Tapis de fleurs 2012

'Tis that time of year again! The flower tapestry in Brussels has returned!

 Here's my post from when Eric and I checked it out in 2010. Since Eric's still recovering from his surgery, I ended up venturing to Brussels on my own in order to do a "smash & grab" type of adventure in order to get some pictures of the tapestry. As much as he wanted to go, it's for the best that he didn't attempt it due to pushy tourists in addition to uneven cobblestones everywhere.

I left bright and early this morning...and if you know me, early and I don't mix well. At least I was able to catch up on some of my reading while cruisin on the train :)

 

Once I made it to Brussels, I waddled my way down to Grand Place since that's where the flower tapestry was waiting for massive hordes of people to "ooooh" and "awwwweee" over it. Keep in mind, the official opening time for it was 9am...I got there at 8:55a and there was already a massive line of people waiting to get into the Grand Place hotel in order to access the balcony for a view. 

This isn't the line...

......this is.

Here's a map to get a better idea of where I was. The red star is the train station, the green is where I walked, the yellow star is the end of the line to get into the Grand Place hotel, and the orange line is...well..the line to get into Grand Place hotel. 

Luckily, the line moved along fairly quick...I think it took about twenty five minutes to get into the hotel itself, so in the mean time, I managed to take some pictures of the buildings and whatever else I fancied.

The fabulous balcony everyone migrated towards in order to get a better view of the tapestry itself:

 

While I was going through and editing all the pictures, Eric really liked this one :) 

Once I managed to actually make it onto the balcony (after seeing a few people get kicked out of the line for not respecting the "no pictures" rule for inside the hotel), I kinda had to fight my way to the front so I could get some pictures of the flowers. 

Oh, and right before I  made my way into the building, I noticed they were selling t-shirts of the whole event...the image was one of the patterns from the tapestry, but in the shape of Africa. Kinda confused me, but I just guess that was the theme for this years' carpet. SO, I hopped online to find some handy dandy information for ya about it and here ya go:

The begonias are traveling!

This summer, you will have the chance to escape to faraway lands, while staying at the heart of our capital city. No need for any philtre or strange potion to get there... The magic will work on its own and when you visit the Grand-Place, you will be transported to the centre of a mysterious continent: Africa! An extraordinary tapestry of shimmering patterns recalling designs from the tribes of Ethiopia, Congo, Nigeria, Botswana, and Cameroun, a harmonious fusion which will carry you away for a magnificent trip.Such a breath-taking result takes months of preparation. Landscape architects, technicians and hundreds of voluntary participants, colour specialists for the occasion, took part in this most unusual adventure. This extraordinary weaving of begonias will be exhibited during 5 long days. A mad challenge for an unforgettable event, which you will be able to admire from the Grand-Place or the balconies of the town Hall. All roads lead to this multicoloured rendezvous...

Why Africa?

This part of the world stands out for the extraordinary diversity of its populations, its landscapes, its cultures and its colours. It has the power to make us dream to the rhythm of its dances, its drums and its performing arts, reflecting age old traditions. And so past and present echo one another, as do the here and the elsewhere, old Europe and young Africa, permanent contrasts. The continent has lessons of life to offer and proposes other perspectives and alternatives to the systems that we have used for so long.It is this diversity, so rich and inspiring, that we want to honour and represent this year: a carpet of flowers, of course, but enriched with an even more enchanting palette. Our artists have combined the begonias with barks, precious materials, sands, soils and pigments...
Come and walk along its borders, wander around the equator of our city. Enjoy recognizing the origins of the beautiful patterns which make up this strange fabric that unfolds before your eyes.
 

A worthy challenge

It's a double bet this year. The first aspect is symbolizing an entire continent, so rich and mulch-faceted, on 1.800 m2. The second is the duration of the display: the flowers and materials will stay fresh and bright throughout the five days. They will enchant you thanks to the attention and care which they will receive over the course of this beautiful event.

Annnnnnd here's a video I managed to get while getting poked and prodded by various tourists smushing in to get pictures:

Alright...why the random door latch? OK, you're not allowed to take pictures within the hotel, but when I was making my way outta there once I was done with the balcony, there was a room on the right hand side that caught my eye. It's a large hall that looks like it's used for ceremonies of some sort. Of course, I couldn't get a picture of it due to the rules (and a guard standing there to ensure people didn't take pictures)...but I was totally enamored  with the door handle because of it's design. Isn't it cool looking? After a little bit, the guard asked me "Do you want a picture of that?"...of course I jumped at the opportunity cause I don't know how I'd go about describing this thing. So, once the coast was clear, I snapped this pic and went on my merry way and the guard gave me a thumbs up for not looking like an obvious tourist :)

Here's another pic once I made it back to the ground level and made my way through the sea of tourists that ended up doubling in numbers while I was in the hotel. 

