Day 13: Home

On the plane!

I’m writing this from the plane high over Greenland.  It was pouring rain when we woke up this morning in Amsterdam, but by the time we were ready to take off from the airport, the sun was out and the day was lovely. L and I had one final meal before boarding!  When I post this, you’ll know I’m back and safe.

Day 12: Utrecht to Amsterdam

Last day in Utrecht.

I woke up around 7am in the hotel in Utrecht and lounged in bed a bit, exchanging texts with S who was wrapping up her day and getting ready for bed.  It was rainy in Utrecht, so I wasn’t in any hurry to go outside. Once the big bursts of rain passed, I showered, packed up, and headed out to photograph the city in the post-rain glisten.

L got up a little while later and we met at the same smoothie placed we enjoyed yesterday!  Fortified for the morning we first went to Speelklok, a museum dedicated to machine-powered musical instruments (think grandfather clocks, calliopes, music boxes, carillons, etc.).  We caught a tour just as it was starting, and the guide was able to play a bunch of the machines.  The tools are works of art and clockwork masterpieces.   One of the machines is a huge calliope/wagon that can be controlled via midi!  

After the Speelklok, we had amazing pizza (seriously, one of the best pizzas I’ve had outside of Italy), wandered around a bit more, and then grabbed our bags from the hotel before hopping on the train back to Amsterdam.  We accidentally boarded a quiet car, which a very polite young Dutch man reminded us of.

Back in Amsterdam, we immediately marveled at how dirty the city is compared to beautiful Utrecht.  This pile of bananas was waiting for us right outside the train station.

Our walk home took an hour, and when we got home, we spent some time packing for tomorrow’s flight home.  Then, we put shoes back on and headed out for a dinner.  We ate light at a tapas place not too far away (cheese plate, tomato salad, spicy grilled shrimp) and then grabbed an ice cream cone on the walk back.  

Now, as I type, we’re sitting in the living room for our last night.  Feeling tired, ready to snooze and get some good rest for our big travel day tomorrow.  Can’t wait to see S and H!

Day 11: Onwards to Utrecht!

This morning no one set their alarms, but we were all moving around by 8:30 or so.  I cooked a bit breakfast (eggs with feta, tomatoes, and basil; sauteed potatoes, and brussels sprouts sauteed with prosciutto).  K flies out today for Copenhagen and B is going to hang with her.  L and I packed an overnight bag and hopped on our bikes.  We rode across town to return them, then walked to the Amsterdam train station to hop a train to Utrecht.  

On the train.  We were told that 'only tourists travel first class,' but we're both delicate flowers.

Utrecht is a medieval city that's now a university town.  It's only about a 25 minute train ride from Amsterdam, but the pace is slower.  

The market in the main square had about 50 vendors.

Beautiful canals, and a slower pace.

A cloister at the university.

The main university building.

More canals.  More pretty.

The Smooth Brothers smoothie store was super tasty, very refreshing, and very swank.

The church is beautiful, and there was a small choir practicing while we were there.  I closed my eyes and let the reverberation wash around me.

The church started out Catholic, but when the protestants took it over in 1580, one of things they did was smash the faces of all of the figures.  No golden calves!

L and I walked around town for a few hours until we could check into our hotel, and then we took a siesta for a few hours, enjoying having our own space and privacy for the first time in a week and a half.  I caught up on some email and had a siesta.  We met up after a few hours and ambled to dinner.

The whole town is full of these beautiful flowers!

Full of canals, but much chiller than Amsterdam.

Seconds before I took this photo, the kayakers ran straight into one of the pontoon boats. Seconds after I took it, the kid on the pontoon boat fell off the boat and into the water.

Dinner was at a Greek restaurant.  It started with a shot of ouzo, included spanakopita (a first for L), and then a lamb and orzo dish that was delicious!  After dinner, we wandered town, stopping for a cocktail, two cannoli, and some beautiful streets.

After dark in Utrecht.

This underground tunnel led to a nightclub.

Day 10: Final performances and shifting plans

I woke up early this morning and had a sunrise run before B, L, and I rode across town to meet their friend A for breakfast.  We had a nice visit before heading over to the theatre at mid-day.  

Last night we decided that we were going to cancel the late show tonight and focus our energy on making a quality film of the event.  So, after a breakfast and a ride through town, the company gathered in the theatre to plan for the event.  Interview the Dead is an audience interaction play, where audiences ask questions of dead people who are played by the actors onstage.  We met to talk production strategy and to write questions for the film.  

After that talk, we had a strong run of Anatomy of a Home with a pretty full house and a very engaged talkback with the audience.  One of the things that R mentioned at the talkback was that when he chose to move to Amsterdam from Beiruit, he did it with full understanding that the food in Amsterdam was not great.  It was nice to hear that acknowledged, since so much of the food we've had here has been fine, but not amazing.  Similar to Venice?  Maybe it's a canal thing.

