- making the most of the final weeks in utrecht

YaY!! its nearly time to come home. im really excited, and ive been counting the days.
im sure my flatmates are getting a little tired of it
'in three weeks ill be home!'
'only two and a half weeks to go!'
'two weeks and three days till i fly!!!'
'two weeks and one day to go!!'
well now its only one week and four and a half days till i fly!!
this time in two weeks ill be asleep in my own bed

ooo im excited!
but that doesnt mean im not still having fun here. ive a list of must do things i want to do before i go, and im slowly getting through them.
- like take my map and my bike and explore some of the parks on the other side of town.
- bike along the red light district
- go shopping in rotterdam
- bike to the lake
- check out a coffeeshop
- catch more of the nightlife

i have a new flatmate, who was here when i got back from spring break.
Her name is Diana, she is half dutch half mexican.
she is cool! she can speak 5 languages you know!
this weekend we hit the town together. it is theatre week here in utrecht and there are bands playing on a stage in what is the utrecht equivalent to the octagon.
So we went and checked that out, and got our groove on to the skabadivers (not too shabby)
pic: left


we wanted to go to a show that evening, that started at 11.30pm. from what the program said we thought it was going to a theatrical installation performance, with a french director. it was going to be on location, mysterious and the graveyard was central to the piece, and the dead were going to talk to us!! there was a bus leaving at 11pm to take us to this mysterious location.

well we went to buy tickets, but the ticket office was just closing. we were quite disappionted, and thought maybe we can buy tickets on the bus. the bus driver didnt know anything about it, he let us jump on anyway.

(us on the bus)


now you must realise this was quite scary. it was very dark. this bus took us out of town to the wop wops of utrecht, we ended up at a forest place. the french director greeted us in french, and motioned for us to follow him. onto another bus that was pionting in the forest, it was set up like a cinema, and there was a lifelike old man model sitting in one of the seats. all in the dark, he was flickering his lighter and walking upand down the aisle. then 'flick' on comes a projecter. the short film was a narrative (in dutch) with the camera passing landscape at a fast pace.
Diana was translating for me. it was all about this guy who was visiting his old town but everyone was dead, and he was recalling memories.
after that we walked through the forest and along the way were these 'houses' like sculptural still frames of an old memory. they were quite freaky, and the clocks were tick tick ticking.
then we made it to the graveyard installation. it was set under neath this really huge canopy tree, was quite poetical. and there were many candles lit. Then the graves started speaking!!
they talked about the meaning of life, what their lives were like, what does death mean, what they miss about living, complaining about the state of their graves etc etc.
was very interesting experience.



on our way home from town, diana and i biked along the red light district.
i thought that it was something i should take a look at, since it was right by where we live.
the prostitutes work in canal boats, it is actually a really nice setting.
i bike on the other side of the canal behind the red light canals whenever i go into town.
So this night we biked on the red light side. its unbelievable...
this road has a dead end on both sides, so the cars that crawl along it all day and all night are there for one purpose...
and its a very long road, there are a lot of girls working there.
and they are all very beautiful, it makes me very sad....