4th August, 2010

The seal from the Royal Charter

The Royal Seal of the King of England

An archive

Bruge

Writing my last journal for the last day of class, it was fitting that Bruge be the last destination. Bruge is known as probably one of the more beautiful cities of Europe. The first thing we did upon entering the city was visit the city’s archives. I found it very interesting that the city had so many official as well as personal archives. There were archives from as early as the 13^th century. From the archives there was a lot that one could learn. For example, the archives from the 13^th century were written in Latin, while that from the 14th century was in Dutch. The revolt of 1302 made the city more democratic in nature as the archives from the 14^th century were more descriptive than those from the 13^th century. We also learnt that during the revolt it was primarily the Count of Flanders with the working class against the King of France and the upper class. One interesting fact that I learnt about this period was that seals were used as a signature. We were fortunate enough to see a few seals from this period.

After seeing the city’s archives we took a tour of city, and it was fit that Professor Jeroen give us the last tour of the class. He informed us that in 1302 the Flemish cities had won against the King of France. This was the first time in Europe that a royal army was defeated by an irregular army. Moving on, during the tour of the city we visited a church, and then witnessed another attempt by a city to give its 19^th century outlook a more modern outlook. The structure was a terrible idea, and was given the name Governor’s Car Wash. Obviously, the Professor was joking here. The tour continued further wherein we saw the underground remains of an old building below the Crowne Plaza hotel. From there on, we visited the house of Gruuthuize who were very wealthy people. They were so rich that they had their own private entrance into the church right behind their house. I found this to be arbitrary and wrong use of the Church’s power, but such arrangements were very common in those days. Lastly, another interesting fact I learnt about the city was that its inhabitants drank more beer than water, as the water was very polluted.

In the end, we walked back to station and returned to Leuven. After a very long journey, our course finally has come to its end. It has been a very enlightening experience. Now, after the finals on Friday we head home.

3rd August 2010

Ypres

Ypres was the main scene of battle in World War I. It was the city that faced probably the maximum damage as for many years the Germans and the Resistance fought there. The city was very crucial for both sides. There was only one way for the Germans to enter France, which was through Ypres. Therefore, it was very important for the Resistance to hold their position in Ypres. Upon arriving in Ypres we met Wouter Sinaeve who gave us a very insightful lecture on World War I. He spoke at length about the different kinds of weapons and protection that were used by soldiers during the war. It was quite a experience to see the different kinds of helmets, shells, and guns used during the war. Following the lecture was a visit to the Flanders Fields memorial. After our dinner break we went back to the memorial to hear the last post being played. It was a very emotional moment at the memorial. The tour guide had spoken of the experience being very heart moving. In reality, I had tears in my eyes during the Last Post. Seeing old men and women remembering those days and the loved ones they lost to the war brought out the gravity of the situation. There was a lot of pain in the eyes of many. Seeing the names of Indian soldiers on one of the pillars of the museum made the entire experience very personal to me as well. I hope all those who died in the war are in a better place.

2nd August, 2010

105 meters above the ground (On top of the BelFry)

BelFry

Church in Antwerp

Church in Antwerp 2

Outside the Antwerp Church

Antwerp Station

Antwerp

Entering upon our last week of class, we visited Antwerp today. The first thing we visited in the city was the Tower connected to Our Lady’s Cathedral. We got the unique opportunity to enter the tower and get a guided tour the structure. We climbed around 500 steps to reach to the top. While climbing the stairs we stopped at various intervals seeing the different sections of the tower. Upon reaching the top we entered into the level where carillon was situated. Our tour guide explained us the entire functioning of the instrument which I found very interesting. Additionally, he also played a piece for us. It seemed like a lot of hard work to play such a complicated instrument. There were over 20 bells of varying sizes and weight that he would play in one piece. Also, the weight of the bells meant that he needed to be strong enough to play the instrument. It was definitely an experience that I know I would cherish for a long time to come. J

23rd July 2010

Ghent

Leaving most of our luggage in Brussels, we travelled to Ghent to stay for the weekend. Starting off our visit, we had a guided tour with Professor Dr. Prevenier. He called Ghent a typical medieval city, where two rivers from France conjoined and followed out into the sea. The existence of this water route, meant that Ghent was a perfect candidate for trade and transport. First to exploit this were the Romans. They made the first highway that went from Rome passing through Ghent. This further enhanced the logistical importance of the city. Then came the Christian monks spreading their message of Christianity. They had such a huge influence on the city that one can still see numerous churches and cathedrals all over the city. The 3^rd wave of people to come here were traders, craftsmen and businessmen. They made high quality textiles that were sold all over the world. Since it was new city there were 3 ways of imposing authority in the city.

