3 candles for @dropje

From tomorrow on I’m no longer a toddler, but a nursery school kid. Well, @dropje is. My Twitter alter ego celebrates its third birthday. Lately there has been a lot of debate about Twitter. A dutch writer, Daan Heersma van Voss, complained about the emptiness of all those wannabes who lack imagination. He considered it as a cheap advertising channel. Wrong! I tend not to follow those who are merely marketing their product. Personality, genuineness, sense of humour and opinions are qualities I value when I decide (not) to follow someone.

Newspapers tend to overestimate its value. They write ‘Twitter says so and so …’ Last week I saw a headline ‘Opinions on Twitter are divided upon the subject of …’ Really?! I know -since I have been around-, that it’s an easy way to gather some kind of vox pop for your articles. After all there’s loads of pressure on journalists and the wages are low compared to the hours they work. And yet, what’s the relevance of an article about eg. hashtag games people play? Twitter is some kind of an online pub. Do you write a piece on a conversation you catch in a pub?

Twitter is -in my humble opinion- whatever you want it to be. For me it has all been about meeting people and staying in touch with them. Last month I met several people I met on Twitter. Fiona did a colour analysis, Greet and I went for a hot chocolate in Antwerp and I was to meet Nick too. Nick lives in the UK and I met him in Reykjavík in october during a tweet-up. Unfortunately I got flu, so I didn’t make it to Bruges.

Meeting Greet was even more funny. We realised that it was the first time we saw each other in Belgium. We connected on Twitter because we both like Iceland (the advantage of an online pub is that you easily discover if you have common interests). She lives in Sweden, but we happened to be in Berlin and Reykjavík at the same time, so we met there. And last year I met a lot of Iceland Airwaves fans  in London (Nick, Pam, Ben) and Brussels (Elly). Thanks to Twitter, Europe is really in my backyard.

I also met a lot of (innovative) colleagues thanks to Twitter. Once I wanted to work for an hour in another building, told it on Twitter and one of my colleagues helped me out.I also enjoy the lunches I have with my Twitter colleagues. If Twitter didn’t exist, I’d probably never meet them at all.

So, to all those who think Twitter ain’t social, the above examples should make you reconsider your opinion. It’s what you want it to be, not what you think it is.

Of ovens and choice

“Pyrolise or not?”
“This one has energy class A – 20 %”
“This one has three baking trays and that more expensive one only one”
“If only we would live in a communist society. It was your lucky day if you could choose at all”

My boyfriend and I were joking, but in fact we got slightly desperate. Choosing an oven, my dears, is a haphazard thing to do, but the peril could no longer be avoided. My old seventies relic can’t control temperature anymore. Choosing these things is something we genuinely dread. What to choose? There are no fixed standards that ease your choice.

“How long will this more expensive one last compared to the cheap one?”, I tried. The sales guy couldn’t tell. I don’t mind paying double, if the oven last twice as long as the cheaper one. If only there was a checklist. If you pay this, you will get this this, and this. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Too much choice wears me out sometimes. Do we really need 20 possibilities? How about only five or so? What does one take into account and what not? It’s mere chance after all.One little thing that went wrong during the production of your oven, can cause it to break down far earlier than expected. In the end we decided upon the cheapest one, without pyrolise. As we would have had in the communist days!

Blown away

Have you ever experienced the feeling of being upside down after reading a book (or listening to music or seeing a painting)? You get blown away and everything around you seems to vanish. The older I get, the less it happens to me.

Last year, when I was in the Amsterdam Hermitage, I saw The Dance by Henri Matisse. Suddenly I saw it. I understood the power of this huge colorful painting. I understood expressionism. My art history teacher told us once, totally ecstatic: “Isn’t that great, how these dancers want to dance out of the painting.” I still can’t see it in a photograph.

De Dans - Matisse cop Hermitage

But standing there, I suddenly understood what he meant. It was the frame that did it. The dancers seemed to want to push it away. It was not the only Aha that day. I also got the feeling in front of a Kandinsky. The audio guide played classical music from that period and the painting suddenly sprang to life. Never thought it would lead to something between me and Kandinsky. But maybe it happened, because I didn’t expect it at all.

And today and yesterday I had the feeling again, while reading Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck. Every word in this book is to the point. Contributes to an incredible suspense. The story grabs you from page 1 until the last one. It’s a nice portrait of the time. Very cinematic too. The book immediately sprang to life in my imagination, including the characters, who have that a great American accent as seen in the old movie. Barely 120 pages, but what a classic!

