Introducing 17 Paul Hymans

Relocation complete!

It’s done! This is my first entry from 17 Paul Hymans. After a long and difficult day moving from next door, I will now go to sleep, for the first time, in my old bed in my new bedroom. The apartment is not at all set, a big part of my stuff is still in number 19, but the good news is that the internet connection seems to work (thanks mates!) and a new era is starting now. Also for this blog! Hope we’ll all enjoy it, at least as much as we’ve enjoyed the previous! Keep reading!

Moving

The time has come. After almost two years living in this address, I must move on and start a new phase in a new address. I won’t go far though, as I’ve found an apartment in the building next door: 17 Paul Hymans. I’m happy that I will manage to stay in the neighbourhood, and I’m happy that I will manage to stay close to Mark and Pedro, who have been great friends and neighbours. But I can’t avoid feeling somehow nostalgic for leaving behind this beautiful apartment and the good moments I spent here. And, of course, moving is always a pain in the neck! Packing, unpacking, adapting to a new space, developing the feeling of home… Two years ago, when I moved in here, I guess I felt more or less the same; but at that time it was different, because it was a whole new beginning and I knew that I needed a house. It was part of the plan. Now, I would have preferred to stay here and not to have to move, to start again. Anyway, in 48 hours all my stuff will be there and this apartment will be therefore empty, waiting for someone else to move in and be happy. That’s exactly what I will try to do in 17 Paul Hymans: be happy. I’m sure that with a little help from my friends, I’ll succeed! So, get ready to move with me: on Wednesday, at 8am.

Shqipëria

I spent the last three days in Albania, the 52nd in the list of countries I have visited, and I’ve been in both Tirana and Shkodër. I have to confess that I had some prejudices about this Balkan country, but I actually enjoyed being there. Despite its troubled history, the country has been developing quite fast since the 90s and seems to be in the right course. Most historians believe that Albanians are direct descendants of an Illyrian tribe called the Albanoi, but this theory is disputed; one thing at least is true: the lands that are today inhabited by Albanians were first populated in the Stone Age, over one hundred thousand years ago. What is also true is that the territory was ruled by Romans, Byzantines, Bulgarians and Serbs and, for more than 400 years, the Ottomans. When Albania became part of the Ottoman Empire (1478), the majority of the population converted to Islam. After the Second Balkan War, Serbia and Greece agreed to divide among themselves the Albanian territory, but the negative reaction of both Italians and Austro-Hungarians led to the independence of Albania as a Principality in 1914. From 1925, Albania was ruled by Ahmet Zogu, who declared himself King Zog I three years later, and ruled until 1939, when Mussolini’s troops invaded and took control of the country. After the Second World War, the communists gained control of the government under the leader of the resistance, Enver Hoxha, who ruled the country until his death in 1985. Under Hoxha, Albania was isolated from the rest of Europe, both from the capitalist West and the communist East. The first pluralist elections were held in 1991 and, since then, its economy develops steadily. However, Albania is still lacking behind most of the European countries (except maybe Armenia, Georgia and Moldova) and there are serious adjustment problems to solve. Some of the most striking ones regard the environment: Tirana suffers from the problems of overpopulation (30,000 inhabitants in 1930; well over 700,000 today), such as waste management, lack of running water and electricity, as well as extremely high levels of pollution. These problems are of course exacerbated by an aging infrastructure and the enormous amount of old cars using fuel containing larger amount of sulphur and lead than that allowed in EU countries. Nobody can claim that Tirana is a beautiful city, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t nice. The weather was nicely warm and the nightlife quite lively, especially around Skanderberg Square, surrounded by official buildings projected during the Mussolini period, and the “Block”, the quarter where Enver Hoxha and the communist leaders used to live, isolated from the rest of the population. There are a lot of anecdotes and memories that will remain from this visit, and characters like the "Samurai" driver who brought us from Shkodër or the waiter who served us in the fish restaurant will make us smile for a long time!

Campeões

Porto celebrated this Sunday its 22nd Portuguese championship title. But there are other curious figures besides the total number: it’s Porto’s 17^th title since Portugal become again a democracy, 33 years ago and the 4^th title in this millennium.

But Sunday was an historical day for other reasons too:

Pinto da Costa was elected for a new 3 year mandate as President of the club. Pinto da Costa first became President in 1982 and in these 25 years Porto was national Champion for 15 times and European Champion twice (1987 and 2004), besides many other national and international titles. Obviously, he was and will be re-elected as many time as he wishes...

