Home Sweet Home!

Yes finally I'm back home... Maybe I was getting used to Switzerland, but still I was really happy when I took the plane back to Belgium. I left all my troubles and the last month there. The last month and the reason why I didn't write in a long time is all of course because of THE PROJECT. It kept me more awake than I wanted and finally yes finally.... it was over. It was a hard, interesting project in the end but still I'm glad I won't have to think more about 'gare' and 'hall', at least for some while...
Getting out of the plane, Nick & Gert picked me up and I was really happy to see them again, of course they didn't believe me because I was looking like a zombie and telling some half stories... Christmas in the family was great because it was for the first time in some months we were all back together (the sister is working in France, the brother studies in the USA). New Year's eve I will celebrate in Berlin and of course I will put some pictures about that! I'm leaving tomorrow! Happy New Year (to my loyal blog readers) and I hope all of your Christmas was great! The picture is of the 24th december at my grandmother's house.

Visions about Belgium

Belgium is in war, that's what some people think here! It's really incredible what you sometimes hear. They think that we only speak French and drink beer all the time. Well the second maybe I can't deny... :) The Swiss people look more informed about our particular situation in Belgium. Because they also have a federal country with 4 official languages and there are some more parallels between the 2 countries. The first question if you tell someone you're from Belgium is if you're 'Flamand' or 'Walon' and the second one if you hate the other part of Belgium then. Of course they are laughing at us because we still have no government. Just like the French people the Swiss-francophones make jokes about Belgian people. But I can tell you they are not really creative in that. Our jokes about the Dutch people are 10 times better! ;) Belgium is a country of beer, chocolate and it's the capital of Brussels (the last one comes from an American, they are really well informed about the 'other' world! :P) Well, if you hear the visions about other countries, it's not so bad after all.

France: chauvinistic 100 percent
España: fiesta fiesta! and vamos a la playa!
Deutschland: cold people
Sverige (=Sweden): colder people and always blond
Nederland (=Netherlands): holidays in caravans

Well, I can tell you I agree with some of those stereotypes! :) About Switzerland, it's getting very cold here and they are starting to prepare the winter and Christmas! (see picture)

Nuit moustache

Nicolas

Nicolas, moi et Céline

Xavi

LHC Ole Ole

Ice hockey is the second national sport here and even in some cities where they are really bad in soccer they think it's even more important! Yeah right... Lausanne, the 'capital of sports' is both in ice hockey and soccer in the second league. We went to see the other day the match between LHC (Lausanne Hockey Club I guess) and La Chaux-de-Fonds (for the architects: yes, there's a link with Mr. Le Corbusier). The atmosphere was really great and of course everybody was standing because the concrete to sit on was extremely cold. Lausanne played incredible (hmm...) and humiliated the rivals with 7-2. The movie is of the other team even failing a 'penalty', listen also to the noise. Swiss people are not always that educated and quiet! ;) Ice hockey is a very nice sport with a lot of speed and fysical interaction (read fights). I loved it, but still not number one for me. Looking forward to European Cup here!

'quiet' Switzerland

Mirco, Filippo, Victor

LHC

Basel

Basel, the city of Herzog & de Meuron and a real party for architects! That's what I always heard... But I think it has much more to offer than just that, it reminds me
of some ways of my hometown, Antwerp, and that's of course a good thing! :) I went with Erasmus organisation xChange but in the afternoon we did a small architectural tour with the fanatic architects! I was a bit disappointed about what I saw but of course I just saw a small piece, next time I will see more and be again impressed by Swiss architecture I hope! :) The evening I spent dinner in the apartment of Sergi who cooked for us. Your 'tortilla de patatas' was really great, Sergi! ;) Afterwards we went out partying for some time at a real archi-party which was really great!

Spain people and coldness...

St. Jakobhalle

St. Jakobpark, H & d M

Sergi's house

Silvan proud of 'his' city

Swiss boyscouts, also trying to earn money...

tomb of our hero Desiderius Erasmus

Rathaus

Bosser, bosser! (=Working, working!)

This last week was again a week of madness. All architects now what I'm talking about... We had the second rendu and well it didn't go so well as the last time. It was nor bad nor good. In general the prof told also he was disappointed in the progress of the projects and we had to work harder! Pff... This time I had to do my first 'nuit blanche' so I was really tired at the end of the week. Oh yeah, two guys from Spain came to my apartment with couchSurfing, great guys and it proved once again the system works and really good! Good luck tomorrow in Lausanne, it's a small but really nice city!

Philip, the sculpture guy!

