My B-trip – Part I: Brussels

Last month, I had a mini-European trip covering four cities: Brussels, Bruges, Barcelona, Budapest…

Actually I didn’t select them to be all starting with the letter B.

Ok, the Belgium-part of the travel was already fixed. That’s already two b’s in a row, Brussels and Brugge from a B-country itself (yet we made a brief stop over Antwerp, too).

However, the following parts of the trip to Barcelona and Budapest were all settled one day before I left my hometown, Istanbul.

Originally, I had planned to take a train from Belgium to Amsterdam to visit a friend, but she broke her leg and things got complicated, and I postponed that visit to a better time.

So one day before flying to Brussels, I changed my itinerary and decided to fly over from Brussels to Barcelona to see another dear friend.

And the last but not least part of the plan, Budapest, came into the picture on that final day, too.

At first, I intended to meet a friend from Vienna in Prague. Yet, at the last day, we talked and Budapest was closer to her, and we settled on that idea.

This is pretty much the story of how I ended up with my b-trip, unintentionally.

Except the Barcelona part, all of them were places I’ve never been before. Now, I’ll mention some highlight spots of the trip and recommend places to go. Some of them were recommendations, which turned out to be great, so here I’ll spread the word for future visitors of these cities.

PART I – BRUSSELS:

Before flying to Belgium, I had not really great expectations of Belgium or its as well as European Union’s capital, Brussels, other than its famous beers and chocolates.

I had one day to spend in Brussels before continuing to Brugge. In such a short period of time, I basically had to follow the general guidelines.

What I did was simply checking the tripadvisor tips, and going to where most of the tourist crowd went during the day.

Yet at the end of the day, I got luckier than that and got some local tips, which I’ll share.

Now, after seeing only a tiny bit of the city, I know I have to go back and see the rest, because I really enjoyed it. In just 24 hours, Brussels entered into my list of livable and pleasant cities, where I can perfectly imagine myself residing.

So I believe, Brussels is a bit underrated, which is maybe a positive thing for the people living there. Contrary to my prejudices that this city would be a very predictable and kind of boring European city, it presented full of surprises. As a Belgian friend, who I met there, put very nicely, it feels like ‘a compact version of London’.

Moeder Lambic was my first stop

The place was on the top of the tripadvisor list, so I went there to try some beers. This is a very modernly traditional beer pub. It is very cozy and although I had the urge to walk around to discover bits of Brussels, it was very comfortable and tempting to sit for hours.

I could well imagine myself going there every week (say on Fridays), if I lived in Brussels. It looks like the perfect thursday or friday hangout. I went there rather early that day (it was a Friday as well) in the early afternoon, and within each half an hour the place got more and more crowded. Hence, I’d guess it would be packed by the evening time.

The personnel is very helpful with recommendations regarding the variety (there may be hundreds of beers). For the first time I was listening to beers being explained like wines. The small option is 25 cl, it is perfect for trying out different stuff. I only had three of them. My favourite was Val Dieu Grand Cru.

I also ordered a cheese-salad plate, which was very tasty. All in all, Moeder Lambic experience is a top recommendation I’d make for Brussels-visitors.

Grote Markt (or so called Grand Place) 

This is like a fairy tale scene. Every corner is worth looking and picturing. This is the main square of the city, which dates back to 10th century. The medieval look is very memorable and unique.

If you’ve been to some European cities, you might be familiar with the typical square-setting. But that one is different and very fulfilling. I spent walking around the streets around the markt as well, and those walks were also very enjoyable.

Koningsplein (Place Royale) and Rue Royale

After wandering around the Grote Markt, I walked up towards the Koningsplein, near which I intended to find the the Museum of Musical Instruments. Yet, my longer-than-planned Moeder Lambic lunch costed a miss of plan: the museum accepts last admissions at 16:00, and I could’n make it.

by Selinon

However the building and entrance captured some attention, too. Another worthwhile visit I have to make next time I visit Brussels.

Mont des Arts (Kunstberg) is another attractive destination for museum-lovers. The garden and the walk to the museum is lovely.

Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert and Librairie Saint-Hubert

While walking around, I came across to this beautiful arcade. Later I found out that it was opened in 1847. It is filled with luxury boutiques, some nice cafes and restaurants.

Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert has two main passages, one is Galerie du Roi (King’s Gallery), and the other is Galerie de la Reine (Queen’s Gallery), another smaller one called Galerie des Princes (Gallery of the Princess).

 

While walking in the gallery, I found a bookstore. After I entered, time almost stopped for me. I didn’t know where to look, there was so much stuff that interested me. Books about art (an entire section about photography), fashion, travel, geography, comic book series like Tintin, or illustrated versions like the one you see below of The Little Prince. I’ve spent about an hour there, and I could’ve easily stayed more if I didn’t have only one day in Brussels.

Maison Dandoy (try a waffle)

This is one of the oldest and most famous bakeries of Brussels. One of their true specialty is their biscuits, which has been going on from their establishment on until today. You can also taste their Belgian waffles.

When I neared the shop, I saw that there was a long que just next to the place, where they were selling waffles for €1 only. This offer  was tempting as well, yet I wanted to give a try to this promising historical spot. I must say that my Brussels waffle (there is also Liege waffle option, which is a bit different in shape and taste) was quite delicious.

However, I saw that they don’t service freshly baked waffles but heat already baked ones again and serve them. Although it was really tasty, this was my only frustration.

Cafe Central (lounge bar) 

Great ambiance, good music and crowd.

This place is the demonstration of how tripadvisor sometimes misses out some good choices. (This place doesn’t exist in tripadvisor).

I discovered the place, after getting the recommendation from the bookstore manager in the bookstore Saint-Hubert. I hope I’m not revealing a big local gem. It turned out to be a great tip.

I went there at about 10.00 p.m., when it was half-full. Yet, it got really crowded before 12:00 p.m. It became enormously packed by the time we left the bar at about 2.00 a.m. for a more silent pub.

If you go there at about 10:00 p.m., you would surely get a table. This may be quite useful,as later on the place gets really crowded.

 

 

 

 

 

What I actually liked about the place (and many bars have the same style) is that it is all self-service. You get your drink at the bar, so you don’t have to wait for waiters to serve you. You can sit at the bar, or find a table and sit for hours or stand around if you like – nobody intervenes.

Another thing I liked was these wooden wall design you can see in the photos. I recommend Cafe Central to everyone, who likes descent DJ and live performances. The night I was there was named as Thin Consolation Label Night, mix of live and DJ sets. I understand there are various type of live performances, ranging from electronic as well as jazz tunes.

Booze’n Blues

This is a rather small  bar, which has a very warm, welcoming and sociable air. Two Belgian friends led me there after Cafe Central. I have to thank them for a fun night. The final destination was the perfect ending to the night, providing a nice bar atmosphere for chatting and also selecting some favourite songs from a jukebox. I heard that the bar is quite old, and has been run by a friendly couple, who also serve behind the bar. I forgot to take a photo at Booze’n Blues yet I found something on the web, which pretty reflects the pleasant atmosphere.

Booze’n Blues (Source: http://thepetitfour.com)

Note: All photos otherwise denoted are taken by me. All rights reserved.

Candylike…

If music is food for soul, then some songs are like dessert. 

Below I selected some of my favourite candylike pieces…

Whatever the lyrics tell, the songs have that positive and cheerful tone that gets to the listener.

I don’t know whether it is a coincidence that most of them are sung by both male and female vocals.

Yet, I never get tired of listening to these songs.

The songs in the playlist below are by Armistice, Herman Dune (Estrella Damm commercial version with a very entertaining video clip), Jens Lekman (a 2012 song, one of the most fun songs I heard in a long time), Peter, Bjorn & John (a classic), Cocoon, The School (another 2012-dated song), R.E.M. (another classic), in no particular order.

Food for soul on – Toy and The School…

Discovering new music is an endless occupation internet presented me with…And it is one of the best presents of internet.

Therefore, I have decided to share more new music I discover, to further amplify the ‘present’ effect: It’s like giving back of some of the gifts I receive from internet back to internet.

Hence food for soul-part of discoveries might dominate my blog for a while.

TOY

Toy is a psychedelic/indie rock band from London that was formed in 2010 by five members. The name ‘Toy’ might be a result of a suffering from a very very long band name previously, ‘Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong’. Earlier, three members of ‘Toy’ were part of that band.

Tom Dougall is the frontman, embodying all the necessary charisma, somewhere between Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd and Jack White, yet original.

