Categories
in the netherlands photography

introduction

erasmus is a whole full-time job, i discovered. the shorter periods have proved to be much more intense and deadlines come really quick. which is good, in a way – two months and a half have past and i’ve already done 2 subjects. 4 to go now. the drawback is, of course, the little time one has left for the rest of the things. still, paulo & i, we’ve managed to set up the “tips” exhibit again, this time on the IWI (informatica and wiskunde = informatics and maths) canteen, here in groningen, on the zernike complex. if you don’t know it yet, you can come and see :)

also, me, levi, paulo and a couple of friends went to utrecht last weekend, because p. had been studying there and kind of missed the place. utrecht seems nice. we saw sinterklaas arriving from spain and giving cookies to kids, ate stroopwaffles and roamed around for the afternoon. i loved the gracht’s (the canals ?) with their sidewalks and hidden places under the streets – much unlike grrroningen ones.
i noticed people kind of look down on groningen and the northern part of the netherlands, “we’re” somewhat seen as “the farmers”. it’s true, the city surroundings are much more quiet and rural than in other bigger cities, i guess, but still, perfect for getting away of the city without having to go through the (ugly) suburban rush. i’m loving this city even more as i discover others. it’s just… different.

ps – can’t find the key to my bike/place, and i must have lost it yesterday during class. life here doesn’t make sense without a bike.

Categories
in the netherlands music

ah pois…

encontramo-nos no parque de estacionamento, de manhã, e esperamos uma pela outra, num acordo implícito e silencioso de companhia até à universidade, porque a meia hora de bicicleta faz-se mais rápido se houver alguém ao nosso lado…
ela desliga o leitor de mp3 para me dar atenção e continua a cantarolar “I’m so in love with yooooou, i’ll be forever bluuuuue”… e instintivamente continuei a música uns 50 metros, quando reparei que, efectivamente, tinha ao meu lado uma italiana a cantar música de um grupo português, em território holandês!
pronto, com o orgulho patriótico um bocadinho maior (que julgo que só se nota durante as competições desportivas e quando emigramos), ambas concordamos que o david fonseca é giro e prosseguimos viagem. :)
tenho pena de não ter ouvido ainda nada do cd novo dele, mas aqui neste recanto sem tv é mais complicado…

Categories
photography

photographic challenge

Think of 3 pictures you’d like to see. Things around my house or whatever… something I can take a picture of easily. Once I have enough requests, I’ll start posting them. If I can’t or won’t take a picture of something you’ve requested, I’ll let you know.

(as seen here. just leave your requests on the comments. :) )

Categories
in the netherlands photography

(un)plan

yesterday, in the afternoon, we went to see the world press photo exhibition in the martinikerk, which was great, as one would expect, and it did quite well its job of putting questions on people’s minds.
there’s always something standing out of the crowd which is different from person to person, and the set which caught my attention was this one by david burnett. i was fascinated by the depth of field of the images, at that distance. humans look like little toys… in theory i think i know one way to do it, but in practice, it’s much more difficult…

so we had coffee in the terrace of the v&d building and came home to cook the most international unplanned dinner so far. oh, and in the meantime, we invited people to write some phrases in our wall, like the numbers, hello, thank you, i love you, and so on, on their own language. :) you can imagine how much we laughed trying to pronouce it on russian, vietnamese or arabian and vice-versa…

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Categories
in the netherlands

vogelgriep

thanks to rtp taped emissions, we see the evening news from yesterday on our lunch break. feels a little bit more like home when we ear the sound of the beginning, and feels good to actually know more than publico’s front page news.

for instance, the parliament is still pretty empty. i can’t understand this. if that’s the deputee’s job, how dare they not show up? i mean, here we are, cycling half an hour in wind and rain to have a 2 hour class… what are they doing? why can’t they focus on it only?
and the bird flu? market people forbidden to sell live chicken, ducks, etc and the panic of those who have done nothing else all their life. or the dozen dead ducks who showed up dead in a beach in the center of the country and the general media histeria around it…

[ oh! as is wrote this (and was starting to change subject to other ways of knowledge), there was a short sketch on work over the internet and i saw ana, rosa and hilda there :) how nice! ]

anyway, as i was saying, we have been learning a lot more about other countries, which is turning this erasmus experience into something rewarding beyond words. ramadan, for instance, is now a word with a meaning. it means “holy” month, a month without eating or drinking during daylight (at all), a month for the introspection and meditation.
being here makes us search for the countries in the map and attach the stories to the places. romania, syria, vietnam, turkey… and even germany, italy or belgium. what did i know of these places before coming here? and what do i know now?

reading, researching, living in those places for a while, talking, listening, moving, starting it all over again. i think i have a plan. :)