London part 1

As I might have told you before, I'm planning on moving to London after I - hopefully - finish my studies in a little over half a year. Until then I'll have to keep myself satisfied with a couple of shorter visits. A couple of days ago, I came back from such a six day trip to the city of my dreams. And I feel like going back already.

I stayed over at my friend Eloise's place. She's from Leeds, but has already been living in London (on Brick Lane) for a while now. Some time ago her Belgian boyfriend Lenny moved in as well. Since Eloise had to work, I spent most of my first day in London with Lenny. We had breakfast in a place called Yummy's, where the owner told us a story about some kind of UFO's he had seen a while ago. He even had quite an interesting video to back up his story. Hmm. Afterwards, we headed to Camden and strolled around the markets. Some guy claimed he knew me, which was quite impossible, as my last visit to Camden was ages ago. Ah well, our familiarity got me a nice ring from his shop for only half the price!

After a great meal at McDonald's (the chicken selection, WHY OH WHY don't we have this in Belgium??) we went back to Camden where I was meeting Dean (singer from Regency, part-time key board player for The Rifles) and Rob (from The Rifles) at the Enterprise. Dean introduced me to some eh, interesting people (especially refering to this one very enthusiastic bloke who was non-stop joking and dancing) and we had a few beers and Sambucca shots. After a while, we all headed to Proud for Narrow Minded Social Club. There were gigs by Karova, The Paddingtons, Jersey Budd etc and it turned out to be an excellent night. A lot of my friends were around, English and Belgian (Lenny, Matthi, Wouter, Luc), and I got to meet some really nice new people. However, I still don't understand how the news got spread so quickly that I am Belgian. There were at least 10 random people coming over to me, asking silly questions like "Oh, so you're from Belgium! Tell me about Belgian beer! How about Belgian chocolate?" Rrrright. Great night nevertheless!!

Liverpool Station.
Cyberdog in Camden, possibly the weirdest shop I've ever seen!

Narrow Minded Social Club at Proud.

Jersey Budd.

Dean and I.

Wouter.

L O N D O N

I'm off to London tomorrow morning, coming back on Monday evening. I'm so excited to go back, have loads of plans. I've been missing that city so much, and of course my lovely friends over there. See you next week darlings! xx

Calling moon and moon

A couple of months ago my sister went to a festival in Luxembourg. My parents and I spent a day in the city of Luxembourg while she was spending hers jumping to Kings of Leon (I was saving my money for other festivals). In the evening, I joined my dad when he was picking her up by car after the festival was finished. It was a beautiful night, listening to Bat For Lashes, watching the street lights of Luxembourg.

Stay, don't just walk away, and leave me another day

Went to see 500 Days Of Summer - not your typical rom com - a couple of days ago, and enjoyed it very much. (great soundtrack as well) I loved how it was playful, a little excentric, in a certain way totally devestating and very recognisable at the same time. I've been in the position of both Zoeey Deschanel's ànd Joseph Gordon-Levitt's (btw, how cute has he become!) characters and thought they depicted everything rather accurately!

Waiting, you are fading

Part two of the fantastic weekend was the Editors gig at Vorst Nationaal. It was the sixth time I saw Editors play, but I can look you right in the eye and tell you they are still getting better and better and better. Tom's voice, the setlist, everything was perfect. I got so caught up in it that I even didn't take pictures, but here's one of me and Tom on the Editors signing session earlier that day in Brussels. (fan girl alert!)

And this is Phara, Tessa and I with Felix from the Maccabees, who did really well as the second Editors support act (the first one was Wintersleep, but I didn't enjoy them that much).

The world is ours and ours alone!

Part one of that great weekend I was telling you about earlier on was last Friday, when I went to see The Rifles play in Antwerp. Been a fan of the band since their first album and even more since I met the lads, a bunch of really great guys.

They were playing the Trix last weekend, which is a rather small venue somewhere in the outskirts of Antwerp. I hadn't been there before, but telling from the website, one could get there by bus or tram. I figured the tram would be the easiest way. Horrible choice. I started feeling a little worried when the tram started driving in directions it definitely shouldn't be driving in, so I asked the driver what was going on. He told me all trams were driving to the Sportpaleis (another gig venue, but a lot bigger and most of all...somewhere very different!) that week, so I had to take the tram back to the station (where I started out) and take a bus from there on. On my tram back to the station I was joined by seven British boys. I figured out they were going to The Rifles as well and felt very relieved now I wasn't lost in Antwerp on my own anymore! We hopped on a bus (those lads were fantastic, high fiving with the bus driver etc :p), and after a very long drive we finally got to our destination.

At the venue, I met up with Rob from The Rifles. The two of us, joined by the British blokes, looked for and miraculously found a bar not too far from the (very isolated) gig venue. Not really what you'd call a trendy/charming/any positive adjective bar, but ah well. There was Belgian beer and everybody was happy.

Back at the venue I started talking to this guy from France who turned out to live very near me and was dj'ing in the Make Up Club the next evening - seriously, how small is this world?? :) The gig was really good, a long and energetic set. The Belgian crowd sucked, but I had my newly found British friends to ensure me of a great night.

Afterwards, Rob and I wanted to go out in Antwerp, and some nice Antwerp people we only just met were friendly enough to take us to a good pub. The start of a very good night out!!

Blue Monday

Last weekend was PERFECT and I'll tell you all about it later on, but the weekend before wasn't that bad at all either thanks to Date With The Night in Oudenaarde, a rock 'n roll party with my friends from Bible Club and Dilly Boys. I had a very good time, the music was excellent, had good mates around me, AND they had Union Jacks for me to dance with - nuff said.

(the first five pictures are mine, the rest is by the official photographer, Maxim Solomaniuck.

If you weren't real I would make you up

Can't give you my promised pictures from Hindu Nights as I forgot to put my memory card back into my camera (very clever), but here are some pictures taken by friends of mine + an excellent vid by Manu (I'm in it twice, won't tell you when though!), who always manages to capture Make Up Club nights as they actually were. Fucking amazing, that is.

(damn it, those larger youtube screens, if you want to see the entire screen you'll have to click on it)

Most played (16)

1. The Leisure Society - We were wasted


2. The Boxer Rebellion - Soviets (am totally embarrased that I can't remember them being the support act for Editors two years ago in Schaarbeek, especially since I can remember the other support, which was clearly not as good as this band)


3. The Chapman Family - Virgins


4. Pearl Jam - The Fixer (might sound weird, but this is the first Pearl Jam song I actually like)


5. Röyksopp ft. Karin Dreijer - This must be it

We are the last beatniks, the lost heretics

I'd been promising Filip for a while that I would come over to Leuven for a fair bit of party pleasure at some point, and well yeah, so I did last week.

We started out by drinking some beers and watching the Olympiakos - Standard game in Filip's regular student pub, which was fun, even though the game's result wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. Then it was time to practice some sports ourselves. With 'ourselves' I mean Filip and his mates, who had to defend their faculty in a 24h run between the different uni faculties. I was allowed to run myself as well, but since my shoes weren't really appropriate for such an activity, I decided to put all of my energy in cheering (and catching up with Sam, the other Filip and Jeroen from high school). Something I clearly still need to work on, because Filip's faculty did not win. ;)

We ended the night in the Seven Oaks, a pub that goes beyond your imagination (a while ago, I used a less flattering description, but Filip & co couldn't really appreciate that), and danced the night away. :)

Not a cult.

The Chapman Family are in my opinion not only THE band to keep an eye out for, they also have the best merchandising I've seen in a while. I so want a 'not a cult' bag or t-shirt.