There’s a catch to Copenhagen. Unless you fly or get a ferry there, the only option is to drive over the bridge from Fyn, and that costs about NZ$80. Each way! We’ve got to do this two more times yet.
When we got to the pub (no mean feat), we got an extremely matter-of-fact welcome from the bar staff who had to be pumped for every bit of information, like: where are we staying? When we finally got to our billet (the back of the pub across the road) we took a reality check on what we were in for for the next couple of weeks. I think these are old offices – a single six by three metre room and two mattresses. That’s it; no chair, no table, no shelf, no pillow, one window, one fluorescent light, one power point. We’ve had to buy earplugs to sleep through the environmental racket – which in Anna’s case I think includes me, although she’s being very diplomatic in not saying so.
It’s worth mentioning at this point, how Catgut and Steel ended up here – both in Denmark and in bad Copenhagen accommodation. In my past two trips here with The Chaps, I’ve been a bit spoiled I suppose, playing nice two-set concerts to nice middle-aged Danish people (and they don’t come nicer – or more middle aged) and staying with lovely hosts or in quaint, clean B&B’s. The odd occasion I had heard pub bands here, especially those of an Irish nature, I thought, “Anna and I could do this, and probably a lot better.” Add to this a New Zealand musician acquaintance, Dave Fountain, who does exactly this and last year I ‘interrogated’ him about the possibilities. He put me in touch with his agent who specialises in putting solos and duos in Irish pubs around Scandinavia. Neil Brophy http://www.brophybookings.com/ is still no more manifest than a pleasant voice at the end of a telephone but, sight unseen, he has taken us on and given us a healthy run of gigs. The important point is that gigs pay about twice as much as they do in NZ. (Another important point is that everything costs twice as much here, so it’s a bit of a balancing act.). So along with a kind invitation (though solicited by me) to the Halkaer festival it was starting to look like a starter.
The clincher was, for Anna, the occasion to take her two daughters to Oma and Opa in Holland. So here we are now, faced with the reality of playing long, late gigs. We start at 11pm and play to 3:30am. The sun is up when we start and the sun is up when we finish. This is the acid test: can we cut it here or are we just a couple of Kiwi wannabes.
Every indication from the crowd (and it is a crowd) is that we’re going down a treat. The staff shrug when asked and say, "You're different." Helpful. Dave Fountain, a kiwi musician who sponsored us here, came in and gave us invaluable advice about the dodgy PA, setting up a tip jar and generally keeping operational for the duration of the gig.
However, our gigs have been good, the people are good – even though the pub is packed and rowdy, there’s no sense of aggression. And the tip jar fills up nicely. We even sell the odd CD.
We find a laundromat in a bohemian part of Copenhagen, and Anna seems to have spontaneously befriended some Romanian gents, one of whom is a rapper. Now they are swapping photos on their phones. Three nights in Copenhagen and we're done for the week. Picked up our pay and headed off the island and across the $80 bridge. We make a quick phone call to an unsuspecting friend in Fyn and more-or-less announce that we're coming to stay (I had an incorrect phone number, and by the time I’d fixed that we were on our way!) but we were well received. Lone and Mikkel live on a little farm in the south of Fyn. The following day we went to a fairy-tale castle and spent the day sightseeing. Tonight we are having a session with Lone (accordion) and her friend Arna (fiddler) but Anna is reading music flat out, there’s no real opportunity for me to join in so I’m here writing more. It’s funny how someone’s ability to sight-read music can turn a session into an academic exercise - even though she turns to me and says "you play one," it’s not like having fun playing music together. In short I find it quite exclusive.
The next day our hosts drop us Faaborg, about 30Km away, with two bikes and say, "See you back home!" Now we're having fun.
onsdag den 16. juli 2008
fredag den 27. juni 2008
Anna's Letter Home.
