Like this:

In my last post I was mentioning that I finally got in contact with my boss (who left me two weeks without work, not really communicating about the issue) and was going to walk my “own” stable group of dogs near Central Station. Well, let´s say that didn´t go too well.. My boss was walking with me, but I had to manage all the dogs (a group of five) myself, that means five dogs on five separate leashes. Luckily they were all medium size or small, so there wasn´t any 80 kg newfoundlander or such, but still it was quite some force and each of the dogs had a different pace, different ability to walk nicely at the leg, and one of the dogs was stopping every few seconds to sniff/lick and had to be pulled constantly from places. We walked through the centre for a few hours, picking up the dogs at several locations quite far apart, and just in the end we managed to get to Westerpark, where the dogs spent about five minutes…the rest of the time we were walking on the busy crowded streets with traffic coming from all sides – bikes, trams, cars…I really didn´t feel safe and I had a bad feeling I can´t protect the dogs well enough from the traffic. Needless to say I was utterly physically exhausted, because with five dogs you can´t just take a break to take a sip of water or anything…After this first real trial walk I decided to quit the job, because (besides my boss being one of the worst cases of poor communication I´ve encountered so far) I didn´t want to be involved in walking a way too big group of dogs in a way too busy part of town, where the dogs don´t even have a chance to play around or run without a leash in the green…

That left me jobless – familiar feeling…I posted a couple of adverts online for private dog walking, but that is quite hopeless I believe, as there are soooo many dogwalking companies in this city. I visited some “uitzendbureaus” (job agencies), but they always require knowledge of Dutch. Another big irony was applying once more for the callcentre job (where they were urgently looking for Czech speakers for several weeks) just to be told that they actually hired some Czech speakers YESTERDAY. Now I really wonder what fate has in store for me, maybe something I am meant to do…? Tomorrow I have one appointment for a job, but more about that next time…I am a bit superstitious already! Meanwhile Nardo finished his training at Starbucks and this week is working for real, at the café locations…some days he already starts at 6 a.m., poor guy Of course, that means getting up at 4:30, can´t say I´m thrilled about that either even though I can still sleep after he leaves :-p

We are still looking for somebody to live in our room, because the 17 year old girl that was supposed to rent it, is not to be heard of…so back to couchsurfers…would so like to find somebody nice!! Jurgen, our landlord, also started the project of putting in new pipes for the gas so we had a lot of drilling going in, it took many hours and still it´s not completely done, as we need the pipes to be a bit covered and not sticking out everywhere :-p Hopefully he will finish this tonight (while I go hide away from the house, to a vegan dinner at a squat, where my friends are gonna be cooking). There was so much dust everywhere after the works! Well, at least it made me finally go to the Blokker to fetch a proper bucket for our mop…

A few days ago me and Nar met up in town with Renate, our former flatmate from Uilenstede, who now lives with her boyfriend in Den Haag, she told us a lot about her trip to Tibet, where her boyfriend is putting together a documentary film about the Tibetan people. It was quite sad to hear how life there is for the locals, being ruled by the Chinese who try to totally remove their cultural identity Sadly, Renate is moving soon for half a year to Hamburg to work there, so meeting her is a rare occasion…Yesterday I visited Nancy from the children´s farm (“kinderboerderij”) where I used to volunteer 2 years ago, helping out with the animal care. There are still many animals there (and even a new Shetland pony, goats, cats and rats), but it was upsetting to hear Nancy´s story about the farm desperately needing money to keep going and not getting any from the city The farm is only open until 1 p.m. because there are not people who would go there in the afternoon to keep it open. Overall, it was quite a depressive visit, even though it was nice to see my old friend again, and the animals. There´s definitely many children that love to go visit the place, to get the contact with the furries…

Last Friday we went with Nar to a CouchJam at the Amsterdam Couchsurfing Zone in Talia, which is a shop with Italian specialties, where you can also eat, but which is more famous for being the heart of the local couchsurfing community. The couchjams are regular meetings where people (usually couchsurfers living in Amsterdam or just travelling through here) get together to play some music (depends who brings which instruments plus the café has some of their own), sing, drink and eat Italian food. You only pay for the drinks and the food comes with it – that´s an Italian “apperitivo”. It was quite nice to meet some couchsurfers again, unfortunately there was hardly any glutenfree food (often the case with Italian cuisine ) and there were not too many songs that I would know or want to play, we were a bit in need of lyrics and chords both…

I am happy to announce that I recently purchased a great, supercheap “fietstas” – a Dutch double bag to put on your bike, behind your saddle, and where you can place pretty much anything, but it´s made especially for groceries. Helps my back a lot, since I don´t have to carry all the heavy stuff in my backpack now! Brilliant…Last weekend we chose to go to the organic market at Nieuwmarkt instead of Noordermarkt, which was a nice change (they also have a lot of great food), we bought some fruit and veggies (the first kale – or boerenkool – of the season!!) and also some items at the macrobiotic stand (yes, you heard right!). I also got slightly addicted to the Amsterdam “toko´s”, the shops with Asian food items(and not only food, in some cases). Especially the biggest and oldest toko in the centre in Zeedijk is luring me whenever I am there, you can get a lot of hard-to-find Asian ingredients at good prices, even some macrobiotic ones…a bit hard to find healthy food, not speaking of organic, but…can´t afford having all I buy the most expensive!

This brings me to an important information: I launched my new macrobiotic blog, where you can track my progress and look for some inspiring recipes (hopefully). Check the links on the right sidebar…