers.
Dang,I didn't bring my camera. Another missed Kodak moment. It has become apparent that my camera must be brought with me on all ocassions over the summer, as a lot more happens at this time of the year. A quick breakfast, and then Leon and I went to the World Press Photo Exhibition, a comprehensive gallery showing of the best of photojournalism from around the globe, held in Oude Kerk, a church in the redlight district.
Held in the church annually in Amsterdam, this travelling exhibition is also sponsored by my office annually. The first part of the exhibition was exceptionally confronting but particularly gripping, with images taken at various conflicts happening around the globe. Images that stood out for me include the scene where a politician was gunned down and his dead body sliced up with a machete by militants, and also the image of a dead girl's head poking out of rubble from an Earthquake. In fact, there wasn't a single photo that didn't make make an impression on me, and it made me particularly aware of the fact that I don't pay enough attention to what's going on in the world.
Thankfully, lighter images of human interest, and even joy, were further along in the exhibition.
The church that hosts the exhibition itself was pretty old, dating back from the 13th-14th century, and is beautiful, with tall (3o metre high?) stained glass windows depicting the creation of Amsterdam from the Roman ages. A serene location for a sobering exhibition.
On Sunday, Pia and I went out to search for the first Underground Farmer's markets of Amsterdam. You can read more her version of our day here, in her blog, complete with photos.
I met Pia at her houseboat, and we had a quick cup of tea before checking the twitter page of the Food trend analyst, Marjan Ippel, (who has become my latest source of inspiration), where all the clues were for the location of this cool event.
We cycled downtown, where we found the location with relative ease, in the spare room of Selwyn's studio, a contemporary Italian/Dutch Artist (Hello, source of inspiration number 2 for the day! Love his work!) . I had the smarts to take my Lomo camera with me to this time, and we were absoutely thrilled with what greeted us as we landed on the second story of this building.
We walked through a buzzing hive of stalls; a morrocan high tea corner , a meat producer's corner complete with little hens and a rooster that was getting antsy, a gentlemen selling home made pies, a Korean stall selling some uber spicy chilli oil and kim chi, an asian tea corner (shout out to my sister who would have loved the green tea tira misu - and no, i didn't try it, you know I am not a fan of green tea derived foodstuffs), cupcakes stall, hand made truffles, a lady selling nettle leaves and other wild leaves and flowers to include in salads etc, an American cupcake stall , and a stall that I pretty much had to walk away from upon landing right right infront of it - a used cook book stall. From her private collection, this stallholder was selling HUNDREDs of dutch and english cookbooks, and these were just the ones she wasn't interested in.
We tried to sample at least one thing from every stall, and ended up very full and very happy as we left. (Lomo photos to come.)
We moved on to the American Book Centre, a trendy english language book centre in the middle of the city, where we measured the front windows for Pia's book display, and then we went to Staalstraat, a little street tucked away between the Red Light District and Waterlooplein, to one of Pia's favourite delicatessans to pick up some brownies and almond cookies for some afternoon tea back on the boat.
I was totally spoilt for inspiration this weekend. What will I do with all this inspiration?
Something is forming, but I am not sure what. Ideas are bubbling in this little cauldron of possibilities in my head, and that's all I want to say for now.
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