This kinda gives you an idea as to how packed all those flowers are throughout the entire tapestry. The crazy thing is that they don't get blown all over the place when the wind picks up! Then again, they've been making these sort of tapestries since the seventies, so you'd think they'd have it down to a science by now, ya know?

Oh yeah, and there's an official Hard Rock Cafe now in Grand Place! So, of course I had to make my way over there to get myself a hand dandy and oh so spiffy  bottle opener to go with the rest of my Hard Rock collection :) 

AND, there's this guy who does beautiful beautiful water color paintings from around Brussels.

He was actually working on another painting, so I got to watch him for about fifteen minutes while he was painting the actual flower carpet and then moved onto the sky. I gotta hand it to the guy, he's got some serious patience while he's working! Tourists were asking him everything under the sun, he was selling stuff and painting...handy dandy!

Last time Eric and I were there, we picked up two different panoramic paintings of Grand Place, so this time I opted to get two different styles since we have a thing about getting paintings from various places we visit. Since we wasn't there, I just picked whatever I thought were the prettiest :)  

After all that, I was spent. Totally spent. There's a super hot heat wave here and it's absolutely miserable, especially in Brussels since it seemed like the cobblestone was making it 10x hotter than necessary, LOL. Keep in mind, by the time I was catching the train to come back home, it was 10:15a and it was already sitting at 80*. I wanted to die. Despite being a Californian and all that nonsense, Momma don't do hot. As I'm writing this out, it's 6:44p and it's still 84*. BLUH. I'm sure there's some people reading this and laughing because they probably deal with hot weather all the time. Well, live in Belgium for a bit and then have a heat wave sprung on ya. I betcha you'd be singing the same song as me! lol....SO, when I was waiting on my train to show up, I think I earned a fabulous raspberry / blackcurrant frappachino from the ever so wonderful Starbucks that opened not too long ago in Brussels Centraal station. 

Made it back home, plopped in front of a fan and made it a point to hammer out this post for ya. If you haven't seen the floral tapestry and you live in Belgium, by all means, you should check it out. It's absolutely gorgeous and it's amazing to realize how much time went into making something like that for people to see. I mean, there's folks who travel far and wide to check that thing out. So, if you have the chance to just hop on a train (which you can travel for only 15 euro round trip this month!!), take the time to go do it! Besides, help yourself to an awesome Belgian waffle while you're at it. 

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Date Day!

Eric and I had an official "Date Day". We try to squeeze one in every once in a while considering we're usually bogged down with work, or having to be disgruntled parents. SO, we make it a point to take some time for ourselves, venture off and relax for an afternoon and have some "us" time.

Our adventure for the day was Köln, Germany...which is almost two hours from us. We've driven past it before when we were on our way to Bavaria, but we didn't have time to really stop and check the place out considering we had a twelve-ish hour drive to deal with, lol. 

Luckily, the weather had cooled down considering it was hitting almost 100* with obnoxious humidity for a few days in a row. Since we had a four day weekend, we were wanting to venture over sooner, but the weather had made us become rather lethargic and unmotivated... I mean, honestly, who wants to walk all around cobblestone in ridiculous heat? Not I! SO, we held out till yesterday and it was a wonderful (and enjoyable) 74* verses a few days earlier when it was 101*. Woot!

On our way through the shopping area, I saw this and thought it was rather amusing.. call me immature or whatever, but it mage me giggle :)

I will admit, if I wanted to go on a massive shopping spree, Köln would definitely be the place to go. There were TONS of shops, H&M's, awesome purse boutiques...you name it, it's probably there. I was LOVING it, although in the back of my mind..I kept hearing "Don't blow your money. You're saving, remember!!". Boo!

We managed to find the Hard Rock Cafe and hung out there for some lunch. Since we've been in Europe, I've been to several different locations (London, Paris, Amsterdam ) and this one was kinda disappointing. I only say that because the staff wasn't all that friendly and the seating kinda sucked. We were seated in an area where alot of tables were smushed together so there wasn't really any room between one table and the next.. so if you really didn't know any better, you'd think we were a group that came in together verses being seperate customers. Ontop of that, I was miffed that the waitress used the credit that I had earned on my All Access card when I specifically told her NOT to use it. Sure, it may be silly to be grumpy about her using the points towards our meal, but when you convert what I had earned to Euros, it kinda killed whatever I had earned it made it look like peanuts considering I was trying to buy this:

It's a pretty awesome toggle bracelet with Fleur De Lis throughout the links. It isn't all that expensive, but the stuff I had earned would've knocked down the price on it.....grrrrr.....

