• A jigsaw
• Some jigsaw idiots
• Too much free time

It all started when my flatmates, Adam and Anna, went to the market and bought a jigsaw made up of loads of Euro notes. We started it that night and then found that we couldn't stop. Soon we found ourselves craving for new jigsaws. Lisa, a fellow UK exchange student that lives upstairs, was soon drawn into our jigsaw cult. She went out and bought 3 new jigsaws, each one bit harder than the last. We spend all of Saturday and Sunday doing them. You know when you have stayed up till 3am doing a jigsaw then there is something wrong with you.

I did, however, go and see the Levellers on Friday, who were much better than I thought they'd be. I ought to credit Tim on my course back home, who said they were good live. I have been to a music festival and a gig in a foreign country now, I wonder what is next... After the Levellers, I went to an Irish pub with my flatmates, their friends from Exeter and a Canadian exchange student that they had met, which was surreal, but fun. It was good to get together as a group and talk about being in a new place.

Anyway, I went into College today to check my e-mails. Tomorrow I will get to see my tutor for the first time, which will be nice, now that I have had a chance to settle in. I think the assessments for all the Dutch students are coming to a close now, so the staff have some time for the foreign students. There is a big meeting soon for all the incoming ERASMUS students, where we all have to talk about where we are from and what we do on our courses back home.

Looked around town a bit more today, so I could get a better mental map of the city centre. Bought 'Car, Button, Cloth' by the Lemonheads, which I have wanted for a while. There is a great song on it that made me laugh, called 'The Outdoor Type', about a guy who has lied about being rugged to impress a girl and has begun to regret it. 'I can't go away with you on a rock climbing weekend, what if something's on TV and its never shown again?'. That's a sentiment I can identify with. Speaking of TV, I have been watching Pokémon in Dutch and Spongebob Squarepants, telling myself that it is because I am trying to learn Dutch - when really it's just because I don't have cable at home and the idea of having two channels devoted to cartoons, FOR FREE, is possibly the most exciting thing to happen to me in my entire life. Thankfully, Dragonball Z and Transformers are on in English with Dutch subtitles. To be honest I would probably watch cartoons with no sound if I had no choice:)

I bought some more crazy Dutch chips today, with 800 tons of mayonnaise on them. I have figured out that if you get a free plastic fork then you can mix the mayonnaise into the chips so it's not all on the top of the cone. There was a man eating the remains of people's chips out of the special chip-bin near the stall. At first I thought he was just finishing his chips off next to the bin like me, but when I heard some women shouting at him and him spitting chips on the floor it clicked.

It got a bit foggy towards the end of the afternoon, as I was coming home. The tops of building were disappearing into the sky, which seemed very odd. It seems like it is overcast most of the time here, which isn't that different from Manc, or Leeds, so it's no shock to the system. You pay more attention to stuff like the weather when you are in a new place, because you are comparing everything to the things you know back home.

I felt a bit stupid today when I was in the supermarket, because the cashier said something in Dutch and I said 'sorry?' in English, which means the same in both languages. She got annoyed because she just thought I couldn't hear what she was saying and not that I was a stupid foreigner, with no grasp of the language she was speaking. It says in the book I have on Holland, not to pretend you understand when you don't, because that way you will never learn what anything means. I think she asked me if I have a loyalty card. Gonna' have to get into the habit of saying 'I'm sorry I don't speak Dutch, I am an English person'.

Anyway, ought to get on with my other hobbies.

Until next time.

Andy.

Thursday 06th February 2003

Feeling a bit washed out today. I think I stayed up too late watching music videos last night. Otherwise life here is clogland is great. 2 French guys have moved in to our flat, both are called Matt, which is less confusing than it sounds. We also have Andrew from Chicago, Sabina from Berlin and a Romanian girl, whose name I have forgotten:) The flat feels more alive now that it is full of people. Everyone seems to be getting on well and we are having a party tonight, for all the ERASMUS people that we met at the meeting earlier this week. I just went to the supermarket and bought a big crate of Grolsch for the equivalent of about £8.50. Heh. Plus I'll get some money back when I take the crate back for recycling. England take note!

