Farmwork in Doetinchem

Zach Abubeker December 21, 2013

After our foray into Amsterdam for a night we went back to the farm country. I had mentioned to Jerry that I wanted to help out around the farm with anything that wanted to be done. I cut garlic one night for dinner, but Letty is such a great cook that my skills were not really needed there. Jerry had asked one night if I would help him in the farm the next day. I agreed because Ash had hurt his foot so was not able to do so.

The next morning Jerry and I went out the back of the barn and began work, which I did not know the premise at first, but quickly grasped. We began to clear a new patch of a field of grass so that in the following season it could be used for cultivation. A rather difficult task as we were using hand tools, a pitchfork, and a shovel to loosen the dirt. It took about 7 hours time over 3 days. The weather was sometimes cooperative, it was sprinkling at times but altogether not so bad. The ground was still soft enough to cut luckily, if we would have started any later in the year it might have been frozen. It was tough work but pretty rewarding in the end. I had eaten the vegetables they had grown for dinner basically every night so more of the same is only better.

The grass we moved - and that wasn't even all of it!

I want to use this post also talk about some other stuff we did around Doetinchem. The first night I was in Letty made a rooster. I personally had never had rooster - and did not know it was such a delicacy.

Asher had gone to meet a girl in Arnem. This had given me time to really meet Letty and Jerry. I had only met Jerry once in Chicago.

Thats Bas, Jerry and Fredericka playing some music.

Later that night we went to see this weird band at this bar in the city center. We rode bikes there.

Heres some other pictures from around the house:

One night we messed around with the farm animals. I setup the tripod and Asher used a flashlight to get all Et on it.

The train from Arnem runs behind their house.

That's all from around the house, in the next post I'll post some more touristy stuff from the neighboring towns.

Amsterdam: Part One

Zach Abubeker December 12, 2013

Asher and I took a trip up to Amsterdam via hobo route: hitchhiking. Reason being is the train is rather expensive, and we are young lads who like adventure. I personally haven’t considered this method before, but Asher has done it so far and has had good luck. It’s a very common thing in Holland to hitchhike. It went pretty smoothly and we met some interesting folks along the way. One person was recently separated from his wife, and plays bass, one was a lawyer, and the last ride was a student who was going into Amsterdam for night class. Holland is such a small country as compared to America - you can cross the entire length by car in about 3-4 hours of steady driving.

People enjoying some kind of hangliding experience.

We made it into town in about 3 hours, after having to take a short trip via the metro we arrived into Centraal. (Side note: I love the word Centraal – not sure why it’s just really appealing to me). We had decided beforehand we needed to book a hostel, after having no luck on the couch-surfing front. Amsterdam is one of the hardest cities to find a couch in, there is very limited real estate and the city gets so many visitors per year that it makes it pretty tight. I am relatively new to couch surfing and now realize that it takes about a solid week of looking to get a proper response. Also it was a mistimed week, as all of Asher’s friends were either really busy or out of town. The hostel we bookedd was really rad though, they gave us a bed for 10€ each. Not only that neither of us had our passports with us (I never take mine out of my bag for fear of losing it). This is apparently a faux pas.

We spent the early evening walking around the centruum and taking in the sights. It was a really nice sunset over the city, and the colors of the canals are really beautiful in the early evening light. We picked a canal and sat by it, drinking cheap canned beer and reminiscing it was nice that I got a deeper insight into what Asher has been doing. We talked about past in Chicago, present where we both are, and the future and what we plan to do.

Amsterdam is really a party city. I don’t think that all of Holland likes this aspect, but the people in Amsterdam get down. There are so many tourists who are attracted by the very relaxed drug laws, in the way of ‘soft-drugs’ and really low prosecution rates. It has also obviously gotten its reputation through marijuana legality. Just a week before I came the Cannabis Cup took place. I really didn’t come to Holland to smoke a bunch of weed, but if one so desired there is so much and more to be offered. Come to think of it I didn’t even really make it to the red light district. Not that its my cup of tea either but prostitution is totally legal there. The people involved in the sex business follow strict laws about testing and its well managed, well about as well managed as legal prostitution can be. The country allows this to be practiced in a safe way. Honestly, its going to happen anyway – why not make it legal but safe, to me it seems better than the alternative.

Speaking of tangents and prostition I should mention I found a good sausage on the main drag. Im sure nothing like the German wurst I will soon be indulging in but none the less. Heres a photo as proof.

We wound up getting some more beer at the Albert Heijn – really sick deal 6 heinecken for 6€, after all we are in the country of heinecken. We sat along another canal – this is a theme if you hadn't noticed. This woman pulled up in her car and said that we look really like happy young men, and offered us a bottle of rosé.

