These are the cards I've had to use the past 5 months (top three rows), plus the ones I carry around with me even though there is no particular need for them (bottom two rows). Plus, I already sorted out 6 more cards about a month ago. What a f***ing load!

Third day of school today (Wednesdays are always off) – Type Design and Concept Design. The latter with Gert Dumbar, founder of Studio Dumbar, who was introduced to me as being 'strange', 'funny' and 'a bit full of himself' but nonetheless also as 'one of the greatest Dutch designers of all time'. And indeed, my first impression: though a bit chaotic, a very nice, enthusiastic and lovable character, who doesn't hesitate to tell you, your work is crap, when it really is. I'm curious what I'll be able to learn from. In the picture you see him discussing the project – Manual for Demonstrations – with the internationals and a couple of the Dutch students.

1) Hold your wallet next to the black box to open the door.
2) Please turn wheel for desired temperature.
3) Captain Nemo's clean-cut hallway.
4) Workout with a view.
5) Type in apartment number to have your postbox turn up.
6) No washing powder, no softener, just machines.

KABK or Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten Den Haag – the school I'll be spending my summer semester '08 at, had an 'Open House Day' yesterday. Basically information event, self-representation and exhibition all in one. Good chance for me to check out what I'm gonna have to deal with for the next couple of months.

From the outside, the school doesn't look much like anything, it's even uglier than our beloved H_DA. For all I know, it could've also been some sort of factory. Inside it didn't look much better first, but at some point you cross into an old building with high ceilings and huge windows. Now that's more how I like it :) The halls and ateliers were crowded like hell as half of The Hague seemed to wanna have a look at the school. But somehow I still managed to walk around for two hours without getting stressed out. There were lectures, workshops, informations stands, weird music playing (one-man keyboard show + live experimental electro / sound creation) and of course lot's of exhibited work.

The shown projects were on an exceptionally high level – amongst them a photo series about waiting rooms...hehe – especially from the Graphics and Type departments (there's also Fashion, Digital Media, Architecture and Fine Arts). Gonna be quite a challenge to keep up the pace, but to be honest I'm just burning to start working and take in as much as possible. I'm already kinda pissed that I missed out on the first three weeks. But tomorrow I'm gonna clear the paperwork at the International Office, get introduced to the profs / courses and finally get started! Whoohoo!



By the way: I didn't follow an invitation by Ruiter to go clubbing at one of The Hagues biggest venues last night, because my brain is just bursting with old and new input, impressions and images. My bike is still useless, as I can't find a friggin' bicycle pump anywhere (there was one on every street corner in CPH). And I met a very pretty blond dutch girl today in the apartment building, who just happens to live on the same floor as I and guess what, also studies Graphic Design at KABK... :)

In case anybody hasn't noticed it yet, I am as of now also writing unqualified crap about music at Music Sounds Better With You under the name of 'kid yeah!'. If anybody wants to join this highly sophisticated round of award winning critics, just give me call – we're constantly looking for more writers. Not to forget the 'Sleeping Beauty' Ambitious Slackers of course (props to ma boys!), where I'm non-frequently posting bullshit as 'der lange'.

The odyssey started last Monday. After having finished my illustration work the weekend before, I had to present all my semesters work to two of my teachers. All in all a very relaxed atmosphere, nice chat and some long awaited, legitimate and useful critique! Well, you didn't get that often at DKDS – usually everything was always just 'great', 'nice' and 'very good' – so I was actually quite happy about it. The rest of the day I spent cleaning up my workspace, having a chat with Kári and going shopping for sweaters (got two). In the evening I met Henrik for one last time to have a couple of beers and good conversation. In the end we wondered, why we hadn't done that more often in the past...

Tuesday started quite late, as I couldn't get my ass out of bed. After finally having managed, I started cleaning up my room, taking off all the things I had hung up on the walls. Then some dish washing and trying to dissemble my bike – I had to take it halfway apart in order for it to be allowed on the plane. Actually all simple tasks: let the air out of the tires, cover the chain, turn the handlebar and take the pedals off. Actually. The first three were in fact no problem. But taking those damn pedals off. Fuck. I was trying for one hour with arguably crappy tools when Simon came down and told me, we had to get ready for practice. Ok, next day then.

After playing soccer with the boys one last time, I met up with Guilom, Dora, Gabo, Manu, Andrea, Mirco and Kári for good food (by Dora) and wine (by Mirco). I was one hour late because one of our car's headlights broke and it took Jonathan almost 45 to repair it. Anyways, after an undefinable but good rice dish and some amazing apple pie we headed on to 'The Moose', one of our favorite because cheapest and coziest bars in Copenhagen. And to my surprise there were Yoshi, Johannes, Dot and Schwan! I actually didn't expect to see them again, as I wouldn't have known when – this was my last night in the city. Andrea had called them, but hadn't told me about it. Cooles Ding :) I just felt a little bad, as they'd already been waiting for one and a half hours, but I just didn't know! Anyways, nice to see these guys again and have some nice last talks. In the end I was home at 4. But not before having seen Mirco hook up with 5 girls in one night (!), Kári – who is a husband and father of a little girl – as wasted as I've never seen him before and Andrea intimately kissing and leaving with some Danish dude. Plus some fun with the light switch and invitations to Paris, New York and Iceland. Hehe.

