Casa Robino

Happy birthday casarobino! It is one year now that we have been able to keep up with you. You little weird house that nobody understands, house of punks hitchhiking through love, eclectic magical communal place! To give you something nice on this special day I prepared a silly speech for you. Please ... don't hate me for it.

- Si?
"Hello, is this casarobino?"
- Yes, how may I help you?
"Well, we would like to book a room for next month"
- Oh, I am so sorry, but we are completely overbooked!

Ok, so. Dealing with this whole SHE thing. If we want sustainable hospitality we need to start changing the way we eat. No meat is a good start. But we also need to start buying only locally grown organic foods.

It would be nice if we could find a small farmer in the area from whom we could get fresh milk and eggs. A produce farmer would also be nice to know. We could do weekly shipments.

Foods like sugar, coffe, and the like that cannot be bought locally should all be fair trade, in suport of small organic farmers in poor countries.

I can find you in the Red Hook skylines,
in the subway of Bedford Ave,
in the roads near MoMa,
in the street art and in the art of the streets,
in the Chinatown I haven't see,
in the bed of the Snoopy Gang,
in the eyes of people I meet because of you.

You are here, and Casa teaches.
I remember to myself what I was there.
Like a cloud, like a cloud I get my shape.

I take you around my nest,
like birds we laugh and move,
with control of the not-control,
the magic awareness of thoughtless minds guides us.

The madness of the crazy streets
blasts us and make us sick

I tried to locate where you are... All the times I was in the past I was blindfolded and led to the Casa (especially by M.B.), but now I was 'invited' (by Roi, the Israeli guy who just left yesterday) for the dinner tonight but forgot where it exactly street, in which straat with long name.
It's not written *anywhere*. Care2share? Pls send me a private message, if you don't want it to be exposed.
Gracias!

I am not feeling that well meanwhile I am in mz last day of trip in Budapest.
So, taking advantage of the silente house of our host and of her laptop, I am starting collecting e/mails from Casapeople, so that I can keep in touch with all of you.
Surpraisingly, is way more difficult of what I tought. E/mails are somehow hidden, and even more impossible to find are physical adress.
Well, I know we are all sort of nomads with no stable house anywhere, but... How can I send you lightfoot letters if nobody nowadays uses physical adress anymore?

Shaun and I arrived this morning at 6 am in Odesa. 18 beautiful people gave us a ride. We have been offered seats, lunches, gifts, vodka, beer but most importantly we have been offered hospitalitly and love. It took us 6 days (included one in which we were just waiting for good intentions of someone else and the road was not than nice to make us meet together).

Up in the mountains watching the fiery red sun set turn in to the black night, illuminated only by a bright ball in the sky, life flashes past your eyes.

Sitting by a beautiful beach, listening to the ocean roar. Realizing how small we are.

In a Casa, somewhere in Amsterdam, eating a dumpster-dived meal, surrounded by those we love, singing, laughing, dancing.

No matter where we are, who we are with, we must recall the The Fifty-third Calypso of Bokononism:

"Oh, a sleeping drunkard,
Up in Central Park,
And a lion-hunter
In the jungle dark,
And a Chinese dentist,

It was a beautiful, typical Dutch day: sunny, then clouds and rain, and back to sunny again. And, we were enjoying it at the one-and-only and most gezellig Amsterdam party of the year: de Roots-festival. Great food, wonderful people, and four stages in Oosterpark, with a large variety of bands from here and everywhere: flamenco, rap, reggae, ska, and anything else that comes with roots.

While the last band played we danced wildly, as if a storm was brewing, threatening to destroy our party. Let's enjoy this through the very end. And... so it went.

On the train I wrote a letter home to friends and family describing my time at the casa. I've pasted it here for everyone's enjoyment (minus the part where I talked about how much I secretly hated everybody).

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Wow, so, where to begin...