399

Fridaynight is pizzanight in Eindhoven. There is a magical place, also known as the backyard of the pizzaguy. Here you can enjoy a night with wonderful, crazy people and orange beers. And on top of that, you can also make your very own pizza, which is always the best pizza you ever tasted.
There are ladies with dresses made from beercans, little girls who make you stoned whales from paper, cats who cant be fed and chickens who eat the leftover pizza. There is a collection of garden gnomes on the roof and a red button which you can press if you dont like the current song (but dont press it when rammstein is playing, because then you'll be in trouble).

398

Making patterens and missing my Hamburg. The sounds and smells of the harbour, the cold salty wind prickling your face, the beers and bretzels and the foreign chatter. I try not to think of it too much, because you should try to be happy where you are, but sometimes the missing is just there all of a sudden.

397

Working, escaping, working, escaping. I spend a lot of time staring at my screen, staring out of trainwindows and staring up at windows of houses. The staring up should be kept to a minimum though, because I keep crashing into people / cars / lampposts.
Do you know how sometimes you spend so much time thinking in a certain way, that your brain adapts to this and uses it for other things as well? When I was doing my math-exams a couple of years ago, Everything I saw and heard was instantly made into some kind of graph or formula by my head. Right now I work on patterns inspired by windows and houses, so my mind is now kindly highlighting interesting parts, counting elements and drawing lines over everything I see..

396

I wish I was a fisherman, tumblin' on the seas
far away from dry land, and it's bitter memories
casatin' out my sweet line, with abandonment and love
no ceiling bearin' down on me, save the starry sky above

This song kept playing in my head, as I walked by the water with a fisherman by my side.
The version of Pan I Am is my favourite and reminds me of a night years ago, where they played a show in the smallest venue, for a handful of people, so impressive and so full of energy that it is still on my list of best shows ever in the world. 2008 was not the worst year of my life. Memories of this music go hand in hand with Vrederick's photos for some reason. And it turns out, he is not just a cool photographer, but also a very cool person in general.

1. Schepen onder de kust voor anker, Willem van de Velde (II), ca. 1660
2. Een schip in volle zee bij vliegende storm, bekend als 'De windstoot', Willem van de Velde (II), ca. 1680

395

One of those dead birds was found on the birthday of the hero of roadkill photography (and more), Jack Adams. Definitely one of the coolest people I've never met.

Also I dont think you have to go vegan. Personally I would never do it because I quite like cheese and pancakes. But I am wondering a bit about the thoughts behind this protest grafitti. Would it be like: "look at how happy those cows would look if they were just hanging around in the grass. Lets not eat them!" Or maybe like: "Do you think this plastic, square cow looks tasty? This is how all cows look, because they are so modified. So you should go vegan." Or maybe somebody was just a bit high (it is amsterdam after all) and sat on the cows and then fell off because they lost their balance, but then they got very pissed off at the cow for no reason at all, and then wrote "go vegan". And I hear you think that that wouldnt make sense, because if you are pissed off at the cow, you want it killed. But it is more that if we would all go vegan, there would be a lot less cows probably. Eitherway. For whatever the reason may be, I'm glad they did it, because it makes me smile.

394

Just one hour biking away from Amsterdam we found ourselves in proper flat Dutch countryside. We spent two days in a tent, making dinner on a small fire, smoking by the side of the lake as we watched the red ball of sun slowly fall in the water (so cheesy, you almost wouldnt believe it could be real). Biking to the touristic cute towns, ending up between the 60+ mass tourists, laughing at the sea, drinking beers in a bar with music and a book of lists, and spending all our 50cent coins in the shower in order to stay a bit warm.
A birthday celebration of sorts. Mostly a perfect escape from busy city life. I just got all my tickets for summerplans sorted. Two short German holidays, one with mountains and one with music.

393

Lately, a lot of my adventures have been food-related. There has been fish-heads, candy-making, pizza-parties, bitterballen-birthdays, eggs on the side of the road, Dutch-German cheese-tours, salt and pepper from fresh friends in cups with boobs and a giant penis..
And today my classmates had me laying on the floor while they covered my face with blue shit, in order to make a chocolate replica of my nose (this worked out well! We also tried an ear, but that is not so easy. Neither are fingers)..