From there, we made our way over to the Cathedral:

Eric infront of the Cathedral :)

This thing was absolutely breath taking! We must've spent atleast a half hour just outside looking at it and checking out all the different sculptures all over the base of the building!

Once inside, there was even more overwhelming architecture:

One of the side walkways

The main walkway to the alter

Truth be told, I was staring up so much that my neck was becoming rather sore. Every time I go into an old, historical Cathedral, I stay in there SO long to look at everything, all the sculptures, stained glass, carvings on the pews..everything.  I could only wish that there were places like this in the United States, but sadly, I havent run across anything *this* old or even this awesome..atleast nothing along these lines on the West Coast.

Here's some pretty spiffy information I was able to find on the place (from Wikipedia):

Construction of Cologne Cathedral began in 1248 and took, with interruptions, until 1880 to complete. The cathedral is one of the world's largest churches and the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe. For four years, 1880-84, it was the tallest structure in the world, until the completion of the Washington Monument. It has the second-tallest church spires, only surpassed by the single spire of Ulm Minster, completed 10 years later in 1890. Because of its enormous twin spires, it also presents the largest façade of any church in the world. The choir of the cathedral, measured between the piers, also holds the distinction of having the largest height to width ratio of any Medieval church, largest façade of any church in the world. The choir of the cathedral, measured between the piers, also holds the distinction of having the largest height to width ratio of any Medieval church, exceeding even Beauvais Cathedral which has a slightly higher vault.

. Cologne's medieval builders had planned a grand structure to house the reliquary of the Three Kings and fit its role as a place of worship of the Holy Roman Emperor. Despite having been left incomplete during the medieval period, Cologne Cathedral eventually became unified as "a masterpiece of exceptional intrinsic value" and "a powerful testimony to the strength and persistence of Christian belief in medieval and modern Europe."

"The most celebrated work of art in the cathedral is the "Shrine of the Three Kings", a large gilded sarcophagus dating from the 13th century, and the largest reliquary in the Western world. It is traditionally believed to hold the remains of the Three Wise Men, whose bones and 2,000-year-old clothes were discovered at the opening of the shrine in 1864."

The fact that we were able to see the "Shrine of the Three Kings" is...well..a once in a life time kinda thing. It was absolutely beautiful even though it was rather challenging to get a picture of it since it was surrounded by iron gates (Eric was tall enough to get through a gap to push my camera through).

One of the many large, gorgeous stained glass panels

"Altar of the Poor Clares, about 1350 / 1360. This is the oldest remaining sacrament altar with a permanently fixed tabernacle. This lavish winged altar can be opened in three different transformations. It originates from the former Franciscan convent of St. Clare in Cologne and it was brought into the cathedral in 1811."

All in all, I would HIGHLY reccommend to anyone who happens to be visiting Germany to take a break and hit this place up. You won't regret it!  You only have to pay 1 euro for a brochure that gives you all kinds of information on the Cathedral, you can even check out the churches treasure, although it's 12 euro and you're not allowed to take pictures (we didn't check it out since I would've been trigger happy the whole time).

To sum it up: Eric and I had a fabulous date day and TOTALLY loved Koln!

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A-Dam

Not too long after we moved here, Eric's shop organized a Flight "Morale" trip in which I was able to tag along (family was allowed to join) and check out the Bosteel Brewery ... I must admit, it was a pretty cool place. Since then, his Flight hasnt done any other trips, nor do I really see them having another one any time soon.

Well, the Flight I work for decided they wanted to have a "Morale" trip... instead of going to the Bosteel Brewery, they opted for the Heineken Experience over in Amsterdam. Seeing that I've lived here for almost a year now and have yet to experience Amsterdam, I was pretty freaking stoked to go. Since we're such a tiny base, the Flight I'm apart of only has...hmmm...20 people? If that? Only 13 of us opted to go on the trip, then once we reached our destination, 5 of 'em decided to stay the night, lol.

Here's some pictures from the trip... I gotta say, I absolutely LOVED the Heineken Experience. The staff was SO friendly and educational, plus, they spoke amazing English. In fact, the majority of the places around Amsterdam was rockin' the English language. I know I shouldnt be surprised considering Amsterdam is a huge tourist attraction, but still... where I am in Belgium, it's a miracle if someone speaks DECENT English, lol.

Some of my co-workers: Shaun (drinking the beer), Andy, Vanessa and Daniel. They were "pre-gaming" aka drinking before we got to the actual Brewery.

