The Day of the Shoot

<--------------Picture of the funky wall in the hotel

Today was the day the actual shoot took place of the documentary. Tomorrow and Sunday it will be continued. The past few days have been filled with setting up the set, testing the position of the cameras, figuring out the way the lights should be placed, how bright they should be and so on. As I said before I cannot reveal the details but I can tell you it is very very exciting and moving. When the moment arrived that the shoot was beginning everybody except for the several cameramen and other technicians left the set. Most of us sat outside underneath a tent and watched the event on a little screen. We all were quiet and totally excited, it is a shame I cannot go into any detail but you know what they say all will be revealed in time. Patience! What I can say it was a very memorable moment and super special. We all felt like little children excited and thrilled well at least I did. Here are some more pictures from Johannesburg for you!

I absolutely adore this plant, the flowers are just so so amazing!





Africans are just not into boring decoration!

This is my second attempt to write something today. I just finished describing all that I have been doing since I arrived when it suddenly disappeared. So there we go again. Yesterday after I got through customs and picked up my bag I was dawned by the sight of at least 50 people holding up signs with people they were about to collect. I could not see my name anywhere. Ai at the airport and already lost…I talked to a few people and found out that South Africans are most chatty and friendly. So waiting around wasn't bad at all. Then I saw a gentle faced man with my name on a paperboard looking around, I waved at him and was very relieved. We had to wait for 2 more people and once they were found we set of to the hotel. We drove through the nice green suburbs of Johannesburg and I was surprised to see how beautiful and modern everything was all looking. Wow South Africa is just very beautiful. The thing that struck me were all the high walls with barb wire or electric fences on top of those walls that surrounded almost every house like it were fortresses. It must be so strange to life like that. Is it to lock the people who live there in or to keep the world out? There were signs everywhere of security companies and signs saying there is an armed response. I saw quite some security guards walking around who were heavily and visibly armed. I think they shoot before they ask.

 

Johannesburg has a very bad reputation but because I expected the worse it wasn't half as bad as I thought. I had already spoken to some locals on the airport who had assured me it really isn't that bad at all. There are just certain areas to be avoided. The hotel is a very modern looking from the outside and enthusiastically decorated in a style I can only describe as eclectic . it is wild, creative and slightly mad but somehow it is very refreshing compared to the smooth and boring decors we fancy in Europe. I just had to take some pictures and post them for you. The rooms are decorated in a more mainstream calm fashion. Modern and hip with one of those waterfall massive showers that are just fantastic. There even is a stand for your ipod, so you can play your own music. The day was filled with running from a to b and in the evening it was hard to not fall asleep. We had dinner (Sushi yummie) in a restaurant in a nearby mall. We all sat by open doors and you could see the bats chasing each other in the moonlight. Crickets were singing in the background and it made me so curious for the rest of the country. The sushi took forever to be prepared but tasted amazing. I felt asleep as if I hadn't slept for a week and today it was al much more relaxed. But now it is time to exercise a bit ! more 2morrow!

more pictures

some pictures from South Africa

South Africa!

After a sort of radio silence on my blog because of no real breathtaking adventures were taking place at least not the type that I planned to share with the rest of the planet, something did happen that is super exciting. A friend of mine is making a documentary in South Africa and invited me to come as well. For a brief moment I felt a bit uneasy skipping classes but then I thought what the heck I can ask somebody to take notes and it wound be a problem. Even my teachers reacted with a duhhuh ofcourse you should go, absolutely no problem. So now I am in Frankfurt waiting for my connecting flight to Johannesburg. I left Schiphol, Amsterdam a few hours ago and have to wait another 5 hours to catch the connecting flight to South Africa. I am not only excited about the film project but also about seeing Africa for the first time. Asia feels like an old friend but what about the other continent? I will soon find out.

 

The first funny thing happened in Amsterdam. I rushed down to the gate and suddenly saw some familiar faces! Two old high school teachers were waiting for the same plane and were just as surprised to see me. They told me that they were going to St. Petersburg to organize things for an upcoming school trip. Wow a school trip to Russia, very cool! I can remember going to Prague and Rome with that school but never as far away as Russia.

I was sitting just behind business class in very comfortable spot; it was a quiet flight with nice sandwiches and hmmmmmmmm chocolate. It is so easy to make your customers happy; chocolate is almost always a perfect idea. The food was a lot better than the yucky stuff they feed you at KLM.

Flying over Frankfurt it reminded me of Finland (a bit) there was quite a lot of forest, low building some high rise office blocks and a very big airport. There are only expensive shops and lots of restaurants. Due to the strict baggage regulation which I find absolutely ridiculous I had to set out and buy very expensive water but I brought enough munchies to set up my own little food stall. Until now it seems unlikely that there is an internet connection, I did see some computers standing around to serve the web. But you have to pay. Tja. I will go and explore the area a bit more and see if there is a wireless hotspot somewhere. It seems strange that in these modern times you cannot use your laptop in a modern airport.