We all laughed, I was happy as rose is kind of dirty, especially the sort of cheap crap we had just been handed, it was a blessing in disguise I think.

We said bye to the lady and walked a bit, we heard a din the distance and realized something was happening. We followed the noise and came upon a rally to protest the figure Black Pete (Zwarte Piet). It seemed to be comprised more or less of African migrants to Holland. I will get into the Zwarte Piet thing in a later post.

I started to follow the protest, I saw out of the corner of my eye that Asher had stopped to talk to someone. I continued on to follow the rest of the people who were marching, by the time I realized we had gotten sort of far from where we started, Asher was nowhere to be found. Of course he doesn't have a phone either so there was really no way to contact him. I hovered along the areas in which we had been hanging out but he never turned up. I had a feeling Asher had just wandered off as his free spirit might have persuaded him to.

There was a bit of a feeling like we should be in fact spending the night together in its entirety. Sometimes it doesn’t always work out. I spent the next few hours wandering around checking out the city. Most of that time, by checking out, I meant becoming completely lost through the channels and canals. I had this kind of shitty map from the hostels but the scale wasn’t totally right – and I wound up quite a bit away from where I needed to be. The city for me was really quite confusing, the streets are all quite small, and it all kind of runs in a circle.

I did happen across some very cool graffiti.

Weird small electric car charging mechanism.

There was also a few Ethiopian restaurants in the area.

I finally wandered into this bar and bought a not so expensive Amstel and asked the bartender for directions. He pointed to around the western part of the bad map I had and said that a walk back wouldn’t be so bad, or I could take a taxi for around 10€. I chose the former.

The map above is roughly where I walked to.

Another realization I made is that the Dutch language sounds especially crazy when you are drunk and really listening to it for the first time with no English thrown in. I can kind of equate it to the likeness of a winding messy river. It flows in such a strange way, and doesn’t exactly sound pretty. So we had the flowing of canals, the flowing of Dutch and the flowing of beer it made for a pretty interesting night.

As a note, I did find Asher later. He wandered into the hostel a few hours after I came back. I had made friends with some of the people who were staying there. He had managed to badly sprain (he calls it broken) his foot dancing some jig in the street trying to entertain some people. Asher transition into the kingdom of street hustlers and entertainers is nearly complete.

Fatty bobatty broken (very badly sprained) foot.

Amsterdam Pt2 Coming soon!

To Holland for £1.50, through the Chunnel

Zach Abubeker December 5, 2013

I left last Friday for Holland to visit my friend Asher, who I know from University in Chicago. He's been living in Doetinchem, Netherlands for the past 8 months or so working on his family's farm. I arrived into Amsterdam around 9pm, then had to catch a train from Centraal to Doetinchem. It took roughly another hour and a half, Asher picked me up from the train station with his sister, Fredericka. The farm is nice, we have been hanging out here for the past few days. Asher has been working on performing music around the Doetinchem and also trying to get gigs in Amsterdam. More on Amsterdam later, for now Ill just show you some photos of Doetinchem and the farm.

Oh yea, first I gotta mention how I got here for £1.50. I took Megabus from Victoria Station. Since I had gotten the fare so far in advance I was able to book it for the ultra-promo-price of £1 (same rules apply in the States, 50p was the surcharge). The bus arrived Folkestone and then drove into this train which is big enough to carry a bus and many cars, across through the tunnel. It was pretty neat, it takes you across the Channel in about 35 minutes. This passage is also used for freight trains as well as high speed transit.

This is taken from the back of the bus - you can see the cars sort of lining up and the bus gets its own sort of cabin. Once the train starts going you can actually get out and walk around the cabin of the car. Theres bathrooms and everything. Prett… — This is taken from the back of the bus - you can see the cars sort of lining up and the bus gets its own sort of cabin. Once the train starts going you can actually get out and walk around the cabin of the car. Theres bathrooms and everything. Pretty crazy.

More Space age shit at the Arnem station.

So I got to Doetinchem around 12am, sort of a long journey but well worth it. Ashers family had made steak for dinner so I arrived to eat steak, rice and carrots. Nice first meal! Asher lives here with Jerry his dad, Letty Jerry's wife and on the occasion their two daughters Fredericka and Ana. Frederika is 18 and in college, Ana is currently on a trip to Chile for 2 months. The house is situated on a farm on the south eastern part of the town. The property has been under Letty's family name for a couple of generations. They grow lots of veggies, raise goats, chickens and ducks. All of which I have tasted, besides the duck so far. There's really great home cooking happening here, Letty and Jerry are amazing cooks.

Asher and Nuuka, shes a Spanish kind of greyhound.

The farm animals. Dutch light really is crazy.

