An update

It's been over two weeks since I last wrote a blog post here. I meant to write something sooner and in fact I had inspiration for a blog post, but never finished it. So here's another update on my life here in Prague.

The past few weeks I have been watching quite a lot of ice hockey. It all started off when two colleagues and me decided we would go visit a hockey game from HC Sparta Praha. That first game was a really exciting one and the three of us shared very positive stories on the workfloor. The next week more people wanted to join, so that time we went with a group of 5 people. This process went on and on and in the end we went to see the games with large groups of Accenture-employees - every time new people - and I became a real HC Sparta Praha-fan. I even bought a shirt of my favourite player! These days it's getting more and more exciting as we are in the playoffs already. I can't wait for the final: it would be great to see Sparta become league champion and to celebrate that achievement with the other Spartans.

Also, I went to the concert of Sunrise Avenue last weekend. And what a great concert it was! Usually I tend to go to concerts of less well-known bands, so I didn't know what to expect. I was amazed by the great performance. I already knew that lead singer Samu has an amazing voice, but it turned out that the guys in the band could also sing pretty well. Especially the guy on the keyboard was very good. It was just a pity that he didn't play the song "Piano man", like I once heard a keyboard player play at a concert in Tilburg. It would have really added something extra to their concert. But in the end I can't complain, it was great to finally see those guys perform.

So next weekend I will be going back to the Netherlands for a few days and after that my travel season will start again. More about that will follow in my next post.

Žižkovska Noc

Some of you will remember Tom Dice, a Belgian singer who kept it simple at the Eurovision Song Contest of 2010. The whole Belgian act of that year was just one guy with one guitar, singing a song called "Me and my guitar". It's a very basic formula, but it was successful: Belgium finished 6th in that contest; their best result in years. This weekend I encountered another guy that liked to keep his music as simple as possible.

It all started last Friday, when I was at the Žižkovska Noc (Night of Žižkov. This is a music festival where some relatively unknown bands get a chance to perform their songs in front of an audience at several locations in Žižkov, which is a neighborhood in Prague. The days before the festival I made a list of all bands I wanted to see and based on that list I made a schedule for the night.
We started off at U vystřelenýho oka, a typical Czech pub where some Czech folk-singers would perform. Unfortunately we were too late to see some guy with his harmonica perform (or he never showed up, because it was quiet for the first 15 minutes), but the first performance we saw, a guy on a guitar with a girl on a violin that could not be heard most of the time, was kind of nice.
After half an hour the second performer entered the stage. This was one of the three artists I was looking forward to see that night. After getting himself and his equipment ready for the show he, a young guy with messy hair, came to the microphone and said the legendary words: "Hello, this is me and this is my iPod, and we are going to play some songs together."
He walked to a stool with his iPod on it, pressed the "play"-button, and we could hear music. He put on his guitar, walked the microphone, started playing on the beat that came from his iPod and then an amazing voice, one that you would expect from an experienced internationally famous singer, came from his barely 18-years old throat.
To my left were sitting his father, younger brother, mother and his favourite aunt. The latter two with a huge smile of pride. I really enjoyed the 30 minutes that he was playing and was amazed by his creativity. Him and his iPod. What a great combination.

The rest of the night we saw several other performances, including one by a nationally famous band called Imodium at Klub Matrix, but none of them made a bigger impression on me than this young guy had done. He calls himself J. Remember that name.

Learning a foreign language online: is it possible?

A few weeks ago a gave me a link to a website where one can learn a language online. I wasn't really interested in this and didn't believe that it's actually possible to learn a language online, but just out of curiousity I had a look and tried out a free course basic Lithuanian, as this is a fascinating language to me.

The first lesson was surprisingly easy. I wrote down some simple Lithuanian in a writing exercise, spoke some words in a speaking exercise and passed the final test on vocabulary with 94%. So I moved on to the second lesson. While working on this lesson, I received an e-mail in my inbox: somebody had left a review on my work. I had received feedback from a Lithuanian member of this website on my writing exercise and learned from the corrections.
Ok, very nice, I thought, now back to lesson 2 again. A few minutes later I received another e-mail. This time another Lithuanian speaker gave me feedback on my speaking exercise and she even left audio comment to show me how she would pronounce everything, which is really helpful when you first start learning a language.

After all I found this a really motivating learning environment. Soon I might even start using this website to make new friends, as it allows you to chat with other members that speak the language that you want to learn or are learning a language that you speak fluently.

So do you have a foreign language that you always wanted to learn, but you just never knew where to begin? Then start learning it today at www.livemocha.com!

Many native speakers will be waiting for you.