Dear Andrew,
It’s 17.00, Mike is sleeping. We are back in our smoky room at the top of the stairs of the Viking Cafe. It’s in a side street of the big walking streets area of Old Copenhagen and I can hear the east European busker play the violin in front of the Helligand Kirken. I’m trying to distinguish the Church towers you see from our part of the walking street, between the Viking house and the Irish Rover, but they’re all green copper and beautiful with the sun shining on them at 4 am. The busker is extremely good, Italian arias. There is a church nearby (I don’t know if it’s the Nicolai or the Frue or the Helligand) that plays a little tune every quarter of an hour, and it is not the Big Ben tune, same rhythm and idea, a bit more every time, the full tune on the hour, but definitely the other way around, where Big Ben goes up, it goes down.
There is another busker who sells annoying mouth whistly things, I bought some for Matai, Jazz and Madelief. I’ll send them with one of the postcards and hopefully they’ll have been swallowed by the time I pick the girls up.
I bought a book with walks in Copenhagen because we are working musicians and not here to spend enormous amounts of money on Tivoli-rides, canal tours and endless museum visits (though I really want to). And so we walk, today we did the yellow walk, past the canals to the hippy town, Christiania, with “pusher street” where you are not allowed to take pictures of the tables with drugs. And the purple walk, churches and statues, and that’s why Mike is sleeping now. The walks take us past many enticing paid entrances and this is where we have discovered the art of “foyeurism” which is a great form of poor man’s tourism. The idea is to get into the building as far as you can, up till the paying booth even. Look around, browse through the pamphlets with the photos of what is inside, ask how much it is to get in (ignoring obvious signs), maybe take a photo of the high faulted gold ceiling, and then walk out again with armfuls of pamphlets. Take a picture of the outside of the building. It’s almost as good as if you’d been there!
Actually, there is plenty to see, canals, houses, statues, people, you know. And I’ll make a choice at the end of the week to see something spectacular from the inside. Maybe that round tower I’m still looking for.
Tomorrow we might do the pink walk. (Sounds awful doesn’t it, we should just start walking and get lost.) Through the gardens, which are the “green belt” of Copenhagen, where the city walls and bastions used to be before they were torn down in 18something to allow for expansion of the city, and to the little mermaid.
We sold four cds yesterday at the gig, the Irish Rover gets a real nice crowd of Danes and travellers and they seem to like what we do, We sold one to two old North-of-Norway brothers on their way to Southern Spain where one has a cafe which the other has never seen, one to three punk muso kids from Christiania which is the hippy drug ghetto of Copenhagen, I forget who bought the other ones. There are a lot of young people wearing white captain’s hats this week, which are to show they have graduated, and yesterday was the longest day and the shortest night (you blink and it’s light again), when they light bonfires all through Denmark.
Thursday.
Didn’t get to do the pink walk, we had better things to do like laundry, showers and hairdressers and going to the bank and then meeting up with Jane Clark to have lunch and too much white wine on a terrace in Nyhavn all the long afternoon. For dessert we swaggered to the best Irish pub in Scandinavia where we had the best Irish coffee in Europe (and it was) and try play some tunes slowly but carefully. Then we had to say goodbye. It was the sunniest afternoon we’ve had yet. Jane’s awesome. I think we played in the evening too, for three hours. Lots of money in the tipjar, our punk band came back.
Oh and of course we saw Germany beat Turkey. The Euro cup has been a red thread through our gigs in Denmark. We saw Dutch beat Italy first time we played the Irish Rover in Copenhagen. We saw them being beaten by Russia in the Aalborg pub, the game against Rumania we saw on Fyn at Lone and Mikkel’s farmhouse, at Kolding we played really late because of the shootouts between Croatia-Turkey and the crowd went wild.
It’s been an awesome trip. We took the ferry from Ebeltoft back to Sealand last week. Ebeltoft is the snotty nose of Denmark, on the map. Rolling hills, poppies, cornflowers and Queen Anee’s Lace on the roadsides, waving grainfields and every now and then some 5000 year old dolmen.