2012: a to do list

2012 is perhaps the last year ever, according to the Mayans at least. Time to make a decent to do list, to get the most out of it.

1. Learning Icelandic. As my boyfriend and my cousin reacted “Again?”. But now I’m serious this time. Alexandra, a good friend of mine and Icelandic, will probably move to Antwerp for a while. Which is an extra motivation!

2. The garden. In 2011 we bought a house. With a garden. After the adding-earth-to-it adventure that Kristof will never forget (the poor devil: one of the bags with soil tore in the air, it hardly missed our roof), it’s time to sculpt the garden. I want a patio garden with vegetables in pots. Which ones I do not know. I’d love to have raspberries. Suggestions are always welcome.

3. The house. Our ongoing project for the rest of our lives. I want to paint the stairs and hallway (but first I have to get four layers of paint off that already have been there since the thirties). The attic floor is also on my program. And much more/

4. Dinner at Roger Van Damme. He’s a famous pastry chef. Mouth watering. How the man uses the piping bag, waw.

5. I want to be able to make desserts that look good. Grow patience. “It doesn’t look like it, but it tastes good,” says Kristof often. Let’s see if I also am able to create something delicious that is also good-looking.

6. Learn to make the perfect Mogador. The Mogador is a macaroon with milk chocolate and passion fruit of my favorite Parisian pastry chef Pierre Hermé. My baking nemesis. Although I suspect that the oven had something to do with my failures. I can’t control temperature anymore. A new oven should do the trick.

7. To see Radiohead. Just because it is much too long ago. Probably in Berlin. If you want to join me, please let me know.

8. My craziest project: to read 30 books read. Because I haven’t read enough the past years. The internet, you know. I’m going for 13 classics, 13 modern books and four others. Many American authors on the list

Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)
Slaughterhouse 5 (Kurt Vonnegut)
Lord of the Rings (Tolkien, it’s been too long)
Post Office (Charles Bukowski)
Divine Comedy (Dante)
Don Quixote (Cervantes)
Ulysses (James Joyce – finish it at least)
Tropic of Cancer (Henry Miller)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
Emma (Jane Austen)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)
100 years of solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Henry V (Shakespeare)
The Kindly Ones (Jonathan Litell)
Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
Godenslaap (Erwin Mortier)
Solar (Ian McEwen)
Hardboiled Wonderland (Haruki Murakami)
Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami)
The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)
The Cathedral of the Sea (Ildefenso Falcones)
The copper garden (Simone Vestdijk)
A visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan)
A History of the World in 10 1 / 2 chapters (Julian Barnes)
The End of Mr. Y (Scarlett Thomas)
The big postponement (Mark Reugebrink)
The Popes
Les fleurs du mal (Baudelaire)
Congo
Parisian Chic

9. I’m working on a blog with all pubs, shops and activities that you do not find in guidebooks. The blog is called Secret spots and hidden gems. It’s my own travel guide / archive I want to share. But first I want to have one hundred items before I launch it.

10. Visit a museum or exhibition every month.

December love

December. The darkest days of the year. Stormy weather, snow, mist … Leaving when it’s dark, getting back when it’s dark, entering a nice, cosy, warm living room while your boyfriend is cooking … The scent of his pumpkin soup filling the house. Huddling together in the couch with a nice cup of tea from Paris, Reykjavík, London or Berlin, watching True Blood of Mad Men … I just love winter days!

Walking around in the city, some icy breeze kissing your cheeks. Christmas lights everywhere. Everyone around you is hurrying, stressing to find presents. A quirky hustle and bustle that calms me down. Silly music. I wouldn’t mind to miss that.

The thing I love the most is getting our Christmas tree ready. I just love a colourful tree. No magazine like white, boring tree. I cheer for glitter, colours, no matching christmas balls, shiny wrapping paper … Kitsch kitsch baby! Fetching a suitable present for everyone, is a part I thoroughly enjoy. I just love to see a tree with lots of presents. I don’t like Christmas day that much ’cause our tree looks so empty afterwards!

Our tree

When will Katla, Hekla, Laki … erupt? A funny tutorial.

“Plates, we need more plates!” A lazy Sunday afternoon in the brilliant new concert hall Harpa in Reykjavík. Perfect gluggaveður, as Icelanders call it (window weather): windy outside, but the sun is warming the beautiful glass windows, designed by Ólafur Elíasson.