Alcohol aside, I went to Eindhoven at the weekend with a couple of my flatmates, to see the new Van Abbemuseum. The guide books for Holland give Eindhoven a bit of an unfair grilling, it is actually quite a nice place. They have public urinals, which are funny, but apart from that the town centre, which is the only bit I saw, looked fairly affluent. The museum is a mix of contemporary work and classic stuff like Picasso. There was a great installation by Jason Rhoades, which despite being slightly pretentious, was full of old consoles, playing video games that made me feel nostalgic. There were loads of rollercoaster carriages shaped like pigs and a selection of onions, which was bizarre, but made me feel like I was an intellectual. There was also a collective project called 'No Ghost Just a Shell' which consisted of work produced in response to an imaginary character called 'Ann Lee', the rights to which were bought up by the artisits.

Whilst on the train to Eindhoven, I thought that I would write about how fantastic the public transport is in the Netherland . However, the snow that fell that day meant that the train back to Rotterdam was cancelled and we had to piss about for ages finding the right connecting train. Having said that, they are a hell of a lot better than British trains - we got a cabin all to ourselves on the way there and most of the way back.

Yesterday I went to the Witte De With Center for Contemporary Art, which was mostly full of conceptual video and installation work that didn't make much sense unless you read the blurb in the leaflet (which I forgot to pick up). There were a few more accessible pieces, like a set of automators which produced random projections, using stirring sand and rotating objects. There was also a framed piece of paper with a spirograph pattern drawn in blue biro, which I though Brian on my course would like, since he loves spirograph art:)

It was interesting to see the work of the other ERASMUS students, at the meeting held by the Academie, earlier in the week. I was last to speak, by which time all the people from my flat were really drunk and therefore gave me a huge round of applause before I had even stood up. I showed 'The Box' and it seemed to go down very well, with people laughing at the right bits etc.

I have been living here long enough for it to feel like it is the norm in my life, which is actually quite strange once I start thinking about it. I've found that living with people who are all at the same institution, doing art and all going through similar experiences, is a great social catalyst (wow this sounds like a Sociology text book:D). It is easier to get to know people when you already have a lot in common with them.

Anyway I ought to get going.

Until next time.

Andy.

Friday 07th March 2003

By crikey governor! It's been over a month since I last hobbied in my Holland Hobby diary! I do apologise for this unacceptable gap in the exciting coverage, but I have just ben sooooo busy with the many hobbies that I have been doing. My older brother, John came to visit me from Paris, where he lives and talks froggy language. Since he came during half term, everyone was going on trips around the Netherlands and Europe. We went to an island in the countryside called, Hoekse Waard, with a group of my friends and I neglected to rent a bike to ride around on. This meant that I ended up hitching a ride on the back of other people's bikes, which I don't recommend, unless you are seriously into masochism. I also neglected to wear enough clothes and froze my bollocks off. To top it all off, on the way back my foot slipped into the spokes of the bike I was hitching a ride on and mangled the back wheel. It was of course a rental bike, so Conner, who had rented it, lost his 50 euro deposit, which I reimbursed him for. I think this was the suckiest day I have had here, but that in itself is quite a cheering thought. Aside from that, the scenery was beautiful and I can highly recommend it (with some form of transport). See some photos of it here.

Today I have compiled some of the hobbies I have encountered in Holland and some from back home. You can look at them here.

I have been working like a busy beekeeper on the next Hexjibber animation, 'Hexjibber and the Werewolf'. I have been doing storyboards and modeling characters in 3D, which you can see some pictures of here.....DO IT!

