Something I always get surprised by while traveling is that once you’ve arrived back home it almost feels like it never happened. Like a dream. I was in Saudi Arabia 12h ago. Now back to reality.
It’s such a weird feeling. Memories will always be there but it feels a bit surrealistic.
Do any of you guys have any thoughts about this or experience?
I don’t even know where to begin. I already forgot half of what happened here in Saudi Arabia. We’ve been traveling together with Taufiq from Riyadh and Omar from Jeddah. Really cool guys who has made this trip really amazing and unforgettable instead of just awesome.
Last night in Riyadh they took me to this traditional food place. We got a room and sat on the floor and we all ate with our hands from the same plate… It was a really awesome experience.
Back home most of us find it disgusting to eat certain types of food with our hands, and from the same plate?!?!? Here it’s so different, I don’t know how to tell you guys what it’s like. That’s what traveling is all about… Not to look at famous landmarks or whatever, it’s about experiencing new things, in order to do that you sometimes have to take one step out of your comfort zone. I’ll just finish this post up now and let all the impressions sink in.
Here’s a picture from the dessert between Riyadh and Dammam 
This is my 5th day here in Saudi Arabia together with Daniel rooseboom. I arrive in Jeddah. Together with the Jeddah freestyle crew we have been on tour, this is out bus.
Saudi people are very warm and friendly. The locals are awesome and the freestylers some of the friendliest I’ve met.
I’ve had so much fun so far and made new friends! This morning we traveled to Riyadh. We just arrived, will see what this city has to offer.
Thanks!
Today was a good day so far… My friend woke me up, had breakfast ready, so amazing!
Then I was picked up not long after by two other friends. We were gonna go on a little road trip. We were driving for two hours before we arrived at the destination. My friend bought a couple of different swords for €100.
Then we drove 2h back and everybody was happy.
While being in the air on my way to Jeddah I came to think of a funny story. The year was 2008 an the country was Austria. I was performing for the Euro in Salzburg, klagenfurt and Vienna. At every game there was a VIP area for sponsors and people who paid quite a lot. I was performing there together with Daniel while the people were mingling
I remember one guy who wanted to be funny so I decided to do an aka against him, just to shock him a little bit. But on the 2nd touch I lost control of the ball and it landed at another table. A glass of wine got smashed and one guy got wine all over his Armani suite. I remember he looked at me and said “not good”. I didn’t know what to say so I just stood there for what felt like an eternity… Then all of a sudden he smiled a little an said “it’s ok if you get me a new drink”.
Guess if I was happy hearing that. After this little incident I performed as far away from his table for the rest of the night. Haha!
It all started over a month ago. I was contacted about a mini tour in Saudi Arabia. Daniel and Nam were also contacted about it. The days passed by and we didn’t get all the relevant info to apply for the visa. Once we thought we had it, it wasn’t valid and the application was rejected.
The trip was postponed by 10 days or so I believe, same procedure once again. A couple of days ago I was certain it wouldn’t happen… Then boom, on Thursday Daniel managed to get his visa, so I travelled to the embassy in Stockholm and on Friday I got mine. Right now it’s Sunday and I’m sitting at the airport in Istanbul right now waiting for my next flight.
This is an extreme case, but it’s not uncommon that things takes time, sponsors bail, trips getting cancelled and so on. Freestyle life is tough sometimes, meaning you can’t really ever plan anything. Things will either happen or not happen. You can’t affect it sometimes and you just have to wait with your fingers crossed.
This is such an amazing opportunity and I will enjoy it to the max!!!
I was looking through some of my profile pictures on my facebook page when I noticed I promote a lot of brands… but for what? You might think “höhö, nike doesn’t need you”. Of course they don’t need me, but I’m convinced I’m an asset to most companies including the big ones. I’m sure that through my choice of shoes, balls, t-shirts etc I’ve generated in 10.000′s if not 100.000′s of dollars to different companies.
What I’m trying to say is that I will try and stop wearing brands that doesn’t give a rats ass about me and what I do. I’ll stop promote those companies, eventually also take some of the promotional material off the net. Instead I’ll try and wear as much non branded stuff as possible. I’ll also try and promote the people in the scene who are trying to give back some to the community, such as SWRL.
Sure, they want to make money as well but I know the owner in person and he’s pretty much invested all of his savings into this project and he’s giving away gear for free to us, the freestylers. I really wish for SWRL to be successful from the bottom of my heart. People who mainly do it for the love of something which in this case is freestyle.
I’m also waiting for a new football from another friend of mine and one of the top freestyle athletes of the world today. I’ll write a review of the ball on the blog later on when I’ve recieved it and tried it out. If you would like to pre-order it or have a look at it click here.
