I love this cafe. Recently discovered here in Antwerp, it's like a small oasis of good food and coffee, friendly people, and excellent music.
There's an interview coming but for now ... today's lunch and a small glimpse inside Escobar.
Go early if you want a table at lunchtime. I went back after the lunch rush for the interior shots, having enjoyed meeting the loveliest New Zealander and her 5-week old son just after midday. It was a most excellent day really ... with sunshine!
I cleared about 10cms of snow and ice from the sidewalk this morning ...
Winter continues but perhaps I am beginning to wake, to shake off this winter lethargy, inspired by the kindness of old friends and new. I've been living a hermit's life lately, curling up in the cave of this Antwerpen winter.
Midday found Diana and I chatting on skype, bringing each other up to speed and talking of winter and workshops. I find her writing inspirational and this blog post helped shine a little light in on the greyness here.
And the other day ... the day after the day of drama and sadness, Miss 8 convinced me about buying the beautiful Nepalese shawl you see pictured below. It's a little like wearing my own private version of the sun.
We discovered Nepal Handicrafts on Hoogstraat which is part of our 'pretty way home'. Miss 8 and I share a passion for finding the most beautiful ways to reach home ... the prettiest way to go anyplace really. The journey is our destination and we must, if possible, enjoy it.
We have an animal spelling game for the days that are bleak and the trams full. She starts with 'elephant', for example, and then I have to find an animal whose name begins with the last letter of her animal. More research is required as we're running out of animals known to us. It helps that we both have Dutch spelling too but the tram journey is oftentimes longer than our memory or knowledge.
I feel more posts are long overdue. Life goes on and the sadness that has filled me simply must go. It's time.
Yesterday became chaotic suddenly.
Off the scale really...
I took a phone call from my daughter. She was collapsing on the side of the road with chest pains but she wasn't sure of the street name. She couldn't even stand up to put the bike away safely. And friendly city that Antwerp is ... no one would help her. Not even with the name of the street.
No one.
I went back there today, to pick up the bike the ambulance people had locked for her, and it's a busy street. This European city breaks my friendly little New Zealand heart sometimes. What made those people so cold and uncaring?
Yesterday I called Gert, not knowing what else to do, and he called her. He managed to recognise her location and called an ambulance. All of this, bouncing between people and phones, with the added stress of knowing Miss 8's after-school centre was closing and I had to find a way across and through the city's rush-hour gridlock.
As the ambulance people were covering her with equipment to monitor her heart, I was making an emergency call to a really kind Belgian I know. Sarah saved the day, as did her mum who was able to jump in the car and pick up Miss 8 just as her teacher was calling me, wondering where on earth we all were.
Quite shaken, I set off on a tram to begin putting my family back together. Jess was in a city hospital, precise location unknown but able to reply to sms's, Miss 8 was safe with good people. I picked Miss 8 up immediately because it was something I could do.
Later that evening and Gert finished his meeting. He arrived at the hospital, after calling the emergency phone number again to find out exactly where she had been taken, just as the hospital were releasing her.
It wasn't her heart, it was a stomach blockage, she was told. I went searching. They're incredibly painful, a collapse on the street is quite understandable as it can feel like your heart. Today I was able to be amused, as I read that coca cola is the 'drug' of choice ... achieving a 91.3 success rate in terms of a cure.
And so today has been an all over the city day. School drop-offs and pick-ups, and a return midday for a school play. The bike rescue, the long icy bike ride home.
I'm sitting here, wrapped in a beautiful Nepalese shawl Miss 8 convinced me I needed - after 4 days of putting it back. And I have a glass of red wine, and some good music playing. I'm exhausted.
Actually, further to the story of the people on that Antwerp street ... someone did come and help Jess eventually. A lovely Morrocan guy. And when I think about who I see giving up their seats on the trams or helping young mums lift pushchairs on and off trams, I'm not surprised.
To the others who passed by that young woman on the footpath in a state of collapse. She only needed a street name, not your blood nor your time. Just a name ...
I took the photograph on 13 March but looking out from my window today, the scene is exactly the same.
