Até deu faísca!

Lisboa, linda Lisboa !
I am back for two weeks, working dusk to dawn, but it's great to be here!
Portugal is really a beautiful country, my hearts beats faster just being here. Though I know that it's only for a short time that I will be here, and that it will be long before I will pass through here again, I try not to think about it. I am enjoying every moment of it, and see things as I never saw before.The lamp post in Alameda, near Fonte Luminosa... beautiful geometry, the lamppost adds to the image of the square, even when the sun makes it superfluous.
Windpower is booming business in Portugal, and it fits also well with the culture, I think. And I say this with the utmost respect for the culture that I have learned to love so much: Portuguese are windy people, they go were the wind takes them and make the best of it, not as opportunists, but as realists. There is no changing the wind, just change your goals and decide to go where the wind wants you to be... It makes them extremely inventive, because they have to find solutions for problems nobody ever solved before... This windfarm is next to A8, going north of lisbon, about 20 km south of Óbidos, a medieval town in the contest for next world wonder..
When driving through Lisbon, you drive by history all the time... some don't notice it anymore, but this city has a hard job expanding while keeping it's patrimonium intact.
July 2007

Vanity

Lichtaart, July 2007
Though I be-eth hideous, do I not haveth the right to be vain ?

This is a toad, photographed around our house... these toads are normally very afraid of humans, but this one was obviously more vain then afraid... Crazy as it sounds, he was actually posing, turning around for me, showing his best sides...
really special animal...
But it does make some sense. It's not about being pretty or not, it's all about being what you are. Consciously choosing to be yourself is maybe the biggest freedom you can have. Is it wrong to be happy to be oneself ? Is the peace this choice gives sometimes mistaken for vanity ?

Transparancy

Olen, June 2007
Glasses for 50 people at the birthday party of Ghislaine.
Transparancy represents for me an unconditional honesty. Can be a great virtue, and also a hurtfull flaw...

Reflections of/on life

Gent, June 2007
Day with sun and rain mixed together in a belgian stew we like to call "kermis in de hel". Visited Rosemintje in Gent, too much time has past since my last visit...
The city is a gorgeous melting pot of cultures and minds, a unique place in Belgium. Try out the cafe "het Damberd" at the Korenmarkt, and the sandwich with goatcheese and hunny in de Onvrije Matroos.

Changing perspectives

Antwerpen, 'tZuid, June 2007
One of the strangest contradictios: the faster you try to achieve something, the more you loose the sight of your goal... It's necessary to halt from time to time to move on...

small things...

big things make life liveable,
small things make life worth living...

Rainy scenario

Blue skies are not the nicest. It takes an unhappy moment to realize your happiness. My favourite sky is the one just after rain.

Plants in the student residence in Lebrunstraat in Leuven, 14/05/07

red cherries, green frogs

Red and green, two primal colors of life. Stop and go, the world turns or it doesn't...
The biggest challenge in life is to know when your personal traffic light is red or green, and to have the courage to floor the gas when it's green, and the patience to hold while its red.

The cherries are from the tree in Leon and Ghislaine's garden, in a town with another important color, Geel. Because of the nice weather, the cherries are 1 month early this year...
The frog is from the pool in our garden in Lichtaart, and brings luck to students all over the world.

When I come home, and arrive a little late for lucn on a sunday, this is what I can find at the table ; ) Look what a nice family I have, my father, peter, katrien, my mother, dogs kasper and dropke... Only annemie is missing on the picture, she was still working in the bakery at this time...

From left to right: my sister Annemie, with the beautiful smile, my nephew Danny, my uncle Bart and my father. Uncle Bart came to visit us, in between conferences.

Why what with whom when ?

My year in Lisbon, Portugal as an erasmus student has ended. It is over and is not coming back. I will remember it forever as a wonderful, glorious time, a time where a met so much friends, had so much fun, and also, learned great a many thing about life.
Now I am back in Leuven. I know this place, I have studied here four years in a row, I have lived here for a total of 208 weeks. Yet, when I look around, there is not a lot that I recognize. I have changed too much in one year to recognize this place... I have changed too much to recognize myself in this place...
What I have learned in Lisbon, not in Leuven, and what I hope never to forget, is that life is to be lived... You don't have to be far away to see something new, you have to want to see it.
Why what whit whom when ?
There is no other way to deal with life than to live it, and live it to the fullest extent. Be yourself as much as you can be, that's the only thing that can make you feel complete. Have the courage to be yourself and be your biggest supporter... Make your choices and accept their consequences.
Live your dreams, but be realistic. Your dream is to fly ? learn how to fly a plane and live that dream, but don´t jump of the roof for exercise...
Anybody, and I mean anybody is worth inviting over for dinner, soup or even just coffee... Enjoy and share your live with other people. Be happy to listen to other people and how they are and want to be and look at their own life.
Because you are alive and have only now, not tomorrow not yesterday, only the now to do what you want to do, so do it now... Any time you don't, is a chance less to do something usefull with your life...
I am going to live my life, and breath the air with joy...