Marina is a diamond

Most played (21)

1. Future Islands - Tin Man


2. The Divine Comedy - I Like (live)


3. Nada Surf - Love And Anger (Kate Bush cover)


4. Everything Everything - My KZ, ur BF


5. Marit Larsen - Under The Surface (live)

Football!

Not even two weeks after the joy of Roland Garros (although it wasn't my favourite RG, to be honest - Federer and Henin out way too early, and two pretty boring finals), there is more pleasure on tv for the sports fan. The football World Cup in South Africa has been kicked off about an hour ago. Since Belgium didn't make it to the tournament, I'm supporting Germany (like I always do) and England (especially for the mister!). When it comes down to winning the cup, my bets are on Spain, though. Who are you supporting and who do you think is going to win?

He's wondering only what you do today

A couple of days after handing in my master paper and right after doing a presentation on Twitter (in front of a jury consisting of people from the Flemish public broadcaster), I took the Thalys to Paris to meet my boyfriend there. He was doing a cycling trip from Italy back to the UK, but was staying at the friend's place in Paris for a part of his trip. The timing couldn't have been better for me: post-paper and post-presentation, but pre-exams with plenty of time left to study. Alan's offer to spend a couple of days with him in Paris was more than welcome: I was longing to see him again (I'm pretty good at the long-distance thingy, but wouldn't go as far to it's easy), liked the idea of going back to Paris and to be honest, I needed a holiday after being locked in my room for such a long time because of that paper.

After the longest Thalys ride ever (it left half an hour late to begin with, and had to stop for at least another hour because of 'a small technical problem' that turned out to be 'slightly more serious than we initially thought' - fortunately I love having dinner on trains) I finally arrived in Paris, where Alan, Adam (the friend that was hosting the both of us, he's a lawyer who is temporarily based in France) and Flora (another friend of Alan's who works as an au-pair in Paris) were waiting for me. Alan and Adam hadn't had dinner yet, so we went to a restaurant where Flora and I decided to have dinner for the second time that night.

While Adam was working during daytime, Alan and I spent the next three days lying in parcs (getting awfully sunburnt - the weather was amazing, which I hadn't forseen, hence my lack of sun lotion - auch!), eating wonderful food, cycling on vélops, going to a flee market with Flora, eating not so wonderful food (at a place where they translated croque monsieurs as 'crunch-misters') but also more wonderful food, and walking around the city. On our last night, Adam took us to Jewish wine bar, which turned out to be the coolest place ever. It looked a bit like my beloved Make Up Club in Ghent (on a side note: Make Up Club is closing down in half a year, nooo!), but smaller, warmer and with Jewish music playing, haha!

Me & Alan trying our best MySpace shot

















Alan getting ready to cycle out of Paris

I almost missed my Thalys back - Alan and I were planning on cycling to the station, but we wasted too much time and he noticed I could probably better take public transport in order not to miss my train. We said goodbye and I hurried to the metro station. My metro ticket didn't work so I had to buy a new one, which I couldn't do in the part of the underground I was in, so I had to find the other entrance, buy a new ticket (after begging the people in the queue to let me go first), find out which metro stop I had to go to (it would be so much simpler if they'd just call it Garde du Nord as well), get on the metro, watch the time every second, walk for almost 15mins from the metro bit of the ENORMOUS station to the part with the trains, and get there 5mins before departure - phieuw! When I finally got there, someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Alan, who had made his way through the busy traffic on his bike to wave me out. That was such a lovely suprise after all the stressing!

Saying goodbye was really sad, but fortunately I got to see him again only three days later. The next part of his cycling trip brought him to Belgium and more specifically my hometown Grimbergen. He only stayed for one night, but I was happy to have him with me. We went out for dinner with my parents (both my parents and Alan were pretty nervous, hehe) before my dad dropped the two of us off in Brussels. We went to the Mort Subite, a bar famous for its beers, but Alan started to feel really ill. I drank both our beers ad fundum (the people next to us looked at me as if I were...hm, nothing too positive, anyway) and we went back home. Except for a sore troath, Alan felt better the day after. After watching some tennis, he had to leave. I was planning on joining him on part of his trip that day, but had to go back as someone had to pick something up at my place and I was the only person around. Saying goodbye was the horror, knowing our next meet (in London, after my exams) would only be 5 weeks later. :( Only 24 days left now, though!

Eurovision 2010

Long-time readers might remember how much I love Eurovision, sometimes because it can be so awfully bad that it becomes amusing again, sometimes because it features some suprisingly good songs among the many rubbish ones. I thought this year's winner wasn't very convincing with her fake British accent and rather boring song - I mean, they call her the German Kate Nash, but every single Kate Nash song is at least three times as catchy. These were my personal favourites of the latest edition:

Georgia: Sopho Nizharadze - Shine
Excellent singer, classic but beautiful song.


Romania: Paula Seling & Ovi - Playing with Fire
Catchy, I like the act with the piano and especially love the female singer's voice.


Ireland: Niamh Kavanagh - It's For you
Very traditional, but quality song. Again, really good singer.


Bosnia-Herzegovina: Vukasin Brajic - Thunder and Lightning
B-H sends excellent songs to Eurovision almost every year. Eastern-European rock pur sang, quite bombastic but I like it.


Iceland: Hera Björk - Je ne Sais Quoi
Not at all the kind of genre I usually listen to, but she's a terrific singer and this song was stuck in my head for three days at least.


