How can I ever again eat a sandwich from the mainstream kiosks in town, now that I’m used to the new high-brow caterer at work? Damn’ you, “Aan tafel”, and your 75 delicious construcions with refined ingredients.

It was late as I arrived at Antwerps main shopping street, but I had a pretty clear picture in mind of the outfit I wanted. White. All white. I’d arrive at this wedding, pretty dame by my side, as a knight merged with his white horse. I don’t know where I got the idea. So I entered the first store. White vests and pants all over the place. If a store had less than 3 different white vests, the manager was an old drunk who just realized he missed the last 2 shipments of new stuff as he poured more ice water in the bowl and tubled his head in. Anyway, I got my vest and pants, from different stores to cut costs. Not smart. Upon showing off my new purchase to said dame, the 2 shades of white didn’t match. I ditched the cheap pants and danced like a dervish in just the vest, turned out the other 200 guests had missed all the fuss about the whiteness and I was the only knight. Neh.

If feels weird not having a running site for so long. Most of all, I miss sending people links to new work. A business card contains just your contact data, this place has slices of me.

Bloody Mary full of grace, how gently your Russian spirit turmoils in the tomato thickness, sassy Tabasco burn my lips as I cannot refuse to lick the drop. Goodbye sweet spring Mojito, you served me well as favorite cocktail, grinding your crystals under the fresh leaves.

I used to love Origami, the ancient Japanese art of folding paper into… eh… heaps of paper you describe as dogs and birds. Weeks of folding for e-learning changed that. I’ve developed a destructive urge towards paper. I buy newspapers to slowly tear them to shreds, empty-eyed and slightly grinning.It’s a dog! See? Shrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. And here, a cranebird! Haaaahaaaha!

First, we take Manhattan. Then we take Berlin.

Let’s not tell the tale of the choice of transportation. Let’s just summarize that in the end, we accepted that it would be a very long drive and took a nighttrain.

Walking the squares, cycling alongside the numerous waterways, hopping in and out of post World-War reconstructed sites relaxed me. I need time to wind down from the turmoil at work, but by day 3 I was accused of being scarily hands-holding kissing hugging, just no me. Animating ridiculous amounts of key-frames behind my desk, I can be caught drifting off to the Italian café close to the Schloss Charlottaburg, sipping cappuccino crumpling crumple pie. Keeps one from going nuts or falling asleep.