Vitor Baia played what is likely to be his last official match. Baia debuted in Porto’s first team in 1989 (age 19), starting what is a brilliant career, as the best portuguese goalkeeper ever and one of the best in the world! He holds the record of the player with the highest number of titles conquered: 31 (6 more than Pele or Rijkaard, the next ones in the list). Besides, he is one of the 10 players that won all the European club titles (including the extinct Cup Winners Cup), being together with Stefano Tacconi the only goalkeeper in this list. Sunday, when he came into the pitch, the ovation was that of a club's heroe, that of a mythical player. And he got his 10^th Portuguese Championship title…

Київ

As I wrote earlier today, I just came back from Kiev. Parallel to the works of the General Assembly of the European Alliance of YMCA, I spent some time with the people from the Ukrainian Youth Forum and could therefore do some sightseeing. I must say that I was positively impressed both with the town and the warmth of people. Kiev is a very green city and it is said that one can walk from one end of it to the other without leaving the shade of its many trees. This was very useful yesterday, as the daytime temperature reached 32°C and therefore the shade provided by the horse-chestnut trees was very appreciated, as the beauty of the blossoming lilacs was. The centre of Kiev, around the Independence Square and the Khreschatyk Street, has been cleaned up and buildings have been restored and redecorated, and now boasts a busy modern life during the day and becomes a large outdoor party place at night. Close-by, the most historic areas of Kiev, such as Andriyivskyy descent and the area between the St Sophia and St Michael’s cathedrals, have become popular among an increasing number of international travellers, and I can understand why. But the charm of Kiev is very closely related to the Dnieper River, which flows south through the city towards the Black Sea. The river forms a branching system of tributaries, isles and harbours within the city limits, and both the Dnieper and the Desna (which mouth adjoins the city) are navigable at Kiev. After a nice cruise in the river and a nice walk in the centre, nothing better than a wonderful meal with a great view over the Dnieper! Vodka leaves some traces, but it definitely helps to forge friendships!

Visited countries: 51

By adding Ukraine to the list of countries I have visited, the total number is now 51. But the most interesting consequence of this addition is that now the map in Europe presents some quite curious “islands” of not-yet-visited countries completely surrounded by already-visited-countries: Belarus and Slovakia are the most perfect examples, but Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia and Norway are also part of the list. And Iceland, of course, which is a real island. The remaining European countries in this list are Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Montenegro and Slovenia. It’s still a long way to go, but tomorrow I will move Albania to the list of visited countries and Slovenia will for sure follow the same way before the end of the year. For the others, I trust on my friends’ kind invitations!

YMCA - Part II

I just came back from Kiev (Ukraine), where I attended for the second time the meeting of the General Assembly of the European Alliance of YMCA. Last year, I truly enjoyed attending it and especially the speech of Johan Vilhelm Eltvik, its Secretary General. This year was even better, because I already knew a good bunch of interesting people, met some more and Johan’s speech was anything but deceiving. The motto for this year’s General Assembly was “In my Father’s house there are many rooms” and, therefore, Johan’s speech was focused on ecumenical dialogue and, in a broader way, on tolerance and positive valuing of diversity. Johan is a Lutheran theologian, but one of a special kind! He has understood that Christian theology isn’t about arguing in favour of one single truth, but rather about the wonder of Incarnation, the simple fact that God always come to ordinary people wherever they are, everywhere and in every different culture. In his own words: “The Son of God was a Jew from Palestine, born in the city of Bethlehem. He dressed like a Palestinian and helped saving a problem by making water into wine. If he had been born a Norwegian on the west coast, he would have dressed like a fisherman and not lived under the hot Palestinian sun, but in the heavy rain from the Atlantic Ocean. Unlike the Scots who use that Atlantic rain to make whisky, on the west coast of Norway, Jesus would have made water into coffee, which would hardly stand out as a miracle, since all of us make coffee from water every day”.

Apart from praising unity in diversity, Johan referred also to the fact that on Thursday it was the Norwegian Independence Day and could not avoid talking about the relationships between Norway and Sweden. For that he came back to the quotations of children that you might remember from my entry about his last year’s speech. The same group of children who said that Jesus came back from death three days later, full of mud and dirt, but in excellent mood.

“In 1905 the countries were divided in two erogenous zones, so that we should become better friends”

“It is so cool that Norway and Sweden were divided. In this way it is no longer one big boring country, but two small boring countries”

“At the end there was a war between Sweden and Norway. Luckily Sweden won, so that we could get rid of Norway”

“It is God who gave us Sweden, and it is God who did not want Norway”

Conclusion from Johan: “Earlier today I mentioned that if Jesus was Scottish, he would have made whisky from water, and on the west coast of Norway he would have made coffee from water. And furthermore, and now, Swedish friends, I decide to be humble, for a change, when I say that if, and I underline as strongly as I can, IF Jesus was Swedish he would have told the parable of the good Norwegian, something totally unexpected”!

Afternoon "Cha"

While spending the weekend with 3 English, it is almost impossible to avoid the issue “tea”. But though I have a lot to learn from them in these matters, I could share something about it that most of the English people do not know about this custom.

