Ryan was up from Brussels on the Friday eve for an intensive 26 hours of music recording, eating, laughing, drinking, scheming, networking... and in our spare time, basically just hanging out like a couple 'a dudes.
Ryan lived here a few years ago, so when we weren't recording he took me on a bit of a "locals" tourist ride. We ate Maoz and FEBO, we went through Ryan's old neighborhood, we went to Boom Chicago where I enjoyed free drinks at the staff table while he performed some improv comedy.... We (he) had bike troubles that we (he) fixed on the fly... Again, "locals" tour...
Pic of my laptop screen, with vocals dropped in along the bottom tracks there. Probably not too interesting to many of you, but it's exciting as heck for me to see those vocals, in that track. It was one of my songs I had READY to go when my old computer got robbed. I re-sourced, re-chopped and re-sequenced the beat a few weeks back in time for the vocal recording session. Kinda symbolic of the whole straw that broke the camel and pushed my decision to move here. No regrets so far!On Saturday morning we got some fresh produce from the markets on my street, and cooked up a "Commonwealth Breakfast" - not quite Canadian, and not quite your typical Aussie "bacon and eggs" either, and then got back to work.
The Lindengracht markets, from out my window. The whole length of my street, about 300 metres? There every Saturday.Sunday through to Tuesday I was playing host and resident "local" (theres that word again) to my friend Murray (from Canberra, studying in Norway) and 3 of his school friends - 2 Canadian girls and 1 American. Now my house is a great sized place for hosting 1 or 2 guests, but it did get a bit crowded with 5 people in the place. Ahh well it was fun enough, and I did get out of cooking for a few days.
Their stay involved a few more of your classic tourist things: we hired bikes and rode out to the Museum Plein, went to the Van Gough Museum, rode through the Vondelpark and watched some seagulls walking on the frozen lakes. We went to the Anne Frank House, Rode out to the Amsterdamse Bos (woods), past the 1928 Summer Olympic Stadium, went to the Amsterdam Historical Museum, and we even walked through the red light district and past countless coffee shops.
Seagulls on a pond in the Vondelpark.
Amsterdamse Bos. Photo not one of mine, it's by Scott Hansen over at ISO50. He is an inspiration of mine though, both his photos and his design, check him out.I now have a better understanding of the "sights", and a bit of the history, so should make for a better tour guide when the rest of you come and visit.
1 comments:
Being a tourist in your own town is totally underated.
I miss Maoz, they have some good falafels!
Had you been to the Van Gough museum before? That and the Tate Modern were by far the best galleries/exhibitions that I saw in Europe.
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