Baloji (thanx to Agenda)

Thank god we can learn what is going on in Belgium/Brussels for free through Metro (newspaper) and Agenda (weekly magazine about the cultural stuff in Brussels). However, I like Agenda also for the free tickets it gives to the people that e-mail them. For a year now, every week, I send them e-mails to try my luck for a concert or show. I got lucky twice!!!
About a year ago, I won two tickets to a concert of Asian Dub Foundation. I haven't even heard of them until then. After I won the tickets, I looked for people who could go to the concert with me. All my friends rejected me (yeah they're really busy). I was about to stay home that night. But my roommate Aleksandra found out about it and forced me to go, and she joined me. Of course I was somewhat prepared for the concert; I listened to the last album of the band and even picked a favorite song -which is still my favorite, Speed of Light. It was a great night, I danced and jumped for hours!

Three days ago I received another e-mail from Agenda informing me about me geting lucky again, for the concert of Baloji. (I even forgot when/how I sent the e-mail for those tickets.) Apparently Baloji was a Belgian-Congolese rapper using Congolese sounds. I asked almost everyone around to join me for the concert and rejected by all of them. Finally Ezgi couldn't resist my insistence and decided to come. Yesterday we went to this well-hidden place in Schaarbeek and listened/watched the concert with a bunch of people. The music was really good and the concert was so fun! (OK, I have to admit, we each had to drink one beer in order to start moving a little.) In time I started to feel the music although I did not really like rap and did not understand most of the songs and talk (my French is not that good) - and by the end of the concert I was all of a sweat! (In Turkish, kurtlarımı bi döktüm bi döktüm ki sormayın gitsin! :p)
If you have the opportunity, go to this guy's concert. He and his band are so sincere and cool, such beautiful people..

One last remark: Baloji is much more handsome than he seems in the photos and I loved the comb in his hair :p

El Metteko, straight.

Yesterday, after a few hours of my return from Gent, I met with Heini and Eleusa (a Brazilian superwoman whom I met in French course) in front of the Bourse (exact time: 16.30 :p). The plan was to go to this Brazilian night in a pub, El Metteko. However when we went there we learned that during the Christmas Market period, they would take a break from this tradition of Brazilian night (afternoon actually) which normally takes place on the first sunday of every month. However we had a very nice evening.
Eleusa came with her husband Philippe (Belgian, yep) and made us talk in French all night which I am grateful for. After a couple glasses of wine, we walked to the Grand Place and watched the show (projection on the town hall). Except the persistent advertisement of Electrabel, it was nice.. And I like the giant Christmas tree in Grand Place with white lights (although it glitters a bit too much sometimes). Last year there were blue flourescents all over the tree, god... (wait, I wrote about this earlier I guess?)
At one point, everybody was hungry and I was dizzy. After all, I wasn't able to recover from my Gent evening yet. So I let them eat their delicious seafood in a restaurant and came home.

2nd Anthropologists Reunion @ Gent

Since we all graduated, I cannot see my friends from anthropology very often. So on 22th October - which was a Friday - I decided to invite them for dinner in my place. Elisabeth, Chris and Ibraheem came and Gert-Jan joined us after the dinner (to take the opportunity to drink Port wine I presume :p). The reunion pleased everybody I suppose, we decided to repeat it, in another place.

Yesterday I went to Gent for our second reunion in Chris' place. This time Elisabeth and Karen was there except I and Chris (not to forget Chris' roommate Rex). Despite the terrible, horrible, scary snow, I managed to get there with my high-heeled boots. (It took me more than two hours to get there but let's focus on the positive stuff). Although Karen had to wait one hour for the bus and Elisabeth had to leave really early, Chris' spagetti with Bolognese souce and Karen's quiche made our night. Everyone overate as long as I remember.

After the party, I left with Karen to stay at her place. We were expecting to catch a night bus but turned out we missed it with only 2 min! However it wasn't that unfortunate, we had a pleasant - and a bit dangerous - walk home. Karen prooved how smart she was by distracting me continuously and keeping on responding "5 minutes" to my question "how long do we have?" Well we had to walk for 45 minutes on that slippery ice/snow at 2 o'clock in the morning!

In the morning (i.e. after we went to sleep and woke up), following a short Gent tour, I had to take the train and come home, since I am supposed to party somewhere else in the afternoon. (Was it "thé dansant"?)

By the way, it started to rain in Brussels and to wash off the snow. Hallelujah!

A.M. Sweet, I adore you!