In fact, the custom of drinking tea was introduced in England by means of a Portuguese princess that became the queen consort of King Charles II of England in the XVII century: Catarina de Bragança (Catherine of Braganza for the English).

And it is easy to understand why: Portuguese had a major part of the tea commerce to Europe and tea was a common product for the nobelty and bourgeoisy. English adopted the habit and took it to another stage, that of a national custom and tradition. Such a strong one that Blair has recently mentioned his regret not to have done enough to promote the traditional British cup of tea during is term in office.

Going back to Catarina de Bragança, she had clearly a strong impact in Great Britain and in what was to be the Empire. As an example, the important and strategic port cities of Tangier and Bombay where part of her dowry, being transferred from Portuguese to British control. And the control of Bombay lead to the control of India later on. As an ending note, the area of Queens, in New York City, is also said to be named after her.

It is just curious that finally the British did not adopt the same denomination for tea as the portuguese, the one based in the cantonese name: Chá !

Facebook

They got me!

Absolut Stockholm

After attending the congress of the Youth of the European People’s Party (YEPP), I spent some hours visiting Stockholm today. And it was very nice! Stockholm is a quite nice town and, in spite of the weather, I enjoyed strolling around the streets along the channels, having a wonderful “jazz brunch” in a very nice place, visiting an exhibition of a Japanese photographer's simply amazing pictures and, especially, the good company. But I also experienced the dark side of the city… Due to the lack of staff in the air traffic control, all the flights departing from Arlanda airport were delayed and, because of that, I missed my connection to Brussels in Copenhagen and will now have to sleep here and travel to Brussels tomorrow morning only… which means that I will miss my early morning train to Paris, and therefore the meeting I was supposed to have there… I think I should stop travelling on the 13th, be it a Friday or not!

Tip of the Day (for you only)

Life is not the amount of breaths you take, it's the moments that take your breath away.

Relocation

From June 1st, I'll be living next door.

You better think about it baby

There are some experiences that we enjoy so much, that end up bringing us pain when they’re over… People who are afraid or don’t like to take risks, prefer not to repeat them in order to avoid the pain afterwards… others, more adventurous, face the pain by looking forward for the next time when they can enjoy its pleasures. I prefer the latter and try to be myself one of them. Pleasure and pain are very often the two faces of the same coin: people who look for pleasure end up sometimes getting pain; and there are also some people who sometimes get pleasure from their own or others’ pain. Theoretically, it’s hard to explain this thin line that separates pleasure from pain, but I guess that we all have already experienced their closeness, for the better or the worse. The fact that led me to post this entry has a lot to do with this apparent paradox, but in my case it is easy to solve: the pleasure pays off the pain. So, now I’ll go to sleep, firm in my belief that tomorrow morning I will feel ready to face the pain again, by focusing on the pleasures that lie before me.

The British are coming!

Or: The feast of the onions :-)

Une mauvaise idée ?

Or the beginning of an anglo-french axis in Europe in opposition to a franco-german one?

If so, will it endure the discussions on the EU Common Agricultural Policy?

The Matrix

I saw the first movie, The Matrix, in 1999 and I remember to have seen it with a group of friends who, at the exit of the theatre, was quite divided: some loved it; others hated it. I was part of the ones who loved it. Having to wait almost four years for the second movie, The Matrix Reloaded, meant that my life changed and I stopped going to the movies so often and therefore I missed it in the big screen and saw it, if I remember well, at the end of 2004 in a DVD version. The last movie, The Matrix Revolutions, saw it now for the first time ever.

As it happens very often with trilogies, I think that the first movie is the best. In this case, it’s not so much about the story, or the performances or the special effects: I think it is basically because of the surprise. The Matrix introduced something new and therefore the impact was much bigger than in any of the sequels. But, all in all, the complete version of the trilogy remains a quite good story, with amazing special effects and a wonderful soundtrack. It’s undeniable that The Matrix trilogy is one of the most visually stunning exercises in the history of the movies, and that’s a good enough reason to keep it the list of must-see. But, actually, the reason I liked the movie so much when I saw it eight years ago, and I liked it even more when I saw the whole trilogy now, is because of its philosophical, almost religious elements.

Mr Anderson/Neo is an obvious reference to the Messiah’s Christian myth: Anderson (literally, the son of andros, the Greek word for man) becomes Neo (which means “new”, but is also an anagram of one, The One). And as if this wasn’t obvious enough, the first time we meet Mr Anderson, his client says: “You’re my Saviour, man! My own personal Jesus Christ!” At the end of the first movie, Neo resurrects and at the end of the trilogy he gives his life to save mankind. It doesn’t get any more obvious than that.

