Adventures in Antwerp

I attended a workshop this week that introduced us to a teaching strategy called "Headlines" which teaches students how to summarize or capture the essence of a period of time or anything else worth summarizing. If I were to write a Headline for this weekend, it would be:

Too much, too little, or too inappropriate to capture on one camera

There were so many times this weekend I spent in Antwerp, which is another city in Belgium (known for its diamonds and shopping), where I wanted to take a picture, but I knew it wouldn't do justice to what I saw in its context. Perhaps by giving some examples in which this took place, I can somehow "capture the essence" that was this weekend.
Too Much:
Antwerp is a beautiful city, and one that I only got a glimpse of last year when I visited the zoo there with my students. One thing my camera could not do justice capturing was the enormity of the main cathedral (the tallest in Belgium), named Our Lady, which can be seen in almost every part of the city. I love the subtlety of the architecture in Europe, how it seems to just blend in with the rest of the city and its more modern additions. That is, of course, until you're standing right in front of it and it's all you can look at. Much like how in Paris I would find my bearings by locating the Eiffel Tower, so I would in Antwerp by locating the cathedral.
Other images I could see but couldn't capture with my camera because of it's enormity were the Schelde River on the edge of the city, and the crowds and crowds of people attending the Cultural Festival that happened to be taking place today. I couldn't help but wonder what brought everyone else to Antwerp that particular day: were they from Antwerp? did they come just for the festival? why Antwerp and why this weekend? We had an especially good time people watching during the concerts and cafe breaks throughout the day.

Too Little:
Today also happened to be No Car Day in downtown Antwerp, so walking into the city was a particular treat when we could just walk right down the street without having to check for cars (the bikes, however, were particularly frightening at times, coming within inches of making little bike tire marks across our backs!). It was the most peculiar but amazing feeling, like we were somehow apart from modernity. This was, unfortunately, a bit difficult to somehow capture, as it is hard to take a picture of something that isn't there.

Too Inappropriate:
This consists of mostly of people I saw walking through the city, strolling through the market, etc, I felt would be offended/creeped out had I asked them to pose for me. I tried to keep track throughout the day, though, to just somehow remember the image.
1. The two old ladies with purple hair
2. A group of drag queens
3. Three women I saw out last night, I believed to have been a grandmother, her daughter, and her grandaughter, all out together. (I should preface this story by explaining that we found a townie bar near where we were staying that had a dance floor for the patrons to utilize whilst two men entertained the rest of the bar with some karaoke hits) During one of the songs, the middle-aged woman brought who I presumed to be her mother out and danced with her on the dance floor. Later, the grandaughter would join in. I was so impressed with how each woman seemed to care so deeply for the other. No cattiness, just joyful dancing and laughter and love.
4. Another example of a sweet family was one I saw today at the festival today. The son, who was probably 16, was walking next to his mom and put his arm around her, which she reciprocated. They then started doing a little dance while walking and were joined by the father who was on the other side of the boy. The boy clearly wasn't embarrassed to be seen walking around with his parents, and his parents clearly weren't embarrassed to be acting silly in public with their son. It was so refreshing.

So when pictures can't quite capture what I want them to, remembering what I felt when I saw a particular image will hopefully do it justice. I have seen so many beautiful things, and it's only been 11 days.

The apartment by the pond

My apartment is great for many reasons: it's five minutes away from the school in which I work, it has an elevator which opens right up into the produce section of the grocery store on the bottom level, and it has a wide open living room, furnished with comfy furniture I look forward to relaxing in every day.
What I love most, however, is coming home and being able to look out the windows from my living room and see the gorgeous pond surrounded by forest just across the street from my apartment building. There dwells an assortment of birds, including ducks, geese, and one swan, which is down from two from last year. It breaks my heart to see the one swan by itself now. Perhaps its companion swan is still on holiday, visiting someplace fabulous like Malta or the Canary Islands and escaping from the rain that has managed to visit Brussels every day since I've arrived. I also look forward to the nights in October when the sun begins to set right over the forest line just beyond the pond. It's beautiful.
What I also love about being here is everytime I'm faced with an obstacle or inconvenience, all I have to say is "Oh well, I'm in Europe" and then go home and look at my pond. I think it's going to be a fabulous year.