escher, water polo and den haag

this was another meike weekend. i need to start giving the experience a name or something. i'll think of something

last weekend meike came over. (pictures to come) and we went to lizard grove and hung out all date talking and chatting up life. its like she has this calming affect over you. in case you need to figure out life, just talk with her ;)

this weekend, meike and i had a water polo game against each other. the score was 12-7 and my team won. woohoo :) so now we are #1 in the country.

after that meike came over to my place where we found scared karin huddled up in the living room. yeah she was just watching final destination 3. we would have been there earlier if we didn't get um lost a little in rotterdam. ah whatever.

next morning we set out to den haag. we were meeting one of meike's friend's for breakfast/brunch whatever. so we got to his house and rang the bell, which he didn't answer, so we were like stuff this and we were out of there. i made meike hop on a random tram, direction didn't really matter, and we set off along the way. we missed a few stops but made it into the city center. we found a nice place to eat. then meike gets a hold of her friend, dialing dislexia was the inital problem. oddly enough he was eating in the place right next to us!! so weird.

we adventured through den haag and went to the ESCHER museum. it was freakin amazing!! i love him. this is my absolute favorite!!




well so that is that. and off i go. i am now a member of the library in den haag. yeah that is right. live in rotterdam, play in leiden and have a library card for den haag. i know it is hilarious :)










isn't this so true?? hahahaha

if training in a foreign language isn't hard enough...

so as the title might imply, it is a bit strange being yelled at in another language. but i mean u get used to that. you follow what everyone else is doing. smile and nod those things.

yesterday was different.

so i went to training as usual and was happy that i didn't get lost. i was busy balancing only the most amazing used book store find ever on the back of my bike. yeah it was "einstein's 1912 manuscript on special theory of relativity". yeah flippin sweet! anyways.. so i was at the pool getting changed and went to grab my contact case so that i could SEE during training. since we all know that my vision is worse than a bat's. but yeah I DIDN"T HAVE THEM!!! what the freakin hell?!!? i can not believe i didn't have them. i was like oh my goodness what the hell do i do, no one else is as blind as i am. and practicing in with glasses in a pool doesnt work out too well.

a situation. that is for sure.

so i went to my coach and i told him what was up and he just said "we'll see what we can do with this". yeah and so practice was interesting to say the very least!! i think i did a lot better than u would have expected considering the state that i was in. i was passing pretty okay, i think better than when i did have my glasses ;) and i made a couple shots here and there. i don't even think i can describe this very well to anyone unless you are blind as well.

the moral of the story. life lesson # 712 - don't forget your contacts.

today at practice, i had them.

oh life

so i was walking through the streets of Leiden today on my way to pick up my bike from iefke's house with my headphones on bopping to some awesome tunes. i had a hop in my step for some reason. i found joy in kicking up all the orange/yellow leaves on the ground. i suddenly realized i think i am going through one of these things called seasons. like i know they existed and i've been through some in passing but now i am living in the change. it is kind of weird but i am glad that i can notice it.




near where i live there isn't too much greenery yet since they are still building a lot however i did discover "the forest". that is what i call it. it takes about a 5 minute bike ride and then u are there. it is pretty cool. some parts are too close to the highway to enjoy the quietness of nature but i mean at least it is not concrete. i love just cycling through the woods with like the most awesome playlist on and a couple of really good books in my bag.







i found a couple places which i plan on visiting frequently. the one i found on sunday was freakin awesome! it is like this bench surrounded by these trees. it is like a secret hideaway. and there is this other cool place by the pond. the weekend was pretty nice, so i got to enjoy it.

when i was cycling back the howie day song "perfect time of day" was so fitting! and there was this INTENSE sunset. the colors were a freakin amazing and the sun was huge. a camera could not capture that.




so karin has completely made my day/week/year whatever. besides being freakin awesome and fun!, she got me a bunch of paints and an easel and some canvas. she said there was a sale and i had been bugging her to show me where the art stores were. i have an amazing idea, and i hope that it comes out!

well i hope this week stays on this high note. i will do my best to keep it that way :)

funny...meike said that i was like paddington bear. and the more i think about it i totally am! i am super lucky to have some awesome ass people around me :)

photo essay part 2

so this will be basically an explanation of the little photo series. once again in no particular order. thank you blog world :)









so this is at this freakin awesome cafe in amsterdam! the crossaints there were freaking awesome. and this view wasn't to bad either




my spiderweb obsession. i love taking pictures of these things. it is so hard but it is so nice in the end. there are so many webs here it is great!









so pete brought his fancy camera and i got to play around with it a bunch. i love this one and i plan on working on this type of picture some more.







so i am in the nederlands for like less than 48 hours and we go to some crazy water polo party. this is them praising the national team since they are going to the OLYMPICS!! yeah 3 of my teammates are up there and the beloved Meike too! so cool :)








still at that crazy party. i don't know how i ended up in this picture. haha. the guy in the pink shirt is named boris, i think. he looks like a boris






one day while i was chillin in leiden. i have to spend a lot of time just cruising around, since i have class in the morning and then i have a huge break til practice. don't worry, i am going to figure out how to make some dollars in this time :)






me and pete on a train. the reflections were pretty sweet.







so yeah the houses in amsterdam are really crooked like that! yeah mr. vincent van gogh i always thought you were being artistic. haha he was but really it was leaning over.






this was this cute little couple we saw on our way to the van gogh museum. they were so cute! the guy caught me taking this picture though. he didnt seem to care :)








so i have been inspired by my fish eye lens to put things in front of the camera. i found this blue piece of glass from a broken bottle on the ground. this is what happened. i think it came out pretty sweet. there are many more.

anyways that is photo essay #2...now i can go on to my meike weekend and then i should be pretty caught up. then it will be consistent updates. hahaha. lies :)

the much awaited photo essay, part 1

thanks to liz asking just how hard is it to pictures up in the nederlands, AND IT ACTUALLY IS!!! the words are in dutch and i keep accidentally clicking the wrong one! however, Liz made me realize that i am in slack ville. but the truth of the matter is that my pictures are in a different land of my computer, hence promoting my procrastination. anyway here it goes.. yeah it is in no particular order!