Here's a barn on their property, they'll turn this into a bed and breakfast at some point. They want to host artists and musicians out here.

Some trailers Ash sleeps in during the summer.

Doetinchem is fairly small, only about 56,000 people live here. I walked around the town square and small neighborhoods a couple of days. Here's a few pictures below.

The town square, the church has been there since WWII, partially destroyed but then rebuilt.

Backcountry Bavarian beer cans in the woods.

Some kind of berries in the sunset light.

Last Days in London

Zach Abubeker December 4, 2013

The last few days I spent in London were spent walking and seeing more of the city. One night I met a couple of friends, Luke and Lindsay in Dalson / East London area. This area is becoming popular with artists and young people, it has a lot of nice pubs and eateries. There also seem to loads of artists studios. It's where the hipsters go, in a lot of ways you could probably compare it to Wicker Park or thereabouts in Chicago.

Note: I recently learned that they way you tell the cutting edge of hipsterdom when you ask yourself what the hell that person is wearing - if it's clothing style you recognise then they arent hip enough. If you say what the *expletive* are you wearing you know you've landed in hipster central. I didn't see too much wacky wear, more like mid-range, so the real fresh hipsters were yet to be found, at least I didnt come across them.

Anyways I met Luke and Lindsay for a beer and bit of pizza. I had sort of met Luke virtually through another friend earlier this year. For Popup Addis we showed one of his photographs, he had traveled a bit in Ethiopia and made some really great work. Check out Luke's stuff here. Lindsay came along as well, she also visited Ethiopia with Luke. She is more into nature drawing and preservation. She made some really nice drawings of Ethiopian plant species - check it here. Two cool dudes and glad we got to hang out. It's so funny when you know someone only online or through email then you finally get to meet them in person, a nice feeling.

Luke found some awesome glass negs on auction. They appear to be from all over Africa.

The following day I decided to head to a few museums I hadn't gotten to check out yet, I also took a nice walk in Hyde Park, in the center of the city. Its quite a massive park, with a great lake in the middle. There are also two exhibition spaces in the park, called Serpentine, which also is the name of the lake. Unfortunately they were closed for installation. I photographed the outside at least. I heard great things about the space, that they always put on really good shows. Too bad, next time I guess.

They have a memorial to Princess Diana - it's a circulating fountain. Makes a really nice sound - quite pleasant, a nice tribute.

The Albert memorial on the way to Victoria Albert museum.

Just down the street through the park is the Victoria and Albert Museum and also the Natural History Museum. The VA has a really vast collection of works, ranging from Renaissance sculpture, painting, cookware and utensils, stained glass, as well as loads of other stuff. The display practices took me a second to get used to, they sort of jam everything together in this strange way. You get used to it after awhile though I guess.

Paintings on paintings, and fuck it why not throw a case in there as well aye.

A special exhibition called Tomorrow, by Elmgreen and Dragset. Probably the best show I saw while I was in London. The artists combined works from the VA's collection in such a strange and interesting way. It was sort of based around a kind of scrip… — A special exhibition called Tomorrow, by Elmgreen and Dragset. Probably the best show I saw while I was in London. The artists combined works from the VA's collection in such a strange and interesting way. It was sort of based around a kind of scripted play or story line they had written.

They sort of came between past and present, like a curation of objects through the years of history that the VA had collected.

The best shows for me are the ones where I'm sort of left with a kind of gut feeling or change that happens after I see it. If I become moved emotionally by what it is in front of me that sort of stays with me the longest. Its sort of a combination of how all the works fit together and flow through the space.

After the VA I went down to the British museum. Luke's friend happened to be working there - so he hooked up the ticket. There was a show about Japanese pornography (not pictured here), as well as a display about El Dorado gold. Both were decent. The British museum turns me off in a way. When you begin to think about where these objects were collected from and by what means they were collected, you start to wonder how legitimately they were come across or properly obtained. The provenance of some objects is in question for sure, and that kind of bothers me as I think about the whole picture.

At any rate - apart from its methodology of collection of artefacts and objects, the British Museum is quite stunning as an architectural work.

The remainder of the day was spent packing they headed out for a nice foreign beer - its origin escapes me now, I'm usually pretty good about knowing what I drink - but it was damn good anyway. I really enjoyed London, apart from spending too much money I had a great time. The visit to the countryside was really crucial as well. It made for a great well rounded trip.

Parting pic - tasty beer, origin unknown.(edit: later found out this is Alhambra, a Spanish variety - you gotta try it) — Parting pic - tasty beer, origin unknown.
(edit: later found out this is Alhambra, a Spanish variety - you gotta try it)

Farmwork in Doetinchem

Amsterdam: Part One

To Holland for £1.50, through the Chunnel

Last Days in London

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