Love
Anna
It’s 17.00, Mike is sleeping. We are back in our smoky room at the top of the stairs of the Viking Cafe. It’s in a side street of the big walking streets area of Old Copenhagen and I can hear the east European busker play the violin in front of the Helligand Kirken. I’m trying to distinguish the Church towers you see from our part of the walking street, between the Viking house and the Irish Rover, but they’re all green copper and beautiful with the sun shining on them at 4 am. The busker is extremely good, Italian arias. There is a church nearby (I don’t know if it’s the Nicolai or the Frue or the Helligand) that plays a little tune every quarter of an hour, and it is not the Big Ben tune, same rhythm and idea, a bit more every time, the full tune on the hour, but definitely the other way around, where Big Ben goes up, it goes down.
There is another busker who sells annoying mouth whistly things, I bought some for Matai, Jazz and Madelief. I’ll send them with one of the postcards and hopefully they’ll have been swallowed by the time I pick the girls up.
I bought a book with walks in Copenhagen because we are working musicians and not here to spend enormous amounts of money on Tivoli-rides, canal tours and endless museum visits (though I really want to). And so we walk, today we did the yellow walk, past the canals to the hippy town, Christiania, with “pusher street” where you are not allowed to take pictures of the tables with drugs. And the purple walk, churches and statues, and that’s why Mike is sleeping now. The walks take us past many enticing paid entrances and this is where we have discovered the art of “foyeurism” which is a great form of poor man’s tourism. The idea is to get into the building as far as you can, up till the paying booth even. Look around, browse through the pamphlets with the photos of what is inside, ask how much it is to get in (ignoring obvious signs), maybe take a photo of the high faulted gold ceiling, and then walk out again with armfuls of pamphlets. Take a picture of the outside of the building. It’s almost as good as if you’d been there!
Actually, there is plenty to see, canals, houses, statues, people, you know. And I’ll make a choice at the end of the week to see something spectacular from the inside. Maybe that round tower I’m still looking for.
Tomorrow we might do the pink walk. (Sounds awful doesn’t it, we should just start walking and get lost.) Through the gardens, which are the “green belt” of Copenhagen, where the city walls and bastions used to be before they were torn down in 18something to allow for expansion of the city, and to the little mermaid.
We sold four cds yesterday at the gig, the Irish Rover gets a real nice crowd of Danes and travellers and they seem to like what we do, We sold one to two old North-of-Norway brothers on their way to Southern Spain where one has a cafe which the other has never seen, one to three punk muso kids from Christiania which is the hippy drug ghetto of Copenhagen, I forget who bought the other ones. There are a lot of young people wearing white captain’s hats this week, which are to show they have graduated, and yesterday was the longest day and the shortest night (you blink and it’s light again), when they light bonfires all through Denmark.
Thursday.
Didn’t get to do the pink walk, we had better things to do like laundry, showers and hairdressers and going to the bank and then meeting up with Jane Clark to have lunch and too much white wine on a terrace in Nyhavn all the long afternoon. For dessert we swaggered to the best Irish pub in Scandinavia where we had the best Irish coffee in Europe (and it was) and try play some tunes slowly but carefully. Then we had to say goodbye. It was the sunniest afternoon we’ve had yet. Jane’s awesome. I think we played in the evening too, for three hours. Lots of money in the tipjar, our punk band came back.
Oh and of course we saw Germany beat Turkey. The Euro cup has been a red thread through our gigs in Denmark. We saw Dutch beat Italy first time we played the Irish Rover in Copenhagen. We saw them being beaten by Russia in the Aalborg pub, the game against Rumania we saw on Fyn at Lone and Mikkel’s farmhouse, at Kolding we played really late because of the shootouts between Croatia-Turkey and the crowd went wild.
It’s been an awesome trip. We took the ferry from Ebeltoft back to Sealand last week. Ebeltoft is the snotty nose of Denmark, on the map. Rolling hills, poppies, cornflowers and Queen Anee’s Lace on the roadsides, waving grainfields and every now and then some 5000 year old dolmen.
