Last night's concert

Well the concert was fun.  I played surprisingly well considering it was trumpet.  Half way during the playing of Sleigh Ride, snow fell from above the stage!  (fake snow of course... the ceiling didn't collapse or anything)

Well today I studied French and I'm on my way out to the BIP (Brussels Information Place).  I think it's an information centre / museum of some sort.  I really don't know what to expect, but I'm sure it will be a good time!

Small post today.  Here's a little Gaston to entertain you.

Police man - "You can say what you want, the remote control car had the right of way"

*chuckle*

Piano transcriptions of orchestral pieces... / Art in the Métro

I'm not going to talk about that at all, but I'm listening to Beethoven's 3rd symphony that has been transcribed for piano (by Liszt?).  I think it would be fun to play.

Anyway, I have neglected my blog for a WEEK!  I'm terribly sorry to my thousands of fans!  haha.  Alright.  So what has happened since last Thursday?

Well on Thursday we went to the military museum it was really big, and I'll have to go back.  I only spent a little bit of time there because that night I went bowling with the meetup group.  Before that, during the day, I spent Thursday traveling around on the Brussels Métro, which has 59 stops in total (North American people would call it a Subway).  I went to 20.  I got off the train and took pictures of all 20.  The reason is that each station has art in it!  On the internet, if you type "Art in the Métro, Bruxelles" you'll probably find a photo album of them anyway, but I wanted to take my own!  Here are examples!

 Clemenceau station

 Comte de Flandre

 Delacroix

 Etangs Noirs

 Gare du Midi

 Gare du l'Ouest

 Hôtel de Monnaies

Maelbeek

 Merode

 Porte de Hal

 Sainte Catherine

Trône

Those aren't all 20 that I went to, but they are the best ones.  I plan to go to the other 39, but I don't know when!

Right, so after that I went back to the winter festival to chat quickly with Pricile (Québec) and then I went to the military museum.  Again, the museum was a very dark one inside, so only a few pictures turned out well enough to put up here, but anyway here they are!

 It was rather snowy that day.  It has since disappeared.

This was at the military museum and brings me to my next point of interest.  This is where Belgium (/The Netherlands) differ(s) from Canada.  This guy is St. Nicolas (pronounced Sane Knee-Cola).  To us, he's the same guy.  To Belgium, he's different from Santa.  The whole article is here, but if you don't want to read it, this is all you have to know: Santa looked like this, then he went to the States and in the 19th century went through a transformation partly in thanks to a guy named Thomas Nast who drew Santa like this in 1863:

Here, he's seen becoming a bit more rotund.  He also has reindeer and a sleigh now.  Then came the 30s in America and through Coca-Cola advertisements in the 30s, Santa started to look like this:

Right, well by the time Belgium heard about this Santa, they decided to keep both and now they consider him 2 different people!

Anyway, St. Nicolas (the guy in the picture I took) has his day on the 6th of December!  The scary guy next to him painted in black is all black because of soot in the chimneys.  He's a chimney sweep.  Apparently if children are bad he puts them in a bag, or whips them with that staff he's holding (it all sounds quite scary to me.)

Right.  So then on the weekend.  What happened.  Not much I think.  Let's move on to Monday.

Monday I met up with Pricile and David.  We went skating!  I didn't bring my camera :(  It was fun though.  It was a little difficult to get going because it had been a while since I skated, but I didn't fall so that's good!

Oh, speaking of bowling (which I wasn't) here's a picture from that night:

Right then.  We didn't get a chance to go see the light show in the Grand Place, so I'll go some time next week and watch it with her.

Monday was also the day during which I only spoke French.  It was hard and very frustrating.  Language is obviously a very important means of expressing your opinions and getting on with people, and with my limited vocabulary, I found it sometimes quite hard to say what I wanted.  Actually, sometimes I got half way through a sentence that I would normally just have said quickly to add a joke or a little bit of info, and just stopped because by the time I would have said the whole sentence it would have been irrelevant!

Anyway, it was a challenging day, but by the end I was becoming quicker in speaking French.  I wouldn't say quick, just quickER.

Tuesday, Fabian made a breakfast cake and I ate some.

Wednesday, (yesterday) I went back into the school!  I went because I thought there was a dress rehearsal for the concert which is being held today.  Turns out that I had written down in my book about this LONG ago (2 months!) and I just e-mailed to confirm and wouldn't you know, they still needed me to come in and help!  I thought I'd be playing french horn (my instrument) but one of the students had had surgery in his mouth and they needed me to play 2nd trumpet!  haha, I hadn't played trumpet for a while, but oh well.  I got to the school, found a trumpet and went to the theatre (it's quite common to play a few rehearsals in the same space as your performance to get used to sound / logistics of setting up etc.).  Anyway, upon arriving, I was told that the school was having an assembly and there was to be a concert right then!  Well that was fun!

