Road Trip

Last weekend some local dudes took me on a road trip. A sixteen hour ride covering three provinces. Almost 3000 kilometers. For all you Europeans out there: That's like driving from Berlin to Rome and back. Over there you'd probably not even drive that for a nice two week vacation. You'd take a plane. In this country it's a nice weekend trip. Three days on the road for a concert show.

We left here on a thursday at about 1 in the afternoon. 90 minutes gravel, then blacktop road. They call it highway. I'd call it Alte Letzlinger. No one else on the road, endless bush to the left, endless bush to the right. First stop after about two hours, because they always stop there when they drive somewhere: a lonely gas station next to some more or less important highway junction.

I bought some coffee and chocolate bars for the road.

They had a squirrel there, right outside the door. It didn't run when I went in, it was still there when I came back out. Just sitting there, eyes darting between me and the garbage can. I talked to it for a while, then went to get my camera from the car. Back at the door the squirrel was gone.
On we drove. The next settlement or sign of civilisation came about four hours later. A small town. We gassed up and decided to have some food. I myself always develop a strange desire for MacDonalds when back from nowhere, but the MacDonalds was closed. Imagine that.
We went to Burger Kind instead.
Bad idea. The food was mediocre at best, the staff as friendly as robots. I myself really enjoy the latest efforts of major fast food chains to make their restaurants look more stylish. Not here though. You walk in, you sit down with your food and as soon as you take your first bite you feel like a complete and total low-life loser.

I had a sandwich that was supposed to have mushrooms, because that's what it looked like on the picture. I even asked if it were mushrooms. Uh, mushrooms? Yes, they said. In the end it turned out to be onions.

We got back on the road. We were about to cross into the next province and hit Highway 9. I was looking forward to that. Highway 9. I imagined straight smooth road, immaculate lines painted on asphalt, divided highway.
It took about half an hour or so to get there. What can I say, the asphalt ended, gravel started.
Highway 9 was a gravel road.

A wolf next to highway 9.

At the province line.

The was a lot of swampy looking woods both sides of this highway 9. Lots of water right next to the road. Inevitably thoughts about breaking down here crossed my mind. Three guys lived for four days on three cans of coke and one mars bar while wading through treacherous swamps and evading killer wolfs and monster bears. Didn't happen, though. And even if, we would have been rescued: There was one other car.

It took us four hours to get back to a proper road, and to another town. I bought ice cream there, Magnum. Then we drove on, scenery flying by left and right, listening to music that was foreshadowing the show we were about see. I drank coke out of cans, are mandarins and chocolate bars. It was very nice traveling.

Until the next stop.

The next stop came sudden and was an utterly unwanted and totally unscheduled and completely unnecessary one.

"I have you at 121 in a 100 zone..."

Fifteen minutes later and having gained valuable experience and some expensive paperwork we were back on our way.
The land had become very flat, wooded areas had been replaced by endless fields in all directions. Just barren land to the horizon, a few bushes and small tress here and there.

Another two hours later, it was dark by now, we reached a major city. Time for food (MacDonalds, finally), groceries (red bull, I also bought a book) and gas. The gas station guy was some young dude who coincidentally wanted to go to see the same show, but couldn't. Probably broke or something. I told him to jump in, but he said he had to work another hour. I didn't say anything to that, and he kept standing next to our car until we drove away.

Nice highway now, divided and all.
I was getting tired. It was dark outside, nothing to see, just the music and the droning of tyres. Two hours later, right past the next bigger settlement, our driver asked me to take over.

"Yeah, I can drive."

Bought those red bulls for something after all. I also decided to have myself a nice fine smoke first, so I rolled one and got out of the car and stood there and jumped around in the cold wind. We were on the outskirts of some town, some lights in the distance, everything else just darkness.

I could feel the nicotine enter my blood stream.

I got in the car, adjusted the seat and off we went. According to the clock on the dash it was 1:38 AM. I settled for a nice 110 km/h and tried to keep the continuous line to the right and the dashed one to the left. There was no other traffic. Just the road, straight like a ribbon through the dark prairie night.
Four or five hours I drove like that, with my passengers either sleeping or dozing. Dawn came, that made it easier. I had set the heater to very off, the cold blasted away, my feet felt like blocks of ice, but it kept me awake. Then we stopped for bisons.

Unfortunately they were a bit shy and didn't want their picture taken.

A new day is dawning. This is it.

We were very close now, just about an hour to go. But somebody had turned the heat up, and it hit me like a truck, so our number one driver took over again. I fell into the backseat, and when I woke up again, we were in the city already, right in front of our hotel, the concert venue just across the street.
We had reached our destination.

