My alarm wakes me up at half past three, one hour and a half after I went to bed. As usual my planning has been a disaster. The travelgear I ordered on the internet wouldn't have arrived before today if I wouldn't have picked it up myself yesterday, my bank cards seemed to have arrived just in time but they still had to be activated by taking out money at an ATM in Holland (only then I realized that I didn't put any money on my new account yet, just too late to transfer money to it before the banks closed), I had to get some dollars and my malaria pills... at eleven at night I started to pack my bag and three hours later I was almost ready to go. After a shower there's an ... read more

“You can always recognize British people easily,” Jonny says, “they walk like they’re not entirely normal.” I smile. He should know; he’s British and he’d be the first to admit that his own motorics fit his description. We’ve walked through the costums office on our way from Spanish La Linea de la Concepción to British Gibraltar and now we stand packed and ready with our guitars and equipment in the oppressive heat before a barrier. Waiting for airplanes. Yes: laying right across the one and only access road to the city are the runway and airstrip of Gibraltar airport. Practical. Maybe a "hidden" sign of the Dutch that conquered this little part of Spain together with the British then. Airplanes in 1700? Hmm. “No, then the Brazilians,” Jonny interrupts my thoughts, “they dance when they walk! ... read more

Dzzjjj-zzjjj-zzjjjj-zjjjunggggg… Oh no. Not “dzzjjung”, is it? Not now. I silence the “it’s-your-own–fault-told-you-so” moaning voice in my head while I try all possible combinations of choke, gear and gas until I can’t remember anymore which ones I tried. Now I flooded the engine for sure. In the meantime I’m talking to my dear friend who I have left standing there workless with it’s front wheel against the curb for a few weeks now, and I beg him to please keep grumbling this time when the starter keeps quiet. I promise that this week we’ll drive a few hours every day. Yes: I’ve planned to leave Cádiz tomorrow to go back to Holland for a little while. By bike. Or, well… Dzzjj-zzjjjungg. With my parents and my brother Koen, who had driven three thousand kilometers to come ... read more

Cádiz is a peninsula that’s just as big as the city itself: where the houses stop, the ocean begins right after the citywall. All the houses are built really close to eachother in a try to prevent the burning sun to get in. But still both the heat and the humidity that makes the air heavy always find their way in. They seep down through the roofs, they creep through the thin walls with flaking stucco or they slip through one of the few barred little windows, to settle there inside the walls and the rooms, never to leave again. In all walls and rooms, but mainly those at the ground floor. I lived at the ground floor. I had a little window above my sink; a connection to the courtyard of the house. It wasn’t ... read more

After a week I felt more at home in Cádiz then I had felt in Belgium in three years, and only fourteen months later I set foot on Dutch ground again. But of course the city had it’s own drawbacks that made me think of my grey, cold, organized home country with more melancholy than I could have possible imagined before. Rare moments it were, but still. "Mamááá!" Wuh? I hear Nero barking. Birds chirp in the courtyard. "Mamááá!" Somewhere a baby cries. It’s not even half past six yet. I hide my head in my pillow while I try to convince it that I really haven’t woken up yet. My head doesn’t believe me. "Ricardo, callate, ya vengo! Mamááá!" Upstairs the dog goes mad. If I wouldn’t know better, I would get out of bed ... read more