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Published: February 6th 2009
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So the song I had in my head when I worked on seemed to always be Wild Strawberries. I believe this became the theme song of Snip 5. Or maybe it was wild horses???? Anyways check out the video at the top of the screen or the following link:
In Nunspeet like I said before I was met by Kristian. HE was very different. I stayed with him the night until I went to Zwolle to check out the earth ship. He was dutch/German who lived in a squat - didn't believe in working - and was a major communist lover. He introduced me to his neighbour were I got to drink some real goats milk.
The next morning Kristian drove me to Zwolle to check out the Earth ship. He kept saying I don't understand why you want to go there they will make you work hard physically - they even do that to girls. In the end though he was like the last girl that he had stay with him was a Swedish girl who had enjoyed it. He gave me his number to call him if anything happened and he would come pick me up
Earthship site
So cute! This guy used to do the walls with his daughter on his back.as soon as I rang.
When I arrived at the site of the earth ship there was a hole bunch of construction work going on. Basically after a few days I found out that the earth ship was a self sustainable piece of architecture. It was designed by a guy called Mike Reynolds 30 years ago in Taos, New Mexico. The whole point of earth ships was to build it from rubbish or relatively environmentally friendly materials. A big thing with earth ships as opposed to straw bale houses for example is that they are made out of tyres. For more info on earth ships check out the video in this blog.
Anyways I had no idea when about this when I got there - I just wanted to do some volunteer work and this place had a nice vibe about it. I met Kevin - whom Kristian introduced me to. I asked Kevin if there was a place where I could possibly stay for free - as I had read about this on woofer and was told this was where I could work in exchange for food and accommodation. Kevin told me this wasn't exactly this type
of volunteer work.
"I can offer her a place to stay" - I heard a guy pipe up. His name turned out to be Paul. He showed me where his house was and said look everyone nos me at the earthship - if something goes wrong - they know where they can find me. I said ok - so he let me stay in his spare room - where I dropped off my bags and then went back to the earthship site and helped at 2pm. I met a few people that day including some of the Norwegians - Goran, Larissa, Birgette and Celia who were studying architecture. Their degree was really interesting sounding and very much focused on the creative part of architecture - which I would really recommend to anyone looking to study architecture. That night there was a movie showing about the Earth ship project that Oliver Hodge - who also helped out at the earth ship - had done a documentary about. So I went to movies at Deventer. Me and Larissa were driven there by Douglas. The movie was called Garbage warrior and it was pretty inspiring it sure had me really interested in working
Earthship site
Some glass bottling i did (i only did the good bits). on Earth ships.
The next morning I got to the site at 9am as that's what time the guys said roughly some of the students get to the site. That day I worked on cutting glass bottles to make bricks. Actually the next few days I started aiming to get there at 8am. Part of it was a competition with Goran cause he thought initially I wouldn't be able to make it there and I decided to prove him wrong. It was damn well freezing though in the mornings - especially as I was initially staying in my summer sleeping bag I had gotten of Jerry as a present before I had left Australia. I eventually ended up buying myself some second hand stuff - my first dutch bike which I affectionately called Jan. A big army sleeping that looked like it was put together sometime in the 70's or maybe it was from Russia or Mongolia, was my second purchase of the day. It was the best. 2.50e and I still get so much use out of it - its now the 24/01/09 as i write this - yes I'm behind but determined to catch up. So the
third purchase on the 25 of September 2009 was a pillow. This was an unlucky purchase, even though it was 1.50e because Paul was allergic to pillows of feather. Which this one was. Luckily the people who worked there let me come back and exchange the pillow. I still have it now!
The last purchase was a lock - and came in handy when Nadia came to visit me in November as i know have a spare lock woohoo! I got to go to the site around 3:30pm. It was good to hear from the family so much - i got to go on the Internet and check my email when i was in the city centre. wow i had really missed being in contact with people - it had been almost 2 weeks since I had emailed anyone. At the sight that day I pounded tyres full of dirt. Good stuff. Dinner was cheese meat balls and spaghetti. Later on I met the earth ship crew at The Living Room.
The next day the 26th of September I got to the site at 8am. Goran had no faith that I would make it but I showed him.
I helped out a bit with the roof then worded on glass cutting and doing the brick walls. Kris came to Zwolle that day for an Anime conference so I met him briefly. Saw the country side of Zwolle with Paul by bike. It was quite look - nice. Had some yummy dutch cheese from a cheese farm. That night went to a Greek restaurant with the Earthship crew ten to Eureka. Met some boys who were teaching me how to speak dutch.
The 27 of the September 2008 I was off to Utrecht with Goran. I woke up at 8am. Not feeling all that pepped to be honest. But it was good getting a message off Goran asking if i was still going. Prob was in the same boat as me and wasn't quite sure whether to get up or not.
So we met at the station and got return train tickets. Went sight seeing in Utrecht - walked around the old town - it was quite nice to be honest. Saw the Cathedral. Inside and out it was beautiful. Walked around the canals. That was quite nice.
Then we went to the Utrecht National Archives. What
possessed us to this? I really don't know to be honest. The Archives were pretty boring themselves - nothing really that exciting. So me and Goran decided to get married and have some free convention food as part of our wedding. We thought should we have helped ourselves to the wine? But we didn't lol. Good times. Oh did i tell you I took Jan my bike with me? Well yes I did.
So after the convention we went to the main centre and saw some people protesting about living in squats. After this we decided our wedding needed a honeymoon. So we checked out the university in Utrecht which had some pretty cool architecture there then went and chilled out (and fell asleep) in the park. Lucky Jerry called I think we would have slept till it got cold. It was a good day! Got back to Zwolle that night.
The next morning the 28th of September at 9:30am I had some breakfast before going to Amsterdam to check out houses. I decided to move in with Karol in OSdorp and did some paperwork for the IND and city hall in Amsterdam in terms of Visas. I
went back to Zwolle that night. On the 30th of September I got approved for a temporary visa! Woohoo! They said thaT MY working holiday visa - if approved would come in 2 months - but now I was legally able to work here! On the 2nd of October I helped out with digging and helping with carrying buckets o rocks as Simon would put it. And met Paul's dad (the guy I was staying with - who had kindly offered me on the first day to stay with him at no charge). I met Paul's sister too and we had a nice dinner at Paul's house. Then me and Goran went to the Living Room club that night. The 3 of October I had another interview in Amsterdam for work and then the 4th I went to Groningen.
After Groningen it was back to work. The 10 October, 2008 it was a sad day as I had to say goodbye to Goran. Saying goodbye to Goran on the 10th wasn't easy. He had become one of my best friends here. We had our last lunch together. I cycled into work with a cup. Had my last lunch with
the crew at Zwolle. Well working on the earthship last lunch. Got pretty wasted off all the beer from the party - and if not by the beer by the time the weed came around...
The next day was a seedy goodbye and packing up and I left on the 11th of October 2008 to go couch surf in Arnhem with Margreeth. Goodbye Zwolle, goodbye. Ill miss you!
To see more photos of Zwolle and Paul check out the following link: http://picasaweb.google.com/dkruchkoff/ZwolleNetherlands?authkey=sESP7_jJIsk&feat=directlink
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