My very great friend Anouk Diks is producing the Voice of Holland REAL LIVE, it’s a number one hit reality show in Holland at the moment… it’s really like American idols without the drama. There’s no Simon Cowell and there’s only 14 contestants who can really really sing, they are so good.
There’re 4 judges and the 1st round is a blind audition, that means that the judges cannot see the singer but only hear them. Then the judges choose if they want to be the singer’s mentor. Every judge can have upto several singers to mentor. After every week there’s a performance and the mentor judge will choose who will be proceeding and who will be eliminated. There’s this really short judge who is so cool, every indie & rastafare singer he has chosen…. do check it out at www.thevoiceofholland.com. That’s what I love about the Dutch! They start their own thing every now and then and it’s refreshing, something different from the american stereotypical ways you know 
I climbed the Dom Tower check it out www.utrecht.nl, Holland’s Tallest church. On a clear day you can see the Hague, abt 85km away, Amsterdam 30km away etc…. it’s a great old cathedral with a lot of nice structures and windows and statues, gargoyles you name it. There’re bells at the tower that rings every few hours classical music. To ring the bells you play a keyboard type instrument that is connected to the bells, only thing is the keys are humongous and the biggest bell weighs abt 8000+kg! the whole city of Utrecht, 300,000 inhabitants can hear it when it chijmes! Isn’t that amazing, hearing a classical music being rung! I heard on special occassions, the bells can play special request like Happy Birthday and Pop songs as well like Bruce springsteen hahahha, love that idea!
kusse from Utrecht XXXX
