26 maart 2008

Easter weekend (Pasen)

My Easter weekend started on Thursday when my friend Joop, who lives in Spain, came to visit me with his son (Thomas) and his friend (Pedro). You can see all of them on the picture. We had a nice dinner and it was sweet to see how shy Thomas can be (he is turning 18 this year). Pedro is an amazing guy. Very intelligent and funny (like Joop). So we had all ingredients for an entertaining dinner. Too bad they all had to leave far to early on the next day (right after breakfast).

On Saturday morning I went to Deventer where I met Leo at the station. We had agreed with my friend Pino that we would accompany him a little at his move back to Berlin. Leo had bought a box of sweets from Leonidas (yummy) and we had the chance to sit all together in the train and talk. I was stunned when I heard that nobody of his friends in Amsterdam had gone through the trouble to bring him and his luggage to the station (something he had organized for Berlin). I felt guilty that I hadn't done it myself as I had planned initially. Leon and I had to leave the train at Hengelo, while Pino had to travel stil for an other four hours on the train.

Leo and I went to Enschede for some light shopping (we didn't buy a lot of things, we just were looking around). The best shop we found was "China 1000". It was such a pity that I didn't bring my camera. So many tasteless, tacky things in one shop: UNBELIEVABLE! We were laughing so much about the goods that the owner was relieved when we finally left his shop.

What's better then to visit a sauna when it's cold, windy and snowing. So that's what we did in the afternoon. We went to 't Bölke and dove into the steam bath, the hot tub and the swimming pool. I learned to know a nice older gentleman (Kees), who was there with his future husband. He told me about his interesting live and it seemed that he had been the main character in a documentary a few month ago.

On Sunday, Leo and I went to an other gathering of the Netherbears in Amsterdam. On our way there we met Leo's good friend Hans in Apeldoorn. The tree of us went together. The gathering started out very slow, but in the end it turned out to be a very interesting evening. I met interesting people and heard interesting stories. I am amazed how easy the atmosphere and the people are those gatherings.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

On Saturday March 15, I saw a truly extraordinary performance of the play "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by an amateur theater group (PlusLeo) in Deventer.
Not only was the play performed very professional it was also played at a very special location: a boat. The boat could only accommodate an audience of 50 people. The decor was wonderful: everything was white, the patients were in innocent light blue, while the nurses were dressed in a very powerful red.
On the website of PlusLeo you can see some of the pictures that were taken during the performance.

After the play, that I had seen with Leo (yes the one who was the "PLUS") and two friends of his, the four of us went out drinking and dancing in the COC bar (really nice!) . A perfect evening!

22 maart 2008

Like Phoenix from the ashes (or something...)

Finally I booked my ticket for the planned trip to the US. I decided to travel the south of the US along the Mexican border form April 17 to May 4. I will fly into Phoenix and go south to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Park. From there I will travel Eastbound along I-10 and I-20 trough New Mexico to Texas (El Paso, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Dallas).

On "bevrijdingsdag" (Liberation Day) I hope to be back in the Netherlands totally reborn and filled with a lot of new impressions and experiences.

14 maart 2008

Tutte Storie

I wrote in my previous blog that I found out something about my family history. I want to write about it today.

My mother told me that she had respect for my deceased grandma Anna, the mother of my father, because she had a difficult life after the second world war. I was not sure if I heard it right, because as far as I knew (and had experienced until 1971, the year my grandma died), the two women didn't like each other at all. So I asked her about the story:

My grandma Anna and my grandpa Hermann had two children: my aunt Hilde and my father Karl. For some reason my grandpa had managed to stay out of military service during the war ... until the so called "Volkssturm" (lit. "Folkstorm"; "People's Storm" ). In the winter of 1944/45 the war was already lost for Germany, but Hitler didn't want to hear about it. He was calling for all men older the 16 to defend the country. Every village had to send in a certain number of men. In the village (Merkenbach) where my family comes from it was 2 men. Willy the husband of Anna's sister Lina was responsible for recruiting those men. ... and guess what, my grandpa was one of them. He left the village on 25 January 1945.

Members of the Volkssturm received only the most basic of military training. This included a brief indoctrination training, and then a training on the use of basic weapons. The weapons they received could be any equipment available. Often the weapons had been captured by Germany in her five years of war. Volkssturm units were supposed to be used only in their own districts, but many were sent directly to the front lines. So was my grandpa. He was sent to Pyritz (now Pyrzyce in Western Poland), where the Eastern front was at the time. We know he got wounded very quick and from there (half february 1945) my grandma has lost any track of him. The guy that left the village together with my grandpa got "lost" along the line and turned up after the war alive and kicking. When my grandma Anna asked him what had happened he always said he was fighting together with my grandpa until a certain day ... (something that wasn't true my grandma found out later, he never made it to a Volkssturm unit).

