Warschau

Great video by Remi Gaillard

It seems that very popular destinations nowadays are Indonesia, Thailand or Ibiza. Now I've never been to any of these destinations, but I don't think those would be vacations for me. I'd rather scatter my vacation days and go for long weekends to interesting cities and enjoy the nightlife. I like to mee the people like they are for real. Not the people who are polite because you're a tourist with money.

And because I know a lot of people from the Miami Ad School, I have quite a good network with people from abroad where I can stay. This weekend I went to Warschau, Poland to meet my former teampartner Yigit. The last time I've seeen Yigit was three years ago when I said goodbye to him in Cinema Nova Brussels.

This weekend it was as if nothing had changed (except for the location of course, which was Warschau instead of Brussels so it's a big improvement). We went partying like we always did and came home at 7.30 in the morning on both Friday and Saturday. Being in a city where you don't understand one single word of what people are saying, was kind of strange to me. But it was also very interesting.

And the drinking culture that everybody thinks that Polish people have, well...it's completely true. On Friday, before we went to all sorts of clubs, we passed a bar that I could only describe as the 'MacDonalds of alcohol'. It was a round bar at a corner, full of people. And it was totally stuffed with people who ordered drinks. There was nothing else to do there. No dancing, no talking, just ordering your wodka or beer and drink it.

As if Warschau wasn't interesting enough already, Yigit told me about an incredible amount of movies, bands and DJ's that I certainly need to check. One of the things he told me about was a French guy called Remi Gaillard, who does all sorts of Jackass stuff and puts it on the internet (see the funny video above). It was a rich, inspiring, but exhausting weekend. Relaxing vacations on the beach are not for me I guess.

Visiting old colleagues

Yes, the writing for this blog is scarce nowadays. The reason is that I'm working on a different personal project that involves a lot of writing. I'm going to make my own website and yesterday I spoke to former Young Dogs-colleague Edward Tetteroo about the execution of the project. I can't tell anything about it yet, but it's going to be something exciting.

Talking about former colleagues: tomorrow I'm going to visit my former art-director Yigit Unan. After he left Duval Guillaume, he went to Warshaw, Poland to work for an agency called Brain. Here he won a Young Gun Award together with his art-director Ania. Now he works at Leo Burnett. I'll be in Poland around lunchtime and I will visit Yigit's new agency in the afternoon.

I guess I've never been a type to go to a sunny island for three weeks. A long weekend in a strange place is more interesting and usually gives me all the divertissement that I need in a vacation.

Vacation in Amsterdam

Not only I was on vacation, but my blog was on vacation as well. It's good not to think about work anymore during two and a half weeks. After a great, but exhausting Lowlands festival, my good friend Hermanno came from Italy together with his girlfriend Stefania. I tried to show them all the interesting places where tourists usually don't come. I took them everything that can be defined as alternative, cult or underground.

But when I did that, I noticed how saturated Amsterdam is with tourists. Even in Maloe Meloe, an obscure blues-bar where there's live music every night, we saw a poster that said 'tonight Italian bands.' And the place was full of Italians. What are the odds? Wherever you go, you hear other languages than Dutch. And that is actually interesting about Amsterdam.

While keeping my Italian friends company, I also saw the city from a more touristic side. I went to the Van Gogh museum and took a trip on the Canal boats. This also gives you a new perspective on the city that you usually don't get. You discover that there's a brewery in a windmill, you discover new facts about the houseboats in the city and you hear about a beer bar where they serve 20 Dutch beers on draft.

It was an interesting and relaxing vacation. This doesn't mean that I'll never go abroad anymore, because next week I planned a weekend to Warshaw to see my former teammate Yigit Unan.