Once upon a weekend in Istanbul

The weather and Prague is getting colder and colder. The temperature is currently well below zero, which is not to my liking. To escape from this kind of winter weather, I planned a trip to Istanbul last weekend. On the way there I already found out that the weather in Istanbul was not as good as it was supposed to be. Even though the skies at my transfer station in Vienna were clear and the weather was sunny, my flight was delayed due to “bad weather circumstances” (as I later found out: a snowstorm) in Istanbul. With a delay of 2.5 hours I landed at Atat”urk Airport and after buying my visa and getting through the passport control it was time to find myself a place to sleep. I had been unable to arrange a couch to sleep on this time nor had I planned a meetup in advance with someone in Istanbul; I had tried to arrange something, but found out that it was impossible for me to make proper arrangements with Turkish people. So this weekend I would have to travel like a normal backpacker: stay in a hostel and explore the city by myself.

It was pretty easy to find a hostel in Istanbul: in the center there are at least 10 hostels in one square kilometer. In the end, I got myself a good deal at Istanbul Hostel. During my stay there I had one roommate: Stefan, a German guy who is currently traveling from Germany to India and will cross through countries like Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan on his way there. We had some really interesting conversations about this topic and I will surely be following his adventures in the coming months. And, mom: please don’t read this next line, maybe I will do a similar trip one day, because it sounds like an awesome adventure.

Ok, now about the city of Istanbul itself. The city is of course known for the Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazaar, the Hagia Sofia and the famous bridge over the Bosporus. But also for the pushy salesmen on the streets. On Saturday morning I already became a victim of one of them. He came up to me and asked me if I wanted to buy a book about Istanbul. I was prepared, so I told him "I already have a book" and walked by him. The salesman however, like all Turkish salesmen, did not give up and asked me where I was from. I replied and out of nowhere he handed me a book about Istanbul in Dutch.
He pointed at a sticker with the number 37 on it and said: "Normal price is 37 liras, but I give you for 20".
I said that I wasn't interested and tried to give the book back to him, but he refused to take it. All he said was: "15... 12... 10!"
I kept saying no, while still trying to give back the book, but he just wouldn't take it back."Ok ok, 5 liras!"
Now I started to doubt. 5 liras is only 2 euros and that's not at all expensive for a book. I browsed through the book, noticed it had lots of information about all the places I wanted to visit and also a handy map of the whole city in it.
"Ok," I said, "I give you 5 for it, but I only have 10 liras, do you have change?"
"Yeah yeah, I have change."
"Can I see the change?"
"Ok, I don't have change. But I will get it. Follow me."
"No, I'm sorry, I need to go now, goodbye"
Now the salesman almost started to beg for my money:
"Please please, I need money, I hungry! How much change do you have?"
I searched in my wallet and found 3.5 liras.
"Ok, 3.5 liras, it's good," the salesman said and I bought the book from him for 3.5 liras. And it even came in very handy later on, because I had only found a map of the real city centre at the hostel, I could really use the map inside the book.
I didn't buy anything else that I didn't want to buy for the rest of the weekend, but salesmen kept on harassing me wherever I went. At the end of the weekend I became so distrustful that when I saw a guy walking towards me with a new window under his arm I automatically started up making excuses why I wouldn't need to buy that window from him.

I spent most of my time in Istanbul just walking around the city. In my opinion that is the only way to get a feeling of what a city is really like. And even though I didn't really meet any locals in Istanbul and the weather was not as warm as I had hoped it would be, I did have a very nice time there. I ate all the Turkish food that I wanted to eat, visited all places in Istanbul that I wanted to visit and took some nice pictures, including these:





The rest of my pictures can be found on Facebook.

The end of an era: No Top 300 this year

Back in 1999 I was eagerly listening to the Top 2000 on the Dutch Radio 2 with the best music of all time. It even inspired me to make such a list myself. I started off in December 1999 making a top 50 of my all-time favourite songs with, I had to look it up in a 12 years old notebook, "De Bestemming" by Marco Borsato on the number 1 spot. In the years after that I added 50 more songs every year to my list until I reached the magic number of 300. It took me 2 days to put together the list (not including the preparations, that usually started in August already), but it was worth it. It became a real tradition for me to make such a list in the period between Christmas and New Year.

The past few years however it got harder and harder for me to make such a list, as I like so many different kinds of music and it's almost impossible to compare and rank them. This year I was also lacking the time and will power to make the necessary preparations and therefore I had to decide, with a heavy heart, not to make a top 300 this year.

I realize that this is (obviously) a huge disappointment for many of you. I also realize that I must give a compensation to the people that were relying on me to help them find new music to start the new year with. So I retrieved a top 30 of the music that I listened to the most during the past year from last.fm. You can find the list below. I put links to YouTube for my top 10 favourite songs in 2011, for those that want to check out what kind of music I am listening to on a daily basis.

