For Barbara

Barbara, you are right that there is a sad lack of posts! To make it up to you, yesterday I took this picture of the Frank Gehry building that I see on my way home from work. I think it's not bad to be in if you have a fear of heights, but I heard it's hard for the people who work in there to find a place to put their books and desks. Not only that, it's been known to leak. This is the Stata Center at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

I had to take this from a moving car, which I was also driving, so I didn't get the shot I wanted. I should wait till tonight, when I'll be on my bike and I can stop and do better, but I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer!

I'm back

dear friends I'm back from the Basque coast and first I have to say:

WHAT, NO NEW POSTS?

where is everyone?

(there are still some "day in life"-reports missing...!)

I spend 3 days in the city of Bilbao, and 10 days in San Sebastian, both in the north of Spain. the weather wasn't great (it rained for about a week and the rest of the time was mostly cloudy) but the two cities were so fine, I hardly noticed my constantly wet clothes and the cold I caught.

apart from Gene Kelly style singing and dancing in the rain, and trips to the beach (San Sebastian has 3 of them!), I also visited a few museums - so I'll give you a little report...

Bilbao is famous for the Guggenheim, but it also has the Museo de Bellas Artes, a fine museum with lots of spanish work by artists like Zuloaga, Goya, Murillo, Chillida, Tapies, and some international ones.

from October 10th, the museum will also show a selection of Antonio Lopez's work, which I would have loved to see.

the Bilbao Guggenheim of course is a landmark and has a fine collection as well.

the architect mr. gehry did everything he could to make it very difficult for people with a fear of heights like me, but I tried not to be too much of a sissy and made it to the Rothko (one of my favorite artists) on the top floor...

my favorite piece however was Richard Serra's "the matter of time", an installation of 7 giant steel sculptures you can walk through.

in Getaria, a town near San Sebastian, I visited the brand new Cristobal Balenciaga museum, another excample of challenging architecture (...), which shows the work and life of the fashion designer. very stylish!

San Sebastian has the San Telmo Museoa, and the "Kursaal", a place for culture and arts, which also is the headquarter of the annual international film festival, had a small selection of work by Marc Chagall, which, I hate to say, is not really my cup of tea - but I don't know anything about his life and the stories he was telling in his paintings - so please forgive me!

(pics: Serra's sculptures at the Guggenheim, me in front of the San Telmo Museum, Chillida's "Wind Comb" in San Sebastian)

I hope you're all having a great autumn!

love, Barbara

ps: HAPPY belated BIRTHDAY, Camilla!!

the idea of a Morran portrait book is so wonderful, and if you want me, I would love to contribute - and all the other girls from the knutselclub would too, I'm sure!

summer reads

dear friends,

I am going to the north of spain (Bilbao, San Sebastian - has anybody ever been there?) for a few days and I am in desperate need of a good book or two - do you have any suggestions?

thank you!

love from Vienna, where it's still hot

;) Barbara

this saturday was a day to ........

drink coffee and read the newspaper on my little terras. It was warm and just imagine the sound of a piano with this image. One of my neigbours is a pianist!

clean up a bit and do the laundry.

take the route through the citypark (close to my house)

to the saturday market.

drink minthtea on a lovely, green and cosy terras.

make a pasta salad.

have time to read my new books!

This was a very quiet and slow saturday after a very busy week. I wanted to show you a day of my working life in Het Huis van Alijn. This is a small museum in Gent where I work right now. But I forgot the camera or was too busy to take a picture. But I will show you more in the future. I'm preparing a project in the museum about ...yes, yes.....letters and writing and leuke post!!

24hours. sept1st 5pm-sept2nd 5pm

 met a friend for coffee. I have been to this cafe twice, it's a nice old-style Viennese cafe. but this time I discovered that they have this room...

 to the park. reading

 it's getting dark

 an old tram

 watched midnight in Paris, nice.

 on my way home. this is the opera.

 on the other side of the street there is aida, not the opera but a coffee/pastry shop. you can find it quite often in Vienna. the napkins, bags, the aprons of the people working there etc - everything is pink (pink like the letters you see above)

at home. some paper cutting.

 next day. morning magic potion: 3 spider legs, 1 tablespoon ground dragon teeth, ...

 voila!

riding my bike to the library.

 library

 hm. closed.

 but they had a couple of old books on a table in front of the door. for free. I took a nice one about patterns. here you can see the cover.

 it's starting to rain...

 ... so I had to stop at a thrift store :-)

 this is what I got. 2 wine glasses, a cup and a a milk can.

frog eyes for dinner :-)
byebye!