These are pictures from the hike I went on with my family, amy logan and ms. pothead. it was a pretty nice day up on the ridge. yeah there are over 1000 steps on this thing! It is on some old railroad tracks... The orangy picture is my absolute favorite :)





right about here is where i decide that I am annoyed/ I can't figure out why this is all over the place and not in the order that I want it to be and decide that I will give it a grand what they are thing.. i might fix it later ( i might not)
football game with the fam, robin's 21st, a strenuous hike, my last dollah ballah with carena and the gang :)



















i am sorry i am a bum just annoyed. the next one will be pretty and will have a bunch of pics from my holland adventures. i did put pics in my web albums so u should check it out!











another heads up if you look at my pictures, i gave a few some ratings...
tour de amsterdam, R; due to the red light district night scene
robin's birthday, R; due to some eating contest
the rest are all G, PG, good for the family and a bit random. pretty much brittanyish.. cheerio :)

WOAH AN UPDATE!!

Yeah as we all know I am a major bum when it comes to writing on my very own blog. It has to do with the fact that I have TOO much stuff to write I don't even know where to begin. Then all of a sudden it is like an assignment that I just keep procrastinating!

so here goes the mini update!

HAWAII

i was home for a couple weeks after my tour de england, nashville, connecticut and new york. it was sOOOooooOOOOo amazing! i mean i was just soaking up everything and realizing that all my friends and family are amazing. even just the ones i met during my short stay back at home. i had a pretty much amazing time with my old friends i hung out with. so i had a really good time punking a lot of my friends with my "new hairstyle" muahahahaha! i did get to surf, do my touristy drive around the island, and spend some precious quality time with a lot of people that i needed to. oh and BTW my family is freakin amazing. i love them all and my sisters are all old and such characters! it was so bittersweet being at home since there are so many transitions in everyone's life i see just unfolding before my eyes. a bit weird, but i mean what are you gonna do really?

some highlights of home...
+ art off the wall (my friends and i infultrated an wall during first friday and made the underground art scene happen! it was amazing)
+ almost broke my longboard in half getting barreled at the point. muahahaha!
+ my car and surfboards are in a happy place now. my legacy will live on :)
+ robin made me a freakin awesome pie
+ robin turned 21 and got jelloshots umm eaten off her! muahaha
+ got to see my friend asia who i havent seen since we graduated!
+ saw a lunar eclipse
+ got to see my dad play some gigs
+ went on a crazy hike with the fam in hawaii kai!


man i need to stop there are too many!

the NEDERLANDS!
this is my home base for the moment. i am living with my mate karin who i used to play water polo with back in the day in hawaii. and i am playing water polo with iefke's team. yeah so i am on every possible type of public transport available. you name it i am on it. trains, trams, bikes, whatever! yeah i dont mind the trains, its the trams that are like ugh. anyways.

it is so cool playing water polo over here. it is so much bigger than hawaii and they treat you like a superstar ;) yeah so i have been here almost 3 weeks and i have already had an article in the paper, online, and on the program for our first home game. i think that is pretty rad! anyways, i have been playing pretty good considering my massive training i gave myself over the summer ;) hahaha. oh yeah i was in a tourney 3 days after i got here. that went pretty well. and my first game that i had with my entire team, i scored a goal within the first 30 seconds i was in! that was cool.

oh my friend pete from cambridge came over for a visit and that was a blast. the first day he was here i dragged him to my water polo training, where he recieved his crash course in water polo. then on the way back from practice i get us lost on the tram! muahaha. nah but we had a lot of fun. we went to amsterdam for the weekend and went to the van gogh museum. really nice works of art. oh yeah and i ATE so much food. we sat at some cool cafes, and ate at a fancy restaurant and this other cool turkish restaurant. i took pictures of the hookers in the red light district and almost got beat up! muahaha. i got a really cool pic in it though.

for those of you who know meike, i got to hang out with her in the "middle" of holland in utrecht. that was so freakin awesome. meike makes me really happy and makes me remember why i decided to come to this FREEZING cold place :) yeah and we are going to be artsy this weekend at her place, so that should be fun fun fun :)

LAST night i was in a parade in Leiden with my water polo team. it was great yelling things in dutch i have no idea what we really were saying but remnants of it are still ringing in my ears. yeah it was the city's indendence day and there is 2 days of celebration. drinking, partying, carnivals. these dutchies know how to party! yeah and then after the parade we went and saw Koen's brother DJying at this huge tent. he was really good. and i kept getting lost in the sea of tall people. haha good thing i had a hat on, so i could be found.

so yeah 10 page essay over. i will add pictures later. i can't do everything at once! we all know that i am not that good. now that i got that out of the way i will do my best to keep a better update :) lies i know but i gotta keep you coming back for more ;)