For two years now I have been using hospitality exchange networks while traveling and also to host travelers in Barcelona and now Amsterdam. This added a new and really nice dimension to my life. Thanks to the people I met through hospitality exchange, I extended my vision, scope and aspiration.

I never felt like volunteering for these networks though (couchsurfing.com and hospitalityclub.org). How they are organised simply does not inspire me: they are top-down structured and volunteers hardly have impact on how it is run.

But since a year there is a network that does want to be member-driven: BeWelcome.org. I joined its volunteers last weekend in their yearly assembly when they select the yearly board, do some brainstorming and make plans for the coming year.

I hitchhiked to Essen (Germany) with four cars and had an excellent and very inspiring time. Obviously, since it is a new network there is lots of work that still needs to be accomplished but I am looking forward doing my share for this first hospitality network that wants to be truely democratic (ie. member-driven or grassroots), transparant and opensource - one that is not only able to facilitate hospitality exchange but also able to share the access to the buttons and empower volunteers.

There is so much to write, so many things have been hapening lately. Been away to Denmark, there is a new collective photo-website, I am helping to organise an (un)conference on hospitality exchange, have been on an adventurous trip to Enkhuizen (fun!), friends are visiting from all-over, work is steady and the house in full progress. And then there is also a new movement for Apathy… More to come soon!

Today a year ago I celebrated my birthday in Bern, Switzerland. Now that I have paused living my life traveling I am fairly excited to hear from my friends who are themselves still on the road, or who just started traveling.

For example, whereas friend rouge is chasing German girls in South-East Asia, Ammasaisha is meeting guru-ground all around India. At the same time Leimac is having tons of fun with going his long way down by sand-boarding volcanoes in Latin America while Lasersurge sails the ocean, having been traveling for three years now.

Traveling inspires. Meet or be a traveler and you know what we mean by that: people that are out there, ‘away from home’ and creating their life by consciously dreaming - whatever that may be to us.

Special mention I would give Dani. He quit his job, took his bags and moved East. He is now in Tokyo creating great photography.

While traveling last year I discovered this great thing called photography, and it really hooked me. I started to see my surroundings with new eyes as I developed a new dimension of looking at the world.

So I noticed the many colors around me and I got intrigued by water, light, ducks, birds, scenes, children and the cuddling waves of water. A whole new world opened up for me and my camera became a natural extension of my experience.

Little did I expect when I also started uploading my photos, but recently I got selected for a travel magazine and one of my Istanbul shots got actually published. Today I found the paper version (pdf, 17 mb) in my new mailbox and I can say this much: photos really do look better when printed. Yeah!

So much movement in so little time, it is like when sun and rain team up and show light in all colors. Slowly it builds up and bang it is there, right here, and I am in the midst of things, holding it in my own hands, realising it, fulfilling it.

A new job and at the same time a renovated house. Suddenly the base I had been working on is here, under my feet, above my head, it surrounds me, it carries me. No more nonsense, suddenly I have a house and a job, both with permanent contracts. And it doesn’t even frighten me.

Lots of work still needs to be done, but there is time and space to turn it into more than just a fulfillment of a promise; it is more than a dream that finally becomes true and a planning that becomes real. It is a space that opens up. A space for even more movement, that carries, facilitates and enables.

Waking up… upset stomach… alcohol in blood… 4 am. My first working day, my value is added, my belly hurts. Almost lost a job once because of adding too much value at the bar, please fall back asleep, let’s remain one piece and enjoy the sun and beach!

8 am. A bug in my ear. I hit. The alarm-clock. Brushed my teeth but no help against the buzz. Not here. Sun comes up, rays of light. Solutions through sounds of waves. Revenue through excitement. Can we have one meeting … managing the journey?

A break. And coffee helps. Waves come in and go out, light arises. And the sun on my Mediterranean balcony warms me up. My new job, the first since 13 months, brought me to Malaga and Munich already. Yet to come: Boston, Paris and London. My towel is with me. I love it.

(more…)

Rain. It rains a lot in Holland. Winters are not so cold anymore as they used to be. Instead, there is just rain. So it rained for the past days. Also during the weekend. But it didn’t seem to effect life negatively. I noticed almost everyone smiling, as I walked to the Albert Cuyp market last Saturday.

In “So long and thanks for all the fish” Rain-man is accompanied by rain. All the time. So he had described 231 different types of rain in his little notebook. (”And he didn’t like any of them…”). During my twenty minute walk I went through types 47 to 51, “vertical light drizzle through to sharply slanting light to moderate drizzle freshening”. I only got wet a little.

I sang most of the time and many people were either singing too or simply whistling. “The clouds want to be near him, to love him, to water him”, Douglas Adams writes about Rain-man. This morning though the sun came. Por fin. Rain, a very underestimated source of cheerfulness.

City of bike-lanes and water, my small town, I am back in your streets again, smiling. It took me five years and some months, but I am surrounded by ‘my own’ four Amsterdam walls and roof-top. Por fin! Yes!

I am back loving it, I feel this is where I (well… for the moment at least) ‘belong’. There are no palmtrees here like in Barcelona, and the beach is pretty far away (1,5 hours by bike…!) but it remains one of the better places in Europe to live. And what matters most: I feel at my place and happy here.

From where I live (for now, it’s a temporary place for half a year), I bike to the center in 15 minutes. At the same time it is on the edge of town, close to the Amstel river. It takes me five minutes to be in nature, cycle along the riverbanks, to feel space or to wonder around in the forest.

So, you know how it works: feel free to come along and please stay as long as you want. Just send me a nice pigeon before you come and clean the dishes when you leave.