BBQ in style!

E. and her sweet almost 3 years old lady hosted the finest barbecue of the year!  A secret garden in Halle was the place to be to grill meat in style! 

Fashionistas at festivals

Festival season is in full swing!! It seems that the festival fun is as much about the fashion as the music.  Rain or shine, indie or rave, rock or pop... some of you look ab fab at festivals. 

On the next big thing, Pukkelpop (21.08.10), I'm going undercover as a fashion detective and I'll try to spot you!!  

Beachwatch

Do you know where you were a month ago?  I was relaxing by the lake of Biscarosse watching  beachwatch ..

All aboard!

We play house records and the Antwerp Feiern crew hijacked a boat in Ghent to play some nice house tunes. All aboard!

fancy dancing feet

Ghent Festival

You say summer.. I think festivals! Maybe Belgiums finest proud besides beer and chocolates! Really, did you know that half of the European Festival Awards went to Belgian festivals. During the entire year there are over 280, but most of them take place during summer.  Sold out is common lately in the ticket business and even fashion marketing picked in on the festivals.  Shops such as H&M  offer 'festival-outfits'...  festivals are hot!

Zoom zoom, Ghent... The Ghent festival or 'Gentse Fiesten' like we say! 10 days party, theatre, comedy,... all over the city and one of the biggest city festivals in Europe.

Some highlights till so far:

Gent Jazz Festival

Although this jazz event takes place before the 'Gentse Fiesten' it is inherent with it. Held over ten days as well all sorts of jazz musicians and bands are performing here. Last Friday I went to the Cinematic Orchestra and Kruder & Dorfmeister. The first one brought a beautiful concert and the last one was a little bit disappointing.

Avenue L 

More  than 100.000 go into the city center every night of the weekend or bank holidays.  I'm not always in the mood to be crushed by the massive crowd and at the same time to focus on the cobblestoned road.. so yesterday I've chosen to go to Avenue L.  This party concept is housed in the amazing medieval cellar of the NH Hotel. Mustang (also known as Cosy Mozzy) and Villa (the new project of Ghents DJ duo Fredo & Thang) pleased us with 80's tinted fine records!  For example, this Ed-banger one:

More coming up: a party on a boat, PoléPolé a floating festival, ...Oooo I love you summer!!!♥♥

Portrait: L and L

a shorthand note
as it is day 4 of the Ghent Festival
10 days of fiesta in the city
in between
two pictures of sweet kids
L and L

A holiday in a slideshow

Ok, I made it!! I managed it to make a small selection out of more than 700 pictures of the road-trip. Here's the slideshow:

The apparition

In the middle of our trip, we saw a road sign: Lourdes 10 km ... Imagine, somewhere in the Pyrenees (near Lourdes), a car with the two blondes and myself the brunette, thinking about doing a little detour and driving to Lourdes.  For the not Lourdes-knower, it is a pilgrimages, because some lady saw Maria’s apparition in a cave a long long time ago.  Sorry granny if I’m telling this story wrong or not in a passionate way, but at least I’ve sent you a postcard!!  Anyway, we parked the car and followed the signs to the circus of Lourdes.  Loads of people did the same thing ... strange scene.. We saw the church, saw people filling 5, 10, 20 bottles of ‘holy’ water and heard them singing near the cave...  You probably agree if I prefer WorldWide Festival!?!  Is this a must see, well ... ‘no’ would be my first answer, as it is such an awkward place, but still somehow we were there....

Wild horses

Wild horses couldn't drag me away
wild wild we'll ride them someday

That was what the Rolling Stones were singing, but we did it!! Yes, we've been riding wild horses!! After visiting the Atlantic coast (the story will follow later and no chronology is not a part of my road-trip story!) we drove into the mountains, The Pyrenees.  In Laruns a small town in the Ossau valley we booked a 'promenade à cheval' somewhere higher in the mountains around a lake. Waauw the horses walked one hour along the lake and we were surrounded by these enormous huge rocks, called mountains... loved the scenery, just like a movie, starring two blondes and a brunette .. maybe a comedy..  Anyway, it's a must do if you're visiting the Pyrenees!

A week ago

It seems I can't manage to find some time for organising my travel pictures.  Which is a good thing .. this means summer is busy, pleasant busy!!  One week ago we were in the wonderful Sète for the Worldwide Festival.  I can hear you thinking..  again about that.. but hey..  look how beautiful it was!!

Worldwide festival: you say world .. I say wide

Besides Paris, there's another city of light in France!! Sète, a small idyllic fishing town in the South of France hosted Gilles Peterson his WorldWide Festival (8- 10 July 2010). 

After 12 days on the Frenchie roads we had some time left to witness the first two days of this amazing festival.

I had already a crush on the festival before it started by seeing the exceptional hot looking line-up and unique venues.

The kick off took place in the blazing sun on the street in front of the CRAC (Regional center of contemporary art). Koko and Gilles Peterson were spinning the first tunes and my feet started moving. Between some sunscreen sessions I saw some regular faces from Gent.

 A name on the line-up up I looked forward to see, was Dorian Concept.  Waaauw, this amazing Austrian produces raised the temperatures with his awesome beats!

A shower refreshed us and we were ready to go to the lighthouse Phare Du Mole/St Christ for the rest of the program of day 1.  At the entrance we saw the notification that Gil Scott-Heron, the highlight of day 1 cancelled for personal reasons. What the heck?? 

In the queue at the entrance we met with Ellen (also known as Lemon Lizzy with her fantastic blog) and her boyfriend and joined them to hear our own talented Belgian artist on stage: Lefto! Word! The band of Gil Scott-Heron didn't feel the personal reasons of the man himself and performed 45 minutes on stage. After this nice show and some dub-step tunes of MC Dynamite the Foreign Beggars took over the place and the crowd went totally crazy.  Floating points and Fatima were on the program as well, but I've seen them before and the girls got tired so we went back to the hotel.

Day 2 started on the ACD beach. While dipping myself into the Mediterranean Sea I enjoyed tracks like think twice from J.Dilla.  Lefto and Simbad controlled the turntables and people started dancing on the beach, what a work out!

Salty water and sandy sand were removed again after a shower and we took of to one of the nicest venues I've ever seen: Theatre de la mer.  On stage: the Havana Cultura Band with the female singer Danay Suárez Fernández. Again amazing!! She brought the wonderful track Lagrimas de Soledad and Think Twice.  These tracks are released on the Havana Cultura album on Brownswood records, a must buy!

Poly-Rhytmo de Cotonou brought some nice latino vibes and the crowd started the fiesta. The deafening applause reached the sky so hard that it replied at the end of the concert with a rain shower.  Damn festival, I like you.  As the most of the festival peeps went to the St. Christ venue again, we returned to the hotel,unfortunately.  The morning after we had to leave really early back to Belgium.  But next year, yes I'm already thinking of my agenda of next year, I'm back!!

Good music makes good people come together! Thank you WorldWide, thank you Gilles Peterson

Back from Frenchie - land!

The figures:

• 15 days cruising on the roads in France and a little bit Spain
• 10 places: Biscarosse / Biarritz / Saint-Jean-de-Luz / San Sebastian / Laruns / Lourdes / Seix / Toulouse / Carnon / Sète
• 3500 kilometres or more
• 776 digital pictures and a few analogue ones
• sunscreen SPF 30 + after sun 
• degrees: 24 - 25- 26 - 28 - 34 - 38 - 40
• food: salads - trout - salmon - tapas - calamari - oysters

More pictures will follow soon