Friday, February 5, 2010

20 New Things

 On New Years, I mentioned that I was planning on joining the "new things" phenomenon that has been hitting bloggers, most notably Sarah Von (she also may have started it, I'm not sure). The idea is that you try one new thing for every year old you will be turning in the coming year. I'm getting started quite late, but I wanted to wait until I got to Amsterdam to finalize and begin my list.

My list is pretty European/tourist specific this year. Next year, when I'm not living out of a suitcase, it will be easier to do crafts or projects as opposed to "go here" and "see this." Nonetheless, I am very excited to get started on trying all of these new things before my 20th birthday on May 4th.

1.    Try Indonesian cuisine
2.    Buy and learn to use a fountain pen
3.    Attend a concert in Glasgow, Scotland
4.    Spend time at a café in Montmarte, France
5.    Go to Electric Ladyland
6.    Create a model of an Amsterdam neighborhood using food
7.    Climb to the top of Dom Tower in Utrecht
8.    Eat at the Sea Palace Floating Restaurant
9.    See the cages at St. Lambert’s Church in Münster, Germany
10.    Ride my bike through the Dutch countryside
11.    Go to a football (soccer) game
12.    Eat only gluten-free foods for a day
13.    Have an extended conversation with a local
14.    Read the entire Percy Jackson and the Olympians series
15.    Send a postcard to no one in particular
16.    Attend a film festival
17.    Spend a day only speaking Dutch (or else not speaking)
18.    Eat a true croissant in France
19.    Have a no-tech day (with the exception of keeping my required emergency phone on)
20.    Open for suggestions : )

I've been asking people on twitter and my friends here in Amsterdam for suggestions for my final new thing and extend the request to readers here.

 photo via

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

#20: a dérive, described by Debord in "Theory of the Dérive" (1958), dérive ("drift") as "one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there… But the dérive includes both this letting go and its necessary contradiction: the domination of psychogeographical variations by the knowledge and calculation of their possibilities."

So, if, per Vaneigem in (I think) _The Revolution of Everyday Life_, "all space is occupied by the enemy. We are living under a permanent curfew. Not just the cops--the geometry," your job, should you chose to accept, is to undertake an action determined (hmmmm..structured? de/constructed?) by absence under the nose of the enemy. And of course remember what Patti Smith said....

Joanna said...

20. Spend a week just saying "yes" to whatever random notion occurs to you.

"Let's just go jump off a cliff."
"Okay."

"Anyone wanna go for froyo?"
"Me!"

"I need new shoes."
"Let's go!"

Rowan said...

this list sounds really fun!
love your blog.
oh, and my brother just read percy jackson and the olympians, and he would deifinitely recommend them in a heartbeat, so enjoy!

pinkandpaisley.blogspot.com

Rose said...

i am happy that i may be part of a fair amount of these things!

CNE said...

Make a deep and real spiritual connection with a person, place, or thing, with which you have no possible verbal connection.

Or go to Barcelona because its amazing.