Next day I got up at 11, planned was 9 – not taking into account the saying goodbye to Jonathan who left for work at 7 in the morning. It took me three hours to shower, clean up the room and pack everything up. My taxi would come at 16:45 and I wanted to grab some late lunch with Simon. Left me with about one and a half hours to get those damn pedals off my bike. More than enough. Wrooong. After two hours of helplessly trying to get them loose, bringing the bike to the bike store at the corner ("Sorry, we don't have that tool here..."), screaming, freaking out and panicking, I just let them be. Fuck it. After all, no one complained at the airport. But this completely useless waste of time left me with only half an hour to grab some food with Simon. Our choice were greasy french fries and burgers from the place around the corner. After talking too much and having to wait too long for our food we had approximately 6 minutes to eat, before the taxi arrived. Sad but also funny in a way :) After a short goodbye I was off to the airport.

And that's where the real trouble started. My bags + bike + backpack + skateboard, which took me half an hour to get to the check in counter, were to heavy. Allowed are 32kg per bag, everything above wont go on the plane because insurance for the airport staff doesn't cover injuries from lifting such heavy loads. I had 34kg and 27kg. That meant: repacking. On the airport. Are you fucking kidding me?! No choice though. If I wanted to get on that plane I had to. After 5 tries of weighing and always having one of the bags slightly above 32, I finally managed to get both at around 31,8kg. Luckily enough the check in lady was very nice and patient with me. After this mess, I had to of course pay for my overweight luggage. Can't do that at the check in, have to do it at another counter. Great. Went there, showed my ticket (40 minutes to take off), wanted to pay the extra 20€. With my credit card. "We don't take credit cards, only cash." WTF?! Fuck you!!! "Ok, where's the next ATM?" "Oh, only three gazillion kilometers that way, past all these endlessly long queues and through these 5 million people." Maybe not that bad, but still ten minutes off my time.

30 minutes to get through security and on that plane. No prob, security's always quick at Copenhagen Airport. Wrooong. A friggin' 150m long cue! After ten minutes and moving 50m I asked one of the hostess ladies, if there was a way to cut the line. Thankfully there was. Running another 2 kilometers, cursing and sweating, I reached the gate. Only to find another 100m queue! The boarding hadn't started. The plane was late.

With one hour delay we took off, I slept like a baby the whole trip and at 8 o'clock I was in Amsterdam. Called Ruiter (the guy who I'm renting the room from), searched a while for my bike, found it and went to the quite easily accessible train station. At about 9 I was on the train to The Hague, where arrived completely exhausted a quarter to ten. Since they didn't have trolleys at the train station I had to carry my stuff in stages: backpack, bike and one bag for 100m, drop them, get the other bag and do the whole thing over again. At the entrance Ruiter was already waiting and helped me carry the stuff the rest of the way. Luckily the apartment building is only 5 minutes walk away from the train station – and it has an elevator.

At ten o'clock Standard Western European Time I had finally arrived. Ruiter – who by the way is a very nice graphic design student in Rotterdam – showed me the room (see below), put some life back into me by handing me a Red Bull and explained the building to me. After that we chilled a bit at his friend Ringo's place (just one floor below), Ruiter went home to his parents, I started to unpack some stuff and finally hit the sheets at about 1.

The next day I woke up to find out that I'm living in the wrong part of The Hague: right on the border to the ghetto, the good neighborhoods being on the completely other end of town, and only 100m away from the red light district, where – as I checked today – the girls are just way too pretty to be working as prostitutes. On the other hand I'm only 5 minutes away from city center and hey, look at the view :)

Tada! And here it is. My new home, a one room apartment in a super-modern-high-tech skyscraper in The Hague. I'll write a bit more about the building on another occasion, just this much – no keys but chip cards instead, own fitness center, fully automatic post boxes and washing machines, 24h security. The pictures are as follows: room, room, the tower at night, view from my room during day, view at night.

Ok, my time in the Netherlands now amounts up to exactly 48 hours. Since then I've spent two afternoons walking through the city trying to see and feel as much as possible. So here's some first insight and points of view on The Hague. Please don't take any of this for granted or to be the full truth. Like I said, it's only been two days and these are really just some very distanced 'tourist impressions' :)

• the people aren't anywhere close to being as well dressed as the Danes
• the girls are definitely not as pretty as in Copenhagen
• there are much more foreigners here, from what I've seen I'd say maybe 40-50% of the population
• the city is much bigger than I expected, it has almost half a million inhabitants and even seems a bit bigger than Copenhagen (although I have to admit that CPH always felt smaller than the numbers stated)
• on the other hand, due to its many small cobbled streets and narrow buildings it also feels quite cozy and small-townish
• the architecture in The Hague is very differing: big old government buildings, small brick town houses, modern office buildings made of lots of steel and glass, victorian mansions as well as a big number of ugly-ass concrete monsters from the 50s/70s similar to the ones you'd find in Darmstadt
• therefore the city also has a different 'feel' depending on where you are – from beautiful/comfortable to downright ugly/unpleasant
• prices in general seem much cheaper than in Denmark, closer to what you pay in Germany
• the language...hehe...yes, the language: not as ugly and mumbled as Danish, but still quite funny to listen to for the german ear, mostly 'cute', sometimes just plain ridiculous
• although I haven't had much contact with the Dutch, they also seem very friendly and helpful, maybe not as stuck up as the people back in CPH
• it is fucking windy! Damn! I thought Copenhagen had lots of draft, but The Hague definitely tops it
• and oh yeah: just because it's Holland, not everyone smokes weed out on the open street, should get that cliché out of my head reeeal quick

1) Farewell t-shirt Simon and Julie made for me. Thanks so much guys!
2) New favorite poster. Bought in Copenhagen, hung up in The Hague.
3) 0,50 € in a chinese supermarket. So far too afraid to touch it...
4) Near the beach in Scheveningen.
5) Duck Fight! Went on for ten minutes. No clue why.