I'm in a dark mood today. The weather reflects this, so maybe I have more influence on this Earth than previously thought. This, however, seems unlikely. I'm trying to find something new to write about at work but I'm drawing a blank which is fairly frustrating. The internet isn't being particularly obliging either. Which I guess is why I'm here writing dark things in my dark mood.
Over the last few days they started putting up loads of international flags in the Grote Markt. No one seems to know why though. Perhaps there's some internationally focussed conference happening soon. Or something. Maybe they just enjoy the idea of me being confused. Its the kind of thing I would do.
I really want to see this new movie called Kick Ass. It looks like good combination of cool and funny. No doubt I'll give it some sort of unnecessary review on the blog if I ever get around to seeing it. I'll probably use excessive amounts of adjectives. Then I'll feel vaguely smug about the fact that I managed to fit so many flowery, superfluous words into one sentence.
I've been listening to a lot of Pearl Jam recently (Thank you Fergus) in an effort to educate myself for Rock Werchter. Been really enjoying it. I think I've got just about all their albums on my i-pod with the exception of their latest. Which is a bit of a bummer but oh well. I should look on the bright side. I mean I could be dying at a faster rate than I am now. Which would suck.
Between this paragraph and the last I had lunch. Which was good. Most of the places seem to be closed today so we had to walk ages away to find an open grocery. Although ultimately it was worth it because that grocery store did us the courtesy of not making their sandwiches crap. (crap being an adjective in this case, not a verb, if they could actually make their sandwiches crap I think I'd be very impressed, if somewhat put off my appetite) Our usual grocery recently decided that their sandwiches were being enjoyed far too much and so they now produce the equivalent of 2 bits of bun with a moderate amount of moisture between them. In 3 varieties.
Actually, if anyone has any ideas about what I could write about, please comment about them in my blog. I would be eternally grateful. Especially if its actually good :) Comic relief subjects are also approved of. By me anyway.
Right, I'm going to be in a dark mood somewhere else now.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Protest in Antwerp
27 april 2010
Lots of excitement last night. After work we went for a couple of drinks to celebrate Fluers birthday but she had to go pretty early to catch her train. As we were walking out of the bar into the grote markt police cars rushed past us to join the 10 others already parked in the square. At this point it was just Bert, Vincent, Elise and myself there. Turns out there was a protest going on - people were upset that they had sound level restrictions placed on them which limited their... er... partying capacity. In any case, we rushed up to the office to get a video camera and microphone, then rushed straight back down to the scene of the action. The police had formed a line and everything, a few people got arrested, presumably for being drunk enough to actually attack the police. Oh yes, lets not forget the alcohol; I've never seen the streets so full of bottles. To the city's credit, the clean up began as soon as the protest ended. Which I can only guess is about the time when most of the protesters could no longer resist the tempting prospect of anything nice and greasy to eat frrom the conveniently placed local frituur (french fry place) or kebab outlet. It was really exciting - because the others had 'press cards', it meant we could get right up to the police without being ushered away all the time (although they didn't let anyone through the police line.) It was a really cool experience. Part of what made it so great was the fact that for us it was very spontaneous.
After the protest cleared we went back up to the office to begin editing and writing an article - they wanted to get it publicised as quickly as possible. As I couldn't really help too much with either of those things I appointed myself the food runner and went to grab food plus cigarettes etc. We were at the office until about 12 doing all that until Vincent, Bert and I made out way to Berts place.
And for your viewing pleasure, (for those of you who don't know Dutch, just look at the pretty video and listen to the music), this is what happened last night. Check it out, its pretty cool.
