Getting started on a sunny Saturday morning

So I have finally decided to join the dizzy crowd of bloggers. Who should I write it for? How honest can I be? Do I make it a travel log of all our sunny and sometimes not so sunny holiday? We will have to see. One thing is for sure, I don’t want it to be too heavy!

Let me give a quick update on the year so far: We started 2010 with a bang in Cape Town. Well perhaps it was not such a big bang after all. Cape Town is a fantastic spot to be for the Christmas holidays, but New Year’s Eve is rather feeble in comparison to all the light and sound of the European capitals. However, there is nothing as beautiful and caressing as a sunny day on Clifton beach and snow covered Amsterdam quickly pales into insignificance on Boxing Day. Before you know it you have to pack up your summer clothes and the city lights of Cape Town are fading into the background of your little round KLM airplane window.

Little window on the world

Black the Piketberg lies below

Bright the tiny lights of Table Bay twinkle

Icy white Schiphol dawns

Scratches my heart

All too soon

Curl up, the dark Vondelstraat winter nights

Curl up, against warm homely familiar flesh

Tightly against me,

And in my heart,

I am at home again

Home again, in my carry-on luggage life

The best medicine for a bit of winter blues is another holiday. So at the beginning of February we were off to the Vancouver Winter Olympics. We had been to the 2004 Athens summer Olympics and had had a blast. It took little convincing when our friends, Bernard and Daniel, invited us to come and join them for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. They stay in Abbotsford and have the cutes of boys, Byron.

His name is Byron

And yes, he is so cute

They even named the most beautiful bay in Australia after him

A long white beach

Waves rolling in from the blue Pacific

Hippies with flowers in their hair

Grey bottlenose dolphins in the surf

His name is Byron

And yes, he is my Abbottsford mornings ….

Vancouver put its best foot forward and we had a great time. In spite of all the critical press and the lack of snow, we had a fantastic time! The highlight was definitely seeing Alexandre Blandeau of Canada win the freestyle downhill moguls!

The ice hockey was fun as well. It was my first ice hockey match and they really do at each other. It makes rugby, the blood sport of my youth, look like a Sunday school pick nick! The mighty Russians lost against the nimble Slovaks in the match we watched. Byron was so excited about attending the ice hockey match, something of a national cult in Canada; but was fast asleep after the first innings from exhaustion!

I know they had a hard time with the snow at Grouse Mountain, but it is sheer indulgence to watch the Winter Olympics in a T-shirt at 12 degrees Celsius. We drove up to Whistler to see the ski jumping. It was rather special to get up close and personal to the likes of Simon Aman, the Swiss national hero in ski jumping and Olympic Champion. I did not realize how minute these ski jumpers are. They look like victims of the Ethiopian famine! Really not a pleasure to look at ….

Things have been rather hectic at work. We finally decided to group the retail and wholesale and internet banking activities together under on management. A step that looks very logical given the present pressures on the financial sector. The good news is that my boss was made head of the new bank and he asked me to remain on as his Chief of Staff. The bad news is that we needed to sort out the governance of the bank in the first couple of months. This interfered terribly with my holiday plans, especially as it dragged on into March!

So you can imagine my boss’ surprise when I said that I was going on a Gay Cruise in the Caribbean in the beginning of March. It has always been one of my fantasies to go on such a cruise and when my dear friend, Paolo, suggested that we go on the March cruise last year, there was no turning back! It was one of the nicest things I have ever done and all the stories are true! Furthermore, the departure coincided with the Winter Party in Miami. Say no more ….

It was my first time in Miami. I cannot say that I saw a lot of Miami, but I am convinced I managed to see the best part – South Beach! Paolo and I rented some bicycles and cycled across the causeway connecting the so-called Venetian islands. It was a brilliant sunny morning and the opulent houses on the sparkling lagoon water looked like paradise. It was also such a gay friendly environment. Twice some rather hunky joggers stopped, and offered to take pictures of us together.

The Winter Party is great fun. We did not manage to drag ourselves out on Friday evening as Paolo had spent exactly 12 hours to get to Miami, but we made up for that on Saturday. I particularly liked the pool party. It felt rather classy in one of those spa hotels along the beach. Pure American beef was served in big measures, if you know what I mean. The music was nice and for once the toilets were discreetly hidden behind a fence at the far side. Just a pity it was still a bit too chilly to plunge into the water wholeheartedly and in any case there is nothing more irritating than an old man dancing in wet shorts!!

The cruise was great! We passed by the Bahamas, St Barts, St Thomas and finally the Samana peninsula of the Dominican Republic. It was not great weather all the way, but that is not so important if you have the good weather packed in your heart. Some moments really felt like a scene from Blue Lagoon! One such moment, was striding through the shallow waters of the Cococay in the Bahamas. We came across a huge starfish and immediately started a photo shoot! There are truly beautiful spots on earth that takes your breath away and leaves you totally silent and thrilled – like that first gold star you got at school.

The cruise is a fantastic mix of parties and excursions. The highlight of the cruise is the white party. Paolo and I had found a pair of very cheap children’s shorts to wear for the occasion. As any gay will tell you, less is more ….

The amazing part is that they are the official shorts of football team of Suriname. I thought it fitted right in with the Caribbean rhythm. The highlight of the cruise was definitely seeing the sun rise after having danced the night away. It was a glorious sunrise without a cloud in sight. The powder blue slipstream of the ship played naughts and crosses with the bright orange yellow streak of sunrise. We lay out on these couches at the back of the huge cruise ship convinced that life does not get much better than this! 24 hours later we were in a US Airways plane careering back to Amsterdam and a cold but sunny white morning.

Caught the morning in my hand

Held it tight

Broke the eternal rhythm of the days

Spread it over my wet body

Dried my skin all brown and warm

Colored my eyes bright powder blue

Sang a soft old familiar melody

Flowed a fresh morning stream through my mind

Caught the morning in my hand

And, contented, finally, unwillingly, let it go

Yes, had to let it go

Just to make sure that I don't loose it all and pack up and leave, we planned in a wet weekend of culture in Berlin. Berlin is undoubtedly the capital of fun in Europe. Its young inhabitants, culture of freedom and its affluent and spoil crowd of bureaucrats and diplomats makes an explosive mix. We did get to Berghain, voted the best club in Europe, but the main aim of the trip was opera. We managed to see Puccini’s Manon Lescaut which is a rarity in the Opera repertoire. The voices were of top quality and the classical décor was surprisingly refreshing – lots of white and pastel colors. It a beautiful love story that falls horribly flat in the last act. The two lovers get stranded in the Nevada dessert after being shipped to New World as prisoners. How they managed to get stranded, on foot, thousands of miles further in the desert without a drop of water, but even more important, without a horse, boggles the mind! Anyway, that’s opera for you! Her final swan song is probably one of the most beautiful arias ever written. It makes dying worth all the while.

Last night was the first of four concerts that Thea, my office manger, and I have organized for the bank’s charity, Chances for Children. Organized is a big word, as Marco, a good friend of mine and his events company, really put it all in place! It is a concert by a Dutch artist, Nikki Romijn, singing songs of Kate Bush. Although I have never been a huge fan of Kate Bush, hearing the lyrics of her songs have made me curious! Sometimes the lyrics remind me of the poetry of e.e. cummings. It is as if she leaves you with phrases that you can make your own. You can tie them to a loved one, you can mash them on people that irritate you, you can give them as presents to friend you have not seen for the longest time – and all of that in that beautiful little mind of your own.