Love
Anna
Halkaer and Onward
The next day we started out for Halkaer stopping for lunch at Anna’s home in Haarksbergen, checking in with the girls who had made themselves right at home in Anna and Seb’s childhood bedrooms. It’s a beautiful little house with a glorious garden and fishpond. It was a very emotional homecoming for Anna, who left when she was 18 and was back last six years ago. It was neat seeing the place where she grew up – not least the huge oil-painting of Anna, age nine, busking, playing her violin. The painting was done spontaneously by a famous Dutch artist and then given to the family – it’s remarkable, it’s clearly a young Anna! The home has a fantastic back yard with a large lily pond and beautifully manicured gardens. Walls of books in the lounge and a piano with music, ready to go. It was a two-hour visit but we’ll be back here in a few weeks for a “homecoming” concert for Anna.
We pushed on into the north of Germany where we stayed in a German country-style pub. To date this is the one of only two nights’ accommodation we’ve had to pay for, every other night has been with friends. Our first dismaying thing was that we found the petrol card cannot be read by any of the service station swipe machines. So onto the credit card it goes: ouch.
Arriving at Eskil Romme’s place in Halkaer was just the tonic. Big, long table, alfresco lunch, meeting the guests, the babble and chatter of many languages going back and forth, catching up with old friends and acquaintances, napping on the lawn in the wind and sun. And what a lovely festival again. I’m feeling a bit of a veteran now! Oh, and Sigurd turned up there as a sort of surprise guest in the Saturday concert. We played well enough, sold six or so CD’s (which was a surprise). We taught the young Danish folk orchestra the Karikari Kirikiri waiata which they carried off well with us in the Saturday concert.
There was a myriad of great guests including Scottish group Malinky and an African trio (kora, bass guitar and percussion) but the highlight for us was the seven-piece Swedish fiddle orchestra, Spelstina, featuring Carina Normansson who was in Faerd and Swap – what a delight to see her again. We formed a plan to follow them (reduced to four fiddle players after the festival) to their next two concerts – on the island of Fanø and at Cafe Ellegaard in the centre of Jutland – both places I had played previously with the Chaps.
We convoyed with them to Fanø, checked out some accommodation options, but in the end Peter Uhrbrand put us up at his place. The thing about the houses on Fano is that they are centuries old, thatched in a unique style and very low and compact. I’m not the tallest of people but I had to walk around at a stoop, and from there duck under the various beams and door lintels. The best procedure is, bend double and head for a chair. Fantastic hospitality from Peter and his wife. And we played a set at the Cafe (Nana’s Stue) after the Swedes and Peter’s ensemble.
The next day, after a guided tour of the southern village of the island from Peter (who is a thatcher by trade), we ferried back to the mainland and followed the Swedes to Ribe, the historic Viking port town where Rod Sinclair lives. Rod is the Scottish singer that was in the band with Eskil that came to the Wellington folk festival all those years ago where we made the initial contact and Rod is at every Halkaer festival as the host/compere for concerts. We all had lunch at his lovely flat and then he gave us a tour of the town. The point of coming here was to pick him up and bring him with us for the women’s concert at Cafe Ellegaard in Sommersted. That meant we had to take him back to Ribe before we could go to Copenhagen (in the opposite direction). We played a supporting set here too in a trio with Rod. It was great fun, we chucked some great harmonies together.
We all stayed the night at Cafe Ellegaard: this is a cow byre that has been converted into a once-a-week cafe/entertainment venue. It’s very hard to describe the arrangement here, I don’t fully understand it myself. It’s almost as though Børge and Mette are leaders of a benign sect. Børge is the most understated and charismatic of people who can turn a crowd into an audience in a second. This was my only night to date of staying up drinking. We settled in with the Swedes and Rod and our hosts and gave the red wine stock a terrific thump. But this, or rather in the morning, was goodbye to the women fiddlers: Carina, Hanna, Karin and Maria, four fantastic musicians – Carina and Hanna have special national status that Sweden bestows on its greatest folk musicians. You wouldn’t believe the big sound that these women got from four violins, it was amazing. And now they were returning to Sweden saying that didn’t know how they were going to do their concerts without Mike and Anna in support! We were just a little bit chuffed, to say the least.
