Yayabiko

Imagine in your home town, the place where you grew up as a child, that every class from your High School held their reunion on the same day, and that day was Christmas. Imagine the party that would erupt. This is essentially what happens in Haidee’s home town each year at Easter, perhaps the most important of all holidays in the Philippine culture. Haidee’s sister was celebrating her 25 year reunion, and to mark the occasion, the far flung Villacarillo family all condensed back to Dolores. It’s been a long time for us, four and a half years for Haidee, seven years for Reed. Would we survive the onslaught of family and friends? Would Reed melt down in the constant chaos, noise, shouting? Would Haidee remember everyone’s name? Would she remember her local dialect which is unused as a roller skate in winter while we live in Europe? Click the photo to find out.  

When Rune bought our tickets to the National concert at the Paradiso on July 6th, the date seemed innocent enough.  Little did we know the Dutch would proceed through the World Cup finals and would be meeting Uruguay in a semi-final round that night starting around the same time as the concert.  Thankfully, the band had an answer, they wanted to see the game too.  They moved up their concert by two hours to start at 7pm.  By 8:30pm, after a brief encore, a giant screen dropped behind the stage and the dim hall was illuminated by a powerful projector.  The game was on, and we were about to watch it with 1,300 of our friends.

The Dutch would eventually lose the World Cup Finals in a nail-biter to Spain 1-0, but that night in the Paradiso, with the Dutch enjoying a comfortable lead and the fans groaning and cheering in unison, will be the night I’ll choose to remember years from now.

It was one of the those magical nights, after a long work week, the weather was hot and steamy, the kind of weather that drives everyone from their apartments looking for cool breezes; ice cream cones. The Dutch team was trailing the heavily favored Brazilian squad, who split the Dutch defense, scoring with ease. Then after 53 minutes the Dutch ricocheted a shot off a Brazilian defender and into the goal. Tie game. 15 minutes later the Dutch scored again, a header from the shortest man on the pitch. Two improbable goals from an improbable team about to dispatch the favorite to win the whole World Cup. In Amsterdam, the Dutch poured into the street, an electrical night where complete strangers approached each other for a high five, a laugh, or a joke. The sun hung in the air a little longer while a current passed through the streets, connecting everyone wearing orange. Even if the Netherlands goes on to win the World Cup, the victory wouldn’t be as sweet as tonight.     

The first time I read Kurt Vonnegut’s classic, Slaughterhouse Five, was twenty or so years ago when I was sitting in Harry Cargas’ Protest Literature course at college.  In the years since, I’ve picked up the book two or three times for another read.  It’s a quick book, the writing light, the pages thin.  A book that can be polished off in just a couple sittings.  But an important book as well.  A book that nearly always shows up in various 100 best English novels lists that get churned out by University Literary departments or various critic’s circles.

The fact that the book could exist at all is a marvel.  What are the chances that one of the most unique writing voices of the 20th century would be on hand to witness one of the worst firebombing in the history of humans beings doing nasty things to other human beings?  This actually happened, Kurt Vonnegut was a POW in Dresden when it was flattened, a city of no military significance, hundreds of years of history wiped clean just to prove a point, just to break the will of the waining Nazi regime.       [Read more →]

Somewhere along the line, Haidee got interested in the MotoGP races that consumed my Sunday afternoons.  Since then, she’s become a huge fan of the sport, spouting off facts, figures, and antidotes as if she’s been working behind the pit walls for years.  So when MotoGP came to the Netherlands this year, we just had to go.  This is Haidee’s first time to a big time race.  The weather was awesome, the racing was good; I think she had a pretty good time.  Here are our photos.  Here are Paul’s.

A short piece on Valentino Rossi and some distrubing news from the world of motorcycle racing today.

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Spring is finally here. Along with good friends, Kat and Darius, we decided it was a perfect day for a picnic… in a boat! So off we go boating along the charming canals of Amsterdam on a rented boat; our picnic basket loaded with wine, bread, and cheese.  Reed agreed to be our captain. Click here to see photos.

We really enjoy our time in Amsterdam, but one of the things we miss the most about California is the rich, lush forests, hiking, and getting back to nature. It seems as though every square centimeter is owned, and manicured, in the Netherlands. The forests around Amsterdam have a English garden aspect to them, some go as far as providing brick paths through the woods. So when we heard about the French Grande Randonnee trail system, a trail system expanding over an amazing 110,000 miles, we had to go check it out.  We spent two days hiking through the French Champagne-Ardenne region.

Haidee and I bundle up against the cold to go discover another of Eastern Europe’s treasures, Prague.  We spent four days wandering through Prague’s medieval cobblestone streets discovering treasure after treasure.  What a delightful town.  Only a one hour flight from Amsterdam, we have promised ourselves we’ll make it back one more time before we leave Europe.  Click on the photo to see more photos.

A couple weeks ago I was illegally parked at Centraal Station, and city workers cut my lock and impounded my bike.  Anyone who’s been to Amsterdam, and arrived via the train system, has seen the three story parking garage for bikes off to the right of the station.  So many bikes are crammed into such tight spaces, creatively, forcefully, that it’s hard to imagine anyone drawing a line between legal and illegal parking.  But somebody did, and I apparently had crossed some line. [Read more →]