5,133 miles away from the hellish summers of San Antonio, I think I finally understand what all the excitement is about. Sure, I’ve spent weeks at a time traveling to various destinations during long summers, but this is the first summer I’ve spent almost entirely in a place where the weather is almost disgustingly pleasant throughout 90% of summer. It’s amazing!
Most mornings we wake up to a nice breeze blowing in through the windows and a greenish light reflecting off off lush tree leaves. The weather is always somewhere between 65-75 degrees fahrenheit with varying levels of blustery wind.
Last week there was a huge freak summer storm and they had to move one such festival inside. It was moved to a huge indoor venue/complex called Paard van Troje (Trojan Horse) – The bartender at the show happened to be a girl I had met at a BBQ a few weeks earlier and she told me that that venue is actually closed entirely throughout summer because most live music is played outdoors in festivals! They actually had to re-stock all of their beer, liquor, etc that morning to have it ready for that night.
Despite the unbelievably beautiful weather, most days Chris and I find ourselves in our natural night-owl routine of staying up playing music, reading books, watching movies and writing until 4 am and sleeping in until noon. In the afternoons we try to stuff in as many museum visits as possible. In The Netherlands they have an annual membership card that covers 90% of all of the museums and its only $60! With our “Museumkaart” in hand, Chris and I feel like we have the key to the city and sometimes like we’re part of a very fancy elite card carrying group. Then at night we bike around the city or go on long walks and Chris eats copious amounts of raw Herring.
It was nice to take a few weeks off of playing gigs, especially after we played a gig nearly every night the week before we flew from SA. But recently we’ve gotten back into the habit of practicing and hope to record an EP here in The Hague soon! Last week on a whim, we googled Open Mic Nights in the Hague and ended up at an adorable little place called Cafe de Bieb. I knew it was the place for us as soon as I realized they have my new favourite belgian beer, La Chouffe, and not only because it has this adorable little kabouter on it :
We met the organizer to put our name down and he was incredibly nice and inviting and noted that he and Chris both have the same issue constantly trying to swoop their hair out of their eyes. Our first surprise was that every performer sang and introduced themselves in English although the vast majority of performers and audience members seemed to be Dutch. The 2nd thing I noticed was that, unlike every other open mic I’ve been to, everyone in the audience was listening intently instead of talking amongst themselves, clinking beer glasses or perusing social media on their phones. The cafe itself is pretty small with only a handful of tables, made smaller by the section of tables that’s been torn away to make room for the stage. It’s packed with people all standing around the stage and bar huddled together watching the performers. Chris and I played our set of three songs and got a really great reception.
The organizer approached us and said he’d filmed one of our songs to send to a promoter in Leiden who needs an act to fill a slot at a festival on the canal this weekend! So, with that we finally booked our first legit gig. Now just to figure out how to get up to Leiden…
On Saturday night I decided to make some homemade butterbeer and give a crack at reading the first Harry potter book in Dutch from Josefien’s collection.
I was surprised by how easy it was for me to pick up on most of the language pretty quickly but mostly surprised that most of the characters’ names are changed! Getting used to Dumbledore being Perkamentus and the Dudleys as Duffelings was getting a bit overwhelming so Chris and I decided to watch the HP7 movie instead, as we’ve been very slowly rewatching them over the last few months. All coked up on HP excitement, we ended up staying up till 3 am. And then, like many of my ill advised drunken ideas begin, we decided to ride our bikes the hour up to Leiden instead of dealing with the train. And, bonus, save 8 Euros! Woo!
That was, until the alarm went off at 8:30 and we attempted to peel ourselves out of our sleepy stupors. We had to be at the park by 11 and at 9:30 I had the realization, hey Libby, don’t you come from a long lineage of people that are chronically tardy? We dragged ourselves out the door at 9:50 am and resolved to hoof it! NBD, right? Wrong. It was somehow the most stressful and grueling bike ride that seemed to never end! Although we weren’t too cranky to notice the absolutely spectacular scenery around us, we were probably too sleepy to really appreciate it.
The festival is called PickNick and was a super adorable free event with music, kids crafts, families and food. Chris and I played for the first time as an official duo. We are now playing officially under the moniker, “Madlaw”! We played a set of new and old tunes that we crafted 10 minutes before the set while trying to both sit in a hammock adjacent to the stage.
The set went great. I think my favourite part was seeing people riding past the park on their bikes get off just to stand and watch us for a while. The weather could not have been nicer and we laid on the grass by the canal enjoying the music and watching boats go by and little adorably weird kids yell and scream in dutch in the kids section.
Now we were in a quandary. We were too exhausted to stay but too tired to take the loong hour and half ride home. So we settled on getting strong beers at this adorable pub in Leiden before trekking back home. We had some delicious beers in a historic bar called De Bonte Kuh in the shadow of a massive 14th century church. 
Newly fueled, we trucked it back home arriving home just as my phone navigation died. But along the way we rode past picturesque Dutch countryside and even met a family of swans!
And…as you might imagine, today, the next day, was spent lazing around the house and soothing our achey bodies with a marathon of Wet Hot American Summer: The First Day of Camp. We’ve earned it! haha My knees hurt, New post about the weird things we’ve encountered in Holland tomorow!
The Madlaws 