We took Rod back to Ribe and he gave us lunch – and an extra microphone stand which, apparently, we’re going to need in Aalborg and Kolding. We spent the early afternoon in the Viking Museum there learning about the fascinating history of Denmark’s oldest Kommune (district). Then we headed to Copenhagen; a 3 hour trip.
Mike
søndag den 22. juni 2008
From Anna
Mike and I are in Copenhagen. We spend a great week following and playing warm up for a Swedish fiddle group, -*Spelstine* four women who just make the most gorgeous Swedish flok arrangements on three fiddles and a viola d'amore-, around Denmark to places and friends Mike remembers from the Chaps tour, an Ecofarm near Alborg, a strawbale house project in Arhus, a fish restaurant on a tiny Island down South, a banjo player friend in the old City of Ribe which has a fantastic history of vikings, bishops and kings, a tragic tale of a rich deep harbour silted up leaving the city to fall in decline ( we know a story about that), and on to a huge converted cow byre and farmhouse in the middle of the soppy country, Cafe Ellegaard, which hosts weekly concerts through summer. Everywhere we went there were tables laden with big pale yellow blocks of cheese, baskets of black bread and bottles of beer.
Then the fiddleplayers finished their tour and we made our way over two long bridges to the city of Copenhagen, where no one knows us and everyone is busy and we felt very left to our own devices after being so spoiled in the country. I like being left to my own devices. My brother gave me a brilliant little device at the airport which we call Nigel, it's a phonenetcameranavigatorwebsurfgadget which talks to me. It told us how to find the car on the little island of Fanø when we got lost outside the fishrestaurant and it should show me around Denmark except when the battery runs low. So I also have three maps and we spend yesterday getting orientated, now I know which way is the harbour, what are the canals, I know three of the churches and the palace of King Christian the Ninth, I know Østed is a very cool cobbelstone shopping street full of East European buskers wearing gloves and playing fiddle or accordeon. I found an enormous round tower but I can't find it again and I have a cross on one of the maps to show where the car is parked far far away so we don't get another 510 kroner parking fine.
They like our music in the pub!! I can't tell you how much of a relief that is. We've been put up in tiny bare rooms above *The Viking* which is another pub, there are no showers, we have to go to the Townhall square for those, there's a fountain with a charging bull, and a showerblock, the person who puts us up is called Jono the pub owner but we haven't seen him though there are signs on the washing machine not to use it without asking Jono, the people in the pub are not interested in who's playing but very strict on the beer and food ration and you just lose a lot of energy if nobody shows the slightest interest in your comfort or efforts, but, if a couple of Danes in the crowd come up, shake you hand and say "hey, we like your music man, where are you from?" it seems to all fall back into place and you know you have a niche on this side of the world even without a gorgeous Swedish womens fiddle orchestra.
Mike is very happy we have found a computer terminal, he's picking up a bit, making his own stupid jokes. A bit of a home boy Mike is, doesn't like feeling left alone and disconnected, even for a day orientering through this beautiful city. But he works hard and plays well. He won't go in the roller coaster of Tivoli.
The European cup soccer is on, it's huge. We watched the game between Holland and France last night and Holland won 4-1, it was a lot of fun, I texted with my mum and dad who were watching the game with the girls and my brother's family at his place in Amsterdam, and I texted Matai and Andrew who were playing their own games In Dunedin at the same time (Matai scored twice, Andrew once, his first goal in ten years he wrote:)) and I punched Mike in enthusiasm every time Holland scored, Mike won't sit next to me anymore, and we yelled with the rest of the pub.