March 20, 2013 and it's snowing. As I set out across the city on the school run at 7.20am it was all about the umbrella, the correct amount of layers to protect us from the wet cold rain. On the return, lost in a book on the tram, I looked up and discovered that 'outside' had turned into yet another horrid snowy winter's day.
To try and break the misery that is Antwerp this winter, Gert and I disappeared over to France, to the summer playground of the Parisians ... on a cheap Sunday night deal last weekend. It rained but I was on a roadtrip and has always delighted me.
Although ... he had fallen on ice last week and sprained his wrist. Slowly slowly he is healing. The roads here are lethal in snow and ice, especially the shiny new bricks they've laid on the round-abouts. He fell crossing the one near home. We were talking on the phone at the time, and I was feeling particularly miserable after making a freezing cold, roadwork-infested, cross-city trek.
There's nothing quite like hearing the Belgian bloke crash to the ground and lie groaning while seperated by more than a few kilometres. I arrived home just in time to head off to A&E with him. Oh yes, that was a long day.
I suspect I shall be giddy with delight when the temperature goes up and the snow finally stops because it really is Spring. And rumour has it that these 2 hour city treks will be over as of the Easter holidays. I really need them to be. Antwerp, and its current mania for both roadworks and house improvements that seriously impede any progress along the pathways and tramways I take, is a bit like having my own seriously dark and snow-filled cloud over my head at all times.
And so, on that happy note .... tot straks.
I've spent the last few days researching, photographing, and writing up Monday's blogpost for Fans of Flanders.
I'm working on a series of interviews that are absolutely related to this blog's reason for being ... the whole people become stories and stories become understanding thing.
With that in mind, I'll be talking to more than a few Flemish people I know over the next few months, taking some photographs and writing up stories because they're interesting people and because I love hearing people tell their stories.
Here's one of the images for Monday's blogpost. I'll cross-post here once it's published. Any ideas of what it might be ...?
There's always going to be some guy playing a piano on wheels in the snow ...
Or Belgian paratroopers doing their thing in Central Station.
It has been difficult to return to this European winter ... return from swimming and wading at various beaches all over New Zealand. Difficult to return from a country where you squint in the sun ... to a country where the sun makes an occasional appearance.
Difficult ... yes. Very.
But I filled my life with projects, as is my way. And they're all EXCITING.
And there are lots of projects because other people are so interesting however ... there's only one of me and this attempt to not miss New Zealand has become a nightmare of a workload.
I have 5 major projects. These last two days have been spent, head-in-hands oftentimes, as I recognise that I might have over-committed myself, in ways that I seem to specialise in.
Each project is brilliant. Some have been underway for a while. Some involve 1,000s of photographs I have yet to process. Others are future plans that excite the hell out of me.
Anyway, here's a glimpse from the other day when I wandered into the city in search of boots for the snow. I found these boots and they were cheaper than the price listed here ... half price in fact.
And the guy that sold them to me was the nicest guy. We chatted about the countries we come from while I shopped for my boots. A huge thank you has to go to him because shopping in Antwerp isn't always fun and the people aren't always friendly. When I find the receipt, I'll come back and tell you which shop I bought them in ... so you can pop in too.
Snow has arrived here in Antwerp.
It's cold, damn cold. I woke at 3am and padded through the house, trying to work out if I could turn the heating up. It goes way down at night. It was 14 celsius inside ... it didn't feel quite right.
It's snowing again as I write this meanwhile a tram derailed over on the Leftbank here and it's a little messy when it comes to getting past Central Station on Tram 5. But I need more Nespresso coffee capsules, just till a delivery can be made.
Sigh. I'm going to get snowed on.
In good news, my voice recorder arrived in the mail today. Interviews can happen again. I lost mine in New Zealand and was so sad. I am so careful with my equipment, so very careful usually.
Anyway ... outside just now.
We're just in from a weekend spent in Wallonia, where the temperature dropped to below zero celsius and snow fell. And we gathered around a huge fire in a big old house and spent our time talking with good friends.
Actually, my heart has been warmed as friends have welcomed us back to Belgium after weeks spent wandering in that New Zealand summer.