So that was my monday. Lets be honest, they don't usually come much better than that. The weekend consisted essentially of me being at the AFS mid-stay camp. Which was actually pretty good. Was nice to hang out with the other volunteers and get to know them better. Plus it gave us a good opportunity to plan some stuff for the next few weeks. We relived our youthful days of staying up late, wondering around in the dark, sacrificing demonspawn, that kinda thing. Speaking of demon spawn, at the place we were staying at (which had massive grounds), there was also a theatre group. Late at night as a dramatic exercise/just for fun, a few of them dressed up like cult members with dark capes and white masks and went around scaring the hell out of the rest of their group - which were wondering around in small groups in the dark. When we were wamling around we stumbled across three of these would-be-killers dancing around three lit candles on the ground. Now that was creepy. Anyway we survived.
During the day we played some stupid but fun games in between doing workshops on our community service projects and our host families etc. Which pretty much sums up my weekend.
Don't have time to write anything too crazy today as I only started this 25 mins before work finishes... Which was 10 mins ago.
Planning on going to Maastricht (think thats how you spell it) with Monica, Julie and Lisa this weekend - probably just for the sunday though. Which meansme and Monica will have to travel to Julie's hometown on saturday night so we can all leave early in the morning.
Ok, well thats it for now people, I shall return... Probably.
Cheers
Lots of excitement last night. After work we went for a couple of drinks to celebrate Fluers birthday but she had to go pretty early to catch her train. As we were walking out of the bar into the grote markt police cars rushed past us to join the 10 others already parked in the square. At this point it was just Bert, Vincent, Elise and myself there. Turns out there was a protest going on - people were upset that they had sound level restrictions placed on them which limited their... er... partying capacity. In any case, we rushed up to the office to get a video camera and microphone, then rushed straight back down to the scene of the action. The police had formed a line and everything, a few people got arrested, presumably for being drunk enough to actually attack the police. Oh yes, lets not forget the alcohol; I've never seen the streets so full of bottles. To the city's credit, the clean up began as soon as the protest ended. Which I can only guess is about the time when most of the protesters could no longer resist the tempting prospect of anything nice and greasy to eat frrom the conveniently placed local frituur (french fry place) or kebab outlet. It was really exciting - because the others had 'press cards', it meant we could get right up to the police without being ushered away all the time (although they didn't let anyone through the police line.) It was a really cool experience. Part of what made it so great was the fact that for us it was very spontaneous.
After the protest cleared we went back up to the office to begin editing and writing an article - they wanted to get it publicised as quickly as possible. As I couldn't really help too much with either of those things I appointed myself the food runner and went to grab food plus cigarettes etc. We were at the office until about 12 doing all that until Vincent, Bert and I made out way to Berts place.
And for your viewing pleasure, (for those of you who don't know Dutch, just look at the pretty video and listen to the music), this is what happened last night. Check it out, its pretty cool.
So that was my monday. Lets be honest, they don't usually come much better than that. The weekend consisted essentially of me being at the AFS mid-stay camp. Which was actually pretty good. Was nice to hang out with the other volunteers and get to know them better. Plus it gave us a good opportunity to plan some stuff for the next few weeks. We relived our youthful days of staying up late, wondering around in the dark, sacrificing demonspawn, that kinda thing. Speaking of demon spawn, at the place we were staying at (which had massive grounds), there was also a theatre group. Late at night as a dramatic exercise/just for fun, a few of them dressed up like cult members with dark capes and white masks and went around scaring the hell out of the rest of their group - which were wondering around in small groups in the dark. When we were wamling around we stumbled across three of these would-be-killers dancing around three lit candles on the ground. Now that was creepy. Anyway we survived.
During the day we played some stupid but fun games in between doing workshops on our community service projects and our host families etc. Which pretty much sums up my weekend.
Don't have time to write anything too crazy today as I only started this 25 mins before work finishes... Which was 10 mins ago.
Planning on going to Maastricht (think thats how you spell it) with Monica, Julie and Lisa this weekend - probably just for the sunday though. Which meansme and Monica will have to travel to Julie's hometown on saturday night so we can all leave early in the morning.
Ok, well thats it for now people, I shall return... Probably.
Cheers
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