But, of course, there are also some references to other religious myths. For instance, the two levels of reality – the apparent world and The Matrix – are a clear reference to the Two Truths in Buddhism: the relative truth, in which everything is perception, and the ultimate truth, which is the way things really are. Breaking through relative true to direct contact with ultimate true is one of most basic Buddhist spiritual aims, referred to as enlightenment, or awakening. This explains the message in Mr Anderson’s computer screen: “Wake up, Neo!” which leads us to the fact that the person responsible for Mr Anderson’s awakening is called Morpheus, a clear reference to the Greek god of dreams.

But it’s not only about religion; it’s a lot more about philosophy. I think that the clearest reference is to Jean Baudrillard’s “Simulacra and Simulation”, published in 1981. Simulacra and Simulation is known for discussions of images and signs, and how they relate to our contemporary society, wherein we have replaced reality and meaning with symbols and signs; what we know as reality actually is a simulation of reality. The simulacra to which Baudrillard refers are the signs of culture and communications media that create the reality we perceive: a world saturated with imagery, infused with communications media, sound, and commercial advertising. These simulacra of the real surpass the real world and thus become hyper-real, a world that is more-real-than-real; presupposing and preceding the real. In this world apathy and melancholy permeate human perception and begin eroding Nietzsche's feeling of resentment.

A specific analogy that Baudrillard uses is a fable derived from the work of Jorge Luis Borges. In it, a great Empire created a map that was so detailed it was as large as the Empire itself. The actual map grew and decayed as the Empire itself conquered or lost territory. When the Empire crumbled, all that was left was the map. In Baudrillard's rendition, it is the map that we are living in, the simulation of reality, and it is reality that is crumbling away from disuse.

The Matrix makes many connections to Simulacra and Simulation: Neo is seen with a copy of Simulacra and Simulation at the beginning of the story, as he uses the hollowed book as a hiding place for cash and his important computer files. Also, when Morpheus is explaining what the Matrix is to Neo, he uses the phrase “Welcome to the desert of the real”, a direct reference to Baudrillard's work.

But if this is perhaps going too far, we can go back to the basics and remember the phrase in the kitchen of the Oracle: “Know Thyself”, the inscription which was above the entrance of the Delphi’s Temple Oracle.

One could go on and on, and mention, for instance, the clear references to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but I guess you already got the point: The Matrix is much more than the simple story of a reluctant Christ-like protagonist set against a baroque, MTV backdrop. And that’s why you should see it over and over again.

Saturday in Brussels

Getting back to work after some days off, especially when they are spent in wonderful sites and in fantastic company, is never easy. This time, maybe because I was under the pressure of several meetings and the need to find a new apartment, or maybe because these days off felt so well, was even more difficult. But today it was the first Saturday since the end of February that I spent in Brussels not having work to do and, to be honest, it was quite productive. First of all, because I managed to stay in bed until 10h30, which lately has become a true luxury. Then, because I went to the real estate agency and it seems that I will manage, not only to get a new apartment, but also to stay in the neighbourhood, which was one of my main objectives. Moreover, I also went to the supermarket and was therefore able to fulfil some prominent needs that I had already identified and was about to start suffering from. And, finally, I spent the afternoon in the open air, under a bright and warm sun, not doing much, but still spending a quite pleasant time with people whose company I enjoy. Now, I’m getting ready to go out; even though I have to admit that this sofa seems to have a system that prevent whoever seats on it of standing up and walking away… I love it!

Souvenir from Baku...

Outlandish - Callin U

PS: as a matter of fact, it's curious that this song, that will remain as a remembrance of our Azeri friends and of a religious tolerant Azerbaijan, belongs to an european (danish) group with origins in Africa and Latin-America, but mainly with different religious convictions (muslim and catholic).

Impressionism

After three days of hard work in Baku and one day spent sleeping at home, I went for a trip to France. I’ve been at the beach in Le Touquet and for the night in Rouen, but the highest point of the short vacation was the visit to Claude Monet’s home and gardens in the village of Giverny. According to my guide, Claude Monet noticed Giverny while looking out the window of a train he was riding in 1883. He made up his mind to move there and rented a house and the area surrounding it. In 1890 he had enough money to buy the house and land outright and set out to create the magnificent gardens he wanted to paint. Actually, some of his most famous paintings, such as his water lily and Japanese bridge paintings, portray this garden in Giverny. Monet lived in Giverny until his death in 1926, and he and many members of his family are interred in the village cemetery. Today, Monet's house and gardens have been restored and have become a popular tourist attraction (the Foundation Claude Monet), particularly in the summer when the flowers are in bloom. The place is special and so was the date. All in all, it was a very pleasant day and there’s one less unforgettable place to see before I die on my list.

Quiet Heart

I tried to tell you
I can only say it when we’re apart
About this storm inside of me
And how I miss your quiet, quiet heart