Wednesday found me out with Jurjana, my truly delicious Croatian friend here in Antwerp. She drove me to her favourite restaurant and we enjoyed a lovely lunch and catch-up session at Patrasche, in Hoboken.
Thursday and Stephanie, an English friend, came over for dinner with her daughter. Another few hours spent talking and listening.
Friday and it was Lucy, Fiona, and Ruth. My lovely Irish and Belgian friends. We began as an informal Nederlands class but they have become such good friends that there was something of a 'coming home' feeling as I arrived at Fiona's house. Actually, we don't really speak in Nederlands anymore .... but, by crikey, we always have a most excellent time when we get together.
And this weekend was the icing on the cake. We wandered over to the New Zealand/Belgian/American household, over there on the other side of Belgium, and the snow fell and our wandering souls were surely warmed.
We're back in Belgium where its winter.
There has been a real sense of storing impressions ... of really looking, as I walk city streets in these days before flying back home to New Zealand ...
This is the opening to a new blog post I wrote for Fans of Flanders, and posted on my Antwerp page but even as I write this here, I'm thinking maybe I need to create a New Zealand page.
I'll leave you with another image from New Zealand photographer, and good friend, David Wall.
Must finish packing ... tot later.
When you race out after breakfast to photograph the rubbish bags in an area not your own ... for that blogpost you wrote elsewhere.
And on the way home, after rubbish bag photography where you bluffed that yes, I'm meant to be doing this, you are picked up by a Jehovah's Witness doing her work. (I mistook her for a friendly Belgian out there on the suburban streets, between the supermarket and home.)
And unable to be rude, you obediently give her your home address, so she can come check whether you read that religious tract she just gave you.
Then you have that hour long appointment with a woman so wise that she makes you smile ... work on photographs, put the laundry through and vacuum.
You open the stunningly excellent carrot and cardamom bio soup you picked up from the supermarket because a truly generous yoga instructor is calling by, just to show you that you can do yoga without your injured neck popping out and all over the place.
And you talk photography with her because she wants to learn the how of it and you love sharing what you know.
Well ... it's been a day like that so far. The photograph ... the street I wandered home along earlier this morning.
Jess dragged me outside the other day ... the sun was disappearing but light was exquisite.
We were a little slow arriving in Rivierenhof on our bikes but caught some of the autumn action there ...
We had a most delightful day wandering this Flemish city of mine with our cameras …
We were 4, as they might say here. I loved the international flavour of us. We came from Italy, Belgium, Finland and New Zealand, meeting at my house, over lunch and pdf workbooks.
My photography e-course book is included in each photography workshop, as is Hanna’s video e-book in video workshops. I had previously asked Francesca and Bouchra what elements of photography they were most interested in and, after lunch, set them practical exercises focusing on their areas of interest.
That done we were ready to wander out into the beautifully warm autumn day Antwerp was offering. The city was good to us and shop-owners welcomed our interest in their decor and products. The autumn leaves glowed in the exquisite golden light on offer and we played … cameras in hand, 4 women together, out and enjoying the freedom to experiment and learn.
These workshops are as much about offering a safe and supportive environment for learning just how to use your camera … as they are about slipping in through the backdoor and visiting the lives of the people who live here. And it’s about any camera … whatever you have. And just as important is the realisation that your way of seeing is valid. That perhaps photography is about knowing the rules but then it’s bending them to your style, to exploring them and pushing them to their limits, about playing.
The goal? Well, it’s about coming away knowing that your way of seeing is exactly that … it’s your way. An expression or extension of you. In the same way the artist chooses their medium, the writer their genre …
I truly enjoyed the time we spent together on Tuesday. A huge thank you to Francesca, Bouchra and Hanna for being so much fun to go wandering with … and for being so willing to experiment with photography.
Photo credit goes to Francesca Puccio.
I write for the Fans of Flanders website once a week. It's been interesting finding my voice over there because it feels less about me as a photographer and more about me as a foreigner here in Belgium ... kind of.
But this weekend's post was slightly simpler to write ... well, it took ages but I was working through a small crisis. You see I have been known to complain about things here in Belgium. It's a very flat country, there's only 60kms of coastline, it's polluted, and people can be quite rude in the shops and on the trams ... not always but by crikey, I have more than enough stories of outrage.