After the talkback, one of the design students that I talked to on Monday came by the mix position, and we had a nice talk about some of the design elements.

Between shows, H, K, R, L, and I went for food at a pretty decent Italian place.  There was a quartet of Dutch teens who were already drunk and singing loud in the restaurant.  The rest of the customers and servers all exchanged knowing glances and eye rolls.  The kids weren't hurting anyone - they were just having a good time.  

Fortified, we returned to the theatre to get ready to film.  The filming went off without a hitch.  Each character got to speak, and when it was done, we struck in about 20 minutes.  Then, we all headed to a bar for a beer before heading back to our apartments to do the next thing in our life.

Day 9: opening of both shows!

After a bit of a lie-in this morning, L, K, and I headed into downtown and across the water on a ferry to Noord (literally, 'the north') and then to the Straat Museum.  

The Straat (literally, 'street') is a museum dedicated to Street Art and Street Artists.  Instead of bringing existing street art pieces into the gallery space (which can be difficult to manage if the pieces are installed on public or private property, like, say, graffiti or yarn-bombing), the museum commissions street artists to create pieces for the permanent collection.  In that respect, it's less of a museum of street art and more a museum of street art-ISTs.  But, it was beautiful - big and colorful and meaningful!

After we left the Straat, we rode to the other ferry port and headed back south.  K broke off to have some rest this afternoon, and L and I went to a Malaysian restaurant for lunch.  Then, we hit a record store before heading to the theatre to get ready for the first performance of Anatomy of a Home.

The first performance went well - we had a small house, but they were engaged and they all stayed for a post-show discussion with R after the show.  After Anatomy of a Home, L and I took a walk with another friend of his, stopping for a snack of fries with curry mayo.

We returned to the theatre for the first performance of Interview the Dead.  The house was small, but the audience was engaged and full of questions.  H's pet tiger Flash enjoyed the show too!

Day 8: Tech Day 4!

 Last night, I got about 8 hours of sleep, far more than I had gotten in the past week.  Overnight, the temperature had dropped another 10 degrees as a windy storm passed through.  A bit of rain, and lots of gusty wind on the windows.  I woke up to the sounds of construction on the ground floor - huge power tools that rattled the whole apartment.

After showering and running a load of laundry, L and I hopped on our bikes and rode to the theatre.  The weather was cool and there were fallen leaves in the city.  A gusty breeze blew in my hair.  The first day of fall!  It's hard to believe that just three days ago it was 90F and we were sweating and miserable.

The morning was a cue-to-cue for Anatomy of a Home.   W spent last night building lots of video content, and we did a pass through the show to integrate the video cues.  I'm controlling the video computer via OSC, so we also needed to make sure that I was sending the right cues to Resolume. Plus, of course, small notes, adding blackouts, etc.  The afternoon rehearsal was successful, but we ended it an hour behind b/c we started an hour late.  

A quick lunch later and we came back to work on Interview the Dead.  This piece is entirely improvised, so the rehearsal was less about precision and more about making sure we had our systems setup for improvising a good design.  We tweaked video content and I adjusted my sound files.  No big deal.

After rehearsal, we went back to the apartment for a dinner.  Hans volunteered to cook a spaghetti dinner, with a DIY caprese salad.  It was delicious!  

Day 7: Tech Day 3!

Last night, the heat finally broke, and this morning I went for a run.  Our apartment is on the east side of down, and I ran down an narrow isthmus before returning through a small park.   Along the way, I passed a skateboard half-pipe underneath a highway overpass, and a pair of canal locks to help manage water flow.

The rehearsal day was fairly minimal.  W, our video designer, had collected hundreds of questions about the design for the show, so today L, B, R, and I basically hung around in the theatre to be able to answer questions while he worked through his design.  It let me get a bunch of UCI stuff done (syllabi, reports, outlines, etc.).  L and I also took a few walks through on breaks (23,000 steps!).

Here's a photo of the Academy of Theatre and Dance.  Our venue is on the fifth floor, in the back of the building.

If you look closely, you can see railings of a patio on the roof of the building.  We got up there and took this panorama of the city from the roof.

After rehearsal, we met up with B and R and went to Mezrab, a storytelling venue for immigrants and ex-pats in Amsterdam. R hosted the evening, which featured storytellers from Lebanon, Iran, Holland, and the US.  

B closed the evening with a story about how dangerous talking about female empowerment in Iraq is:

After the event was over, I was exhausted (from the run?  from not sleeping much?), so we hightailed it home and I was in bed by 11.15.