They detected I'm in Belgium and gave me google.be results. They even changed my Blogger options so I had to choose between "Blog maken" and "Aanmelden" to make this post! Auuugh! I feel so geotargeted.
Anyway, I wanted to write about my weekend, mostly undistinguished except for significant stomach troubles and a glorious trip to the opera to see Handel's "Giulio Cesare in Egitto". My 10 euro ticket got me entrance to a lovely small European-style opera house, and my legs got me up the stairs to my seat. Along the way I bought an 8 euro program that consisted of two beautifully bound books, one filled with the synopsis in four languages (the Brussels standards of French and Dutch, plus English and German, super-bonus!) and about 4 different articles about Handel and the opera in French and Dutch, and bilingual cast biographies; and the other with the libretto in the original Italian, French, and Dutch. What a bargain!
From my seats I couldn't even see the supertitles, but they wouldn't have helped anyway. They were in French and Dutch, of course! Thankfully I'd done some research online and knew the gist of things. The music was truly beautiful, and the production what my Dad would call "eurotrash" - very modern, and stark, and black-and-white. Super-bonus: there were three counter-tenors onstage that night, instead of the predicted two, each with a distinct style and carriage. Neat stuff. It's very incongruous for modern audiences to hear such high-pitched voices and think of them of heroic; we're just conditioned otherwise. Audiences invariably titter when they first open their mouths. And then stop, if the singing is good enough.
Since my stomach had been a bit touchy all day, I contented myself with a quick waffle snack before the performance. Waffles and opera, a good day!
Monday, January 28, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Brussels Weekend 1
Well, K and I owe some serious holiday updates, but for now here's mine. I'm camped in Brussels for the nonce, and had a very nice weekend.
Friday: stayed up stupidly late watching "The Punisher", featuring John Travolta as the bad guy and some easy-on-the-eyes guy as the Punisher himself. Plus, it was dubbed into Italian. How could I resist?
Saturday: woke up groggy and headachy and hungry at noon. I stumbled across the rainy plaza to Le Pain Quotidien and had a sublime salad of smoked salmon and lentils. Even the group of chatty Flemish folks didn't kill my buzz; the asked what I was eating and I managed to find the right item on the Flemish-language menu. In the afternoon I wandered the streets, eyeing sale displays & antiques, and eventually found a market that sells yogurt. I also gathered up a fair sampling of gourmet chocolate goodies. Saturday evening I failed to find a restaurant with availability and settled for the local bar/cafe. Turns out they've updated their menu since I last had it, and it includes some decent salads and desserts. Huzzah!
Sunday: woke up at a decent hour, chatted with K (he was up late, gaming with buddies), worked out, went back to LPQ, did some work, met a friend at the Museum around the corner to see the Reubens exhibit. Trudy Kohler, these "pink, squishy bodies" are for you! It proved beautiful and educational - apparently Reubens was so successful that later in his career he would sketch out models of large works and hand the execution over to other studios. Outsourcing it, old school! The room with his huge religious works was just gorgeous - he really packs his compositions with action, motion, and detail. Then we went to a local cafe and enjoyed some sinfully rich rasberry meringue tart. Sugar buzz!
I'll probably go back to the cafe tonight for simplicity's sake. Sometime this week I'm determined to check out the Ethiopian restaurant near the Grand Place, as well as a few more Thai restaurants and some classic Belgian joints. Though those are often hard on the arteries...can't take too much of that. I did find a Japanese restaurant, so that's on my list for when I need some comfort food. And the opera house is showing Handel's "Julius Ceasar in Egypt". Dad says if I can catch a performance, I'll have been to an opera house that he hasn't. Ha!
A few takeaways so far:
1. Nearly everyone in Brussels speaks English. I'm giving up on my shitty French for now.
2. A cold, overcast day in Brussels is a good day. At least it's not raining.
3. I need to find healthier things to eat in Brussels. Waffles, fries, beer, shrimp, mussels, and chocolate don't make for balanced nutrition.
Friday: stayed up stupidly late watching "The Punisher", featuring John Travolta as the bad guy and some easy-on-the-eyes guy as the Punisher himself. Plus, it was dubbed into Italian. How could I resist?
Saturday: woke up groggy and headachy and hungry at noon. I stumbled across the rainy plaza to Le Pain Quotidien and had a sublime salad of smoked salmon and lentils. Even the group of chatty Flemish folks didn't kill my buzz; the asked what I was eating and I managed to find the right item on the Flemish-language menu. In the afternoon I wandered the streets, eyeing sale displays & antiques, and eventually found a market that sells yogurt. I also gathered up a fair sampling of gourmet chocolate goodies. Saturday evening I failed to find a restaurant with availability and settled for the local bar/cafe. Turns out they've updated their menu since I last had it, and it includes some decent salads and desserts. Huzzah!
Sunday: woke up at a decent hour, chatted with K (he was up late, gaming with buddies), worked out, went back to LPQ, did some work, met a friend at the Museum around the corner to see the Reubens exhibit. Trudy Kohler, these "pink, squishy bodies" are for you! It proved beautiful and educational - apparently Reubens was so successful that later in his career he would sketch out models of large works and hand the execution over to other studios. Outsourcing it, old school! The room with his huge religious works was just gorgeous - he really packs his compositions with action, motion, and detail. Then we went to a local cafe and enjoyed some sinfully rich rasberry meringue tart. Sugar buzz!
I'll probably go back to the cafe tonight for simplicity's sake. Sometime this week I'm determined to check out the Ethiopian restaurant near the Grand Place, as well as a few more Thai restaurants and some classic Belgian joints. Though those are often hard on the arteries...can't take too much of that. I did find a Japanese restaurant, so that's on my list for when I need some comfort food. And the opera house is showing Handel's "Julius Ceasar in Egypt". Dad says if I can catch a performance, I'll have been to an opera house that he hasn't. Ha!
A few takeaways so far:
1. Nearly everyone in Brussels speaks English. I'm giving up on my shitty French for now.
2. A cold, overcast day in Brussels is a good day. At least it's not raining.
3. I need to find healthier things to eat in Brussels. Waffles, fries, beer, shrimp, mussels, and chocolate don't make for balanced nutrition.
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