* Play heavenly music *

Keep in mind, we left our base around 7:15a because we were told that the brewery opened up around 10ish. We actually managed to get there around 9:30, only to find that the place doesn't open till 11, lol. It was VERY cold in Amsterdam.. it had to have been around 17* with FREEZING winds. Whenever the wind hit ya, it pretty much cut right through ya...super sucky! Anyway, since they weren't open yet, our group managed to find our way into a nearby restraunt that served crepes. Since I didn't think crepes and beer would mix, I just ended up ordering a Hot Chocolate that was UH-Mazing!

After we defrosted in there for a lil bit and some of us had some massive crepes, we made our way back over to the Brewery (it was just across the street) to find that they still werent open... we had another 20 minutes to kill. Geez! I managed to get a couple of pictures of the famous canal:

To kill a lil more time, we went to a pub that was literally on the corner across from Heineken...and what do they serve? Heineken of course! Actually, they serve "Heineken, Extra Cold" which is like 15 degrees colder than a regular beer.. talk about a brain freeze.

Once we finally got into the brewery, we got our spiffy Heineken bracelets for 15€ (they come with 2 buttons on them that you can redeem later in the tour for 2 beers) and off we went!

This was on the wall right when you started the tour

Staaaaaaaatesiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!

Really cool mosaic

* Play Heavenly music again*

On the left - Science & Beer: Adriaan was the first brewer to open a labratory dedicated to increasing the quality of his beer. Flasks like this were typical of laboratories in 1866.

On the right - Early Heineken Beer Bottle: The "bottom fermentation" process adopted by Adriaan resulted not only in a better-tasting beer, it also meant that bottled beer would keep longer for shipping purposes.
 

Ceramic Beer Tankard - Classic Tankard typical of the late 19th Century

Silver Goblet - Given to Henry Pierre Heineken by the SCHBM (employee sports association) honoring his support and contributions. The engraving is from 1920!

Heineken Beer Bottle - New bottle design introduced in 1939 for the domestic market.

The Heineken Logo - Freddy Heineken was passionate about improving Heinekens advertising and image efforts. Thransforming the Heineken logo was one of his first and most enduring achievements.

Simply the Best - In 1995, Freddy Heineken won the prestigious Advertiser of the Year Award.

 On the left - Silver Medal of Honor & Certificate: On June 15th, 1989, the Mayor and City Council of Amsterdam awarded Aldred H. Heineken the Silver Medal of Honor and certificate for his important contributions to the city.

On the right - Legion of Honor, Henry Pierre Heineken: On May 17th, 1938, Dr. Henry Pierre Heineken was awarded the Legion of Honor, the highest decoration in France, established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802.
 

On the left - Silver Flag: In 1888, the brewery personnel presented this Silver Flag gift to Gerard Adriaan Heineken on the 25th Anniversary of the original "Haystack" brewery.

On the right - Engraved Trowel: On May 17th, 1867, Gerard Adriaan Heineken's mother used this commemorative trowel to lay the first stone of the original Heineken brewery here on the Stadhouderskade.
 

Gold Metal of Honor: In 1875, Heineken beer was awarded a gold metal in Paris. This award is featured on the label of every Heineken bottle.

 50th Anniversary Award - On February 11th, 1923, the Heineken brew master, personnel and managers commemorated the 50th anniversary of the company (1873-1923) by presenting this award to the Directors of the Heineken Breweries.

Once we were done with the history part of the tour, we got to check out the factory area that displays several large copper containers. When you looked inside of 'em, they had TV screens that talked about the brewing process and some additional history bits.

The inside of the copper containers.

Once you're done checking out the copper containers and such, you head out and end up on an enclosed walkway that takes you past the Heineken stables. I was SO excited to check 'em out, but rather bummed that we couldnt really check 'em out all that well. I love love love horses (I baby our neighbors horses right next to our house), but atleast I got to see a couple of 'em. Each stable had that specific horses name on it. You can kinda see one of 'em in the picture (sorry for the glare)..the pexiglass walkway wasn't exactly "perfect" for pictures, lol. It was cute watching one of the horse keepers cause he kept petting the one horse in the pic..very loving and you can tell he loves his job.

Some of the original harness and bridles from way back in the day.

Yes, there's a Heineken ride. It was pretty interesting since it lets you see the brewing process "personally"..kinda reminds me of those rides you could do at the local airshows. You get in a room then there's a platform that shifts all around, the environment reacts to what's going on the screen.. all in all, pretty cool.

