Living near the Queen, sex shops and the best bakery in the world

Oh hello friends,

What a crazy time it has been for this adventuring creative. Magical things have been a happenin' on the left, the right and even in the ruddy centre of all places!

If you have been following my adventures you will already know that myself and Beauty (my soul mate travelling creative companion) have been hunting for somewhere to live in Amsterdam so we can have a base from which to stretch our creative branches.

Den Haag, political centre of Europe that is named
after the sound you make when you have something
nasty stuck in your throat. The sound of politics.

So time was ticking, Joe and Jess had Christian Baled on us (they had little choice) and we had an email from some man in Den Haag (the big political city by the sea, 40 mins from the Dam) who had a room in his flat. We were ready to go further afield. We had heard mixed things about Den Haag, but after a long conversation sat on our magic bench (just by a bridge near where we were staying, there were ninja ducks fighting with koots there, it was a fight to behold! The koots kept trying to steal the ducks baby! Someone should make a soap opera with ducks, call it a "duck soup opera") and one or two "jazz fags", we decided that we should give it a go, we had nothing to lose except our shoes.

A skype call was arranged, something that no scammer had been brave enough to do. This was a good sign, this dude might be a genuine person with a genuine room to rent in a genuine house. Positive vibes were floating around us, we made tea (as is our right as English people) and sat on our bed on the floor to speak to our possible future housemate. Rauf answered, and a long conversation followed.

Now, Beauty and I had a very particular set of things we wanted from our abode, and these were the reasons we had little success up until this point. So, chatting to Rauf in Den Haag we went through our list of particulars. Big bedroom - yes, Furnished - yes, Garden? - yep, Washing machine - you bet ya, Funky kitchen with super over? - oh hell yeah!, internet without parental control? - of course.
With so many things having been ticked off, many jokes shared and positivity felt from both ends of the skype phone, we were left with just one final big one... Smoking??? (this is the one that is almost impossible to find, thanks to the European smoking bans no one wants to be within 100 feet of a smoker, let alone let one live in their house!)... we weren't sure how to ask, how do you share your socially crippling habit with a voice over the inter-phone?

Me smoking at the time...of course.

We were smoking at the time of course, there was no camera. For all we knew, Rauf was doing the same, puffing away safely behind the screen, or, he could have been painting an anti smoking banner on his floor ready to go and protest outside a tobacco factory, we had no way to know, all we could see was a little smiling picture of Rauf's face (or, at least some voice pretending that the picture was them).
So, spit it out I must (not literally, that would burn the carpet!), so Rauf, err, just one last thing, one pretty big last thing...erm, well, you see the thing is that...we, are, well, we are both smokers...
...
...
"Me Too, I smoke like a chimney"!
Oh the sweet relief to know that we would be able to slowly kill ourselves one smoke at a time in the comfort of our own home. This place sounded perfect.

So off to Den Haag we came, met Rauf, spent the evening looking around the city, then headed back to Amsterdam to go and get our stuff. The house was everything we had asked for, down to the littlest details.

Life just moves at breakneck speeds sometimes. We have been living here in our lovely new place in Den Haag for over a week now, and life is starting to settle down. I am deep in the writing of my next set of songs, and our job hunts have been going okay. The place we are living in is so close to everything we could need, and a whole load of stuff we don't really need but it's nice to have near anyway...like a sex shop. A shop that sells lovely sexy based things to cater for a wide variety of interesting perversions, subversions, conversions and sexiness.
The sex shop is on the end of our road...and on the other corner opposite it is the best bakery in the world. So a nice loaf of bread and a fresh dildo are always just at the end of the road should I require them, of course, there is always more need for one over the other.

This creative continues to adventure...although for now, it is in Den Haag.