we're-meant-to-be is in the details :)

I asked Alex if he didn't have a notebook I could use in my Dutch class. He looked a bit through the bookcase and took out an old one that only had the first two pages written. It was supposed to be a dream diary, but he stopped writing after the first dream (oh, if I got a penny for every time I did that :) ). I asked him to read it to me, it was an adventurous action story that involved shootings and running and enemies. Funny, boy dreams. But where I wanted to get to is the date. The date he wrote it, the day he wrote the only dream. It was on my birthday, on the 30th of March 2008. Heart-warming coincidences <3 

een beetje filosofie

It's the 23rd of May and the weather in Amsterdam looks like this. Everyone is complaining, of course. And the thing that drew my attention was that everytime someone says something about it, they mention that "it's the end of May!!!". So it's really not so much about the actual experience, but about the context. Our mental context, the one that our mind creates (with good reason, of course, based on years of personal experience and aquired geographical knowledge).

The mind is right, the context is correct, but in this case it only makes us feel worse. If this weather happened in the middle of January, everybody would be extatic. Well.. maybe not extatic, with all the rain, but pretty satisfied for sure. And that feeling of happiness would also not have so much to do with the actual experience, but with the mental perception that something is better than it "should" be. :)


Today, almost at the end of the month of May, there was a maximum of 14 degrees, with a lot of wind and a little bit of sun. It's been raining for a few days, so seeing the sun made me feel happy. So I went outside and jogged and went for a walk and cycled half the city and enjoyed this lovely day. In the context, it was pretty crappy. In experience, it was nice.

And now should start thinking where else in my life I apply the same principle? Don't even know if I want to go threre :) 

lol :)

I've always been a sleep talker. I've been told time and time again that I have long conversations in my sleep, in different languages and even in made-up-languages that I'm fluent in (when dreaming) but that don't really exist.

For example, when I was 16, I went to a camp with some Brits and I had a crush on this very handsome blue-eyed Arthur. One night, I was dreaming that he was fixing a TV and I was telling him: "Oh Arthur, you're so big and strong!". Imagine the embaressment the next day, when the girls in my room would not stop about it :)

But what I wanted to get to is that lately, since I'm in Amsterdam, more or less, I've been sleep laughing. Sometimes I wake up because of the noise and I even remember the dreams. Other times I wake my co-sleeper up, who doesn't know if to get annoyed or laugh himself.

The latest laughing dream, last night, was about a bunch of little girls who were all singing a few notes of a song. And one of them sung a very funny melody. Hmm.. not so funny in real life, I guess you had to be there. ;) 

shh

I was in a park, with a good friend. We were sitting on some blue wooden chairs, next to a blue wooden table, sipping some coffee, talking about improvisation, imagining things one can do in the street. Imagining reactions, interactions. One of the things she thought of was going to the silent part of the train, standing in the middle and reading a book out loud.

My reply was: "What? There is a silent part of the train?"

Yes. In Holland, trains have silent parts, for people who want to read, or listen to music, or just be able to hear their own thoughts. There are little stickers on the windows and everyone respects them. Hah :) 

amsterdam spring

Haven't really said anything lately only because I've been busy with an amazingly beautiful spring.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so seven pictures.. :) xoxo

inspire me

For darker days, when the wind is howling outside and you're feeling tiny fears running through your body.

This picture of two words tatooed on the back of a (sexy?) girls' neck inspires me so much that all of today's grey transforms from hostile and unconfortable to beautiful and artsy. Thanks to whoever got the idea of the tatoo, to whoever had the courage to get it inked, to whoever took the picture and to whoever set it loose on the world wide web.

Thanks, you've made my day. 

Oudezijds Achterburgwal 145, Amsterdam

When dreams come true, girls get to have lovely concept stores with cute names and beautifuly designed details, where fashion meets coffee (or should I say "koffie"?) and where from time to time they get to invite all their friends for an evening of music, drinks and flirts.

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