Life Imitates Video Game

Her name was Layla. Or Delilah, I might have misunderstood, there was loud pop music playing in the background. Layla-Delilah was dancing to the music, sort of. She wore nothing but a bright yellow bikini and was just about to take that off, too. Her eyes were brown, her hair dark blonde, her skintone well north of pale but south of light bronze. She smelled like baby powder and roses.
There was not an ounce of extra fat on her.
She had nice firm breasts, not too big, not too small. Her nipples were hard.
But she couldn't dance for shit.

She had picked me up about 10 minutes earlier. She found me sitting comfortably in a chair, enjoying the show, nursing a beer. There was an Asian woman dancing on the stage, and boy, could she move. She was wearing a fedora and had just shed her long blue country dress. I was looking forward to see her vagina.
That's when Layla put her arms around me from behind and brought her face close to mine.
"Want to have some fun with me?"
I realized I had seen her before, walking around, offering her services to other guests. Tall, neon bra and panty, long legs, gold-coloured high heels. But not my type: wrong face. Lips to thin maybe, or nose too snub, or me not drunk enough: she was pretty, but she just didn't do it for me. Perhaps it was her attitude. Too fake.
I also knew it'd be expensive. But I was curious.
"How does that work?" I said.
"We go downstairs together where it's all private and then we have fun."
I risked a look at the Asian, she had taken off her top by now. I felt Layla's hand in mine.
"Come on, let's go!" she said and walked away.
Well, why not. "Okay" I said and followed her.

She led me down two flights of stairs into a dungeon and through a pair of metal doors. To the right I could see small rooms hidden behind curtains, to the left Layla, who had stopped next to a counter. Behind it stood a blonde woman with big breasts. She asked me something to the effect of "How much do you want to spend tonight?"

"What are my options?" I inquired.

"240, or 350 for the whole night."
"Do you want me the whole night?" Layla chipped in, smiling.
If to me you were superhot, hellyeah, but you're not even my type, so no, thank you very much, I thought.
"...or 120 minimum" the blonde woman finished.
To me, Layla clearly wasn't worth 120 bucks. I had seen a brunette girl upstairs, petite, pink underwear, beautiful face, I'd pay 120 bucks for her. But not for Layla.
I said: "Thank you, but I can't afford it. I'm gonna go back upstairs."
With that I turned to leave.
The blonde was clever though. "How much can you afford?"
Good question.
My curiosity got the better of me. I told her 50 bucks would be okay.
"Make it 60 and you get two!" she said.
"Yes, make it 60!" said Layla.
"Two what?" I asked.
"Two dances."
Well, why not. I pulled three twenties out of my wallet and chucked them on the desk. "Alright."

And that's how Layla and I ended up in a private room. The music was Rihanna, and then Kesha, and later something else I didn't immediately recognize, very likely Black Eyed Peas. The room was painted dark red and was square shaped with a furry bench on one wall. I sat down on it and spread my arms on the backrest and could touch the walls on either side with my hands. Opposite me was the curtain, and Layla, who immediately jumped on my lap, one knee to my left, one knee to my right. She started moving her body to the music and whispered:

"No touching, no kissing, no blowing, no nothing. Enjoy."

The space between her breast was right in front of my face. I wanted to look up to see her face, but she was too close. This was the moment when I noticed what her skin smelled like. I was waiting for some kind of reaction from my penis, but there was none.
She then danced in front of me, standing. It seemed all awkward to me. I wished she'd say something, but she didn't. Instead she turned around and bent over to give me nice long look at her ass, which was a very very nice looking ass. When she came back up I asked what her name was, just to make this a bit more personal.
"Layla."
"Nice name." I said. Couldn't think of anything else to say.
Then she took her top off and came close again and I got a bit distracted by her boobs and nipples. Still all quiet on the cock front, though. Maybe better this way, since this was "for your EYES only" entertainment. No kissing, no touching, no blowing, no coming, no toys, no vegetables, no fingers, no nothing. The most PG13 exotic entertainment gentleman's club ever, with crappy music and overpriced drinks.
She was now in the process of taking her panties off (she was wearing an even smaller second black one under the neon-yellow one).
I felt it was the right time for a nice pop culture quote, so I said: "This no touching rule is killing me."
She responded by bending over again, picking imaginary things off the floor.
I said: "Oh yeah."
Still nothing from the penis.

