Londooooooooon!!!!!

Nelson, you look fabulous today!(open declaration of love)

...As the whole of London, as a matter of fact.
I would have never imagine that one can so quickly fall in love with a town in just 4 days. Paris was an exception, of course, since I had dreamed of it for years.
With London, it's sudden. And perpetual. You whether love it or hate it. Not much of a sightseeing fan as I am, London still is fabulous. And has marvellous things to show. And to be discovered.
The parks, the streets, the pubs, the clubs, EVERYTHING. (I will not refer to the British, though, as I find them a little too noisy for me-could be also the attraction towards the latin warmth and friendliness that I mostly have in mind whenever referring to people).
London was, for sure, one of the most plenar and exhilarating expereiences I have gone through for months. I can't help sighing when I'm going through this lines, stupid as it may seem. I still am under the charm of the most cosmopolite town in the whole of Europe. Who used to say that "Go to LOndon, and you will hear the least Brotish spoken, out of the whole of Britain" was entirely right... LOndon, I just love you!

The squirrels in St James's Park, the pelicans, the outraging proportion of snubbish people wearing suits on the street, the intelligent ads, the way you can just spit out whatever crosses your mind(in just one day, I witnessed one demonstration against some politician of London), the traffic on the lefthandside. And of course, the double deckers. Plus the red phone booths.
This is London. And a lot more.

My favourite place in Gent, GRASLEI...Hoooray!!!

MoCoMa International Dinner, 24 May

Sooooo much fun in one night! I just love this city, these people, this school, everything...
On the 24th of May, the MoCoMa guys decided to go for something really special.. An international dinner, where each of us would cook his country's traditonal food. Whether our "salade boeuf" was Romanian or not, Kasia's Thai soup was Canadian or not, and Kamila's "pickled cabbage with sausages " was Polish or not is another question. What matters iiiiiiiis... That we ate some extremely tasty dishes, to remember all our lives.

Vive MoCoMa!

Greatest night in Gent, 16th of May

After dinner at Laura from Spain(at 11 o'clock, Spanish time:) we went out to LaLaLand.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat night!! Never could have imagined I can dance for 4 hours cotinuously...And not on any type of music, but on electronical-techno :)))) Must have been because of Rui, who was excessively energetic :))

Such wonderful people, such marvellous night!!

12 May, Eurovision night=MoCoMa night

Wonderful time spent in the Irish Pub for the Eurovision night... Singing, chatting, humming each other's country songs, and mostly drinking Guinness beer...
I never would have imagined Eurovison can be quite a nice show, as long as you are accompanied by people belonging to some contestants' countries.
A fabulous night, magnificently ended in the Charlatan, shortly after 2 a.m.
One night to remember...

Are you ready, bike? Start riding!!!

I've finally got myself a bike... After 3 months of hesitating, of thinking and rethinking whether I could handle the(although calm) traffic in Gent, I decided to get a better view of Gent...Cycling, that is..
I guess owning Martha's bike for one week was kind of crucial for me :)
Very wise decision...

always use condoms...penguins' way of saying it :))

Amsterdam, Amsterdam...

Finally came back from Holland... After 4 days of hitch-hiking, partying, travelling and meeting new people I am back in my Belgian home.
Great, great, great times... Amsterdam is so lovely for Queen's Day, that it makes you forget the tons of garbage left at the end of the party...Such an interesting mixture of cultures(some of them unfortunately only seeking prostitutes and weed) coming together in quite a small town. Amsterdam receives for Queen's Day almost three times its number of inhabitants from all over the world, which is why, at first, I was quite reticent whether I would like the party or not. In the end, it all proved to be more than spectacular. Nothing comparable to the small parties organized in my hometown for local celebrations.
Hitch-hiking from Steken(Belgian border) to MAsterdam, and from Amsterdam to Delft was a way of discovering once more that people are not all mean and reluctant to other people's problems. Punkers, businessmen, young mothers, youngsters, truckers... They all seemed to have a little bit of consideration for two girls just waving at cars on the edge of the highway...
And Holland...too beautiful to be described in words...

I saw Colin Farrell today...

…not God, not a UFO, not even a unicorn. No, I simply saw Colin Farrell, while he was shooting for his new film in Bruges. However, I might as well say that I have, without acknowledging it, been part of some marvelous miracle, if I were to appreciate things by the impact on people’s enthusiasm. Had there been Moses in Burg Square, they probably wouldn’t have behaved as frantically as they did.

The question is: Who is this Colin Farrell? More precisely, what is he more than a plain, 2-handed, one-hearted being? Maybe a plain, 2-handed, one-hearted Hollywood actor, but still, a human being… He is, apparently, someone so over-advertised, over-praised, over-appreciated, that people feel overwhelmed by his presence.

“Look, there’s Colin Farrell!!”-much as you might have expected, it wasn’t some 16-year-old girlie who shouted her lungs out to herald the news, but a very beauish 30-year-old that triggered the chain reaction.

“Where, where??”, desperate voices cried back from the foul that had already gathered to see what the unusually shiny, right-wheeled BMWs were doing in the heart of a medieval city.

