a nice crescent moon today ;-)
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Church of Our Lady from the Valley of the Lilies
We can see the top from our livingroom ;-)
Church of the fromer Norbertine priory (1662-1670).
It's in the main shopping street of Mechelen.
St.-Rombout's Cathedral
Impressive tower which was supposed to be a lot taller! But money was needed after a disasterous bolt of lighting set fire to a gunpowder storage and blasted away half the city. Another reason is that it would just not be safe to put up an even larger tower because it would be to heavy.
Now that I have my digital camera I can show you the beauty that surrounds me and inspires me on a daily basis.
I'll start with our churches and our main one: the St.-Rombouts Cathedral, highlight of Brabant gothic style, built between the 13th and the 16th century.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Chinese New Year in Antwerp
One of the two lion/dragons at the entrance of the Chinese street in Antwerp, Belgium.
An impression of the Chinese New Year celebrations (dragon dance) on monday 30-1-2006 in Antwerp
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Life in stone, Leuven 21-1-2006
| Rating: | ★★★★★ |
| Category: | Other |
At least we think so ;-)
Yesterday we (Mark, Hettie and me) went to an exhibit in Leuven about fossils and it was an exhilarating experience!
There were fossils from the Archaïcum (4000 million years ago, first fossilized microbes) until quite recent (11000 years ago = beginning of our time).
My favorite period has always been the Cambrium (542-488 million years ago) because that period has loads and loads of weird animals. I was very glad to see many of the Cambrium-creatures.
There's nothing like a trilobite with all kinds of weird spines sticking out of it right? And eyes on sticks too ;-)
All the other periods were brilliant too and all the fossils were extremely well prepared. I haven't seen many like these yet and I've seen loads of fossils, trust me ;-)
And the information and light was good too. It was quite a pity though that they didn't sell a nice book with pictures from the exhibited fossils.
A nice extra to the old fossils were the recent Belgian works of art that were included in the exhibit like Fabre's insects (see Made in Belgium I) and Panamarenko's Archeopterix. Another great idea which worked very well was the special composed classical music which was playing all the time (eventhough it should have been a bit louder).
If you still want to see this exhibit you'd better hurry because it ends january 29th.
Some more info can be found at: http://www.artesleuven.be/nl/tentoonstelling.htm
(by the way, I took the picture, it was one of the highlights of the exhibit)
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Mechelen!
I finally bought that digital camera so now I can show you all what I see around me everyday ;-)
Sometimes new photo's will be added ;-)
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
A Day of Perfect Clouds 4
Chapter I part 4
It took a while for the mirror to respond. Underneath my purple lipstick message appeared the back wards black words : "I am the Other". That made things so much clearer! I picked up a handkerchief and wiped away the lipstick on my side of the mirror. "The other what?" I wrote. The black message was wiped away and "just the Other" was written down instead. Mmm ok, some things are difficult to define in a few words on a mirror. "What do you want" I asked. "To show you something," the "Other" wrote. "What?" I wrote. "Can't tell must show" the "Other" answered.
The words were wiped away and now the mirror looked normal again. I watched the glass surface intensely but nothing happened. I was still looking at my own reflection when I saw a slight change. I was still looking at my face but now the background was black. Pitch-dark black! And my reflected face was smiling and I was pretty sure I wasn't!
I could feel my eyes open up wider but my image in the mirror just smiled, sort of sarcastically actually. I saw my reflected hand move to-wards the mirror, holding black lipstick, and it wrote: " put your hand on the glass". My own hands hadn't moved an inch.
What a way to start my day! But I was still rather curious and nothing really bad could happen to me if I would do it, could there? Right? Maybe I was still dreaming and I would wake up for real soon. And if I wasn't, well, I decided to just go with the flow even though the flow of this day was rather..uhm unusual?
My reflected hand was already on the glass of the other side so I put my hand to the glass too. It was cold, not very, just the normal chill of a glass surface. The mirror went totally dark. Suddenly my hand started to move, slowly it went through the glass. It felt like water, very thick water. Not an altogether unpleasant feeling. I felt a slight pulling sensation in my hand and then all went black around me...
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Expo: From Tzar to Emperor (Bozar, Brussel, 15-1-2006)
| Rating: | ★★★★★ |
| Category: | Other |
I never try to grasp where in the building I am for I know I will never know that anyway. The only thing you will know is whether you are near the main entrance or the side entrance or underground or above ground. Anything else is mere speculation...
But enough about this maze of a building! The exhibit we came for is one of the many Europalia: Russia exhibits (you can still visit this one until sunday 22-1). And as the title says it is about the Russian rulers.
I wasn't really sure what to expect. Would it be treasures? Or just a lot of information and portraits? Or..?
Well, it was mostly treasures ;-)
A lot of the objects shown were richly decorated religious objects given to monasteries and churches by the tzars. And objects of immense beauty they had owned. And icons. And yes portraits too and information. And part of Peter the Great's collection of curiosities. And scale models of great buildings (I love those!).
So loads and loads of treasures; especially from the time of the tzars. One of the nicest things of the exhibit were the two excerpts of old black&white movies they showed. One about the coronation of Ivan the Terrible and one of the marriage of Catherine the Great.
The light on the objects could have been better though and it was a bit too busy too but otherwise this was a great experience. And we've learned some more about the Russian rulers which is always worthwhile and interesting ;-)
NOVGOROD ;-p
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Made in NL
Belshazzar's Feast, 1635
Yes ofcourse, great Dutch art exists too!