1. Sunrise Avenue – Hollywood Hills (Can't wait to see them live in Prague in 2012)
2. Ryan Star – Right Now
3. The Story So Far – I Didn't Slap You (Not suitable for parents; make sure your sound is not too loud when the video starts)
4. Sunrise Avenue – Fairytale Gone Bad
5. My Chemical Romance – Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) (Again: not suitable for parents...)
6. The Pretty Reckless – Just Tonight (Can you believe that the girl was just 17 when this video was made?)
7. Neon Trees – Animal
8. The Script – For The First Time
9. Bryan Rice – No Promises (The Danish original, much better than the cover version by Shayne Ward)
10. Every Avenue – Tell Me I'm A Wreck (My favourite song at the moment)
11. Handsome Poets – Dance (The War Is Over)
12. Weezer – Perfect Situation
13. Scouting For Girls – This Ain't A Love Song
14. Idool 2011 Finalisten – More To Me
15. Handsome Poets – Silence Is Sexy
16. Donkeyboy – Sometimes
17. Ryan Star – Start A Fire
18. The Bigger Lights – Hey Summer
19. Ryan Star – Breathe
20. The Downtown Fiction – I Just Wanna Run
21. Secondhand Serenade – Fall For You
22. Something Corporate – Watch the Sky
23. Two Door Cinema Club – What You Know
24. Sherwood – Ground Beneath My Feet
25. Carolina Liar – Last Night
26. Negative – Won't Let Go
27. Reamonn – Supergirl
28. The Moog – When I See You
29. Alexander Rybak – Funny Little World
30. Volumia! – Afscheid

Finally, I'd like to wish you all the best for 2012 and I hope to see you again next year!

The results of ISC #2...

Hi all,

Thanks a lot to those of you that were willing to vote in my song contest. It's really appreciated. So, as promised, below you can find a link to the results.

Click here to see the full voting process. (Recommended, as the voting was quite exciting)

Click here for a direct link to the full results.

I hope you enjoyed the contest as much as I did! Congratulatons to the winning country. :)

International Song Contest #2

It's December now and even though the weather is not as cold as one year ago, I reckon that most of you will now spend more time inside than 6 months ago. Such moments may be boring, but hey, with good music on the background those days will be a bit happier.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, most people stick to the same old (usually American) music all the time. Those people miss out on a lot of good music. I know that most people don't have the time to search new music themselves, and that's what this blog is for. Below you will find a video I made with 22 songs that I discovered in the past year either in one of the online song contests I participate in or by myself. Just click on "play" and listen to those wonderful songs.

And because I just love making lists and rankings out of everything, of course I made a contest out of this as well, just like I did in spring, in which you can vote for the best song. So if you feel like being a judge and/or want to make me a happy boy, please send in your top 10 in the form below. The deadline to do this is 20 December at 23:59 and this time there are no voting restrictions: you can also vote for your own country. Thank you very much if you participate in this!

And don't feel pressured to vote if you don't want to, of course it's also fine if you just listen to the songs and don't vote at all. I understand that not everybody is as enthousiastic about this kind of things as I am. :)

Recap video:




Playlist and links to YouTube:

1.	Norway	Aleksander With	A Little Too Perfect
2.	Belgium	Yevgueni	Manzijn
3.	Estonia	Maarja	Shine It On
4.	Great Britain	Young Rebel Set	If I Was
5.	Poland	Sylwia Grzeszczak	Małe Rzeczy
6.	Italy	Modà	La Notte
7.	South Africa	Nádine	This Time I Know It's For Real
8.	Romania	Zero	Lay Me Down
9.	Iceland	Yohanna	Beautiful Silence
10.	France	Sofia Essaïdi	J'croque La Vie
11.	Switzerland	Lunatica	Who You Are
12.	Netherlands	Only Seven Left	Wake Up Call
13.	Austria	Christina Stürmer	Wir Leben Den Moment
14.	Finland	Negative	Won't Let Go
15.	Germany	Unheilig	Geboren Um Zu Leben
16.	Malta	Claudia Faniello	I Hate This Song
17.	Russia	Lena Katina	Never Forget
18.	South Korea	Song Ji Eun ft. Bang Yong Guk	Going Crazy
19.	Bosnia & Herzegovina	Hari Mata Hari & Ivana Banfic	Navodno
20.	Spain	La Oreja de Van Gogh	La Niña Que Llora En Tus Fiestas

21.	Latvia	Lauris Reiniks	Banjo Laura
22.	Czech Republic	Tomáš Klus	Marie

VOTING DISABLED