Toy‘s debut album of the same name came out in September 2012 by Jeff Barrett’s Heavenly Recordings. I think that it is one of the best debut albums of 2012.

THE SCHOOL

This is another indie (pop) band, originating again from UK, this time not from London but Cardiff, Wales.

The foundation of the 8-membered group dates back to 2007, a little earlier than TOY. Spanish label Elefant Records was their discoverer.

After their debut album ‘Loveless Unbeliever’ released in 2010, their second album ‘Reading Too Much Into Things Like Everything’ came out in May 2012.

This group is fronted by a female vocal, a charming voice: Liz. The School‘s new album is a comfort for their admirers like me, hoping they’d keep on creating music.

Two songs about heart beating..

I’ve selected two songs from these two bands, which sound almost like two persons   talking to each other…

It was actually my ipod that shuffled these two songs one after another, and made me think how well they go together…

One with ‘my heart skips a beat’ by Toy, the other ‘It’s not the same’ by the School, responding ‘my heart just beats the same’…

A little joyful surprise with a coincidence in lyrics that I wanted to share.

TOY – My heart skips a beat

THE SCHOOL – It’s not the same 

The real Cinderella story of music…Rodriguez Sugar Man…

It is so hard so grasp how a musical treasure can remain hidden for nearly thirty years…

The documentary ‘Searching for Sugar Man’ had such a big impact on me…I guess the impact may be similar on many people, who went to the movie without having the slightest clue about Rodriguez and his story.

So I would write my piece quite carefully, without going into too much detail for those of you who would consider watching it.

But it suffices to know, once upon a time in America (near the end of 60s) there came a very talented and a deep musician with lots to say.

The mystery is that despite having two really critically-appraised albums at the onset of the 70s, the man had no commercial success at all in his homeland.

On the other hand, through another mysterious way, the album somehow landed in South Africa, where it became the voice of the folks pressured by the apartheid regime.

However, the potential superstar never learned about that…

The songs, so rich of lyrical content, received so much recognition and popularity among the South Africans, also because in a way it gave a voice to their suppressed rebellious souls in 70s.

South Africa, as it is put in the movie, had been a fairly closed and remote community to the rest of the world for a long time.

Yet, two ambitious admirers of Rodriguez’ music, Stephen Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom succeeded in opening up the links to Rodriguez’ real story.

The question is a big one…How such a good and prolific songwriter and singer could be dismissed in the US, whereas he became a superstar in South Africa and also partly in Australia.

It may probably be the name and the location that led to his failure in the US. An immigrant name that leaves the impression of a typical guitar virtuoso and the limitations of the ‘Detroit’ scenery.

If he perhaps had been in New York scene, where full of his likes like Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix or Lou Reed rose to fame on the back of the creativity roll and network, the story could have been quite different.

There was probably no Andy Warhol-like influence around in Detroit. Or a Chelsea hotel-like hub of art and network, so Rodriguez kind of had to assimilate himself in Detroit.

Then again, it is maybe a simple twist of fate that kept Rodriguez undiscovered for such a long time and that long silence period now puts him so much apart from the similar voices of his era.

His music talks for itself, and while watching the movie, I kept wondering how I never listened to his music before.

His Cinderella story is a proof of the fact that it is never late to discover music.

Rodriguez, welcome to our lives!

Sugar Man

I Wonder

I recommend the film ‘Searching for Sugar Man’ to everyone regardless of musical or movie taste, not only a perfect documentary but also a great movie with lots of surprises.

Watch it, without losing much time – because the impact will be much bigger, if you know little about it.

Friday, don’t ever let it end…

Spector is a young band, established in 2011.

Five guys from London, they formed one of the best debut albums of 2012: Enjoy It While It Lasts, released in August 2012.

And I’ve built an addiction to their sixth single from this album.

It is a great Friday song, enjoy it while it lasts!

Friday Night, Don’t Ever Let It End! – by Spector

Anna Karenina: a novel that should stay as a novel…

Watching Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina movie (screenplay by Tom Stoppard), I wonder again why on earth would anyone try to capture a 864-page Russian novel on screen…

However, he is not the first one attempting to adapt the book into film.

Including Wright’s 2012 movie, there are in total 13 Anna Karenina movies.