-still under construction-
Sunday, January 8, 2006
Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerpen (7-1-2006)
| Rating: | ★★★★★ |
| Category: | Other |
And what a perfect museum it was!!
The museum got my attention because of a special exhibit about richly decorated book covers.
I love books and I love decorated books even more so we just had to see this. What I did not know is that the museum itself is in a 17/18th century house which is still almost original!!!!
Not only does it include living rooms with gold leather walls, furniture, portraits etc but also a bookshop, printing rooms, libraries (yes several!) and a very nice inner garden. This museum-house is also on the Unesco world heritage list; and for good reason ;-)
Well, let me tell you a little more about the house and museum. The house was owned by the printer family Plantin-Moretus. Obviously the house was also the shop and printer establisment as well as living quarters of this family. This printer has printed many of the books in the Netherlands of the 17/18th century and is quite well-known. The painter Rubens even used to make illustrations for their books. And he has painted many of the portraits that are still decorating the rooms of the house.
The library of the museum was started by this family itself in the 16th century and now contains 25.000 books from before 1800 alone!! They have a Gutenberg-bible for instance of which only 14 copies exist! And what's also very unique: the collection has remained in the same house.
The museum also has a collection of interesting maps, also printed and drawn here by Mercator for instance.
And to top it all of you can also see and learn a lot about the printing business here. Not to mention the sheer beauty of all the rooms and yes it is a big house!
The only reason why we would not want to stay and live here is that the wooden floors are extremely creaky and you can hear where the whole household is ;-p
Saturday, January 7, 2006
Wednesday, January 4, 2006
Kafe Belgie (= pub with great food)
| Rating: | ★★★★★ |
| Category: | Restaurants |
| Cuisine: | Other |
| Location: | Oude Gracht 196, Utrecht |
And to make you all water at the mouth: they have La Chouffe on draught (das van het vat voor alle Nederlandstaligen) and that's pretty damn tasty!!
And if you don't believe me just read this English review: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A317297
Crusades / Kruistochten Catharijneconvent Utrecht (29-12-2005)
| Rating: | ★★★★ |
| Category: | Other |
Ofcourse I know quite a lot about the crusades already but there's always something new and interesting to see and learn about those days. And I'm happy to say that I did learn some new things ;-)
And we've also seen some pretty objects and heard some nice music from that time.
Hopefully next year will bring another nice exhibit so we have a reason to visit the museum again ;-) Oh, and the museum has a nice shop too!
Check their site (Dutch!) for info: www.catharijneconvent.nl
Museum & Observatory Sonnenborgh Utrecht (29-12-2005)
| Rating: | ★★★★★ |
| Category: | Other |
The museum has an interesting history. Originally the Sonnenborgh was part of the defensive wall that protected Utrecht. This fortress was extremely modern at the time. Part of the museum is about the history of the fortress itself and you get to see a lot of the old building including the latrines (in which mushrooms are thriving by the way). Very interesting indeed!
Later on the building was used for metereological observations and some time later the solar observatory was built there. That part of the museum is interesting for every-one that likes old instruments with weird buttons you aren't allowed to touch ;-)
Inside the observatory there's also room for exhibits and it includes an old library (lovely!). The special exhibit about Mars was very funny and the pictures were great. You could also go upstairs and watch the two telescopes but sadly you could not watch anything through them :-(
This museum is really worth a visit because it's a very nice combination of old and new, archaeological and scientifical. It looks like a perfect spot for a professor from the Tintin comics. And it's not very expensive either!
Check their site (Dutch!): http://www.sonnenborgh.nl/
Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam (28-12-2005)
| Rating: | ★★★★ |
| Category: | Other |
Luckily there are also many reasons to still visit this museum: they have a big new additional building at the back which is pretty, there are always interesting exhibitions there that aren't very crowded and I get to go in for free anyway ;-)
The special exhibit we wanted to see was about animals in paintings (Fierce Friends / Beestachtig Mooi). The Van Gogh Museum specializes in art from 18th/19th and early 20th century so all special exhibitions usually are about this time or include many works from that time.
There were some nice paintings and other pieces of art (which ofcourse they did not have on any cards in the shops) and the stories behind all the objects were pretty interesting. The exhibit also included several stuffed animals and some fossils. ;-D
Some of the highlights included the glass water creatures (snail, jellyfish) from Bohemia, Van Gogh's own paintings of animals (crabs, a bat!, crows) and the paintings of freaky animals (two headed calf etc).
Ofcourse we could not leave without taking a quick look at Van Gogh's paintings upstairs as well. As I had thought this part was much more crowded but we could still take a look at some of the prettier paintings there. On one of the top floors there's also an drawing cabinet and I was very happy to see some of William Blake's art there.
After a visit to the shop it was time again to leave and as I had seen a poffertjes-sign near the museum we went there to eat some ;-D
Tuesday, January 3, 2006
Happy 2006!
Last year I have seen 88 movies I liked or loved,
we've been to at least 69 different interesting museums or exhibitions,
we saw 46 bands / performers live some of which were brilliant,
we've also visited 13 beautiful churches,
we saw 4 firework-shows one of which was amazing,
seen several nice series on tv,
been to the zoo twice
and saw 1 Catholic procession ;-)
I hope 2006 will be as fun-packed for all of us as 2005 has been for us!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
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