It's getting to the point where I am thinking that I have been here a rather long time and that the thought of going back is a bit odd. I think the amount I have been sleeping recently has made time go by a bit quicker than it should, but I think time passing quickly is mostly to do with me actually doing a lot of things. I went out on 'Museum Night' where all the Museums were, wait for it...., open all night! It was really quite strange, because there were all these crazy things going on in the street, like people giving away free 'Thai Prison Soup'. There was a guy cutting people's hair with a camera attached to his hand, so you could watch what he was doing from a hand's-eye-view . He had also hooked the scissors hooked up to an amp, so that you could hear this crazy snipping noise from outside, which made you go in and have a look. Holland is stereotypically thought of as very liberal, but I think the best example of this I have found was the Church that was open on Museum Night, where they were exhibiting art, serving beer and they let you smoke. What next eh? Another ERASMUS student had managed to persuade me and many others to be in her video installation, being shown in a shop called 'Apache' on Museum Night. It involved us donning American Indian clothing and walking past the camera looking into the lens, as though looking at an exhibition. Canvases were hung in front of the video projection to make it look like the Indians were looking at them. Incidentally, whilst me and my compatriots were looking at the installation, a tramp passed by, who raps for money. Now, when people say that everyone speaks English in Rotterdam, they really mean it. This guy could rap in English, Dutch, or German...even the tramps are bilingual here! Admittedly, the standard of rapping wasn't that great, but otherwise it was pretty impressive. I also revisited the DEAF (Dutch Electronic Arts Festival) where there were loads of badass installations, including one where you wore this suit and you had to touch yourself up to make words from the story of creation (and other such stories) pop up on this big screen. Matt, one of my French flatmates, found an installation that had gone wrong and put his website on it. People walked passed and had a really good look at it, then read the blurb on the leaflet, looked confused and walked away. Later I stuck this webiste on there and laughed as the hobby idiots watched my animations. This hobby is called the 'Art Terrorism Hobby', what you will need for this hobby:

• a digital art exhibition, with access to the intermernet, that has gone wrong
• an evil hobby website
• the ability to operate a computer
• some art loving hobby idiots

Ha! Unfortunately the title 'Art Terrorism' was coined by French Matt and I can't claim credit for it.

Have a look at some pictures of me and my hommies doing shtuff here.

Anyway, must go and upload this. Until next time,

Andy.

Tuesday 25th March 2003

Check dis, been here just over 2 months. Listening to the new Children of Bodom album, 'Hate Crew Deathroll', (lovely name) which is metaller than Mr. Metal eating a metal sandwich on metal day. Mmm. I have added a couple of new hobbies to my Holland Hobby gallery. I am flabbergasted at quite how many hobbies there are in the Netherlands. It is lucky that I chose to come here.

Yes, I may be in a different country, yet people still mistake me for the same people. Three lots of people now have told me that I look like Neil from the 80s sitcom, 'The Young Ones'. I can't imagine why;) I have bought a fantastic cheesy leather jacket, which prompted a guy in bar to ask me whether I was in Bon Jovi. Also, when buying aforementioned Children of Bodom record, a woman asked me if my name was Bob. I was a little confused and asked why my name would be Bob, she replied 'You look like Silent Bob'. Silent Bob is of course the long coat wearing, fat, fanboy from Kevin Smith's films, for those reading this that aren't aware of him. So pretty accurate, apart from the fat bit.

On Saturday I got drunk in a squat where they were holding the 5th Rotterdam VHS Festival. To my surprise there were lots of good films on and not loads of pretentious ones. There was an animation featuring a rock band made up of cigarettes, which was great. A film where a girl danced in front of the camera with different types of knickers on. Plus, there was an Australian's account of his appearance on the game show 'Strike it Lucky', done in dramatic documentary form.

There seem to be lots of transformer things about at the moment, check this out : THIS

On St. Patrick's Day I decided to go with some of my flatmates, on a trip to the 'Communication Museum' in Den Haag, organised by their tutors. I thought that it would be good opportunity to see a museum with College and worthy of getting out of bed early in the morning. This was however, honestly the worst museum I have ever been to. Second only to Beamish. I thought the name 'communication', was referring to visual communication, especially as the trip had been organised by the Art School. But no, not an interesting selection of contemporary art, but a bloody museum about the Post Office. 5 Euros I paid for that....We had to watch this video about how mail is sorted, which was very cheesy. I felt like a school kid being taken around a crappy museum, getting bored. I am surprised they didn't give us a factsheet to fill in for homework. One of my French flatmates gave the film thunderous applause when it finished, which was soon mimicked by the entire group. There was a tour, which we had paid for, but it was in Dutch, so that made it even more boring. THIS IS A REAL AND SINCERE WARNING: never go to 'The Communication Museum' in Den Haag, IT SUCKS ASS. Anyway, we did also go to this museum with an old panorama painting in it, which was interesting, but did little to quell my museum anger. Left are a couple of pictures of me and my friends' happy faces after we had left the museum and had gone to the beach.

Right, I think that is enough museum bashing for one entry.
Keep it real.

Andy.

Tuesday 15th April 2003

Hello human fools. This is Andy.