Tatiana Samoilova as Anna in the 1967 Soviet screen version

I guess, each director may have thought that the previous attempts failed or the new film would add a new dimension.

I’ve only watched the last Anna Karenina.

The first time I’ve read the novel was over ten years ago. Yet, before watching the movie, I accidentally had a second run of the book. 

And right after finishing the book, I watched Joe Wright’s new version. The screenplay was written by Tom Stoppard.

I managed to read the book on my subway ride between my home and the office (and the 864 normal book page meant 5,710 ebook pages in my mobile) over maybe like three months. Having digested it quite carefully over such a long period, just before watching a 2-hour movie summary, made me see what it lacked very evidently.

If there is any book that presents a possibility of good filming, that is definitely not Anna Karenina…

In my view, a novel that offers a good framework for filming would be one with more visual imagination than inner dialogues and emotional depth.

In Anna Karenina, we have so much going on in the main characters’ minds, Anna Arkadyevna Karenina on one side and Konstantin “Kostya” Dmitrievich Levin on the other side.

Along these two main characters, we learn a lot about Anna’s husband (Count Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin), his lover (Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky), and sister-in-law Princess Darya “Dolly” Alexandrovna Oblonskaya and Princess Ekaterina “Kitty” Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya, too.

Like an iceberg, there is so much below the surface. The essence of the book is not in what’s visible but rather what’s hidden. Hence, filming it becomes such a difficult task, and I am still wondering why any producer or director would try it.

Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is a great novel that carries two big obstacles in the way of making a good film based on it: its length and detailed emotional sophistication.

The only way to adapt the novel into the screen would be a TV series, in my view, not a film. Only in a series, you can at least partially convey the spirit of the novel, maybe also using a background voice or inner voices.

A good example of a novel that offers suitable material for film adaptation is Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. It is not short either. However, it presents much more substance fit for a movie adaptation: visual fabric does not cheat about the characters’ inner struggles, because what we see covers most of the story. And Peter Jackson diligently reflected this.

Coming to Joe Wright’s adaptation…

I think that although there are some good moments in the film, the overall theatrical depiction of the movie was disturbing.

I have no idea whether it was intentional or not, but the general feeling of the film makes all the characters look like puppets that float around from one setting to another. In a way, I’d almost speculate that the director and the screen writer kind of willingly wanted to ridicule the Russian Tsarist scenery.

Or, that theatrical atmosphere may be something that they deliberately created to make a reference to the novel’s typical theatre setting as well, where the high society meets at evenings.

Still, whatever the reason, such an interpretation has further intensified the impossibility of  passing on the intensity and emotional depth of the novel to the screen.

The characters mostly remain too two-dimensional, and what we see largely lacks the inner struggles and contradictions that form so much of the novel’s fabric.

Nevertheless, I also give the credit to Joe Wright for the possibility that he may have fully created this puppet-show like tone in order to emphasize the absurdity of putting Tolstoy’s ambitious novel into film…and that one can only do that in a cartoonish, theatrical setting…

Yet, what resulted felt like torture of the epic story on screen for me. I’d rather stay with the novel in my hand rather than being disappointed visually. The adaptation loses so much of such a powerful novel’s soul.

Anna Karenina may be the perfect example of a protagonist that a director would want to capture in film. It may be viable that some characters achieve to reflect some depth through talents like Keira Knightley or Jude Law (the best match of character was Oblonsky though played by Matthew Macfadyen.

However, I think it is high time that movie makers realize that transmitting such novels is unfeasible in about two hours.

Humour has it…

When I was a teenager, I really had this thing for horror movies. The Elm Street series, and similar stuff. Later on this interest rather settled into mystery movies, like The Others or The Sixth Sense.

The horror-thing was probably kind of a trend…Renting out movies, watching it all together with friends or family.

There was also an eight years older-brother impact, who kept bringing more and more thriller movie videos home. At times, I tried to act like I got too sleepy and went to bed. Yet, when I had the guts I would stay and watch until the end, feeling all proud of myself and brave, thinking ‘how cool is this, I can watch whatever he watches, I am not a child anymore’.

Of course this proud feeling lasted only until the end of the movie, after the end I would become a different person, and each minute until sleep would count, as you may guess.

Some movies and some scenes would leave a permanent mark.

