updates are coming. florence was unreal. research has been...stressful. interviews have been so lovely. shit's gonna get crazy. i can feel it.
this is my "is there enough coffee in this city to sustain me?" face
right now i'm (thankfully) overly caffeinated. workin hard. international derby photo foray on easter sunday. excited (i miss bruises). and one month from today i'll be in new york. warn everyone. four months from today i'll be in new delhi. what? until then -
I had the pleasure of shooting the derby ladies at their official WFTDA skills test today. They jumped, they bumped and they totally rocked out for six hours. Jen — aka Furrrocious — later texted me with the news that they all passed! This is great news for the team, especially considering that their big scrimmage in Antwerp is coming up fast and they need all of the able-bodies they can get.
after having a minor (major) heart attack last night (file under "fulbright panic"), my fave lady pat taylor swooped in, cleared up confusion and saved the day. so. now that i'm back to breathing again, i think it's a good time to resume talk of things that aren't going to make me go gray at 21.
so. reasons why allllll's good today:
1. kati came to play this weekend! kati, my long-lost love and token amnesty international badass of ipswich high school, found her way to amsterdam with her london friends. it was a joyful reunion of bear hugs and shrieks (as it should have been). we all found our way to a bar, finagled our way through british hooligans and boogied to grease lightening. and since no amsterdam trip is complete without it, we landed at wok-to-walk, i.e. the most glorious culinary invention in recent history. i love old pals. <3
2. dock sitting. i know i incessantly talk about the weather on here (sOo new england of me), but SERIOUSLY. the sun. it's been a luscious almost 60F in recent times. i even — ready for this — broke out the shorts. wind in the leg hair, mmm. there's a dock near my house that canal boats go out of where i've been hanging and doing my reading. grab a beer, buy a little sandwich (anything more than a slice of cheese and perhaps a lettuce leaf is, by the dutch standards, completely inappropriate, sigh) and have myself an anti-social nerd picnic. love it.
3. latei. another haunt of mine, right off of nieuwmarkt square (and this is where i casually mention that this is where they used to hang and burn witches), is a weird little cafe where everything, including the chairs you sit on, are for sale. lights are hanging everywhere, there are latch hooked naked portraits on the walls and re-tinted photos of berber villagers. gotta love the kitsch. they don't play the rock n' roll as advertised in their window, but a redeeming quality lies in the fact that they have amazing creepin' seats upstairs (from where this picture was shot), perfect for people watching outside and envying other customer's sandwiches. the staff is super nice, make a mean macchiato and have even spotted me free cheesecake. thumbs up all around.
3. bike and photo adventures. yes, photo-evidence that i indeed do have friends, imagine. this past weekend dennis, maggie, alisa and i went to the foam photography museum to see the new 'anti-photojournalism' exhibit which was a bit heavy but right up my alley, none-the-less. we made ourselves a little picnic at the homomonument, had our pictures awkwardly taken by passing canal boats ("and on your left you'll see real live homosexuals..." like, what?), and almost experienced death-by-moped on the way home. all in a days work.
4. a new camera! i spent some of my lunch stipend on this little gem from the waterlooplein market. i feel like my mum: riding out her 20's on beer and jello and subs and spending the rest of her $$ on camera equipment. i want work on shooting from the hip with it. i love street photography and i love when surprises show up on the negatives. i get all warm and fuzzy and, you know, stuff like that. other times all of the frames suck but it's the risk! the gamble! wooo. the rolls of films cost me the price of equivalent of a small island in the pacific... but ah well. i figure, money definitely well spent: i love new /old gear and this purchase is one that won't leave me with a hangover in the morning.
5. this mash-up, on repeat. hoodinternet, you've done it again. thank you.
6. road trip! heading back to my florentine stomping grounds to see bff christine this weekend! we go way back, like, catholic elementary school days back. back when, it seems, tevas and lipstick were in. love her. and i have a few schemes in mind. plan 1.) find my favorite place that seats about 8 and serves only two kinds of pizza. 2) find mercer & peres. 3) befriend whoever lives in kristen's old apartment on corso 13 and beg them to let me sit on the terrace and be all sappy and nostalgic. 4) eat my weight in 1euro yogurt gelato. 5) see if my photos are still up in this restaurant near school — they had bought and hung five prints i had taken of my friend hannah right before i left. it was one of my favorite projects i've ever done, and she was one of my favorite people i've ever crossed paths with, so i'd love to see if they're still around.
until next time — feast your ears on this: ray davies + mumford & sons
Host mom and I were finishing up dinner when we heard the helicopter and chanting. I ran upstairs and grabbed my camera and we ran outside. We passed some people on bikes who had bandanas wrapped around their faces: squatters. A little further around the corner stood a platoon of cops in riot gear, vans, police dogs, the whole nice yards. The police were raiding a squat house (squatting is still ever-so-popular but now officially illegal here). A few journalists showed up as well as a camera man but, by this time, the squatters had booked it (only after throwing some firecrackers). I had heard the squatters say they were convening in Rembrantplein, the square a few blocks from my house. The other photographers there were being boring and dallying about, so I grabbed my bike and hauled it to the square as fast as my short little legs would pump. Anti-climactic: I got to the square and all was quiet. By the time I got back everything was being cleared up and the cops were putzing around. Apparently, it had been going on for a while and we caught only the tail end of it. Bummer. And then I went home and had chocolate mousse for dessert. Theeee end.
