High Notes

Well, these last couple days have been very culturally inclined...on Thursday I went to the Belgian University Orchestra concert, and yesterday was an exciting day...I went to a Belgian Opera Concert! It was way cool! There are also other various events which I will comment on. I have pictures!






This is an extremely blurry picture of Marianne and Phil. Lately my camera has been taking exceedingly blurry pictures. Oh wait. I forgot to take it off of manual focus and put it back on auto focus. Dang it. I could have had better pictures! LOL. They were two of several people who came out to watch Hannah perform in the university orchestra.





Same blur, different people. This is Rocky and Brian, both of whom are very nice guys. All these people, including Hannah, who's in the orchestra, are in philosophy with me.






This is the Orchestra. Perhaps the best thing about this picture is that you can see the one girl who is wearing a shawl as CONCERT DRESS. For those of you who don't know, in any symphonic performance, all the men wear tuxes, and all the women wear disproportionate kinds of black, ranging from black pants and a black t-shirt to a full evening gown, a shoulder-wrap, and a tiara. A TIARA, I TELL YOU. It's a good thing my camera can't catch the amount of ugly that this shawl was in the picture, but let me tell you, UGLY. The girls had feathers in her hair, the kind that fashion models wear in Milan, while they walk up and down the runway, wearing various unwearable things, like plastic bags that button up or diamond tatoo body wear. All I have to say, is that they should really have some sort of standard for men AND women in concert dress. I'm just saying, it would prevent certain...uh...fashion disasters. Like tiaras.







Hannah, whom we couldn't really see for most of the concert, is staged directly behind the harp. Alas, all we could get for a photo of her was her head. Sigh. Darn. However, it was interesting to hear all of her stories about being a) the token English speaker, since she was the only one in the whole orchestra, and b) about being the token oboe player, since, y'know, oboe players are always TOKEN oboe players, since they usually only come in ones or twos. They had to import another oboe player from Antwerp because of the lack of oboe. Hannah had a couple solos, and she played first chair, and just generally rocked. (Hannah was a music major before joining the dark side of philosophy.) The concert itself was amazing. They played a four pieces, one was called on the town, the second one had an operatic singer in it, and man, did she have a set of lungs! She sang up and above the WHOLE orchestra when they were playing loud. I was pretty impressed. The third song was a first-time-ever-performed piece by a Belgian composer, which was beautiful beyond words. It was like Lords of the Rings, Korean Folk Song, and Mars by Beethoven, all thrown into one piece of music. It was amazing. I've never had chills like that in a LONG time when listening to classical music. LOVED IT.



The Opera





This is us on our way to the opera. We decided to get some ice cream before we went in. I wasn't planning on doing it, but there was some Dolce Latte ice cream, and if you've ever had it, well, 'I' can't turn it down. It's like carmel-flavoured cotton candy! Um, sort of. That's the closest approximation I have to what it tastes like. =D They have it at Jerry's, if you ever want to try it. And I recommend you DO. Do it now! =D






This is a very blurry photo because we are on our way to get our seats in the opera. Things are very proper in the opera. We were in a hurry because the 'Bell' (Which sounds like the kind of bell you call your cat to dinner with) was ringing, which meant it was last call to find your seats before they closed all the doors, and then you weren't let in, even if you had bought a ticket and everything. Imagine the Sabre Dance playing while we rush to our seats. =D





This is us sitting down, in a real Belgian Opera house! WOHOO! It was way cool. The orchestra is just warming up. I took a picture of as many things as I could whilst appearing innocuous. It's hard to do because Belgian society is very proper to begin with, and it's like, intensified FIVE BILLION TIMES while you're at a fancy occasion. I had to stop myself from falling asleep during the opera because listening to classical music makes me sleepy. That and sitting in fancy clothes.




This is a picture of the ceiling. It was amazing. However, it was also amazingly hard to see because of the low light and the autofocus was off. Dang. However, it really was beautiful. Uh, is. It's still there.






This is a candid photo of Sarah, who was probably asking at the time, "Brennan, why are you taking so many pictures?" Actually, Sarah and Montse and I had a very good discussion about where all the Howards in the audience were. (You know, the rather stuck up what-what cultural elites who find university ragamuffins like us to be lowering their cultural experience.) We decided that if there was a Howard, he was sitting on the balcony to Sarah's left. We rightly assumed, however, that the REAL Howard would be sitting in the box seats, which looked like a royal palace, suspended in midair. Seriously. This place was decked to the nines.





This is to give you an idea of how many people were here. It was a lot. And there's only one coat check line. Good times. LOL.


After Opera Hours








We now went for a walk to get Sarah a new Manneken Piss keychain, since her's had broken, and left nothing but a little Manneken head dangling from her keychain, which she apparently found grotesque, so we went for a walk to find a cheesy tourist shop where we could remedy this situation. Along the way, we came to what I like to call, "The Extremely Sad Saint dying of the Plague" statue. (Or as I like to call him, E.S.S.D.O.T.P.) Why is he sad? He's sad because people wont stop manhandling him like a piece of cheap furniture. Citizens of Brussels, for reasons unbeknownst to us, whenever they walk down the street with this statue, touch the whole length of the saint's body, touch the dog's head who sits next to the E.S.S.D.O.T.P., and then kiss the saint's right breast. We watched about 10 different people do this in the course of five minutes. Some people also touched the shield and this thing that looked like a cross between a mouse and a frog near the bottom as well as a shield in the battle scene above the saint, while other, just passing by, quickly ran their hands up the saint, or gave him a quick kiss and went on their way. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to this, but it was definitely interesting. Who knew people from Brussels were so superstitious, yet some unreligious, eh?





While we waited for Sarah to buy a new keychain, I made Montse try on random hats. Hee hee. Some things never get old. Really, I just use my friends as full sized Barbie dolls. I love playing Dress-up with other people. Especially if there are ugly looking things around. MUHAHA. LOL.


After this, we went home, and we went to have something to drink, and good times were had by all. Very cultural. =D







This was last week sometime. I was working very hard on my research paper. And as per usual, work turns into uh, me making something out of whatever is handy at my desk. So, I made a little man out of wine gums. I call him, 'Marty.'





Here's another view of Marty, from the front. Unfortunately, Marty is no longer with us. After plotting to take over the world with him, he was going to give me up to the Soviets. To make a long story short, Marty is now sleeping with the fishes.


And I'm half done my research paper, in case anyone is asking.