She danced on, placed herself sideways to the right of me so I could look at her vagina some more. I settled on doing that, because whenever I risked a glance at her face or into her eyes I saw nothing but detachement. Maybe I should start telling her what to do, I thought. Make her talk. Make her make me believe this dance was special and for me alone.
But then my time was up.
"I see you upstairs, sweetie." she said.
Yeah, right.

I sat back down in my chair just in time to see Asian Woman walk off stage. Too bad. Missed her pussy.
About one more Corona and two dancers later I felt like quoting from Grand Theft Auto IV again. I aimed for the exact tone of Nico Bellic's voice in order to match the extent of annoyance and boredom and questioning why he had gone there in the first place when he says: "I've had enough. Let's get out of here."


This is the place. Admissíon: $7. Corona: $7.50. ATM inside, fee: $7 minimum. Small posters of exotic dancers: $5-$25, depending on your dexterity and/or endurance (a game: after each performance the dancer makes the audience throw loonies into rolled up posters held close to pussy, or they stick fridge magnets bearing their picture to their skin (vagina, ass, boobs), and if you hit it with your coin and it sticks, you win. In one case 5 hits in a row earned you a freshly shot polaroid of Darla's pussy. I gave it a shot, of course. No luck, though, it only got me a poster of Darla. I still have it. Can't put it on the wall here, too many visitors. Maybe I'll send it to my father-in-law.
Altogether the atmosphere of Eden matches that of a second rate dance club without dance floor. Everything is very money-oriented and impersonal. Compared to a couple of places I've seen in Amsterdam, it is also kind of innocent. Still fun though, for a while.

Follow Up

Whoo, this facebook is quite something. I came back from work today and already had 14 friends.

What will I do now?
Look up ex-girlfriends? What if I can't find them?
Re-establish connections?
Enjoy the warm feeling of being able to contact people from high school who I have never even been friends with?
Show off how far away I live now? My moustache?
So many options and possibilites. Thank you, social network.

My life was so simple before.
Now I am all addicted again. Luckily I've finally reached 100% game progress in GTA4 two days ago, so I can rest somewhat assured at least.

Did I mention that it is snowing again?

Everybody Wants To Be Part Of Something Bigger

So I did go back to facebook.

I made a new account, and now I already feel so instantly lo--hooo--hooo--hooo- nee-ly,
because I don't have no friends!

My god.
OH MY GOD.

What did I do.
This must be the end.

Please feel free to add me.
I'll say yes, promise.

Komm lieber Mai und mache...

Twice this year have I put away my winter coat, my winter boots, my winter scarf.
After the first time it was okay to take the winter wear out again, it would have been weird somehow anyway if winter had left without coming back at us at least once
(man, all those grammar lessons back in grade 8 and 9 really are paying off now).
In the past days we found ourselves enjoying the strong rays of the sun; we were sitting in the warm sunlight thinking about summer cigarettes and beer.
Then this happened:


We got ourselves a bit of a snow storm. Several inches of snow. Blown to big heaps (on my way to work today I sank into it up to my knees every now and then). Now please remember: This is may first. The first of may. A holiday, where I come from.

Where I come from, people are usually sunbathing in the park on this day. Enjoying ice cream and cold beer in outside cafés. All I can enjoy is icy winds and blowing snow.
Well, whatever.

I took the picture this morning, in the evening everything was different again. The snow has become wet and heavy (perfect for building the last snowman of the year), and the winds have slowed. I'm sure it'll be summer soon.

Oh, another thing:
I am considering to be to facebook again. Maybe I should have an account there again, because it's a nice tool to stay in contact with people that one doesn't bother staying in contact with otherwise. Or perhaps I shouldn't say "one doesn't bother", but "one is too busy for" or "one just never gets around to".
So I am seriously considering it.

...

Our building's internet connection has been down for two days, but now it is finally back up, which is nice.

That is all I have to say right now.

SNOW

It's snowing.
Let me say that again: It's snowing.

SNOWING.

S.N.O.W.I.N.G.

In late April.
This is depressing.

It looks nice, though.

Moustache Hero

Look, I got myself a nice new 'stache.

Fish

Fish.

Let me tell you, I have a troubled relationship with fish. I don't really like catching them, and if I do, I throw them back in. I absolutely do not like killing them. I even wrote at least one song that are fish-pro-life (see on the right).
I do not really like eating fish (or other seafood, for that matter), partly because of the fish-flavour, partly because I am terribly terrified of fish bones. Inside myself lives a huge fear of accidently getting a fish bone stuck in my throat and choking to death painfully and slow.
Then again, fish is supposedly good for you and healthy. And really fresh fish does not smell like fish.
Therefore I do eat fish, and when I do, I prefer caught-the-same-day-fresh filleted fish and I like to cook it myself.

