The tropical getaway that everyone needs right now
Something that is quite present in my life is my love for music. From the moment I stand under the shower in the morning, when I'm on my way to work or appointments, while cooking; I prefer to have music on all day long. Most of the time I listen to R&B, hip hop, and soul; the most important thing for me is that I can potentially shock people when I cycle by singing off-key. No, okay, that's not really the most important thing, but I find it quite funny every now and then. And so it is a small step to my guilty pleasure...
When you run into me on King's Day, the chance is very high that I just snatched a microphone from the folk singer at my local pub. Singer Ruud is hired every year to make it a fun party at the café on the corner of the Prinsengracht, but by now he is aware that he has to share his stage with my alter ego Bella. On King's Day, I transform into a folk singer who drowns out the crowd with life songs like ‘Blood, Sweat, and Tears’, with a beer in my hand just like the late André Hazes sr. preferred to do. The funny thing is that I don't quickly put on these songs at home, but I find it fantastic on these kinds of festive days, or when I'm at the ArenA to attend a match of our beloved Ajax.
Lucky me that this weekend the Olympic Games of the life song are taking place again in the ArenA in Amsterdam: The Toppers are back and this time with a theme that we all need now that the summer days are over and the rain is pouring down. In the ArenA, we are celebrating a tropical party tonight and will step out of the metros and trains dressed as coconuts and flamingos in large groups as a kind of protest against this autumn-like spring. So if suddenly a woman tries to climb over the railing to grab the microphone from Gerard Joling's hands among all the big names on stage: stop me. I can't wait.
