RAB Sponsoring & more happiness

Today, in 48 minutes to be exact, I'll head for Germany.
It didn't go too smoothly to get here: my brother lost my house keys so I had to break into my own house to gather my stuff...And so I missed my last climbing session at my gym.

Night climbing/flying at Monte Cervino

Luckily I had a really good night session the day before. We climbed, drank whiskey, ate bbq-chocolate-bananas, slept in the 'Ger' (nomadic tent) swam in the lake in the morning, skeelered, then it was time to head for Belgium to deliver back the company car and get my new sponsor gear (new brilliant NAO, Ange, harness, Microtraxion! You'll read a review about that all soon here on my blog)

Chocolate bananas

To get my skates I took two friends to my amazing mansion (home) and there it stood, in the shed: two HUGE packages.
One labeled Five Ten and one labeled RAB.
This could only mean one thing: new stuff.
I jumped, my eyes twinkled so much they almost popped out, my smile extended to my ears and my brain was making happiness loops.

I ordered my new Five Ten shoes just in time, so I was happy to actually get them in time as well.
But the other package...that package...that was just so so nice...!

Big boxes!!

I'll explain:
RAB and Lowe Alpine (Equip) are my new sponsors.
I went to the BeNeLux office, explained the stolen bag situation and they told me they would try to help me, but weren't sure about it. I understand, it's all about budgets, time, a bit of hassle and a bit of 'not-my-concern-that-you-lost-your-bag'.
But they worked hard as they could and now I got a brand new down sleepingbag and a super lightweight bivybag all the way from RAB UK. 
Without proper sleeping/bivybag it would have been quite different in Iceland I guess. RAB is 'for the most extreme conditions' and I can say for sure: that's what Iceland is all about :)
But RAB just gave me the most epic present ever!

So now I jump around in not just the perfect downjacket ever made (RAB Neutrino) but I'll dream about the happiest things every night again in my new super warm sleepingbag.
Thanks guys!

This evening, after breaking into my own house I went to the postbox to take the last mail.
And not only RAB did something epic, Light my Fire had just sent me a new knife&flint in one and a new titanium spork! All the way from Sweden (with love).
Just in time :)
They sent me this sweet postcard:

Home...pt.2

In my own house again. I live 'anti-squat' (for the Dutch: antikraak). I have a massive villa which is slowly breaking down. Starting with rats in the livingroom, mice in the 'sun room' and a bird in one of the bathrooms. And then all the millipedes and spiders... It took me hours to vacuum and mop the whole house.

It is strange to live in the luxury. We have water just instant out of the tap and if you want it's even warm or hot! We have machines to clean the floor, your clothes, heat up dinner and much more. All works on electricity.

And theres (for your feeling) an infinite amount of it! You plug in your phone and it's being charged and you can do that on all hours of the day.

Life this way is easy and, because of all 'extra's', complicated in the same time. I have the feeling that, because we have so much around us, we have the habit of wanting even more then we have. We want more then we need. All the time.

We want to eat more then we need, we want to live bigger then we have to, we want to watch more movies then we have time for, we want more clothes then we can ever wear...

Once having lived in a cave (what I did quite some years ago) and being a mountaineer *waking up in your sleeping bag because it's light and my biological clock says it's time to rise, walking a bit to get snow to melt into water for breakfast and getting ready to 'work' (climb) all day. Back home again in the evening when it's already getting dark. Happy with whatever the food is, it will be tasteful. Tugging up in my sleeping bag, convincing myself I have to wash myself tomorrow...or the day after... And being asleep straight away because it had all been so heavy on the day*

I can just not describe in words how it feels to be a climber, to live this life. But those moments in a bivouac somewhere up on a mountain are just the best there are. I can trade my mansion, car, all clothes, food, electronics for this moments in a bivouac in the mountains.

Renan Ozturk, artist, photographer and climber, tried to give a view on 'life as a climber' in Yosemite. And the result is pretty beautiful:

On Assignment from renan ozturk on Vimeo.

Still at home...waiting for Summer holidays

There I am, still at home.

Now bad to be here though, enjoying my garden. Just ate my first home-grown carrot. But, I'm living here because I have a mission. That mission involves a thing that most call 'hobby', some call it 'sports', and for me it's a way of life...

And I really wanted to be abroad now. Climbing! I actually had a chance, Fontainebleau with a new friend. Canceled work, changed appointment days, changed the job interview date, skipped climbing with Dennis, that all to get one day of climbing in Font. But, I sort of blew it. (Long story that makes me sad).

So here I am, still at home, in the rain, being bored, not motivated to do any of the things I actually need to do (filling in tax forms, learning for my exam on Thursday, putting together a little photobook for the Outdoor Fair in Fridrichshafen...)

I'm still lying on bed, thinking of what I actually want.

What I want is pretty simple, but it just doesn't seem to fit in this world: climbing.

But every time when I want that more and more I get into a vicious circle: climbing > no work > no money > no climbing > still climbing > not accepted by 'normal people' > less money > less climbing > less understanding by 'normal people' > more work > less climbing > more money > more climbing > less work > no work at all > ...

I wish I was a millionaire. I'd climb, all over the world. Live in a cave, as close a possible to all climbing areas, find friends to climb with, eat pasta with tomato sauce for weeks, cookies for breakfast and lunch and when I take a restday, once every two weeks, I feel my fingers, stiff but satisfied. Again another great route finished.

Talking about fingers, Martin Fickweiler has a crack climbing course in Ettringen in September. Wanna join and learn more about how to stick cracks? Read here more on his blog.

And, as bored as I am? Interested in new fruitboots? On 'Cold Thistle' more about how to make them.

Millionaire I said, yes, that's what I'd do with money. Use it as a tool to build up life experience. No big house, big car, big husband...Just freedom and see the world as it is. Figure new cultures, new habits, new thoughts, new food, new nature, new roads. Roads that can lead me to freedom in my mind.

Live to climb, born to climb

Dutch climber Michel Kleinjan and his wife (? are you actually married or should I say 'girl' or 'woman' or 'chicka'?) Leonoor just decided to sell their house and live in a 'wooden shed' close to the biggest and best climbing gym in the Netherlands. (Mote Cervino, Bergschenhoek)

Their idea after years of 'hibernation': work to live instead of just work to work to pay off rent and mortages...

Here his blog (in Dutch)

It's inspiring and motivating!

Good luck guys, it's worth a big, big pie! (With fruit, without raspberries ;)

Picture: one of the pies we chose in a bakery in Elbsandstein, on Gerkes birthday. When I'd just met Michel and Leonoor for the first time.

Marie Koster

I haven't been very active on my bog lately.

With a reason.

I have something important on me the last weeks.

My grandmother.

Marie Koster was her name, widow of Wout Oudshoorn, my grandfather.

She was finished with the thing that drives us every day, the thing that feels so logical we hardly think about it, the feeling that goes on and on, forever...?

Life, it's the thing making us breathe, think, move, love every day.

But sometimes it's not as easy as it sounds. At some point you can get to an end with that 'thing'.

That is what my grandmother had been struggling with. Last week was the final end of her struggle.

Ninety-one years of life ended last Friday, with a week of struggling...

Now, I can tell 1001 stories about how I admired my grandmother, about her strength, her big working hands, how hard she worked, about all her children, my aunts and uncle, about the farm she lived on...but, it's all to say with just one word. Love.

My dear 'oma', I just love you...

(Picture: my grandmother when she was a young girl. Me and my brother are colouring all the black and white pictures we have. You should all do that for your old grandparents when they're still alive. My grandmother would have loved to see herself in full colour again.)