A break from blogging

For now, I'm taking a break from blogging.My Dutch boyfriend is moving in with me and we both have a lot of work at our hands decluttering both of our current houses ...Hope to be back in 2 week's time!


Love from Antwerp!

Art by unknown artists!

In Antwerp, many museums and art galleries are to be found!
Some artists are well known, others are unknown!

Please enjoy this picture of an unknown artist!

This oilpainting is of the hand of Kamiel Riske, during his lifetime (born in Antwerp on May 8th 1921 - deceased in Essen, near Antwerp on August 6th 1999) Kamiel always was a very productive and enthusiastic artist.

Throughout his life, Kamiel's style of painting changed a lot. He's produced a lot of work, from a very young age on and in doing so, his work evoluated towards the end of his life to a very different style indeed!

The heirs of Kamiel Riske happen to be my aunt and uncle. I've promised them to set up an online gallery in honour of Kamiel. I'm currently preparing a blog about the extraordinary life of this artist. To be able to do so, I spent a lot of time gathering information about the life of Kamiel and my boyfriend was so kind to take pictures of most of his existing works!

But Kamiel is just one of Antwerp's unknown artists ... They'll be dealt with in another blog!

Nowadays things are improving for unknown artists in Antwerp. One of the galleries I like most, happens to specialize in art by beginning artists.

Do you want to take a look? Enter the world of http://www.allartisquiteuseless.be

Antwerp, the oldest district of the city?

When I first started working on this blog, I was under the impression that Antwerp, being called the first district, effectively was the oldest district of our town. It certainly is the core district of our town!

Before I start writing an article, it's only natural that, first and foremost, some thorough research is needed to get things right! Getting stuck in some books helps, browsing the internet helps ... I remember from the history lessons at highschool that the Romans were the first to mention names of places that still can be found around Antwerp today ...

Around 250 BC, the river Scheldt was called Scaldis, the river Schijn was called Scina, the neighbourhood Kiel was called Caloes and the district Deurne was called Thurini ... The name 'Antwerp' is mentioned for the first time around the 7th century, not as a city, but as what was later to become the whole province of Antwerp.

You must be wondering what the rivers and the mentioned districts look like today? Well one of my New Year's resolutions this year is, to always carry my digital camera with me!

I now realize that this post will need some time to complete!

In short this article is turning out somewhat different from what I thought it would be!

Normally, sites are under construction, well it seems that I have a post on my hand that'll stay under construction for some time.

Antwerp, the little apple

The city of New York is often referred to as ' the big apple'.
Maybe Antwerp can be referred to as being 'the little apple' on the globe.
Anyway, there are striking similarities between the two cities.

For instance Antwerp has it's own, small but interesting ,version of Chinatown. In the Van Wesenbeeckstraat you find the biggest concentration of Chinese restaurants, take-aways, Asian shops, a real Chinese supermarket called 'Sun Wah' and much more.

Every year the Chinese New Year is being celebrated in the street and the annual parade of Dragons, is very much appreciated by the local inhabitants and tourists.

We have a large Jewish community, just like New York has. Just like in New York, their presence is very noticeable and Jewish entrepreneurs have a large impact on the local community. E.g. our diamond industry and trade. Maybe the Jewish quarter can be compared with Brooklyn. The Jewish quarter, being the heart of the diamond industry is of huge importance to the city's economy!

We also have a district called Hoboken, I've been told that our Hoboken is the original one and that Hoboken, New York was founded by emigrants coming in from Hoboken, Antwerp, Belgium ...

In short Antwerp, Belgium can be described as a melting pot of many nationalities. This topic will be dealt with later on in a log called 'Foreigners' ...

An ABC about daily life in Antwerp, Belgium

Finally I'm able to publish the list of topics I want to discuss in this blog!




A: Apple?
A: Antwerp, the oldest district of the City.
A: Art and art galeries, past and present
A: Alternative medicine: useful or just invented to make quacks rich?
A: Alternative music: meet some creative Antwerp musicians...
A: Alternative theatre: absurd or confronting the inhabitants with some of their bad habits?
A: Actors
A: Absurd traffic situations and how to handle them!

