fifty shades of red.

once a year gingers from all over the world meet up for a weekended in breda, netherlands in honor of their species. doing whatever it is red heads like to do. and so it is a somewhat unusual place to find yourself, but not completely out of character. lindsay and i casually walked into the mez on the opening night of the Red Head Days with an open mind. i willingly accepted the invitation to go along with lindsay full on knowing that a) i am not a red head and b) i havent traveled with lindsay since the incident in costa rica in 2010. but you know, if someone asks me to go to amsterdam for a weekend and im not doing anything else, there is a 90% chance i will say 'yes.' and despite some rough patches our friendship has endured, we still have the ability to have fun together. now, even though the festival hand book said "non-redheads welcome" - i felt a little judgment as we stood by the bar. observing the demographic, i would say about 80% were full on proud red heads and 20% - other. i felt judged, not in the way that everyone stares at you because you are the minority, but more so in the way that nobody looks at you and that i should probably leave. the speaker comes out to welcome everyone. introduces the documentary "being ginger" by scott p. harris. scott grew up a bullied teenage ginger and now has a lack of self confidence and trouble finding a date. "at one point the principle gave me a permission slip, so that i could eat lunch in the hallway by myself." jeez. the gingers loved it. next is the "jolly percussion band" (description from the festival book). six good looking dutch guys having the time of their lives. i felt a little better seeing that only one of the band members was a red head ;) we spent the rest of the weekend socializing a bit. mostly with our non-redhead couch surfing hosts who lindsay had previously stayed with and have since become friends. if you are a red head i highly recommend gathering up your fellow red head friends and attend the red head days. i learned that red heads ARE fun and cool and although i spent some time trying to make friends with them, they are intimidating folks. and it probably didnt help that i called one of them "ron wiesly" to his face.