(So I can pat down the fillets once or twice from all sides, feel them up and down for hidden and overlooked fishbones. That's what I do, and I do it very carefully.)

While there exist a lot of ways to create awesome fish dishes, this one is my current favourite:

At first you make some mashed potatoes, which at the moment I do this way (for two):
Take 4 medium sized potatoes, peel them, dice them, cook them.
Drain them, but not completely. Mash them with a fork, if too dry, add water. Add salt and a nice splash of olive oil. Stir.
Done.

Now for the fish (I use pickerel, nice white fish):
Preheat your oven to 350.
Make 2 "bags" out of aluminium foil. Put them on a baking sheet.
Put 1 portion of your fish fillet in each aluminium foil bag.
Chop and distribute evenly (just throw on top of the fish):
1 medium sized or big green pepper
1 medium sized red pepper
1 medium sized onion
a few black or green olives, sliced
1 big tomato (peeled)
100g or so of mushrooms, sliced

Add a nice amount of freshly ground pepper and a nice big splash of lemon or lime juice.
Then close the bags and place them in the oven.
Wait 20-25 minutes.

Enjoy.

(It's like fish soup, but better*. The veggies will still be crunchy, so somehow it'll feel like you are eating a warm salad. There will be a lot of juice, tasty and a bit sour from the lemon juice. The mashed potatoes will just soak it up. The fish will be cooked awesomely, just coming apart by itself when you touch it gently with your spoon.)

*no bones.

Language Discoveries

Yesterday, while at work, I discovered the following:
In the English alphabet all letters have one syllable (a, b, c, d...), except "w" or "double-u", which has three. So what is so special about fancy-schmancy "W", that it has to stand out like that from its peers?
Then I looked further:
In the German alphabet all letters have one syllable also, except one, which is not "w", but in fact "y". This one the Germans call "Ypsilon" - kind of like "oops-ee-lon". So what makes this little letter "Y" so special, that it narcisistically boasts 3 syllables?
Again I looked further and I found:
In the French alphabet there are actually TWO letters that have more than one syllable, guess which ones: Yes, that's right, "w" and "y". Both of them!! "W" sports three syllables, sounds quite similar to "dooble-wa", while "Y" has two (sounds like "ee-gratt").

So what does all this mean? Is it a conspiracy of letters? Or is it just coincidence?
I don't think so.
I bet your ass when we look at Spanish and Italian for example, we will find more evidence!

But now for something completely different:
Today I learned a new word in Cree, which is quite awesome. When I mentioned this word while standing in line at the check-out it created much laughther and joy among all the people present. The word, if you say it, sounds quite like: "we-checkoway"

It can be used to insult people in a friendly way, because it means: Smelly testicles. Actually it seems to encompass a whole range of things from smelly testicles over stinky nuts all the way up to shitty balls.

Now I am going to combine that with the other Cree words I have learned so far:

Mushaway we-checkoway!
Ekosani.

Fucking smelly balls!
Have a nice day.

Strawberry Season

It's that time of the year again!

They had this sale on strawberries this week at the store, 2 for 5. 2 containers, that is. So I went and quickly bought 15 bucks worth of strawberries.
Then, facing all these strawberries in my kitchen, I decided to bake a strawberry cake. After my mother's recipe, because those are always the best.

The result:

The cake is in the background (red top, brown middle, yellow bottom). The guy with the thumbs-up is me (green shirt, glasses, big smile).

How to do it:

Make 5-spoon-dough (to all you non-Europeans: please do use an actual tablespoon here, not that weirdo measuring device of yours. And please don't worry if the next spoonful has more or less than the one before, it is O.K.).

5 tablespoons of flour
5 tablespoons of sugar
5 tablespoons of oil
2.5 eggs
1 teaspoon of baking powder

(I actually doubled all these amounts for my cake, but that is your choice.)

Pour dough on a pan and bake until golden brown. I don't know, maybe 30 minutes or so.
In the meantime wash and cut the strawberries. Put them on the cake.
In a pot, stir together some glaze (store-bought) and spread on top.
That's it.

Mhh, delicious!

PS: I really really do like that advice about perceiving time differently. This can change your whole life. I mean, think about it: Time can't be wasted. It's is just an impossibility. What weight it takes off one's shoulder! What's now is now. Now is good. Future and past do not exist. I'd like to extend an olive branch to my past and those who are in it. Maybe we'll meet again, in the non-existing mind-constructed future. Then there'll be nothing but now. For real.
And yes, this is blog-posting time. Earlier was cake-making time. Later will be video-gaming time.