We started at 11 pm, and played till 3.30am, as I said, it makes a difference when the crowd is happy and they were, dancing, spilled beer, somebody kissed my hand, some boys sat and stared at Mike's fingers for ages, people came up in the breaks, asking about New Zealand, commenting on the repertoire (great, different, but great) and somebody came up and played harp. A typical pub gig, no more or less, and exactly what I was hoping for. Get this, when we walked out at 4.10 am it was light outside!!!! All the drunks, the stuff that happens at 4.10 in the morning, in broad daylight, well, morninglight. It was just wrong.
Time's up. It's good to know the family is doing well, my beautiful soccer and lego boys at home, the girls all around holland in the arms of their extended family and me here, I like it, everything is turning out better than I hoped for, I'm enjoying this Europe trip immensly, the people, the music, the places.
Missing Matai and Andrew, little arms and big arms around my neck. Looking forward to coming back too, it's all good. If you see Matai, give him a big big hug from me and make sure he's not secretly growing.
Bye for now, the cobblestones and bronze spires are calling,
Lots of love from Anna
Then the fiddleplayers finished their tour and we made our way over two long bridges to the city of Copenhagen, where no one knows us and everyone is busy and we felt very left to our own devices after being so spoiled in the country. I like being left to my own devices. My brother gave me a brilliant little device at the airport which we call Nigel, it's a phonenetcameranavigatorwebsurfgadget which talks to me. It told us how to find the car on the little island of Fanø when we got lost outside the fishrestaurant and it should show me around Denmark except when the battery runs low. So I also have three maps and we spend yesterday getting orientated, now I know which way is the harbour, what are the canals, I know three of the churches and the palace of King Christian the Ninth, I know Østed is a very cool cobbelstone shopping street full of East European buskers wearing gloves and playing fiddle or accordeon. I found an enormous round tower but I can't find it again and I have a cross on one of the maps to show where the car is parked far far away so we don't get another 510 kroner parking fine.
They like our music in the pub!! I can't tell you how much of a relief that is. We've been put up in tiny bare rooms above *The Viking* which is another pub, there are no showers, we have to go to the Townhall square for those, there's a fountain with a charging bull, and a showerblock, the person who puts us up is called Jono the pub owner but we haven't seen him though there are signs on the washing machine not to use it without asking Jono, the people in the pub are not interested in who's playing but very strict on the beer and food ration and you just lose a lot of energy if nobody shows the slightest interest in your comfort or efforts, but, if a couple of Danes in the crowd come up, shake you hand and say "hey, we like your music man, where are you from?" it seems to all fall back into place and you know you have a niche on this side of the world even without a gorgeous Swedish womens fiddle orchestra.
Mike is very happy we have found a computer terminal, he's picking up a bit, making his own stupid jokes. A bit of a home boy Mike is, doesn't like feeling left alone and disconnected, even for a day orientering through this beautiful city. But he works hard and plays well. He won't go in the roller coaster of Tivoli.
The European cup soccer is on, it's huge. We watched the game between Holland and France last night and Holland won 4-1, it was a lot of fun, I texted with my mum and dad who were watching the game with the girls and my brother's family at his place in Amsterdam, and I texted Matai and Andrew who were playing their own games In Dunedin at the same time (Matai scored twice, Andrew once, his first goal in ten years he wrote:)) and I punched Mike in enthusiasm every time Holland scored, Mike won't sit next to me anymore, and we yelled with the rest of the pub.
We started at 11 pm, and played till 3.30am, as I said, it makes a difference when the crowd is happy and they were, dancing, spilled beer, somebody kissed my hand, some boys sat and stared at Mike's fingers for ages, people came up in the breaks, asking about New Zealand, commenting on the repertoire (great, different, but great) and somebody came up and played harp. A typical pub gig, no more or less, and exactly what I was hoping for. Get this, when we walked out at 4.10 am it was light outside!!!! All the drunks, the stuff that happens at 4.10 in the morning, in broad daylight, well, morninglight. It was just wrong.
