Culture Shock

The Sturovo residence.

I woke up with my mind still floating in between the many intense dreams I had during the night. So much has happened in, what I thought to be, my last week in Sturovo; meeting Peter, job offers, new potentialities, never a dull moment in my life. Too many options, ideas, yet I desire emptiness, calm, just being. In between all of the chaos, turmoil of my mind and heart I did get a glimpses of timeless emptiness, of just being in the quiet presence Peter.

A Dutch residence

I have left that reality, got on a plane as planned and find myself in the apartment of my cousin Agnes in Amsterdam. The difference between my Zen-like residence in Slovakia and the utter clutter of a typical Dutch home could not be contrasting.

Queens birthday Amsterdam, Netherlands.
I watch Saturday morning TV as I am too tired to get going. I haven’t stared at a TV set for 6 months, interesting stuff really, about art, the Dutch queen who is an artist in her own right, an exhibition she curated, a Dutch man who build a life-size arc of Noah for real, and the story of Soviet solders who were killed in a Nazi prison camp in the town where I was born. I used to play in one of watchtowers of the camp remnants as a kid. I can’t believe how all these seemingly random TV programmes relate to what is current my life at the moment. They stimulate my senses trigger my creativity.

The Queen visiting Den Bosch, Netherlands. People have a need to see 'their' king or queen, the king or queen needs to be seen by 'his or her' people to make the relationship real.

I am in Amsterdam to film the abundant queens birthday celebrations. The weather is just fantastic. The people buzzing with spring energy, ready to party all weekend. At the surface life seems effortless, full of light, joy, riches and such a different reality from Slovakia. I lived longer in The Netherlands than anywhere else, yet I feel like a visitor to another planet, very familiar yet so strange and unfittingly foreign.

A royal wave by a different kind of queen, Amsterdam, Netherlands