Today I will go back in the evening and play for the concert.  They are playing easy things, but it is somehow challenging because as I said before yesterday, I hadn't played trumpet for probably 4 or 5 years!  I also hadn't played any brass instrument for > 2 months, so I became quite tired (embouchure tired, not sleepy tired) quite quickly.

Well that brings me to today.  I think it will be fun to play in another concert today.  The energy that goes around before, during and after a concert is tangible... it soaks into your skin and you feel positive.  It lasts too!

What else.  Oh, yesterday I compiled a list of French verbs that I know and their English translations.  I put them into Microsoft Excel, alphabetized them, and re-wrote them down in my French binder.  It turns out I know 124!  (Admittedly I had to double check about 4-5 so I suppose that would mean that I know about 120).

One more thing before I end this obnoxiously long post.  I have been introduced to a great character named Gaston.  For Belgian people, comics are very serious.  They are raised with them, and there probably isn't one native Belgian who doesn't know Gaston's name.  He's a hilarious comic character that was created first in 1957 and his last comics were printed in 2007.  The author and creator is a guy named André Franquin.  He is helping me learn French because lots of the humour is physical, and for the words I don't understand, I either have the accompanying picture, or my trusty dictionary.

Here's a picture of Gaston to help you picture this funny, awkward guy.

Right that's all now.  I have to shower and study French!  Bye!!

Finally!

Well, I finally found myself in the Musical Instrument Museum!!!  It is really cool!  They have instruments I've never seen and of course lots of familiar ones too.  The best part of the museum is that you get a headset to wear the whole time.  There are 3 (or 4) levels that you can go to and each level has a theme (European instruments, mechanical instruments...) and as you walk around the exhibits, there are numbers on the floor.  When you go close to a number, music starts to play in your headset!  You have a sheet of paper that lists the numbers on the floor and what you're listening to at the time.  It's really cool!  I only made it through one floor really well (I wanted to listen to each piece of music in its entirety, usually they're only about 20 or 30 seconds), so one day I will go back.  It was really a fun place and right up my alley!  Unfortunately it was too dark inside for me to take pictures, but you can look at the website if you're curious!

I also ended up back at the Christmas festival yesterday and was talking to Pricile (the girl from Québec).  Her booth is right across from an ice skating rink, and we were talking about in Belgium, adults don't really know how to skate - they go around the rink holding on to the things that kids use to not fall over!  I guess they don't have ice rinks in parks every winter to practice on.  Anyway, we decided that one day next week we'll go ice skating and show the Brusseleers how it's done!  After that we'll go watch the light show in the grand place!

In other news, I went bowling with David and David's Mom yesterday.  Tonight I'm going again, but with the meetup group!  Yesterday I bowled a 162 (WOW!) and a 124.  I was thrilled with my first game because my average is 127.

Tonight I'm not sure how I'll bowl, but last night I took the opportunity to pick a ball that I like the most so I'll find/use it tonight too.  It's a 12 pound ball that is green and looks like a watermelon.  I like to use the mid-heavy balls usually, but if there's a tricky split I use something lighter - 10 or 9 usually so that I can throw it faster... that sometimes helps the pins get over to the other side to get the split done.  I had a few close ones last night. I had a 4-7-10 split that almost worked out, but I JUST missed it.  oh well.  Enough bowling talk for now.

Today I think I'm going to drop off my resume at one more Irish pub (this will be my fourth).  Then, as it's Thursday, there is a museum open late.  This week I'm very excited.  I'll be going to the "Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History".  I'm excited because I've only gone to war museums in Canada, so I think to see relics and read things from Belgium specifically will be interesting.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!  There is snow!  It has been consistently cold for about a week now, and the snow isn't going away (which I love!)

Last night I bought a book from a bookstore called the Cook & Book.  The store is different from anything I've seen - it's very big, and is a mix of café and bookstore.  There are tables to eat in the weirdest places, but it looks really neat.  I will go back with my camera and take pictures because it really is a very cool place!  Anyway I bought a book called, "Chinglish" which is a collection of pictures of signs (usually from China) that have both Chinese and English writing on them, but the English is terrible.  It reminded me of when I went to China and there were some funny signs.  For example, in our hotel there was a card on the night stand that meant to say "Stay safe with your family" or something like that, but what it actually said in English was, "Go.  Do not forget to family at a safe".