We don’t need more plates cause we’re hungry. We’re drinking a lovely hot chocolate. With cream. We need more plates because Greet is a bit worried that the volcano Katla will erupt and she won’t be able to go back home to Sweden. Hjörtur decides to educate us on ‘the Icelandic volcanoes’, using … plates.

 

A seal in a Stanley Kubrickmovie

Time seems to have a different pace. People with white silt on their faces glide through the water. The steam seems to slow them down. It’s better than I expected. Not too many tourists. All of a sudden I expect Alex and his droogs from A Clockwork Orange to raid the place for the moloko we have on our faces. I try to swim, but I’m not really advancing. The sauna and the steam bath are a bliss, as is the waterfall. How I love the land of the Nice!

My first time in the Blue Lagoon. Nine years ago, I never made it. We were running late as we were travelling the country. Or we were too tired. I thought it was too touristy, but luckily we picked a quiet afternoon today. My brownie tastes really well, as does my dish at the Thai restaurant in Keflavík afterwards. Icelandic swimming pools is what I am craving for the most when in Belgium. We lie down on a wooden chair at the side of this geothermal pool. I wonder whether this is what seals must be feeling like. The woman at the bar is dressed as if she can feed us fish any time.

This after-airwaves-week is brilliant. I also visit Lilja and Óli in Keflavík. Another first time … I have never been in Keflavík city before. On the way back Heiða gives me a tour: a 10/11 supermarket, a gift store, a Thai, a place where you can eat fish and three art galleries a.o.

Heida and Óliver picking up a cd for Wim

Later that week -on my last day- we go swimming in Álftanes. On the way to it, we pick up a cd for the almighty Wim and pay a visit to the president. Another first time. I have never been to Bessastaðir before. Óliver wants to ring the doorbell, but Heiða doesn’t think that’s a good idea. There’s a lovely church in front of the presidential mansion (that used to be a school building) and a rather sweet graveyard (and a lot of duckpoo – a lot of birds in the area – Álftanes means bay of swans, Heiða tells me).

Shall we ring?

The night before, Alexandra invites me to go and see the play she’s in. I feel honoured and excited. I have never seen her play ‘for real’. The play was Völuspá, a nordic food expedition. Völuspá is a story from the Poetic Edda. A priest (völva) relates the story of the beginning of the world and its coming end. The play is combined with lovely food: lamb, lamb’s tongue, almond milk, scones baked with lamb’s blood, fish … A part of the play is in English … The main course in the library of the Nordic house with glorious book table (I want one!), with the lovely Loki as a host. Toasting to Baldur was so sweet of him… I happened to sit next to a girl who had studied in Brussels for three years – it’s a small world! The going down to Ragnarök, where we could see the future events- was quite an experience. It was so good to see Alex perform! There can’t be enough Mimi’s in this world!

On my last night I managed to meet my long time friend Elias – who studied at Háskóla Íslands with me. Basically travelling to Iceland is meeting friends the whole time. My last night dinner and the one we did for Marcus are such lovely, warm  moments. I cherish them for the next few months. See you all next year!

Under the weather Airwaves

Something quirky happened to me during this year’s Iceland Airwaves. I didn’t feel like seeing many concerts. And obviously, I wasn’t the only one. Many people told me they were feeling a bit too tired to hop from one concert to another.

Are we getting old? Has the festival become too big with too many options to choose from? Then I realised it was the weather that was wearing me out. It was quite windy and the weather changed sometimes four times a day.  I remembered how it was when I was living in Reykjavík: sometimes I was just too tired to go somewhere just because of the strong winds that seem to devour your energy.

But all in all I really enjoyed the festival. Sometimes it was a bit stressy: so many people I had to meet and hang out with, but on the other hand I just love that! Meeting Greet, Elly, Jamie, Katie, Kate, Ben, Bob, Nick, Pam, Mark, Peter and so many others while watching bands- it was all so great. In the mean time I was also hanging out with my host Alex, Heiða, Elvar, Óliver and the other Icelanders. Hopping from Kex Hostel to Hemmi og Valdi to some shops to Hressó during the day, and from Harpa to the Art Museum to Amsterdam during the evenings.