Time's up. It's good to know the family is doing well, my beautiful soccer and lego boys at home, the girls all around holland in the arms of their extended family and me here, I like it, everything is turning out better than I hoped for, I'm enjoying this Europe trip immensly, the people, the music, the places.
Missing Matai and Andrew, little arms and big arms around my neck. Looking forward to coming back too, it's all good. If you see Matai, give him a big big hug from me and make sure he's not secretly growing.
Bye for now, the cobblestones and bronze spires are calling,
Lots of love from Anna
fredag den 20. juni 2008
Arrival
Well, it's been a year in the planning and now it's underway. What started as an idea to get some well-paid work in Irish pubs in Denmark has become a tentative reality. We have about 17 nights of gigs booked over about 5 weeks, with some more possibilities to sort out as we go. Even at this late stage it is looking like a pretty aggressive agenda which we've already dubbed the "Careful what you wish for tour". Principally, we are on the bill for the Halkaer Kro festival that I have played twice previously with the Chaps, and this is where we start.
Anna and I are travelling with her daughters, Madelief and Jasmjin, and they will holiday with their Grandparents in Holland. After a tortuous first leg that saw us at Dunedin airport at 6:30am, two flights to Auckland and then 12 hours to Seoul, it was a welcome layover in a plush hotel. A good night's sleep, a hearty breakfast and the next (12 hour) leg to Amsterdam didn't seem nearly as bad.
We all met up with Anna’s parents, Joop and Edna and brother Seb at Amsterdam Airport and had a relaxing time there for an hour or so before Anna’s daughters left with Oma and Opa by train to Haaksbergen.
Anna and I went with Seb to his home in Amsterdam where he treated us so well, buying dinner and drinks and giving us his car and many other generosities.
Seb is a leading light in international banking in Holland, specifically in the trade of carbon credits, Kyoto compliance and supporting environmental projects. Just google Seb Walhain and you'll get the idea. But being a high-flyer in the world of finance does not make you immune from some of the more tragic, ordinary things of life. There had been a fire in his lovely Amsterdam apartment, or at least in the apartment upstairs. The destruction and the water damage was still plenty visible and the photos of the aftermath were, to say the least, depressing. There was stiff the insidious smell of smoke in one room (which now was completely exposed to the room above) which will serve as a palpable reminder long after all the parts of his home life are put back together. It is from this backdrop of generousity in the face of calamity that we drive off the next day into the Dutch hinterland towards Anna's childhood hometown.
Mike
Anna and I are travelling with her daughters, Madelief and Jasmjin, and they will holiday with their Grandparents in Holland. After a tortuous first leg that saw us at Dunedin airport at 6:30am, two flights to Auckland and then 12 hours to Seoul, it was a welcome layover in a plush hotel. A good night's sleep, a hearty breakfast and the next (12 hour) leg to Amsterdam didn't seem nearly as bad.
We all met up with Anna’s parents, Joop and Edna and brother Seb at Amsterdam Airport and had a relaxing time there for an hour or so before Anna’s daughters left with Oma and Opa by train to Haaksbergen.
Anna and I went with Seb to his home in Amsterdam where he treated us so well, buying dinner and drinks and giving us his car and many other generosities.
Seb is a leading light in international banking in Holland, specifically in the trade of carbon credits, Kyoto compliance and supporting environmental projects. Just google Seb Walhain and you'll get the idea. But being a high-flyer in the world of finance does not make you immune from some of the more tragic, ordinary things of life. There had been a fire in his lovely Amsterdam apartment, or at least in the apartment upstairs. The destruction and the water damage was still plenty visible and the photos of the aftermath were, to say the least, depressing. There was stiff the insidious smell of smoke in one room (which now was completely exposed to the room above) which will serve as a palpable reminder long after all the parts of his home life are put back together. It is from this backdrop of generousity in the face of calamity that we drive off the next day into the Dutch hinterland towards Anna's childhood hometown.
Mike
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