“Just there, behind those crew guys…” pointed out some teenager towards a pack of make-up stylists, chefs, film directors, hairdressers, tailors and sound engineers(I must have skipped a few categories for sure) that were protecting him from the wind.

“What’s he doing?? What’s he doing?”, spirits started to heat, when seeing that there was practically little possibility of catching sight of the person envisaged.

“Well, mmmm…he’s having an ice-cream..”, the probably tallest guy, lucky enough to have access to Farrell’s view, explained boastfully.

“Having an ice-cream…echoed several voices from the mob, already starting to imagine several manners of having an ice-cream…”

I refuse to estimate how many people ran to buy ice-cream immediately after freezing in the square to watch the entire performance. I’ll simply pass on to mentioning that THE Colin Farrell finally appeared; and while 30 persons were striving to death to prevent the mob from taking photos, so that the shooting could eventually begin, THE actor finally pronounced his 1-minute reply, condemning to silence more than half of Bruges…

Finally, what Farrell did in Bruges can be summarized in a couple of negative phrases: “Photos forbidden”, “Visiting prohibited in the perimeter”, “No parking”, “No eating”, “No talking”, “No breathing”… Enough to determine an individual to irrevocably disconsider the slightest trace of Hollywood odour…

All in all, I am definitely going to watch that film, be it for a gold-incrusted DVD with the Queen’s signature upon it. “No Farrell stuff for me, Sir!”. “No watching considered”, “No praising envisaged”, “No idolizing planned”. And definitely, “No autographs demanded”.

Nother dying, come home father.

"Remember your epiphanies, written on green oval leaves, deeply deep, copies to be sent if you died to all great libraries in the world, including Alexandria? Someone was to read them after a few thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della Mirandola like. Ay, very like a whale. When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once..."

James Joyce, Ulysses

11th of March, the best day in Gent

I simply can't believe there can be sun in Belgium!!And that it can last for a whole day. WE decided to go out for a coffee at 2, and we walked through the brand new sunny Gent for about 3 hours.
B-E-A-utiful!!! People standing on the quay, enjoying the warm sunlight, huge crowds of tourists just wandering around, and suprisingly lots of happiness and plenitude.
Finally managed to discover the whole Korenmarkt, with the bridge and the towers... And also-first visit in Saint Nicholas' Cathedral.

Such a wonderful day, I can't stop repeating it!! Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!

Word of the day: Character's Day!! Artist of the day: Brody Neuenschwander

So much happiness for just one day!!
Character's Day, in Mariakerke.. Meeting Veruschka Gotz, a famous typography teacher in Berlin, and then Brody Neuenschwander, the calligrapher responsible for the drawings in Greenaway's "Pillows".

So much art for just one day...Overwhelmingly touching, calligraphy definitely got itself a brand new place in the postmodernist ranking I used to consider so far.

Few words to be said... still under the strong influence of a man's work of art-of text inserted into film, and published on human skin.
Transition between written word and image has been made!! And this, without depriving the primordial classical calligraphy of any of its purity... Text is image, thanks to Brody Neuenschwander and Greenaway!!!

Hot Club De Gand...really really HOT!!!

Last night...8th of March... one of the most beautiful evenings in Gent, so far...
A jazz concert in a very intimate and yet fashionable club in town. The hottest jazz one, they say...
Vandaloo 4- some saxophonist, drummer and double-bassist I would have never guessed could play Grappelly and Reinhardt the way they did. If "perfect" were suitable for comparison, I would definitely say that they sang "Most perfectly"!!!
For sure, a night to be repeated in a very short time...

First poster, first time to read such a book, first time...

I would have never imagined that being in Belgium would bring so many changes in my life. Apart from the continuous cooking, I was given here the chance to get to know Corel a lot better. And Corel is very nice. In fact, I think we are going to be best friends in a very short time!!

Vive la Fete, vive Modus Vivendi, vive Short NIght Fever, vive Corel!! And Georgiana's first poster!!!

And Robinson Crusoe is my name...

...and so fucking tired of not doing anything except for blowing nose(in between washing laundry, cooking, cleaning), taking aspirin and drinking tea. If it were to count for all the teas I've had during the last two days, I could remake that song- "You can cry me a river...Or drink me the teas I've been drinking"-or even build up an anthropic lake with an island made of tissues in the middle(and hence be a second Robinson)-all alternatives are viable...

Just hope to get rid of it at once...

Dinner time at Alejandro's

Greatest time ever... Having dinner at Alejandro's place, with Ana form Portugal, Wednesday night. Of course he did not cook... When I say great dinner, I imagine attentive way of frying fish nuggets and Chinese rolls; Nevertheless, splendid evening... Chatting, joint smoking(not me, of course) and beginning of some wonderful friendship...

Vive le Royaume Belge!!

Ceci n'est pas un chat. And I really mean it!!!!!

Cats are not giant.
Cats don't have huge, round, potato-like noses.
Cats don't have elephant skin.
"Le CHat"(we'll call him this way for now) is immense, has an awfully big nose and is incredibly ugly.
Cats are cute and cuddly.