B: Books and where to find them
B: Beach?!
B: Beer!
B: Berchem, one of the districts of Antwerp
B: Berendrecht, one of the districts of Antwerp
B: Breakdancing
B: Borgerhout, one of the districts of Antwerp

C: Citylife
C: Citizens
C: City of Books
C: Culture
C: Cartoons and Comics
C: Colleges

D: Driving
D: Drinking
D: Dodoens
D: Dialect?
D: Digipolis
D: Doel, one of the villages neigbouring the harbour
D: Deurne, one of the districts of the city

E: Electricity
E: Eventually ...
E: E-mail
E: Extra
E: Ekeren, one of the districts of the city

F: Facts
F: Fashion
F: Food
F: Frogs
F: Fun
F: Foreigners
F: Films

G: Geography
G: Giraffes
G: Gender issues
G: Geese ...
G: Gardens
G: Garbage

H: Home
H: Houses
H: Harbour
H: Highschools
H: Hip-Hop
H: Hoboken, one of the districts of Antwerp

I: I, me, myself and I! What about me?
I: Intuition
I: Interesting
I: International
I: Issues
I: Industrial activities

J: Jeans
J: Junk
J: Jail
J: Jump
J: Jewelry

K: Kilo
K: Kilometres
K: Kallo, one of the villages neighbouring the harbour
K: Kangaroos

L: Living
L: Live music
L: Local celebrities
L: Local habits
L: Lillo, one of the districts of Antwerp
L: Linkeroever, on the left bank of the river Scheldt

M: Music
M: Markets
M: Magazines
M: Moments
M: Merksem, one of the districts of Antwerp

N: New
N: Noticable
N: Nightlife
N: Nationalities

O: Ooh!
O: Obsolete
O: Occasions
O: Old
O: Obsessions

P: Papers
P: Poets
P: Puke?
P: Pretty
P: Policemen and women
P: Politics and politicians

Q: Questions?
Q: Quests?
Q: Q-tips!
Q: Quiet?

R: Rasta
R: Racism
R: Red lights
R: Reggae
R: Restaurants
R: Round-abouts
R: Roads

S: Streets
S: Social services
S: Schools
S: Swings
S: Sweet?
S: Soccer
S: Sex in the city
S: Stand up comedians

T: Tan
T: Toys
T: Thinking ...
T: Taxi
T: Trees

U: Universities
U: Universal
U: Unique

V: Various

W: Water
W: What?!
W: Wilrijk, one of the districts of the city
W: Wonder
W: Wandering

X: X-files ...

Y: Youths
Y: Youthclubs

Z: Zandvliet, one of the districts of the city (last but not least)

My ABC

Today I'd wanted to publish a list of all the topics I hope to write about in future!
Yes, I'm talking about the complete ABC - list, a content table of this blog so to speak ...

Well today is the day that my broadband provider let me down: it seems I'm the owner of a broken feeder, which means no broadband internet, nor analogue, nor digital TV. Let's look on the bright side: this gives me time to catch up on forgotten housework and chores ... And I can always prepare the list offline and re-edit this post later when the feeder is replaced.

I hope to be fully online again soon and see you in a week or so!

A for Antwerp - Ohio

http://antwerpohio.com/

Antwerp - Ohio has a really nice website. It's a shame really the history link doesn't work...
Again this is a very small town compared to Antwerp in Belgium: 1740 inhabitants when they last counted!

Whoever said that in America everything is bigger?

A for Antwerp - New York

http://www.hometownlocator.com/City/Antwerp-New-York.cfm

Wow, Antwerp-New York only has 716 inhabitants! It must be real quiet living there!
Quite a difference when compared to the 477,000 Antwerp in Belgium has!

A for all the towns called Antwerp in the world

Browsing for information on Antwerp, Belgium, I found out that in the USA alone there are 2 cities called Antwerp: Antwerp, New York and Antwerp Ohio ...

Now I'm wondering what they look like

A for another year ...

A for another year.
2006 will be the year I want to use to do Antwerp justice by writing an ABC about the city I also happen to live in.

I was stimulated to take up this project because I recently read in someone's blog that Belgium would be boring. The man who wrote this only stayed here for one day, taking part in a training for mountainbikers. Other than training facilities, there was little time for him to explore or other discover the most diverse features that make not only Antwerp but Belgium as a whole very interesting and appealing for foreigners.

The aim of this blog is to provide an ABC to Antwerp for every visitor!
Antwerp is visited by tourists, businesspeople, 'folks just passing through', sailors, politicians. For whatever reason you want to visit Antwerp, this blog should provide you with the information you are looking for!