Antwerp(en) and Relief in a Way

It is not always you get a chance to go behind the scenes from a famous balletgroup in their own theatre. Yesterday I took the train from 5.45 from Deventer and I arrived at 9 in Antwerp(en). There it was about 45 minutes walking (made a little extra stroll through the centre) to the home from the Royal Ballet of Flanders My 4th year Student Julia is doing a training at the costumedepartment and she is doing so well, so I am very proud of her. Her attendant at the atelier is very satified about her and she told me that they never had a better trainee than Julia. After the talk about her progress I got a tour behind the scenes and I was offered a ticket for the perfomance in the evening (couldn't do that unfortunately). I have seen everything from ballet shoes in dressing rooms: Tutu's in big boxes if the ballet goes somewhere for a performance:Tutu's hanging upside down as lampshades: Sweet dresses for the corps de ballet: Colourfull garments for a fairy tale Ballet: Historical dresses: Hats in all kind of variations ( I loved the typical Spanish toreador hats very much) And much, much more. It was really wonderfull to see this all (and Julia is Great!) I had a wonderfull meeting there and whenever I am at such places I love my work so much. In January I have to go back for the final meeting and give her marks (but they will be very good I am sure). Later I walked through the streets of Antwerp. Saw modern buildings turning up as the (they are still building on it) new Museum for the Stream (loved the building) After coffee in the sun on a terrace with a splendid vieuw on this building I walked back to the centre for some shopping. In one of the streets I found this streetnameplate hanging behind the glass. I had seen this before when we visited Gent a few years ago. It says: "Without Hate Street" and it is a protest against the upcoming racism and the violence in the city of Antwerp. On the site : www.zonderhaatstraat.be (sorry not in english) you can read everything about it. For me this is such a good signal against the bad things fhappiening in our society. In that same street I found a beautiful hat shop with this rather roughly knitted hat. I am not sure if I would make one for myself because it would be too hot for me to wear, but the shape is great I think and it gives a really winter-feeling (despite the sun who was there all day). On the glass of a thrift shop they put those lace doillies with tape on the glass. It looked really beautiful to me in a strange way. I decided not to go to the Momu, the Fashion Museum but decided just to walk around. Antwerpen has those wonderfull narrow streets and it is always a surprise what you see. Ofcourse it is very touristic here and there, but I hardly noticed it. Belgian Designers Fashion was a little out of the picture yesterday. I liked the shop windows with all the cardboard boxes at Dries van Noten very much, but the prices are far to much for me now.In the past I could explain very easy to my students why designergarments need to cost more, but that has changed over the years. I have noticed within myself thatI sometimes can't see the point anymore why those garments needs to cost that much. Ofcourse you pay for the design and the fabric and the exclusivity of it, but..... it is only just clothes...some fabric sewn together in a nice way... So, I ended up in the shop from one of my favourite brands at the moment which is: COS. Last year when Evelien and I were in London we discovered Cos in Regent Street (was just opened) and we loved it. Simple Scandinavian design in great fabrics. I bought a cardigan with dark stripes which I still wear frequently and I still love it to wear it. Later I discovered that it was the luxury brand from H&M (never buy there, bad fabrics!!). There is only one Cos-shop in Holland (in the Hague, too far away) so finding a Cos in Antwerp was really something I looked forward to. The men collection is exactly what I want. So I bought 2 shirts, 1 trouser, 1 cardi and a matching pink (yes PINK!!) belt. I will post later some pictures and I also discoverer a detail in a shirt which is also in a -far to expensive, but great and had to have it- shirt from Acne which I bought a few years ago in Copenhagen.

Today Bram got a phonecall from the hospital that we had to come at 14.00 hrs to get the final result from the test he did last week. The result is that his heart is fine and it is not the reason of his bad mobility right now. Ofcourse it is a relief to know that the problem is not there... but now we have to search more. During the consult Bram asked the cardiologist if he could stop for a while with his anti-cholesterol tablets because in the leaflet is mentioned that muscles can get weaker. He wasn't sure about it, but told Bram that he could stop for 2 weeks and see what was happening. So we will see. We also made an appointment with specialist for internal diseases in November and perhaps we are also going to try something alternative next to it.