Till her death she was hoping to see her husband again, though Red Cross searches and own research had shown here that the chances to see him alive and well were zero. Unlike widows of "ordinary" soldiers Anna and her kids had to wait for 2 years for a war pension. Two yeas without any money. She was furious with her brother in law, who sent her husband away though everybody knew that the war was lost already. The reason for my mother's respect was that Anna was able to make it up with her sister and her brother in law years after the war.

12 maart 2008

Family ties (or how you can choose your friends, but not your family)

Wednesday night time for some blogging.

As some of you know I spent last weekend in Germany. I was very reluctant to go and I was postponing the visit since Christmas. Now I felt I had no more excuses, I had to attend my brothers stepson's confirmation at church and the following party. I was afraid of questions about Erik, and I got them: people missed him and were asking me about him. But that was not the main reason why I was so afraid to go to see my folks:


My father died 18 years ago. My mother met a new partner a few years ago (4 years?). His name is Hans and the problem with him is, that he wants to be with my mother, but not with her sons, her family or her friends, while he expects her to be there for his family and friends. He uses excuses not to have contact with my brother, my mothers best friend or with me. In my case that would be that I am gay. Though my mother is pretty cool about my homosexuality, she tells me would say that he can't deal with it and that he doesn't wanna have to do anything to with me (nothing personally, of course ..... LOL). The worst thing is that my mother accepts all that rubbish, and though I think she felt all the time that I was not okay with that, I felt that I had to tell her as well. As you can imagine that is not a pretty subject to talk about with your mother, but last weekend I did. I felt I had to do that, no matter what here reaction would be. I can tell that she didn't like to hear what I had to say about it, but she also said that I was right, but that she feels that she has no other choice at the moment.

The other thing about my folks is, that my brother bought the house where I was raised (of course far below the real market price). My mother has the right to live there till her death. My mother on one side and my brother and his wife on the other side irritate each other a lot. My brother and his wife don't keep the house as my mother would do and expects them to do. It starts with cleaning, maintenance of house and garden and the contact with the neighbors. My mother on the other hand spoils my niece (her only granddaughter) and my brother and my sister in law want her to be harder for Nuria. When I come there they both want to drag me on their side. Something I don't want to of course.


Those are the little problems with my family in Germany. Sometimes I thin kit is really about nothing.


Three aspects were positive about the trip:

  1. On my way to Germany I could meet up with my friend Joop, who lives in Spain nowadays. We were meeting in Eindhoven (with an other friend of his as well), where he was to celebrate his fathers birthday last Sunday with a surprise party. We could spend all afternoon together and in the evening we had dinner together as well. Time enough to catch up with things.
  2. In Germany I did some shopping for stuff that I can't buy anywhere else. Bread, certain cheeses, toothpaste, and some stuff that's just cheaper in Germany like liquor.
  3. I found out some surprising stuff about our family history in WWII. I'll blog about it later.


04 maart 2008

Respiro...

Tonight I had my Italian lesson as every Tuesday night. Loretta, my teacher surprised me when she said: "How is it possible that your Italian doesn't have any German accent?" I told her that it was because I didn't breath German any more. She understood.... LOL!!!
Unfortunately she couldn't tell me which accent I had instead.

02 maart 2008

All quiet in the North...

I enjoyed a weekend without any appointments, obligations or plans. I guess that's what made my weekend so productive: I did my tax declaration (I'll have to pay € 500,-) , sorted out my administration (was overdue since june 2007), slept a lot, made pictures (see flickr for the results), bought a present for my brother (I'll go there next weekend), saw a movie (an old Dutch one from 1968), watched tv (In Europa 3 episodes and the finals of Idols), ironed my shirts (I hate ironing), did some of my Italian homework (not enough, so I'll have to go on tomorrow), called my mother (and was disappointed as usual), gave some plants a now pot (and myself dirty fingers, LOL), had a pick nick on my zebra carpet (all on my own), read some "Moby Dick"(how boring but yet intriguing so far), found a reasonable priced flight to the US (but didn't book it, because I want to know for sure that I can be off from work), and did so many other things....