Harpa from the inside -view on the harbour

The new venue Harpa is really cool. I don’t think it’s a coincidence  I saw a few of my favourite concerts up there: Sóley (also the award for coolest outfit I want those shoes!), Mugison (who was dirty, filthy and woohoohoo sexy as always and Of Monsters and Man (my main discovery this festival). Other bands who were new to me and whom I really enjoyed were Klassart and Samaris.

I also really liked Borko at the Art Museum. That man is so underestimated. Go and check him out at Gogoyoko, when you can listen to loads of Icelandic music. The sound at the Art Museum was sometimes a bit disappointing (high ceilings I guess). Which is a pity because I was really looking forward to see Beach House and their music got sort of lost.

Hellvar in Munnharpan

I also saw a few really nice gigs in Amsterdam: Aela on Sunday (award for best dress up party) and Hellvar on Friday. Hellvar had had a lot of practice doing seven gigs in five days. My favourite one was the one in Munnharpan on Sunday. Everyone was relaxed, laid back and so willing to listen to their acoustic gig. The sun was shining in the windows of Harpa. A perfect chill-out on a lovely Sunday! Other pix are to be found here.

Aela - dressing up

The spacial awareness of the Icelander*

* Thanks to Ben for the title

Imagine you are at a Beach House concert at Iceland Airwaves, you are Icelandic and you want to go towards the back of the venue (i.c. the Art Museum) . On your way there are two people standing, dressed in red. Since they are not romantically involved, there’s a gap of 20 cms between them. What do you do?

a) There’s more space left and right of them, so I walk round

b) A gap? Nice! Let’s squeeze myself through that! And give them a punch or two while doing so

c) Two people? Where? O, I just torpedoed myself on one of them. But hey,  I’m drunk!

If you’re lucky, the Icelander chooses option B. Mostly it is C. Why, I hear you asking? Is it because you were dressed in red? Did that work as a red rag to a bull? No, ’cause even when you don’t wear red, the Icelander bumps into you. So, what is it then? Lack of spacial awareness? The air? Too much love? Someone?

Even more strange is the fact I forget about this bumping into people every year again. Maybe it is as my friend Elly points out: they are huddling together for warmth? There is a lot of warmth is this country, in spite of its name. That’s what I experience over and over again. Whenever I return from Iceland, I feel like a more positive person. My friends and the people I meet here give me loads of positive energy. And that’s – I believe – why I keep forgetting about the lack of spacial awareness of the Icelander.

No use for scapegoats at Pukkelpop

Pukkelpop the day after … It seems unreal … Just saw the press conference … Utter disgust. The press wants scapegoats. I have some breaking news for you: THERE ARE NONE! I can’t hear the question anymore whether the organisation could have warned people for such extreme weather. So what? Where should people have gone too then? It all happened in 30 minutes …

There was nothing they could do. Nature came in the way. This green-greyish sky and this kind of storm is something I have never seen before in my 30 years on this planet. Not in real life at least. Only in films about tornadoes. The wind, the hail … it was a bit … I can’t describe it. Surreal? Apocalyptic?

We must be glad the damage wasn’t any worse. I was standing in the Club-tent. The stakes were shaking there too. It was scary. The wind got under the tent. I wanted to get out of there. I tried to figure out how those stakes would fall. Told myself not be such a pussy cause people around me were still laughing and having fun while my knees were shaking. I sensed panic among other people too, so I was glad I wasn’t the only one. Even more scary was that people at the sides didn’t want to leave the tent. Can’t blame them cause they saw what was flying around and collapsing flag poles and tv-screens outside. You couldn’t see two metres far.

A friend filmed this from the area where I was, just to give you an idea:

 

After a while the storm calmed down. I heard the Chateau had collapsed. Minutes before the storm broke out I had been talking to my brother-in-law who was going there with a friend. I was in doubt, but I decided to go to Miles Kane after all. I tried to call my boyfriend to check whether this was true. After half an hour or so I could reach him. Indeed the Chateau had collapsed but his brother and his friend had escaped. 

I stayed for some hours, barefoot in the mud. Everyone was really calm, wondering what to do. Reaching out for news. There was none. Called the boyfriend again. Could reach him after 45 minutes. He told me there were two or three dead people. Decided I’d go home. Not in the mood anymore for music.

And then I hear people asking whether they get their money back. Five families don’t get their relative back, hello?! Three people are still fighting for their lives. The organisation gets blamed by people who weren’t there. Can we please show a little more respect?