It was such a beautiful morning! Today the first thing I saw was the sunlight coming from my large windows. Seeing the sun in Belgium - summer or winter - is a really big deal; and most of the time a sign for a nice day.
My plan was to meet with Heini (my Finnish friend) for a cup of coffee and then go to Cinematek to see "Kind Hearts and Coronets". It didn't really go as it was planned but it was a really nice day.

Although I decided to immediately go out to see Brussels under the sun for a change, I managed to loiter until the meeting time. Somehow I managed to drag Gert-Jan with me and we were in front of the Bourse at 14.30. Fortunately the Christmas market was set up yesterday and the idea of glühwein got hold of us. After Heini joined us we took a nice promenade in the market with out hot wines. So far so good.

As I wrote earlier, the plan was to go see a movie at 16.00 but at last moment Heini realized that she forgot the print-out of the tickets at home. Until we managed to get them printed again and reach Cinematek, it was 16.05 and the lovely receptionist didn't let us in to watch the movie... Obviously, it wasn't meant to be.


So we went back to the center and walked around a bit, saw the Christmas tree in the middle of Grand Place and loved it! Last year there were those horrible blue fluorescents on the tree but this year they managed to establish a more descent decoration with blinking white lights (well Heini did not really like the fact that they were blinking but anyway)..

Then, then, then we went to one of my favorite places in Brussels, AM Sweet! This is a tea room with all kinds of tea (black, green, red) with all kinds of aromas, fruits, flowers, etc. And one shouldn't forget the wonderful homemade pies! Thanks to out "Marco Polo vert" and chocolate pie, we were back in our jolly moods although we had too much difficulty in communicating in French :) (sorry but this is the only photo of the place I could find on the internet)

All of my friends and guests have enjoyed this little tea room since it's the first place I can think of when I need to go to a café. You can imagine how hard it is to make people drink tea since everyone around me describe themselves as a "coffee person".
So I'm addressing to the coffee people now: please go AM Sweet and try one of the teas accompanied by a piece of pie. You won't regret it!

Nocturnes, I like you!

Autumn is the Nocturnes time in Brussels. Every thursday, at least six museums are open between 17.00 and 22.00 (until 23.59 on the opening and closing nights). More importantly, visiting these museums is only for 2,5 € (1 € if you're under 25 years of age) or even for free in some cases! I admit that I like Nocturnes for giving me the opportunity of not paying much for museums. We you can never know if it's worth it, right?

On the opening night, 23rd September, I visited the Musical Instruments Museum (MIM) with my sister. It's one the most interesting museums I've ever seen! It turns out, this museum is one of the greatest of its kind in the world.

As a recent anthropology graduate, my favorite was the first floor, where instruments from all around the world were displayed. Later on I realized that the people who visit this museum embrace usually one of the floors. I even met a person - he lives in the same kot - whose favorite floor is -1 where the primordial electronic music instruments are displayed!

Yesterday was my second Nocturnes day (or evening in that matter) and I went to visit Porte de Hal right after my French class of the day. I went with Heini, a Finnish girl from the same French course and learned a lot of things. Well, for example, I got a better grip of this Middle Age in Europe thing (beyond what I saw in the movies). I confess, if was the first time I saw an armor! I kept on murmuring "but how did these people move in these?" The live music with that interesting instrument was another thing. And,  thanks to the first floor (Gothic one I presume), I also realized how beautiful Brussels was back then when it had the walls and all...

I admit that I usually don't like museums, since they bore me. Simply staring at stuff which I don't know what they're good for is not my thing. Thanks to Nocturnes, I came to realize that not all museums are necessarily boring.

If I really need an "introduction"...

Being an Erasmus exchange student in Brussels... those were the days my friend! Parties, trips, new friendships, a little melancholy, lots of booze...

Then I came back for more, as a master's student. Wrong decision! Especially if one is living in Brussels and studying in Leuven.. Considering also the financial limitations (no more EU money) it didn't work out well.

However this year is different. It started different and it will continue like this, I'm sure. Now, I'm pursuing a second master's degree in Brussels, living in Brussels! Instead of living alone in a dark attic, now I have a room in a student kot with big windows and a balcony! I pay less, I'm closer to the city center, however I'm much more uncomfortable coming back home at night with high heels... ehmm... whatever, I pay less!

I once read that one has to be patient about living in Brussels. This city may seem (and actually is) boring as hell especially if you are coming from a Mediterranean or Latin American country. For a looong long time you may not be able to find anything to do if you don't have enough friends (and believe me, making friends here is one of the hardest things ever). However, if you wait long enough, you may start to like Brussels. But first of all you must shake that depressive mood off - which may take years.