When trying to get a time and place to pick Mathias up, there were a lot of uncertainties about the time of arrival and where, but finally we decided to meet up in IJmuiden in The Netherlands.
So I set my alarm at 05:00 AM, because Mathias might as well arrive early all of a sudden! It took a while eventually, but he was there at IJmuiden, sharing his live location as he was walking towards mine where I was waiting for him outside my car on the lot.
I saw Mathias walking up with his violin, a half empty water bottle, and a big smile.
We set up the navigation to Akersloot and put on some country music, with one of them being "On The Road Again" by Willie Nelson, which was oh-so fitting.
While I was focussed on driving and following the navigation, Mathias just kept rattling on as I was trying to do my best to focus on both driving and listening to his crazy stories.
When we arrived in Akersloot, I showed him around in my house, we played some music, and decided to go to the supermarket to get some Dutch snacks, including Roze koeken.
When we got out of the store, we went to walk around in town for an hour straight, gazing over the flat farmland surrounding Akersloot, which Mathias said looked a lot like Denmark, except for the grass being greener and there being lots of signs, after we finished an entire pack of Roze koeken: cookies made out of a dense cake with a layer of pink fondant icing.
When we got back home, we listened to some more music, and visited my parents to have a little chat before going back home and preparing to go to Haarlem and pay a visit to a small Polish supermarket which had the mayonnaise I love and some special honey beers, including one called Perła Miodowa, and some thin sausages I used to buy in break time.
When we left the shop, we went to the schoolyard of Nova College in Haarlem, where I used to study Application/Media Developer. We ate the sausage over there, and then carried on to the train station, while holding the plastic bag that felt like it was cutting through our fingers and made us nervous about it ripping apart at any moment.
We went to a bar in Haarlem (during daytime) and had two beers there:
Texels Skuumpkoppe (a Dutch beer) and Affligem Blond (a Belgian beer).
Then, we went to a terrace and enjoyed Bitterballen, played some Dutch music, as an older couple was sitting next to us, and they enjoyed Het Dorp by Wim Sonneveld.
Bitterballen are a Dutch meat-based snack usually served with mustard.
We went back home by public transport. When we got home, again, we started playing music and we ordered some typical Dutch food Kapsalon.
Kapsalon is a fast food dish that consists of a layer of french fries in a metal take-away tray, topped with dönner, covered with melted Dutch cheese over it.
While that was being made and drove to our house, Mathias decided to play along with the country music using his violin, which was really enjoyable.
When the food arrived at the door, Mathias decided to bless the delivery guy with some beautiful violin music as the delivery guy showed with who he was Facetiming.
We enjoyed our Kapsalon and beers as the music was playing and as it got darker and darker outside.
Eventually we closed the curtains so we could be alcoholics in the privacy of my home in Akersloot.
I was seriously impressed about how Mathias was still awake, as he told me beforehand he did not have any sleep since he got on a boat with a crazy captain.
The crazy captian was very stubborn and had a very unpredictable mood. Also, he did not like the idea of dropping Mathias off in IJmuiden, because he said that is a big hassle.
Before meeting up with Mathias, this was also the very reason why there were so many question marks. We didn't even know for sure if he was going to arrive today or tomorrow.
When Mathias left the boat, he was still accustomed to the movement of the boat because of all the waves, so he couldn't really stand still and he felt a bit dizzy.
So I told Mathias, to fix his dizziness, he should drink enough lemonade 😉.
Anyways, we enjoyed some beers and sang along with songs of all kind of languages:
- Dutch (Guus Meeuwis, Django Wagner, Jan Smit)
- Swedish (Lisa Ekdahl, Cornelis Vreeswijk, Melissa Horn)
- German (Demis Roussos)
- Norwegian (Jahn Teigen, Plumbo)
- Slovenian (Siddharta, Don Juan, Andrej Šifrer)
- Finnish (Eppu Normaali)
- Polish (Poparzeni Kawą Trzy, Yugopolis, Perfect)
- Russian (Vitas)
I had the idea of going to my mother's house for Mathias to play some violin, as I know my mother does not like the sound of a violin, but she was upstairs and my father downstairs.
So we decided it's not smart to play the violin, but my mother came downstairs anyway, to join the chat we were having with my father.
The next morning, I went to the supermarket while Mathias was still asleep, bought some bread and cheese, went home and made two grilled cheese sandwiches in a pan along with that crazy Polish mayonnaise we bought at Polski Sklep in Haarlem: Majonez Kielecki.
We enjoyed the grilled cheese sandwich in our backyard in the sun.
When we went back inside, Mathias was still tired so I played the most sleep-inducing music I had in my playlists. Mathias was laying on the couch with a beam of sunlight coming through the curtains until finally, after a long while he decided it was time to head off and go about his way of traveling around the world: hitchhiking.
I dropped him off at a gas station besides a highway and waved him goodbye.