Party after the 'Critique'

Sergi 'upgrading' his model

Genève

We went to Genève where it was extremely cold... Not the temperature was the problem but the wind was blowing and blowing... Yes this was the real Switzerland!! It was not freezing, no that not. But we never expected it to be so cold so we weren't wearing the clothing for that. I went with 2 Spanish friends, Sergi and Victor, and the reason was of course to visit the city but also because Sergi and I, we're doing a project for the course Urban Theories about the areas next to the river Rhône. I can't show any pictures because my batteries weren't charged (stupid me!), so I'm hoping I can get some from the the Catalan friends to put them also on the blog!

Victor promoting the 'L'!

The watch is famous they told me...

Spanish power? ;)

La Crémaillère

La Crémaillère aka Housewarming party... Yesterday we had a party at our place. Well, no broken glasses and the apartment is still okay, not brand new but new let's say. I live with 2 German-speaking (Katrin & Sylvan) and one french-speaking (Josephine) Swiss persons. For the moment I don't have a picture of Josephine, so sorry Jo! As you can imagine there were a lot of suisse-allemands! Well, I'm all the time joking about them, but I have to confess, even if they speak a very strange German dialect, that they are nice persons. I also invited a group of musicians to play. One of them, Lucas, is from the same province of Spain where I always go in the summer. Last Friday I met him at another party where they were playing. The movie is of them. We live in an apartment building and we're the only students here. We warned them there was going to be a party, but in Switzerland a party is till 12 pm!!!! The caretaker, normally a very nice women, came to complain a couple of times about the noise. I will have to talk with here later... So the party at our place was over at 3 am and with a group we decided to go downtown!



Katrin and her boyfriend

Sylvan (in front) with his Basel-friends :)

my old coloc Pierre-Jean and me

bART...

Erasmus Mundus!

Project

Maybe very short some words over the project itself. In a small village next to the lake called Morges, we have to build a new form of railway-station. It has to be not only for the trains but also lodging, commerces and offices. The program is approx. 30 000 square meters! Anyway it's a very interesting project but we also have to work very hard because they are very demanding! Thursday and friday we had the first intermediate presentation. Some people already had to do a 'nuit blanche' (means no sleeping), I was luckier and got some sleep. My presentation went quite allright so I am very happy about that. Other people weren't so lucky and the teachers/professors are a lot harder than in Belgium! Our professor likes to break models where you put
so many hours of work in...

Victor presenting and Jaccaud (prof) listening....

Olivier happy as always!

the 'Atelier'

my model scale 1/200

scale 1/500

Belgian quality

Some people asked me already for pictures of my room. Till this weekend I didn't even have a room, it was just the dining room but connected to the living room. With Bart we went to the bricolage-store OBI, bought the material, rented a van and invented a 'Belgian wall'... Well the result looks pretty good I think and the quality Belgian... :)

Los Españoles II

This happens a lot lately, working for deadlines and taking the last metro back home. Of course I'm not the only one...

erasmus-archis (the only ones in the metro...)

los españoles (xavi, sergi, victor)

In love with Barça

Well, I went this weekend to Barcelona and it was wonderful! I arrived Friday already in the morning and went to check for the hostel because Liga was arriving later... When I booked it on the Internet, the reviews told me it was in the prostitute area. But I was already happy I found a room, because Barcelona is nowadays really impossible to find cheap available rooms in a weekend. Anyway it was not so bad as expected the area, the room was just a bed and some centimeters around to manoeuvre! :) For me it was already the 4th time I was in Barcelona, so I was going to play the guide. The first day we saw the port area and the Ramblas. Okay, maybe it's extremely touristic, but still it's extremely beautiful and relaxing. The second day became a very busy touristic day because we got up too late... In a couple of hours we saw Parc Güell and Sagrada Familia and the Gaudi-houses (we didn't go in that day, but one day later). We also met with a couple (friends of Liga) that just got married and was doing the honeymoon in Barcelona. Nice people and from here I wish you a lot of happiness and health in your future life. This couple is also very fanatic in climbing and on Sunday they went climbing the fortress of Montjuïc, we paid them a visit and tried ourselves some climbing. At night I saw Pol again. I met him one year ago in New York where he was doing stage. Finally he came back to his beloved city to work and live there and of course he's working for a Swiss company. I'm afraid a lot of people work for the Swiss... :) Last remark: Once I will go back to this city to live there a part of my life, I'm really in love with Barcelona!!

bicing (not for tourists!)

still not finished of course...

forum, herzog & de meuron

exhibiton forum

pol and his 'fan'

belgian girl? :P

new camp nou, foster & partners