A Kindred Surprise

Giiiirls

 The cold wind swept through my hair as we rushed along the quiet roads. On the back of T’s scooter, I hung on to his notorious beige leather jacket as we rode a

C, L and I

long the arching robot-like bridges. It was just over a year ago when I was in the same position with T and the gang in Laos and even longer with J and the girls, but with a bit of effort and some productive Facebook time, I’d made it to a very different part of the world and T's home country, The Netherlands. Bittersweet is the only adjective I can think of how to describe the ending. You can't be too down when your soul's so lifted. I looked next to me at the faces that I’d spent the last few beautiful days with… a chirpy Aussie, a feisty Swiss Latino, a sexy Spaniard, a cool German, a fist pumping Welshman, a gorgeous Canadian, a lovely Dutchman and a flower girl, what a mix! It was as though someone had brushed everyone over with a layer of serenity. Expressions were soft, movements were slow and the odd giggle would always peep out of someone every few minutes, the rest of the group either laughing or moaning together in response. It was the day after the deep house festival DGTL (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXgwjSfaNSk) and instead of sulking in bed with the curtains closed; we took advantage of the sunny skies, though it took a while to actually reach that conclusion. I’m sure everyone knows how long big groups can take to get their act together, especially when no one’s too eager to move… So a few of us assigned everyone roles to get things going, we'd decided ours should involve the least amount of movement - that idea didn’t pass and we compromised by all agreeing to get up, treat ourselves to brunch and coffee (after all the hardship we’d gone through) and have a lie in the park. 20 minutes turned into an hour or two, I don’t know how exactly us girls always seem to take so long. In the fibonacci spiral, the golden ratio can either go the fastest root in a straight line (usually described as the masculine line) or the scenic route in a curved line (the feminine line) yet both end up in the same

The fibonacci spiral

place. This was definitely evident in our methods of getting ready, the boys would be at the door 5 minutes after talking about it and the girls would sit and suggest something on our to-do list... after another 15 minutes of all continuing with our minor routines we’d look up and discuss doing something about it… 15 minutes later, it would start getting done... a few hours later, we all ended up at the door, some just a little more agitated than others... With all the piles of girly clothes, make-up and rolling material that trailed around us, we can’t say we didn’t leave our mark J

Morning snuggles

So we found our breakfast spot and happily sat down outside on that sunny morning of 4/20 in Amsterdam. With our tummy’s grumbling we sipped on OJ and coffee, holding in the moans as 2pm struck, the thought of breakfast seeming so distant and each second feeling like hours. All of our desperate heads turned as the waitress finally walked through the door with plates of English breakfast, burgers and mozzarella sticks mmm, I think that was one of the few moments of silence during the holiday as everyone zoned into the bliss of long-awaited deliciousness. Before splitting the bill, B (an old welsh travelling mate from Asia) joined me in an all too familiar ATM hunt that lead us 20 minutes away through the city to the ‘nearest cash-machine’, on return we were told with a grumpy look that there was a closer and easier option 5 minutes away, haha! 

‘Regression Sessions’ is a great night in London that takes you back to your childhood with ball pits, bouncy castles and altered mind states. The day at the park felt exactly the same, lining up for ice cream, sipping on soft drinks and appreciating each other’s company. The sun danced in front of our eyes and shone through the gaps in the spring leaves that cast funky shadows onto our toes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fmKGQ-1we0

Wine night

The day before had been quite the opposite vibe. We’d woken up fairly late after a group breakfast and a pre-festival preparation sesh, made our way on/ off various modes of transport to get to T’s, hurriedly caught up with D and our fellow festival goers and began the day of madness. How great is it when a negative weather forecast is wrong?! ‘Cloudy skies’ were nowhere to be seen as we all got sunglasses out, slipped past security and the wagon-wheel like tables/ chairs and over to the booming stages where Soul Clap, Ben Pearce and Skream were just a few of the names playing (not that we knew who anyone actually was). Flowers, glitter and red lipstick were out so we dropped with desperados and spent the rest of the festival between the fire-hut and the various stages, dancing, laughing and having odd cuddles and deep and meaningfulls with strangers. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXgwjSfaNSk) It struck 11pm and the festival timer dinged so we went from semi-naked to fully clothed as the winter winds blew through the flat plains. We were herded like cows through the industrial-looking grounds, past the coffee shop and up to the beautiful apartment that overlooked a canal with about 15 people on toe. Day festivals are great because you can actually get to sleep at a reasonable hour, so curled up in sleepy snuggles, music and flower fumes, we slowly sunk into slumber, C, T and I spooning each other over the one pillow that we happily shared.