Alright, I'll go now.  Time to get ready for the day!  Oh, it's snowing again!

Here's an interesting fact for the day.  Hamilton Ontario is found at 43°15'N, and Brussels at 50°51'N.  That means that I'm 7° more north that my hometown, and translated into distance that is roughly 817km more north.  Now, more north doesn't mean colder.  Actually because of the land around here and the weather patterns, it is more mild and even here than at home.  The only consistent difference is the setting and rising of the sun.  Actually a difference of 817km only equates to about a 5 minute difference in sunset time.  Today in Hamilton the sun will set at 4:44pm, while here it will set at 4:39pm.  It's amazing that 817km only makes a difference of 5 minutes when it comes to the sunset, but when you consider that there are 12,415 km from one pole to the other, I guess it makes sense.

That's all for today.  I'll be taking pictures tonight at the museum, and at bowling so keep coming back!

Bye now!

Plaisirs d'Hiver

From now until the new year, Brussels (and many other cities in Belgium) play host to winter markets, festivals and celebrations.  The series of events and activities in Brussels is called Plaisirs d'Hiver (Winter Pleasures).

It is a very fun time, and I've already gone 3 times!  (It's been open for 5 days.)

There are a few different parts to it, but here's the website (in English!) and you can see for yourself!

The main places to be are the Grand Place, and the Christmas Market.  Those are different links than the regular ones, so check them out!  There are tons and tons of little cabins that are selling different crafts and things.  It's a really warm, Christmasy environment.  Well, I wouldn't call it warm; it has been cold here lately - today there was snow outside when I woke up!  Actually, it's still there...

Right, so here are some pictures from the great festival Plaisirs d'Hiver!

This is the café / restaurant thing.  It is 2 floors.

A view from one end of the Christmas market.  This was on Saturday.  It was much less busy on Monday when I went, and I talked to the girl at the Québec booth for like an hour!

Colourful Bourse!

Grand Place looking festive

Nativity in the Grand Place

This guy is always here, but with the tree I thought it made a nice picture!

Mom - this is for you!

A little game for kids - you pick up an ornament and get a prize!

Skating!  

Very very popular - vin chaud (mulled wine).  The smell is so nice and it's sold at every other booth so the whole festival smells like it.  It is very delicious.  You can get things like amaretto added to it for .50€.

As I mentioned before, the best part (and most magical) was the light and sound show in the Grand Place that was projected onto the hôtel de ville (town hall).  It was one of those moments where I realize how lucky I am to be living in Europe right now!  Every day I have those moments, but this one filled me with so much joy because I just love the Christmas season!

Here's the video!  It takes about a minute to get into it, but after that it's fun fun fun!

This week is going to be an exciting one for me.  I love bowling, and I am going on Wednesday and Thursday!!  yay!  Wednesday will be with David and his Mom, then Thursday will be with the meetup group again.  I told them that I will beat them all next time so I sure hope I can live up to that expectation!  Perhaps the practice on Wednesday will help.

J'ai etudié le français hier, et je vais étudier après finir cet post.  Puis, je vais aller à la bowling alley à  faire une reservation pour mercredi soir.  Je ne dois pas faire une reservation pour jeudi, parce que l'homme qui faire le meetup group a ça fait.  Aujourd'hui j'ai déjà rangé ma chambre et mis quelque livres sur un étagère.  Un étagère à eux a cassé aujourd'hui et presque moi tué!  Ah well.  D'accord, à grâce de écrir en français je veux la étudier maintenant, puis je vais finir à present.  


K bye!

Pictures from Liège

Well as promised, here are the pictures I took in Liège.  Yesterday I went to an amazing Christmas market / festival.  The truly amazing part was when, for 7 minutes, they projected video onto the City Hall in the Grand Place.  I really mean it was jaw dropping, sooooo cool.  Of course, I video taped the whole thing!  That video will be coming shortly.  It was really something else!

For now, here are some pictures from Liège.  I will make a separate post for the Christmas festival.

Some of these pictures are a little blurry because I took a video and cut the picture from the video.  I did that because my camera really doesn't work well in low-light conditions.  anyway, here I am in the Cathedral of Liège.

 This is the train station!  Really modern!

 A flower peacock

 Meuse River

 Québec festival!  (poutine is on the sign!!)

 They also had their own Christmas market, but it wasn't open yet.

 The Canadian booth where I was talking to that guy

 A Belgian coloured lollipop!

That's all for now!  Today I'm going to the Musical Instrument Museum, so I'll take lots of pictures there!  K bye everyone, hope you're having a nice weekend!