Therefore, "Le CHat" is no cat.



p.s.: Sorry, Belgian guys, your symbol really is no cat!!! Whether you call it "L'Elephant", whether you don't call him at all. Respect!!

Trains in Belgium are good. Really good.

Trains in Belgium are good and fun. Lots of fun. And inspire confidence. They are light and open and white and blue and airy, because you never have trouble if you lose them. Going from Gent to Brussels can be possible more that 24 hours a day, so , in Belgium, Life’s Good. Belgian trains(and B-rail, in particular) make people happier. And they do good for health. Knowing that, once you’ve lost your train, you can take another one in less that 15 minutes, the world seems to smile to you. NO more stress, no more “What the hell do I do now?” questions, no more inquiries, no more nothing. I am so happy B-Rail exists!! God bless the Belgian trains that make things better!!!!

Nothing's new, everything's new, nothing's new, everything's new...

Mmmm... trying to recall what has been of huge importance for me in Gent during the past couple of days... I guess nothing is of huge importance nowadays, because I kind of got used to living the unextraordinary every day. In gent, sacred can be found in all profane things :)) No, don't laugh, in this town, everything is magical... And people have silently agreed to live this magic without saying a word about it. You just live it, you don't say anything of it, in hope that the others will discover it, just like you. And they do. We all do.

Gent is lively. Lovely. Lovingly lively. Livingly lovely.

p.s. for myself: Kouter is the best square ever!!!!!

This is going to be a larger blog...one meant to summarize several experiences I've been through here in Gent:)
First night in Overpoort, 11 February- a bit empty, possibly because student were still home or coming back from home on that very evening. Such a bohemian intimate atmosphere
filling the pubs in Overpoort!! I wouldn't have believed that it's possible for a Belgian bar to have something in common with an Irish pub, a French bistro and a Dutch coffee shop :) really unique moments spent there, while sipping a Kriek(their incredibly tasty cherry beer).
Moreover, Gent at night is absolutely stunning. Close to the Gent University Complex the lights are dim, the streets are narrow and the buildings are overwhelmingly inviting... Rock'n'Roll Avenue, or the Speakers' Corner only manage to make wish to prolong my stay as much as possible, in order to keep so long a contact as possible with these genuine bits of true European culture. Taking a simple moment for oneself while crossing the street in a junction can become a breathtaking moment of pure revelation. I am lucky to be here, part of this unique city. I really am.
Today, the 12th of Februray, we got lost on the way to Mariakerke Campus. On the way back, our nerves got rewarded with candy from a huge shop that sold piles of jelly, wafers, candy and gum. Paradise, indeed :)
Buying books in an ancient bookstore close to Oude Houtlei enhanced the sense of completion, in a strange, and yet, pleasant manner. I guess I know the secret now: it is the mere bookstores, avenues and candy shops that make me feel here in a way I thought only books can depict. The shoes hanging above the streets. Or the bicycles pedalling continuously on the cobbled streets. And perhaps the people...The magical ingredient that makes the world go round... Belgians are more than simply nice, sympathetic or "good folks". They like living life to the full. They listen to music while driving the bus, they smile while helping you put your new shoes on, they even help you with luggage in case you can no longer go on... I'd like to say that it's fantastic, but I'm afraid that using words might diminish the intensity of the sublime feelings I am experiencing here, even while writing this humble lines...
So I love Gent...I think that I am starting to become part of it... Feeling like home in the photos sent back to Romania is not little, I suppose. Simply hope the feeling won't go... God, help me take advantage of everything as much as possible!!!

First Week in Gent

Gent, Belgium, Flanders... A new, complex culture, yet a wonderful one, ready to unveil unexpected secrets to me...
The medieval town in which I am to live for the next five months even managed to draw the attention I used to allocate exclusively to France in a complete new direction. Paris still remains the city of my dreams, but, as far as real life is concerned, I think I'd love it if it were Gent. Or Bruges.
Shopping, reading, watching films, hanging out in the cafes in Overpoort, seeing plays and art exhibitions...This is what life in Gent is like. Not bad at all :))

First flight, first day in Gent...5 February 2007

5 Februray...5 am. Lots of anxiousness and stress concerning the flight that was going to take me to the place where I am to spend the next 5 months to come... Fear of the unknown, fear of airsick, fear of being so afraid that I won't manage to cope with the situation..

After 1 hour spent in Koln, we finally arrive in Charleroi Airport, some 40 kilometres away from Brussels. State of things can be resumed in three words: stress, tiredness and luggage(more than anyone can ever imagine).

Train, bus, train, luggage, bus, luggage, train... That was, in short, the itinerary we had to follow to get to Gent. Asking for directions, choosing the wrong streets and having to mount in trams accompanied by the luggage made the 5th of February everything but a memorable day. At the hotel...another surprise: no elevator... I won't go on commenting upon what happened next, as, you can imagine, the whole situation had to do something with the word "luggage".

In the evening...sleeep...piles, huge hours(more than 11) of deep dreamless sleep...