Hot tubs

But that was all before the journey! Getting to Amsterdam had been a struggle and a half. The complaints were kept to a minimal as we worked through the re-occurring obstacles… A morning of cleaning up from the party the night before took longer than expected, as did breakfast/lunch that got pushed back to about 3pm. Our ideal plan was to leave at 6pm so we get to the station only to realise that the train tickets needed to be printed off at home so J and J won the ‘most productive couple of the day’ award in sorting that out, having to de-tour as the internet wasn’t working etc. etc. etc. Loooord almighty.

B!

Meanwhile… the rest of us sat quite happily in the sun surrounded by flowers outside of Groningen station, looking fairly hobo-esque but keeping it casj with a few tunes on the computer and hot drinks from Starbucks. It took us about an hour of huddling up against the wind and watching the sun slowly disappear as we covered ourselves with super thin hippie cloths until someone suggested that to stay out of the cold, we could actually sit inside Starbucks, so for the last 10 minutes we regained a bit of the lost warmth until the others returned. Hours later we were on the train, trekking through Amsterdam with our big backpacks, bags of blankets and festival gear. A coffee shop was our second-last/ essential destination… ahh we made it! We then realised there were 3 ‘dampkring’s’ in the city and our friend ‘A’ who was collecting us, was at a very different one in a very different location… just our luck. We lay on the street outside the coffee shop at 11pm, the flash of C’s polaroid lighting up the scene for a brief moment to capture the excitement in our faces as ‘A’ stayed true to his  Dutch roots and rolled around the corner on his bicycle. We all shared long hugs, feeling with slight confusion how manly 'A' was after a year out of high school.

Balcony sesh's

Festival spider

The green peace boat that had been
freed from Russia

With laughs of exhaustion and hysteria we lunged with the weight of our bags and stopped at the nearest, yummiest looking pizza place that was soon followed by a flowery SLUMBER PARTYY. Before falling asleep, the OG kush rode with the laughter wave that passed through the room and bounced off the walls, hitting us all multiple times until exhaustion was our only defence. I woke up in the living room of A’s new furniture-less house, groin to groin in the centre of the blow-up mattress that was concave in the centre, somehow touching the ground because of our weight and inflated on the periphery leaving us all lying at very awkward angles. M was curled up on the armchair with all his clothes on from the night before and J & J had slipped off the padded beanbag and onto the floor below… the laughter resonated in the room and healed the broken sleep.

DGTL

There’s something about catching up with friends after high school that’s never quite the same. Well, either it is or it isn’t. It’s so easy to get along with people you’re taking the same subject/ course as because conversation can revolve around it, but once that common denominator’s lost, you really feel who you’re able to re-connect with when conversations can go beyond small talk… The talk of this holiday went above and beyond small, on our first night in, after a cycle around the city and a few warming rays from the afternoon sun, J and I picked up C and got into our bikini’s, B (another friendly KL face) told us of her amazing project that she described as a ‘human library’, an event enabling people to talk face-to-face with individuals who’ve experienced prejudice, they get to tell their stories and the audience gets to soak it in.

The journey to Amsterdam

Multi-coloured vino flowed and we soaked into the bubble filled hot tub with fairy lights draped on the outskirts of the room until a very drunk C returned from his frat-party and joined in. Dancing, polaroid’s, naughty snap chats and old cheesy 90’s tunes were soon cranked up as we drifted off in the wee hours of the timeless morning.

Venturing out the following day, our coins stayed buried in the bottom of our wallets during a slightly failed festival-shop but did leave the shopping mall with something, speeding out of there as the next victim to enter the bathroom held an impressively composed expression… Coffee shop next for a civilised puff and a coffee. It’s always interesting watching the people that go into coffee shops, is this their break from work, a sesh with their friends or a date? It’s so nice that the paranoia and grungy atmosphere turns into a… Buddha bar of sorts… Losing track of time, yet again, dinner took a while to sort out, and just as the house-party guests began to trickle in (3 hours late), us girls were just sitting down to a dinner of black bean chicken and a glass of wine. The sex divide was evident as boys hovered around the beer pong table in the corner and we all tuned into the girly vibe, getting deep and dirty. Plates cleared and we commenced the mingling. Party chat went from questioning ones identity to the structure of our political system to whether one would rather be a tree or a cloud until my brain could take no more so boogie, love, desperados, down.

The group!

Polaroidss

I hope the lack of chronology emphasizes the timelessness of a holiday. I have 2 hours to go out of a 17-hour journey via buses, trains, scooters and ferries but it was only £50 return J. I will say, to anyone making the megabus journey to Amsterdam go in the day as the Euro tunnel is open and the journey’s a lot smoother. Somehow I made each bus about 5 minutes before departure, gained back my passport after misplacing it twice and re-kindled flames with my girls and a few new friends. I’ve just been turfed out of the best seat on the bus by a persistently rude man who I have no energy for, so instead I let down my guard, move back a seat and gaze over the lush English countryside on Easter Monday of 2014, thinking how beautiful life is and how sometimes it just takes a holiday to remember it again.