Once you exit the ride, there's a tasting room where the bar tender pours ya a 12oz glass of beer and discusses the things to look for when it comes to a good beer. Amongst our group, there was a couple of Frenchies that were pretty much not listening to anything that was being said. When the bar tender was passing out the drinks, she specifically said NOT to drink yet cause she had to explain some stuff. Well, one Frenchie decided when his beer was given to him, he slammed it down as if it were a college contest. The look on the bar tenders face was sheer annoyance cause he obviously wasnt listening. So, once she was finished passing everything out, she begin to give her lecture on the beer, the taste and smells...all the while, Mr Frenchie was trying to interrupt her and signaling that he didn't have any beer to follow her lecture with, lol. Oh well! Botoms up!

After the tasting room, you walk into a place that looks like a raver / club scene, lol. When you look up, the ceiling is all Heineken bottles! Pretty cool stuff, especially when they start the light show and you see all the different levels of bottles in the ceiling!

There's actually apart of the tour where you get to customize your own bottle of beer. You get to watch it on the assembly line, get filled, labled and everything. Once you input all your info and what you want the label to say, you can pick up your specific bottle after you're all finished with the tour.

In another room, you have the chance to make your own lil' Dutch music video, lol. Vanessa and Daniel attempted to do one, but they quickly realized that it wasnt in English and gave up. Hey, alteast they got to say "I'm on a boat!"

Lounge room where you can check out various Heineken commercials throughout the years:

Spiffy art gallery:

Of course there's a Fooseball table... if you've been stationed at KB, you'd understand why I say that.

The official bar!

This place was pretty awesome.. once you got your beer you'd go into another room where these standing tables were. When you put your cold beer down on the top surface, a digital drink coaster would pop up right under it. Not only that, but there was a digital map on the table with a red star on it...if you put your drink on the star, it'd initiate the map to zoom in on that specific city. Once you picked a city to view, all the TVs in the room (they were all on the wall surrounding the bar) would engage and give you a 360 view of..ohhh... Hong Kong, Rio De Janero, Amsterdam... it was REALLY cool!

Once we were all finished with the Heineken Experience and spending some hard earned Euro in the souvenier shop, we made our way over to the Hard Rock Cafe.

 Tell ya what, I gorged my heart out on an amazing "open face steak sandwich". Ohhh maaannn... I know I'll be paying for it in the gym, but I DON'T CARE! I deserve it! Picked up some more souveniers in their shop since I love the whole Rock N Roll look. After we finished up there, I hit up a local lil shop to pick up a hoody for John since I didn't think it'd really be appropriate to get him a beer shirt, hahaa.

When I was leaving the souvenier shop, I noticed these guys playing an actual game of chess! Pretty cool, hunh?

After all was said and done, I got to check out some pretty cool things, spent alot of money..but was well worth it. Didn't have a hangover which was even better, lol. Here's some of the things I managed to spend my hard earned money on:

My  lil band for the bar... as you can see, the two buttons are missing therefore I left with 2 awesome beers in my belly.

Shirt for me

Shirt for Eric

Hoody for me...and lemme tell ya something.. European sizing sucks. Wanna feel super self conscious about yourself? Buy something in euro-sizing. This freaking hoody is a 3XL...nothing finer than feeling like a total fatass after you've been drinking beer.

My official Heineken beer! I had one made for Eric as well so he wouldnt feel left out.

..beanie for Eric

I also bought some post cards that I'll later use for scrapbooking stuff..but I can't find them..hum...

And for spending over 50 (way more, actually), I got this spiffy book about Heineken. In all honesty, I dont know what I'll do with it.. maybe I'll dismantle it or something and use some of the pages for scrapbooking since it has some cool lookin' vintage advertisements.

Here's my goodies from the Hard Rock:

Kick ass bottle opener

Badass hoody for me... and ..oh.. by the way.. it's a size Large. Made me feel MUCH better about myself instead of having to get a 3XL. Thank you Hard Rock!

Duffle bag... is it bad that I actually "needed" to buy it so I can carry all my crap back to the bus? I had several little bags from Heineken in addition to the Hard Rock and I knew they werent gonna "hold" for the several block hike. So, I purchased this bad boy..it held alot! I was pleasantly surprised!

I also got a shot glass which is a traditional thing for me to do.. I collect shot glasses where ever I go :)

SO, there ya go.. there's my trip to Amsterdam. I'll be sure to go back there again with Eric to check out some more stuff.. I'd love to go to the Van Gough museum and also check out the Sex History Museum (hahaa, yesssss!)..obviously it'll most liktely be a trip without John since I don't wanna subject him to some of those things :) All in all, I highly reccommend a trip to Amsterdam if you happen to be on this side of the globe!

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