This may well be my last Holland Hobby entry, as I have precisely 10 days to complete the hobby before I return to the country you earthlings call 'eNGLAND'.

The last two days an irritating person has come into the flat at 9am and drilled in a a loud fashion. This has caused me to lose vital art student sleep, only gained in the hours between 9am and noon. This is especially useful when you have stayed up till 3am doing work. The drilling will stop for just long enough for me to drift back into sleep, then start again, just to make it more annoying. I think the builder guy has something rigged up to my head to tell him when I am just about to get to sleep, so he knows when to turn the drill on really loud. He also seems to be removing the tiles from the shower for no apparent reason. The aren't old tiles. The aren't broken, or smelly or anything. I think this is a conspiracy.

Aside from tiles, me and my flatmates had another party, which was fun. The weekend before last I went to Amsterdam with some friends. I had every intention of going to some Museums and seeing the bit of Amsterdam that isn't full of British people, Coffeeshops and sex shops, which I find a little bit irritating (not as much as drilling though). However, I decided to stay with my friends, like an idiot, because I didn't want to go off by myself and get lost. We went to the market and ended up in a Coffeeshop, where I bought a hash cake. Instead of taking the cake with me and eating it at home, I decided to eat it there and then, because it was presented with an attractive free plastic fork and not in a take away bag. I'd had one of these cakes before and thought it would be nice and mild. Although, I didn't take into account the fact that I hadn't really eaten anything, I don't smoke and therefore have no tolerance for weed, I was in a crazy Amsterdam and last time I ate a cake I did it in two bits in my bedroom. So, predictably, I got mashed off my face and freaked out a bit. Everything was going at 5 frames per second, there were prostitutes everywhere and weird people that looked like they wanted to steal my bag. After I spent half an hour in a toilet and nearly got chucked out of the newest Coffeeshop my friends went to, I recovered a bit. I decided to go home. I caught a train, but to my horror, was charged for an entire new ticket, because I wasn't with my flatmate Adam, who had the group travel pass thing. That was a bit rubbish, but like my bike smashing adventure, makes a funny story in retrospect. I hear nothing but, 'Hey Andy, do you want a cake?' from my flatmates now.

Having done a storyboard for 'Hexjibber and the Werewolf', my new cartoon (and spoken to a tutor about my ideas for the first time!!!!!) I have written a script too, which I am trying to record. I have roped the French guys I live with into doing some voices, as well as Andrew from Chicago. He'll be playing a gritty whisky drinking spider, who in his youth scared Little Miss Muffet and doesn't want anyone to forget it. Matt, one of the French guys I live with, is teaching me the basics of sound editing, which I am pretty poo at. I am also making plenty of headway with the Hexjibber Headquarters that I am building in 3D. I restarted it a few weeks ago and I am feeling quite a bit happier with it. There are lots of cool desks and monitors and flashy lights...even holograms. See a picture of it in progress here.

I had an enjoyable Saturday at le Consul in Rotterdam. I headbanged for the first time since I have been here with my Spanish friends from the flat upstairs. I must congratulate them, especially Carlos on their ability to rock out:) I also met some nice metal Dutch people, who I was able to speak to about European music festivals, the narrowmindedness of some of the metal community and zombie films. Very nice chaps they were. Since the bar stayed open till 5, I went home and watched the sun rise with my flatmaes and friends, which was a enjoyable way to end a pleasant evening:) Ahhh...

The weather is gorgeous today. I am actually hot. Incredible. Yesterday I went out in a T-shirt and wasn't cold. I am looking forward to seeing everyone in England, but I don't want to leave here either. Now that two of my flatmates, both from England, have left, it has reminded me that England is still there. Not that I haven't been speaking to my family regularly. Things just seem to be winding down, because I will be leaving soon, as will my two more of my flatmates. It is strange to think that the group of people I have been socialising and working with, will probably never be in the same place again, but that is the nature of coincidence. Innit.

Anyway, I must get off and enjoy the lovely sunny day.
Cowabunga,

Andy.

Sunday 20th April 2003

Happy Easter folks. I have been told off by a few people for not putting up some more photos of people here in Rotterdam. I am terribly sorry for the delay. Click here to see the new photos. I also put some links to the photo galleries at the top, so they are easier to find.

Bo,

Andy.