Finally found the perfect leather camera-bag-that’s-not-a-camera-bag. The fuckyeahedness of this can only be expressed through SONG and DANCE. Oh yeah. 

federerroger:

Roger Federer - World Tour Finals Champion in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2011

I know this is my travel blog and shit, BUT THIS IS GETTING A REBLOG.

Travelogue #20: Fairytale beginnings.

Every guide book you’ll ever read about Luxembourg calls it a “country of fairytales” - hilly terrains, valleys full of castles, quaint old towns populated by absurdly prosperous people. And as if to top off the fairytale stereotype, Luxembourg’s Head of State happens to be a duke - a grand one at that. And the Grand Duke presides over his Grand Duchy in a grand castle with his Grand Ducal family. How very grand indeed. 

At first sight, Luxembourg is stunningly pretty: the capital was built over a dramatic gorge, dividing the city into Ville Haute (high city) with its brand boulevards and squares and Ville Basse (low city) - packed of Irish pubs on tiny, winding streets.

I arrived on a cold sunny afternoon just as a faint fog was moving through the gorge. The combination of sunlight and fog over the gorge cast a golden shimmer over the city, and I stood for the longest time on a bridge over the gorge, staring at the sight before me, incredulous that anything could be so completely, holistically perfect. 

But like all fairytales, the problem is precisely that they are too perfect. Past a certain age, you stop reading them, you stop believing in them. You start to prefer them in smaller doses, with a healthy portion of angst and conflict.

Perhaps cynicism is part of growing up. 

My cynicism began at nightfall, when workers from investment banks and European Courts left town, and Luxembourg City came to a literal halt. Other than a few tourists hitting up pubs, Luxembourg was a complete ghost town, devoid entirely of character.

There are places you visit that you know you will return to simply because there ain’t enough time in the world to see it all and feel it all in one trip. And then, there are places that will only ever play a fleeting role in your life. But in a way, you are glad to have visited anyway, even if all you remember of it were those 20 minutes you stood on a bridge, mouth agape at a childhood fantasy materialising before your very eyes. 

xx doots

Travelogue #19: Literature as religious experience.

I consider myself incredibly lucky on this trip to have visited two very memorable bookstores: the first being the famous City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, and the second one - lesser known, but in many ways much cooler - Selexyz Dominicanen in Maastricht.

As religion continues to decline in developed Western countries, more and more churches have fallen into disrepair. The Dominican Church in Maastricht, which dates back to the 13th Century, could not escape the same fate. Right up until its most recent incarnation, the old church building had been used by the good folks of Maastricht as a used bike pound (which incidentally strikes me as an oh-so-Dutch thing to do). 

These days, the Dominican Church has found new life … as a bookshop. And not just any bookshop, but a bookshop with its own cafe (situated where the altar used to be) and a giant, three-storey steel bookshelf. 

We visited on a Sunday - typically a day when this entire friggin continent shuts down. To our delight however, the bookstore was open and bustling.

Tourists were wandering around, taking in the novelty of their surroundings; universities students were studying in the horseshoe shaped cafe at the back; a jazz band was playing inside, inspiring rounds of applause from locals sipping their coffee nearby. The atmosphere had the laid-back, yet lively feel of a weekend bric-a-brac market. 

You couldn’t help but marvel at this ingenious use of space - the maximisation of floor space by dividing the height of the church ceiling into 3 internal levels, the curved shape of the chancel, which lends itself so well to the social function of a cafe, the cross-shaped coffee table in the centre, a reference back to the architectural memory of this building being a former church.

There was a strong sense of security and reassurance, which could only be brought about by the thick, stone brick walls of a church building and the smell of unopened books … This was the insertion of new meaning into an abandoned, 800 year old building situated on prime real estate. 

We sat in the cafe for a while, drinking coffee, listening to the jazz band, eating cake, and enjoying a fun afternoon just across the Belgian-Dutch border. 

In a way, the bookstore was typical of the city of Maastricht, where the old seems to coexist well with the new. The city is one of the few in the area that kept the remnants its old city walls and gates, weaving them seamlessly into everyday streetscapes as if they were meant to be there, all along. 

City walls.

Helspoort - one of the old city gates of Maastrict, complete with its original fortifications. 

Old church that looks like a fortress. 

Having been in Leuven for a few weeks by then, it came also as a relief to me to be able to stand on the banks of a river and smell the faint breeze coming off a large body of moving water.

They say first impressions are everything - well … nicely played, Holland. 

Guardians of the City.

The Virgin and Child, taken from the Keizersberg Abbey situated at the highest point of Leuven.

Not-so-incidentally, this is the best place to watch sunset over the city.