 

I love airports all these different nationalities on there way to some place in the world. The possibility (if you got the cash and a possibly needed visa) to travel anywhere gives you some sense of freedom and endless possibilities. Ofcourse this is an illusion but if only I had an unlimited creditcard then I would love to just show up at the airport and think hmmmmmmm let's go to this or that place today! Somebody in the plane asked me if it is save to go to Johannesburg, I replied with; probably not but I am going anyway. It is supposedly one of the most dangerous cities in the world but well I try to keep myself out of trouble. I took my ring off changed my watch for a cheap looking one and hope that I wound look to tempting for any robbers.

 

Conveniently there was a jointlocking workshop at the Kung Fu school yesterday and I learned lot's of nasty things that can be performed on even more nasty people. You never know when these things come in handy. We certainly had fun bending eachother in the most impossible position. The teacher had sent all of us a mail saying: bring your favorite training partner so you can practice together. Hi hi yes I guess it is better when you practice on friends then you are more careful and they will forgive you when you possibly hurt them a bit. Anyway you need to practice on a real person to get it right. Okey the power is running low, time to find some power.

Beautiful Sunset

Yesterday, i just had to take some picture of this beautiful winter sunset. It is quite cold in Leiden and the skies are bright and clear at least they were yesterday.
enjoy!

oeeeeeeps

Sunday evening i was checking the website of the university to make sure of the time and place of the major exam i thought I had on Monday. Yes exactely as I thought at 1p.m. at the sportscentre! I studied till the early morning organised myself made some Ginseng tea with Goiji berries to make my brain work a bit better, chewing gum as that is also supposed to help with concentration and packed my law books. I listened to some Buddhist chanting while riding down there on my bike. The sun was out, the light was bright and there was a winterfeeling in the air hmmmmmmmmmm not a bad day for an exam…..i thought.

While dreaming away and enjoying the ride it all looked perfect. I should have known it was too good to be true. The first thing that went wrong was that my watch was 5 minuts behind, so quickly I found a place and checked if that was the exam from the law department. So it was. I was installing myself for a 3 hours writing session, putting my ink jar out, Ink jar? Yes ink jar I like to write with old fashioned ink that you can suck into your fountain pen. Its probabely some strange fetish but It just writes nices. I also have a lucky fountain pen, a bright blue Cross pen, it writes great and the idea of making an exam without that pen is just unthinkable! I was writing down my name and studentnumber and checked if the exam was complete so it was. Hm while reading the first question it struck me how much easier these questions were to the previous exam hm and different….strange and while staring at the paper with the invitation to come to the discussion of the exam, I suddenly saw it. Was this just a bad dream, me hallucinating because of lack of sleep? Hm I am afraid not. Well the exam had just started. Istuck my finger in the air and one of the people who babysit us during exams came up to me, she had just been at my table and crossed my name on the list. Do you want more paper she asked? Ehhhhhhhh no not really I replayed, eh i need the other exam maybe I am in the wrong part of the hall…. I need to do exam such and such..my face turning more red every second not to mention the upcoming feeling of panic. Somebody hissed at me: that exam is on Wednesday….She was smiling well I guess it was rather funny if you are not me. !!!!!!!!!!!!

The lady went to fetch a teacher. Then I could explain my problem once more. There he was, he was most surprised but very friendly. Almost laughing this is most unussual he said. Yeh I bet it is. I kept repeating that it was so stupid and that I had checked the night before. This course had two versions of which you had to choose one; there is only a minor diffence in the name tja. You can do this one if you like he said oh yeh you did not prepare it. That is right, i wish I had ,the questions looked much easier and more intresting! He went away to make some phonecalls to get me on the list of the Wednesday exam.pffffffffff the lady came back to me and said well now you have to wait and sit here thinking about your sins for 30minutes… (That is a rule to prevent fraude you cannot leave the exam in the first 30min). The teacher returned saying that he had phoned the education information centre and they wanted me down there with a copy of the email the sent me confirming that I had signed myself in for this exam. I thanked the teacher and ran off.

 

Telling myself to look at it from the bright side now I had more time to prepare! At least I did not miss the exam… I printed out the paper they had requested and inmediately went to the office at the law department. After waiting for a while, it was my turn. They told me it was a lot of paperwork but for this time only they would do it. Big relieve. It took a while but then it was done, the lady said it is possible something goes wrong and your name is not on the list. It should be but it might not. I could just invisione it all go wrong but then the lady wrote a very official looking letter stamping it with an impressively big stamp saying this should do the trick.

Relieved I went home. In the evening, there was liondance and demonstrations in the Who Ping restaurent to celebrate Chinese New Year. That was really nice to see and do. It is always good fun. Yesterday I made the exam. What a relieve it is over. Because of all the study work, I cannot attend most of the demo's and New Year performances. I wish I could but unfortunately, I cannot. Well back to work now, Wishing you all a wonderful day!!!!!