Last weekend we had a party and one of our guests was the lovely Spanish-based American friend called Erik. He is friend to Simon and Paola, and so it was that he stayed with them over in Brussels, and they decided they would leave exploring Antwerp until the Saturday of the party.
I realised I would have to leave them to it, as there were more than 25 guests coming and we were cooking dinner for 7 plus 2 kidlets, beforehand. I found it strangely painful not to be involved in micro-managing their city wandering.
I was bemused ... but wait, what is this feeling??? Is it really that I want Erik to see Antwerp in the best possible light? Really?
And I realised that this is my over-arching desire when it comes to this adopted Flemish city of mine. I love introducing people to it, to the secret places tourists don't always find, to the restaurants and cafes with the best food and wine, to the ancient cobblestone streets that hide so many surprises ... really quirky surprises sometimes. I love it because somehow this city has become part of me.
Anyway ... my small crisis played out over on my Antwerp page.
This wasn't the first time, I've been interviewed for television before ...
I'm not sure if you read through the various blog pages I have on this website but I wrote the story of my recent interview experience over on my Antwerp blog page so ... just in case you missed it, it's there and not here, where I had originally intended to tell the story.
Yesterday I spent some hours over at the Radiant Light Yoga Studio here in Antwerp. These last few weeks have seen me working on a new project that involves creating a series of yoga portraits. It's probably clear in the portrait below but I am absolutely loving this attempt of capturing the truly lovely yoga folk I find there.
Today was the day when I could no longer resist dipping my toes in the 'water' of this discipline that was causing me to relax even while I was photographing the classes. Today I attended my first yoga class.
My body has suffered quite some damage over the years and I was slightly concerned about how it would go, this desire to make the stiff and unbendy bits of me supple again.
I loved it and I can barely wait to return although the next few days are busy and I'll have to be patient ... so patient.
Huge thanks go to Yogalates Instructor, Lama (pictured below), for being so patient with me as she worked her way through a series of moves from her yoga practice and for permission to post her image here.
They booked their visit months ago. It was written into 'the book' and then time passed, in its usual haphazard manner. Being me, I lost track but suddenly, despite this non-participation with regard to time, it was 25 August and voila, they were here.
I met Clare in Istanbul and adored her there. She left, we stayed in contact and Gert and I had the joy of photographing her British wedding to the lovely Chris ...
This friendship, it's been lovely so far.
Yesterday we wandered the city ending our day at Taverne Ter Rivierenhof, with unlimited exceptionally exquisite Mosselen a Velonte, Scampi in Lookboter, and Stoverij. Bliss!
This morning a traditional Belgian breakfast was enjoyed by all, conversations too, and then afternoon saw them disappear on our bikes, exploring this city Clare has only visited during colder months. Chris has never been here ... it was therefore imperative that he went wandering.
Last heard of, they were leaving the Open Air Sculpture Park called Middelheim, heading for the famous Het Elfde Gebod - a pub full of religious statues, bought when the Catholic Church entered its minimalist phase.
There have been a couple of serious downpours but we're thinking they're fine. She's an intrepid soul, as is he ... and we're looking forward to the stories that will surely be told over Shepherd's Pie and Pavlova tonight.
Oh ... and red wine too. Belgian beers for the boys we're thinking - in the style of an anthropological-style ethnography. Gert's been introducing all the blokes to the new beer by Duvel Tripel Hop. So far, everyone he has introduced to this new limited edition beer to, has looked like they have partaken of a miracle upon supping from their Duvel glass.
Even Clare toyed with not returning Chris's glass to him after a taste of the Duvel, despite the fact that we in the midst of our own red wine religious experience. That, my friends, is how good the Duvel Tripel Hop is ...
Anyway, meet Chris and Clare.
I do believe I might have found an oasis of calm here in Antwerp but more to follow. Yoga is most definitely a plan in the weeks ahead.
Miss 8 and I went wandering in Rivierenhof ...
The garden toads are back in our tiny garden without a pond. They were out sunning themselves today ... in 16 celsius of glorious Spring sunshine.
