Live From Brussels

Frituur Rudy, a Sight to See

If you are ever in Houthalen (the place in Belgian Limburg where I've been living for more than a year now), you should really come and see Frituur Rudy. 

For those you not initiated in Belgian culinary customs, a 'frituur' is a kind of typical fast-food place where they sell Belgian fries (of course) and lots of other deep-fried snacks.  There's nothing like it in the world.  A British fish&chips stand comes close to the concept (but nowhere near the taste).

Frituur Rudy is famous in Houthalen and surrounding areas because the owner, Rudy (as you might have guessed), likes to decorate his business according to the season.  And the end of the year seems to be his favourite period to go all-out on the assorted kitch, lights, Christmas trees, talking reindeer heads, automatic snow-globes, dancing Santa dolls, fake snow and much, much more.

He told me yesterday he worked three weeks on the current decorations.  Oh, and he's been in the local paper and on local TV.  And now you're on the WWW too, Rudy, thanks to the (low quality) video camera in my phone!

The Girl from Ipanema

Last week I got a song stuck in my head, and it still hasn't gone out.  You might know it: 'The Girl from Ipanema'...  A world-famous tune, often used as elevator-music, as background during phone-call transfers, as 'muzak' in shopping centers...

It happened when I drove to Paris very early on Monday to go to Les Blogs 2.0.  Somewhere on the empty highway the song came out of my radio, but I paid little attention to it.  However, much later that day, during a party in Paris, I heard it again.  And about an hour later again (the bar's playlist must have resumed from start).

Result: the melody got stuck in my head, including saxophone track, variations and all.  For some reason the sax reminds me of street artists in subways trying to make a buck by playing this ditty all day long.

I never really listened to the lyrics of the song before.  I had a vague notion of a beautiful Mexican girl from a town called Ipanema walking to the sea and the singer watching her go by or something.

But after having the song in my head for a few days I decided to look up the lyrics and try to find some of the history behind the song.  And what do you know?  The invaluable WikiPedia had an entire article devoted to the song!

Seems like the girl from Ipanema really existed, only that she was from Brazil.  Ipanema turns out to be a fashionable district from Rio De Janeiro.  The girl in question, a Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto, used to pass by a certain bar each day on her way to go suntanning at the beach.  The authors of the song used to hang out at the bar and watched her go by, and this formed the inspiration for the now world-famous song.

You learn something new and useless every day on this interwebnet thingy!

Save the Hoegaarden white beer!

I wholeheartedly support this action: Save the Hoegaarden white beer!.

Basic summary: a large brewing concern wants to move a small brewery out of a small town into a large brewery elsewhere, but the beer is named after the town.

I'm sure it makes sense economically to move the brewery, but if they do it I will stop drinking it.  Speaking as a consumer, I'd even be willing to pay a little extra for 'real' Hoegaarden beer, if brewing it in the town makes it more expensive.

Your call, ImBev!  Plenty of other beers in Belgium!

Klaartje's First Photograph

Today, Klaartje took her first photograph!  More or less :-)  It was her finger that pushed the button, at least...

New site

I just opened a new blog (blog.maartenschenk.be) in Dutch, because I keep feeling the urge to write about local Flemish issues, family stuff and other personal things that I don't feel 'Live from Brussels' is the right place for.  And because English is not the right language for it.

So if you read Dutch, check it out.  If you don't, don't worry: updates to this site will continue.  Just more focused on things I'd like to share with an international audience.