Denmark: Chanée & N'evergreen - In a Moment Like This
Biggest rip-off I've heard in a while ("Every Breath You Take", "The Winner Takes It All", "Simply The Best" and some Shania Twain song combined in one 'new' song), but the result is pretty good. And that guy is a sort of hot.


Belgium: Tom Dice - Me & My Guitar
And yes...I actually liked Belgium's entree this year! Tom Dice was an X Factor finalist in Belgium, which probably doesn't make it very cool to like him, but I think he's got a special voice and his song turned out pretty nice as well.

Oh, and if you haven't seen it: don't forget to check the Moldova entree. It's one of the worst songs of this year's contest, but I thought the bit with the sax player (great moves, haha) was extremely funny! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-seDrv1eQo

In my dreams we're still screaming

I guess that's enough looking back. Back to the here and now, and guess what? Arcade Fire have finally released new material! Their album won't be out until August, but to lessen the pain we're offered a double single to keep us sweet until then.

One of the songs is called 'The Suburbs' (which will also be the album title) and is pretty fantastic. Musically not completely in the line of 'Funeral' or 'Neon Bible', yet still without a doubt the same band. The songs excells thanks to a great chorus, dito lyrics and a lovely old-fashioned honkey-tonk piano.


The second song is less impressive. 'Month of May' is Arcade Fire's first effort to make a real rock song - it's even a bit glam, now I come to think of it - but even though it's not a disaster, I'd advise them to stay away from the genre in the future. If you can make songs like Arcade Fire does, you don't want to waste your talent on a genre you're only average at.

It's like I'm watching the A4 paper taking over the guillotine

... and I was invited by Sony music (the label) to join them to London for a blitz visit.

Sony is busy promoting upcoming talent Hurts (very eighties inspired, rather bombastic, but very catchy electro pop), who were playing the NME Radar Tour in London that night. Hence they invited me and 3 other journalists (Tom, Hannes and Erna) to join them and write something about the band on our websites or magazines. We'd only be there for 16 hours, but how could I say no to a trip to my favourite city?

(pictures by Erna Janssens, except for pics 1/6/9 which are by me)

All of us got a lovely, huge room in the St. Pancreas Novotel. Here's me in the bathroom showing off my new favourite dress (I was initially looking for an Unknown Pleasures t-shirts, but this is so much better).














Koko, the place to be that night.













The line-up: Darwin Deez (support), Everything Everything (headliner 1) and Hurts (headliner 2).













Koko's balcony, with Tom, me and Hannes in the middle of the picture.













Hannes, one of my travel companions.




















We missed out on Darwin Deez (except for the two last songs) because of the delicious burger & beer we had before heading to Koko, but Everything Everything totally made up for it. If you haven't heard of these very talented Mancunians, check out their song 'My KZ, UR BF' (or any other song by them, really).















Hurts, the band we made the trip for in first place. They're are quite interesting with their full-on eighties sound and über-dramatic podium presence - not completely my thing, but they sure know who to write a decent song and there's definitely a big audience waiting for them.

After the gig, we went to the VIP bar for some drinks and chatting before heading back to the hotel. Sabine (from the record label) and fellow travellers Erna and Hannes went to bed early, but Tom and I decided to make the most of our stay in London. We didn't really think of the early closing pubs in London, though. When the hotel bar turned out be closing as well, we nevertheless resumed our search for beer in the streets of London. We prevailed in the end!

We're so disarming darling

...I went to Grimbergen's Prinsenbos with my sister and a camera...

You couldn't possibly find it in your heart to forgive me

...me and Bart made our debut as Stethoscope Stewards (our dj name) at the Kinky Star in Ghent, which was sooo much fun to do (plus, we've got 2 new dates planned for next month!...

I am not what you anticipated

...I went to another Hindu Nights in Ghent...

(awesome pictures by Barbara Peremans)

Just let me be here, I won't tell anyone

...I went back to London in the beginning of April, back to the same couchsurfing hosts where I stayed at in February...

One of them, Alan, has been my boyfriend ever since. We already had something going on when I left in February, but now it's official! He is super amazing and despite the long distance between us, it feels like I'm finally in a healthy, non-destructive relationship. Totally weird, but totally fantastic as well.

So yes, I obviously had a great time in London. Alan and I went record shopping in Notting Hill, he showed me around in Hampstead (his favourite part of London - even though it looks French and the English don't like France very much - where we had some really delicious crêpes), treated me to a gig by Mt. Eerie at the Scala and taught me how to play bar billiards (not very surprisingly, he was heaps better than me - but surprisingly, I did manage to beat Alex, one of Alan's house mates!).

Alex and I playing bar billiards, but both failing in beating Alan.

We also spent a couple of days on the countryside in Essex - one night in Landermere (where Alan grew up), one night in Alan's father's house in Harwich. Especially Landermere was exceptionally beautiful. It's a shame I've barely taken any pictures, but I've been so busy enjoying myself that I haven't even thought of taking pics most of the time.

Alan having fun with an axe

Ooh la la

...we went back to Nua's shortly after for a fun night of karaoke...

Kim and Anja, my karaoke partners in crime
























Anja having a good time with a French boy called Florentin

and me being squeezed by an Irish boy called Ivan

Living in the gap between past and future

...celebrated Anja's birthday at Nua's, where we had a good time with a Scottish woman called Karen who thought one of us looked a lot like Robert Pattinson and who we rescued from a terrible guy that kept on following her throughout Brussels...