And "it" means: to go around the island of Alnö by bike. It's 40 VERY hilly kilometres and it took me almost 2,5 hours with the city-bike which we have borrowed from our neighbour. I did it this morning at 6 am and now my limbs still feel like over-cooked spaghetti. I probably needed that! As you can see on the pictures we've done some socialising the last days: Dad and I saw Göran and also we invited the wonderful musicians Dan-Gunnar and Karin for coffee at our home. We watched a 15 years old recording from a musical play about the history of Alnö in which Karin and her daughter participated. I was amazed at parts of the libretto: the concluding chorus praised Sweden in a way that brought my mind to the nationalistic socialism I've seen exposed at the museum of national history of Tirana. And as you can see, the Saw mill monument (Sågverksmonumentet) at the centre of Alnö speaks a bit of the same Eastern-Europe-pre-1989-language. Well, not that there is nothing to be proud of. The life of the saw mill workers and other workers was radically changed to the better through their organising themselves in trade unions. Göran can testify to that! He started working at an Alnö saw mill after 7 years at what he calles "The university of Hovid" (the village school at the northern part of the island) so he knows what this hard work is like.
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Marie is a VERY gifted musician, singer and songwriter and we had a very enriching jam session last night playing, singing and recording our own songs! How lovely! This is true vacation for me! Ångermanland is a very pious place with a lot of Evangelical and Pentecostal churches with a GREAT and deeply rooted musical tradition which produces great musicians (classical, gospel, pop...) of which Marie is one! Last Sunday evening we enjoyed a classical concert at the Lutheran church of Själevad where Marie serves as a church musician. Yesterday we spent the whole day with her sister, brother-in-law and very cute nephew! I enjoyed very non-Belgian activities as blue-berry picking and swimming in a lake. WONDERFUL! And the slow tempo of the Norrlanders was also very restful. The cat of Marie also gave me a very warm reception keeping me company in bed and also granting me a very catty farewell gift: a dead mouse on the floor of my room this morning (no pictures of that one for reasons of decency - but I must say it was rather neat and with no blood on it. I even hesitated first to think that it was some kind of very realistic cat-toy but no... it was the real thing...) Coming back to Alnö I continued enjoying music at a house concert of the music teacher Peter Tjärnberg! Below some photo's from the concert and also from Alnö in general. I'm right now at the Crespinière farm in Normandy enjoying the lovely company of my hosts Jacqueline and Marcel and their animals. I was here for the first time in 1988 when I was 13 years old, when my parents, my brother and I visited France and spent a night at their bed and breakfast. Then I went back for a whole month when I was 17 years old to help at the bed and breakfast and to improve my French. Last time I visited them was 13 years ago, in the year 2000! Now that I live in Belgium I'm not so far away anymore. I went here by car travelling together whith some peolpe that I found online throught the site Blablacar. Very nice and cheap! In that way I didn't have to go via Paris or take the train or the bus. This whole week I have been busy shaving wall-paper off my walls - a very tedious work that I have been complaing about on my Swedish blog. A good friend of mine, Groddy, helped me with this and also encouraged me to ask for more help. So I did (reluctantly) and my dear friends Rana and Frogga responded positively and gave me help last Thursday and Friday! Thank you so much!!!!! A somewhat handicapped frog greeted us from the pulpit as we entered the Sint Rombouts-kathedraal (St Rumbold's Cathedral) in Mechelen yesterday. It was a nice and sunny day outside and the four of us (Rana, Brekekekaatje, Li-Rana and myself) took the bikes and went all the way to Mechelen from Leuven along the canal. Very flat and nice! A trip I really recommend. Here is the joyful trio on tour: Rana, Batty and Ranus (husband of Rana)! We went 10 days to Sweden and arrived home to Belgium yesterday! Here is a short photo show of our trip that can be summarized as follows: "wawa" (=water in the frog language), burial mounds, stinging nettles, bugs, stunning geneological discoveries, lovely meetings with old friends and TV-evenings with more or less weird Swedish films + Jeeves and Wooster! Stockholm and Uppsala Norrland: Alnö, Sundsvall and Jämtland Hello everybody! This is me, Batty, with my little French-Korean friend whom I'm looking after since one week in the day time when her parents are working. Isn't she a beauty??? I think I have never before met such an easy, nice and happy baby with such a lovely sense of humour! And finally she has also gotten used to my loud laughter and isn't crying any more when I laugh... Today it was 14 juillet and Baby, her parents and I went to the centre of Paris to go to church and also to enjoy the Free, Equal and Brotherly atmosphere along the Boulevard des Champs-Elysées. Yesterday Veerle and I arrived back in Belgium after an exciting week on the German roads! And as you see the King of Frogs himself received us in his palace! For those who may not know, it's situated in a little village called Heidenfahrt along the Rhine, between Bingen and Mainz. We stayed there over night after having biked around 85 km! Below some more photos from our trip, thematically organised. German curiosities A beautiful collection of anonymous grandfathers Animals!German beauty Latin texts... and a few German This section is, I'm afraid, reserved for nerds... A curious inscription in the cathedral of Cologne. Two and a half disticha. Before I became famous I was often called count Emundus. Slayed by violent death here I lay covered as I wanted (sub???). Holy Peter, I Frisheim bring Thee my county and I pray Thee to give me a place in heaven. The heavy mass of these stones contain the bones of the fellow. (Thank you Ingrid for your help in the translation!) Middle school of Koblenz. Koblenz is the German version of Confluentes, that refers to the two rivers Rhine and Mosel "flowing together" (confluo) in the city. O God protect this house and them who go in and out (of it)! House in Boppard. The citizens erected (this statue of) John Gensfleisch from Gutenberg, the noble man of Mainz, with money collected all throughout Europe in 1837. Strange that it says that they erected "him" and not "a monument for him" or something like that. Posterity! Receive this monument that Prince Albert foresaw his own citizens with, whom he loves of all his heart as a watcher and a fighter for what is honest. He wishes that they in their turn always may respond to him with love. On the main square of Mainz. Two disticha. The citizens erected (ex proposito?) this statue of Saint Joseph, the specially chosen patron of this town. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Outside the church in Gernsheim. In the year of the given salvation 1630 Theodor from Bettendorff, the very honourable archbishop of the people of Worms and the famous prince of the empire, when he had been an archbishop for 28 years, when he was 62 years old, after enormous worries and sleepless nights for his country, emaciated by age and an honourable series of years, on the 31st of January happily rendered his soul and religiously his shadows to heaven. His spirit is at rest and awaits the future resurrection. From the cathedral of Worms. In the year of 1821 on the 2nd of April R.D. George Werle died, the (provicarius episcopalis) and of this church of St Peter, at the age of 69. He was a simple, upright and godfearing man who shunned evil. (Iob 1). R.I.P. Cathedral of Worms. Here I stand and can do nothing else, so help me God! Amen! Words ascribed to Luther at Worms 1521. Luther Monument at Worms. The book of the thousand founders of our age, who follow in the tracks of the founding emperors, is covered by this stone. In the year 2008. |
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