In one of those ‘proud/brave’ instances of mine, I had joined my brother and watched a film when I was 8 years old, and a labyrinth chase scene had been engraved on my mind since then.

Many years later, still when mystery movies was still a popular genre for me, on and off a question lingered on my mind  ’what was that movie with the labyrinth scene’.

The answer found me when I watched the movie for a second time. You can imagine, how fun and relieving that enlightenment moment was.

Cover of The Shining

It was ‘the Shining’. First time I watched it with eight, I had no clue of Stanley Kubrick or Jack Nicholson.

Anyway, at that time, I really enjoyed comedy movies, too and I remember watching ZAZ movies like Airplane or Top Secret for instance, over and over again. My discovery of them was also probably thanks to my brother’s discoveries.

A good dual combination was actually watching first a horror or mystery movie, then continuing with a comedy and discharging all the tension through laughters.

Now interestingly what remains is rather my interest in comedy movies.

I am largely skipping thriller/mystery movies, and this kind of puzzles me sometimes, given how I enjoyed it years ago…

It is true, though, I can make a whole list of favourite movies like ‘the Shining’, ‘Lost Highway’, ‘Mulholland Drive’, or Hitchcock classics like ‘Dial M for Murder’ or ‘Vertigo’, and many others, that I can still put on and enjoy like it’s the first time..These movies strangely also have the highest number of reruns I did for myself…

So a Kubrick, a Lynch or Hitchcock thriller is still as watchable as it was to me before, but these are quite rare epic examples. There are not many good new films produced in the same line and genre. (Once in a while, there come movies like The Strangers (2008) starring Liv Tyler, which achieve in creating a very tense atmosphere).

So, although I enjoy watching good-quality, mystery movies over and over, I realized that my desire of (re)watching comedy stuff clearly dominates, especially relevant for the TV series.

This I understood, while doing countless of reruns of my favourite TV series, ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’. Regardless of how many times I’ve watched them before, a Friends or Seinfeld episode is a classic for me in every period.

The vampire-thing is a trend, the quantum/parallel universe may be a trend, or even the middle earth stuff may be a long-lasting trend. However, the comedy, and a show about the trivialities of daily life, good humour of friendship or relationship issues that never age, never become old fashioned themselves as well.

The subject matter may range from how you pick fruits in a grocery store, to how no one really pays attension to where the car is parked in the shopping mall or to how you can break up on very trivial things, or other daily stuff depicted as below…

I think of my current favourite shows, and that creates another line of conflict. The series I watch the most nowadays, are thematic ones like Fringe, The Killing or the Game of Thrones. Hence more of the mystery-type.

To me, waiting for the next episode or sitting and watching several episodes of these epic kind of mystery or fantasy series is a real pleasure. Yet, I know it’s not like I’d feel like picking an episode every once in a while, and rewatch them. It would mostly require a rerun of an entire season. For example, I know I feel like watching the Killing season 1-2 again some time, although I know how it ends. But such good productions with good script-writing as well as great talents and directing are not so common.

Take the ‘Lost’ series for example. Would you feel like watching it again and again…?

With all that crew of characters, it felt like great most of the time until it really ‘lost’ us..

I can imagine myself much less rewatching these things in later years rather than the comedy series.

However, you can pick any Seinfeld episode anytime (regardless of the last time you watched it and which episode it was) and enjoy it anytime.

This is a very relevant criterion of the success of a comedy series, in my view. It is maybe exactly related with the question of what it is about…Seinfeld was a ‘show about nothing’ as its creators had once called it…Show about triviliaties and daily lives that does not take too much of the viewer’s energy, yet achieves in giving too much of positive energy.

Although Seinfeld and Friends or the new ones like the Office, Big Bang Theory or How I Met Your Mother, all give much more pleasure if you keep watching and get to know the characters. Yet they don’t necessarily require you to remember  what happened ’previously in seinfeld’, to really enjoy it…

All the reruns these shows enjoy throughout the years should be a result of that, as well..It’s not like it’s important what happens in the end…It’s more about what happens throughout, things that you can laugh about although you watch it for the n-th time…

The short gist of what I’ve been thinking is that I need truly more of the good comedy series and good comedy movies than the mystery series or films.

I don’t know…Maybe now life has become more tense and full of mysteries as we age, and we have more appetite for relaxing and laughing a bit…

So, humour has it, for me…