Jeff Mitobe!
Jeff and his wife Julia and I met in Kindergarten in my home town, more than thirty years ago, and along with a number of our other classmates, went through highschool together. Many of us also attended the same university. Our first children was born within two months of each other, and we live perhaps 150 kilometers from each other, but we hadn't seen each other in person for several years. Jeff's business often takes him to many places around the world, but we didn't know he'd be in Brussels until this past weekend: it was a message from Julia on facebook that tipped us off.
Last night was his last evening here, and as his two-and-a-half-day visit was packed with business meetings, we were very happy to see him and share a meal of home-made salade liegois that I whipped up from our Everybody eats well in Belgium cookbook - although my version doesn't hold a candle to Nathalie's - some crusty bread, a mixed salad of roquette and red leaf lettuce and a few glasses of beer. Maggie was off at her Weight Watchers meeting, and so came in after I had put the kids to bed, and we stayed up until 11:00 talking about our families, about Brussels and our newest adventures here. A good beginning to our role as hosts. Jeff won't be the last friend from Canada to drop in for dinner, I'm sure of that.
This afternoon the kids were home from school, and got a little squirrely, since it rained very heavily today for the first time in a couple of weeks. Maggie and I got some new orienteering suggestions from Jonathan, our neighbor, and he told us about a DelHaize grocery much closer to us than the one we had been visiting. As well, we went to the mediatheque, which is a library specializing in digital media such as CDs, DVDs, CD-ROMS and VHS tapes. For 15 € you can buy a membership (less for students and seniors) and then "rent" your choices, for very reasonable rates. CDs are approximately 1 € per week, and DVDs maybe 2 € 50 per day. We got a couple of DVDs that will play on the VCR here, athough to be honest I haven't tried one of our Canadian ones; I think the region coding will prevent it from working. Maybe this DVD player will play an NTSC-encoded disc; I'll let you know. I did pick up a couple new versions of the Brahms and Mozart Requiem masses, for comparative purposes. It's always a good idea to have a sense of what other people are doing with these very famous and beautiful works, while trying to construct your own personal slant on them. Hopefully your interpretation is beautiful too!
My audition that was to take place was rescheduled at my request for this coming Friday; Duncan was quite sick over the weekend and slept much of it, and we kept him home from school on Monday. I thought I had the same bug, as I was totally wiped out on Monday morning and went back to bed myself for three hours or so. If I did have it, it's gone now. I felt unaccountably tired yesterday just before lunch, but that passed, and today I'm fine. No other auditions yet, but I have made a few new contacts, mostly in the concert/oratorio realm. It's probably going to be better for everyone for the first while to try to stick close to home, and that's much easier with oratorio.
Last night was his last evening here, and as his two-and-a-half-day visit was packed with business meetings, we were very happy to see him and share a meal of home-made salade liegois that I whipped up from our Everybody eats well in Belgium cookbook - although my version doesn't hold a candle to Nathalie's - some crusty bread, a mixed salad of roquette and red leaf lettuce and a few glasses of beer. Maggie was off at her Weight Watchers meeting, and so came in after I had put the kids to bed, and we stayed up until 11:00 talking about our families, about Brussels and our newest adventures here. A good beginning to our role as hosts. Jeff won't be the last friend from Canada to drop in for dinner, I'm sure of that.
This afternoon the kids were home from school, and got a little squirrely, since it rained very heavily today for the first time in a couple of weeks. Maggie and I got some new orienteering suggestions from Jonathan, our neighbor, and he told us about a DelHaize grocery much closer to us than the one we had been visiting. As well, we went to the mediatheque, which is a library specializing in digital media such as CDs, DVDs, CD-ROMS and VHS tapes. For 15 € you can buy a membership (less for students and seniors) and then "rent" your choices, for very reasonable rates. CDs are approximately 1 € per week, and DVDs maybe 2 € 50 per day. We got a couple of DVDs that will play on the VCR here, athough to be honest I haven't tried one of our Canadian ones; I think the region coding will prevent it from working. Maybe this DVD player will play an NTSC-encoded disc; I'll let you know. I did pick up a couple new versions of the Brahms and Mozart Requiem masses, for comparative purposes. It's always a good idea to have a sense of what other people are doing with these very famous and beautiful works, while trying to construct your own personal slant on them. Hopefully your interpretation is beautiful too!
My audition that was to take place was rescheduled at my request for this coming Friday; Duncan was quite sick over the weekend and slept much of it, and we kept him home from school on Monday. I thought I had the same bug, as I was totally wiped out on Monday morning and went back to bed myself for three hours or so. If I did have it, it's gone now. I felt unaccountably tired yesterday just before lunch, but that passed, and today I'm fine. No other auditions yet, but I have made a few new contacts, mostly in the concert/oratorio realm. It's probably going to be better for everyone for the first while to try to stick close to home, and that's much easier with oratorio.
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