Chai child.

First snow today! But gone already.

I’m drinking very sugary chai, eating cake and procrastinating productively (clean and reorganise power-cord and usb-cable box and spice cabinet: check). What are Sundays for if not that?





My schedule says they’re for having already written at least 27 pages of the thesis.
My schedule is a buzz-kill.

I sing songs to myself.

Some words:
Parsley. Mountain Goats. Cold morning. Tired. Other things. Breakability. Performative. Sentence. Season.



I’d really like to know why I so rarely do the things that make me so happy I could cry.

Initialisation Ritual.

This is where I occasionally work.
These are boxes full of photos of pictures.

What I do is I split the continuous information of pictures up into searchable, verbal information. Digitalisation.

(Quick, before you miss a turn.)
Input Input.

Digitalisation means fingering.



Today: Manuscript Illuminations.
Kiss.

Interrail #10: Ghent

It goes on!
Ghent was a day trip while we were stationed in Antwerp. We went there on July 21st, which incidentially is the Belgian National Holiday. So everything was closed. Also, we arrived there the day after the Gentse Feesten. Or maybe during the festival. But the atmosphere definitely had a “morning after” vibe. That means there was rubbish everywhere and throughout the old town there was an unmistakable and very pungent aroma of beer, processed by the human body. If you know what I mean. It was the day Ghent had been turned into the Gents! (Oww!)
Given the fact that Ghent is known for its picturesque niceness, that was a bit un-nice. Bad timing, I guess.
We definitely made the best of it by fleeing the site of devastation and seeking the comfort of the local museum of modern art.
PICTURES!

Dirty, smelly Ghent.

It could’ve been so pretty.

Weeeird architecture.

A few bikes.

Random corner. With bikes.

Hier kwaak ik.

Kunst!

Broodthaers!

Storage depot!

Doing the art thing.

Inside installations.

Institution.


Right-o. Have a nice day!

Interrail #9: Antwerp

Oh my god, do you still remember that I went on an interrail trip in the summer of 2010? I hardly do! And I’m still only halfway through posting the pictures on my blog! I really need to get this in order. So full steam ahead.

The last stop was Amiens. Then we crossed over, or more precisely under the channel via Eurostar and ended up in London. From there, we took the train to Ipswich, where we spent the night camping outside the station. (If you type Ipswich into google, the third auto-complete suggestion is "Ipswich murders". I did not tell my mother that.) In the morning, we continued our journey to Beccles and Henham Park, where we enjoyed three wonderful days of the very recommendable Latitude Festival. I will post pictures of this at some later point. They’re on film, and I haven’t scanned them yet. After the festival, we went back to London, and spent a very brief afternoon sauntering through the East End. Then we took the Eurostar back to the continent. And eventually ended up in Antwerp, Belgium.

Antwerp is nice. All in all I have very positive memories of it – the Rubenshuis, mussels, the botanical garden, just walking around the town and looking at those beautiful facades with their crow-stepped gables. The first, strange da Vinci-themed hotel we stayed at first, and the even weirder hippie-themed backpacker hostel we stayed at later. You know when you simply feel quite at home in a place, though you cannot really put a finger on the reason why this is so? Antwerp was a bit like that, for me.

Caution. Many pictures ahead.

Upon arrival, Max and I interact with the locals. Local statues, that is.

Strange architecture.

Some more architecture.

Guy Fawkes.

Crow-stepped gables, postcards, and my arse at the Grote Markt.

City Hall.

Oh dear, I'm kind of obsessed with these.

Beautiful botanical garden. <3

Drinking Duvel, looking very "German".

MUSSELS!!!

Visiting the Rubenshuis.

Antwerp Cathedral.

Walking on "water" outside the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten.

Odd but interesting exhibition at the KMSKA.

The incredible Railway Station. I LOVE railway architecture! Byebye, Antwerp.

Post-Christmas-Christmas-Post

What’s Christmas about if not cats going crazy about the wrapping paper and boxes and indecent amounts of food?

Yes, Bill, there’s treats in that stockings.

Wrapping to play with? It’s Cat Christmas!

Canapés. Here we have the shrimp, the salmon and the venison pâté. Nothing to see here, vegetarians! I admit, I kinda broke down toward the end of the evening and devoured several shrimp canapés. I am weak. Shrimp urges!

Christmas table total view.

Vegetarian canapés (lentil "maki", cheese-pear-walnut-chicory-ships, artichoke nests). And some non-vegetarian as described above.

A fairly large amount of devilled eggs. <3

Onion scones filled with goat cheese. These were so yummy!

Some more puff pastry artichoke nests.

Bratwurst canapés with sauerkraut on top. We made these because bratwurst with sauerkraut is (interestingly) the traditional Christmas food in my mum’s family. Oh and also: bacon-wrapped plums.

As you can see I took no pictures of people. I could say something self-ironic about my priorities. But I guess, even if I have no pictorial evidence of this fact, to me Christmas is also about having the whole family in one place. This year we did pretty well, I think. I mean, it went pretty harmoniously as family gatherings go.

One year ago.

Approximately one year ago.

Interrail #8

Dear friends, I am horrible with uploading and blogging photos.
One prime example is the seemingly inexhaustible stock of Interrail travel pictures, which are now over a year old and still waiting patiently on my hard drive to be posted and written about. So I figured it was about time that I continued the series. As you perhaps remember, the last stop was Paris.
After that we hurried on to Amiens, a small town in Picardy, famous for its gothic cathedral (built between 1220 and 1270).
Apart from that, it’s just an ordinary French small town, I guess. See yourself.

Upon arrival, we find the weather decidedly colder than we had experienced in the days before. Button up!

Here we go then! The façade. Much excitement. Amiens was my favourite gothic cathedral back then. (I’ve since decided that it’s not that easy to say.)

Max and a couple of headless martyrs. The sculptures in the embrasure of the portals are worth the visit alone.

Inside. (Can you see the cracks? That’s for trying to get too close to heaven.)

I walked all the way to the centre of the labyrinth.

This is sculpture is called la Vierge Dorée. It used to be gilt, hence the name. It also used to be on the outside of the cathedral, which is why it is no longer gilt.

More martyrdom!? Don’t you love catholicism and its crazy love affair with death? Don’t you love the executioner’s bum? Don’t you love the little dog looking on in wonder? One day I will write a paper on the significance of all the little dogs looking on in wonder in Christian art.

More death love! I would have loved to take this (decidedly un-gothic) little cherub with his skull home with me. It would have been great on my non-existent mantelpiece.

Outside: Official buildings are still decked out in Bastille Day decorations!

Well, well! (Haha, oh no.)

Are you in the mood for some flying buttresses? Honestly. How could you not be?

Me in full interrail gear. Go front-and-backpack! And already we say good-bye to Amiens. Efficient tourism, is what I call that. On to ... LILLE.

Hello, international waters. So the Dutch word for rental is cognate with "whore" and "Hure". Car whoring, anyone?

WAITING FOR THE EUROSTAR!!!

WAITING FOR THE EUROSTAR TOO!!! Bye!