This one is so good! I had an amazing weekend in France. I got to hang out with Jacek and his family, who are also super nice, have amazing food, see the Fêtes de Lumières, and witness French culture at its best as this audio clip will show you. If you know the song “Millord” and know what happens when French people get together and drink, then this audio clip will make total sense to you. We left the bar while I was recording… believe it or not, it had nothing to do with the singing/yelling, haha.

On Sunday night, I went to a great Christmas party. Good friends of Jacek’s (a Portuguese girl and Brazilian guy) have been having a Christmas party for a few years now, where they invite all of their friends and ask them to bring a dish from the country they’re from, as well as a present under 5 euros. I recorded a bit when they started playing this game that has to do with the presents. Everyone picks a number out of a hat, and in that order, people go up to pick a present based off of superficial judgements (size, weight, wrapping, etc…). When it’s your turn, you can either pick a present or steal one from someone else. I was number 7, and I chose a bag that seemed uninteresting but had many little wrapped presents in it. I did the stupid thing and announced that, so then the next person stole the present from me. Then a girl stole it from that person. Then it was stolen again, and then that girl’s boyfriend stole it back from her.That’s when I took the recording, so everyone was all excited about that chain of events. What happened after the recording is that when it was Jacek’s turn, he stole it back for me! It was so funny (and sweet of course). Finally someone else stole it from him, but we all had such a great time. I have another recording from that night that I’ll post next. It’s from later in the evening when a lot of people left and the Brazilian music began :)

I thought I had uploaded my London recordings but for some reason they’re not in my computer yet, but they will begin soon! I took so many recordings there this weekend so they will probably fill up the next week’s time. As a replacement, here’s a recording from Wednesday. I went to this really cool venue. Jacek had a friend who had a CD release party in this sort of post-squat, turned into wacky performance space/bar/restaurant. Unfortunately we missed the performance, but we went later and here’s the reason why I took the recording though you can’t hear it much. The background music was all contemporary music. I had never been at a bar where that was the case and at the moment, it just made so much SENSE! We spend so much time intently listening to new music in pure quiet that I think it can almost lose power. So you might be able to hear it, maybe not, but it was quite cool.

So there has been a bit of a set back in numbers of uploads. I’d say maybe the blog should be something more like 96 minutes in sound by the end of it all. But NEVERTHELESS, here’s a recording from Intocht Sinterklaas on Sunday (Sinterklaas arrives in Amsterdam on a steamboat from Spain with his black slaves, and all of Amsterdam’s children show up to welcome him and get treats… oh traditions…) 

Here’s sound from inside the NEMO (children’s science museum). There was some sort of show going on about gravity/chain of events, where basically things were being thrown and rolled all around this area. 

Last night was Chloe’s last night, and we decided to start off the night by going to see Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia”. What we learned is that this isn’t the kind of movie that exactly “starts off the night”. It definitely makes the night, because it is so heavy and incredible (and really a lot like the experience of going to see a great opera), that it really sticks with you afterwards. I 100% recommend going to see it, I think it’s officially on my top 5 movies of all time now. Luckily, afterwards (when all we wanted was to exit the world of that movie so as to not get too depressed), there was a bar right inside of the movie theatre (I think the theatre was student-run, and it had a really nice vibe to it), so Chloe and I could have a drink and talk about the movie and all that. It was good! I recorded sound there. Unfortunately, you hear too much of our conversation. Basically, Chloe got a gin and tonic, and wanted lime, but instead of lime, the bartender gave her fake lime juice, and yeah, we’re basically talking about that amidst the noise.

I like this one! Yesterday, Chloe and I went to the Rijksmuseum (…which was really great, but unfortunately it was only partially open, due to construction…) There were lots of school groups there, and this one was really cute. They were in front of a really old and big doll house, and I wanted to record a bit of the museum chatter, which in this case was mostly the kids. There’s also some Spanish people somewhere in there.

I really like this recording :) Last night, Chloe and I went to Hannekes, the rickety bar on the water next to the conservatory. It really sounds a bit like you go through a time machine, because the music was a band playing older songs from the 20s, and there was banjo, accordion and fiddle to add to that sound palette. And then on a personal level, I like hearing the French… Jacek explaining these French cavemen-like guys to Chloe, to talk about the beard of his Icelandic friend who was with us. And Chloe and I taking way too long to remember the word for “hache” in English. In a way though, I’m proud when I can’t remember a word in English, it shows that my brain is really in French mode at that time.

From Thursday morning: I was walking through the Niewumarkt, and I could kind of hear what was happening in the circus tent set up at the center, so I recorded. It’s totally unclear…and in Dutch, but it’s fun anyway. Afterwards, I did all my food shopping, but instead of going to Albert Heijn (the biggest market chain), I decided to go to all small vendors. It was fun! Bakery, butcher, chinese store, farmer’s market, cheese shop…. yum.

I would post sounds from elsewhere then these Hansel and Gretel performances, but it’s all I’m doing nowadays! Anyway, yesterday was the premiere, and it was actually a blast. So many kids! It’s totally funny to play for kids. Here’s a clip from the Hexenritt, the witches’ dance, in the last act. I get to play xylophone, the witch gets to dance and people get all happy after. Unfortunately the mic is wayyyyy to close to the xylo.