1. Through a political system and administration one could maintain law order. This gave rise to the town halls, and other administrative buildings.

2. The more ideological approach was to call on to the moral side of the people through religion. Hence, one can see many churches in the city. This was also indicative of the wealth of the city, because it required a lot of money to build and maintain a church. On a particular bridge, one could notice 4 churches around them. Thereby it signaled the wealth of the city.

3. The more pragmatic way of securing social peace was through the construction of a solid social security system. There were hospitals, houses for the old, and work for many so that they could earn a decent income. Once, the need for money was taken care of, then it would reduce the reasons for citizens to commit crimes.

Walking around the city I learnt a lot about how the city worked. There were buildings for grain storage, toll collection, and free masons. The storage of grain showed that the city was modern in its planning, as it planned for the unknown future. Additionally, I learnt about separate areas that were used for meat selling and storage due to the fear of infection that many had in those times.

Lastly, one could many architectural styles in the city. There were Gothic, Roman, French, Neo-classical, etc styles of buildings all over the city. Again, it was a good indicator of the wealth of the city.

In conclusion, I found Ghent to be a very well planned city, and rich city. The planning of the city was impeccable, and so was the foresight that people had in storing grain for the future. Lastly, keeping separate areas for the sale and storage of meat showed the health consciousness of the citizens.

22nd July 2010

Magritte Museum

Today we visited the Magritte Museum. For the first time I was introduced surreal art, which I found very interesting. Until now we had been exposed to more classic styles of art. The change in style of art was very refreshing. Something that I really enjoyed about observing these paintings was the abstract nature of these paintings. Additionally, many of them did not have a clear message as to what Magritte wanted the observer to understand from the painting. It was left open to the observer to take their own meaning out of the painting. There were a few pictures that stood out to me. Some of them are:-

1. Black Magic 1945

This was a portrait of a naked girl, and was titled Black Magic. The meaning that I took out of this painting was that worldly desires are supposed to create an illusion. The naked girl represented worldly desires that are supposed to distract us away from our goals. The worldly desires work like black magic, changing the natural order of events. Therefore, one must be aware of getting attracted and lost in the various desires of life.

2. The Flavor Of Tears

In this painting, Rene has painted a bird in green with leaves at the foot of the bird. There is black ink on her chest, and a caterpillar that is climbing on it.

This painting had a very deep and sad message to it. Tears are supposed to make a person very depressive. It makes them think negatively, and it affects the entire body and mind of the person. That is what the black ink on the chest meant to me. The caterpillar climbing on her chest probably represents that life always moves on. We must learn to look at the brighter side of events. In that way, we can avoid the pain of tears and like the caterpillar slowly keep moving on with life.

3. The Search For Truth

In this portrait there is a fish standing on its tail in what looks like a tower with a lake in the background. The message that I got from this painting was that truth is all around us, and that we just refuse to see. Many a time, we tend to search for the truth travelling places, asking people all around us, but forget that all that we need to do is look inside our home. The home of a fish is water, but it is standing in a tower. Thereby, it cannot find the truth because it is looking in all the wrong places, as where it resides is the water and not the tower.

21st July, 2010

The remains of the original city wall

Brussels Day 1

Moving out of Liege, we moved into the capital of Belgium, Brussels. As customary, we had a tour of city, wherein I learnt a great deal about the city. Our tour guide, Professor Jeffrey Tyssens was very unappreciative of city architecture and planning, to which I concur with. Unlike most of the cities we have visited so far, there was a lack of uniformity in architectural pattern of the buildings across the city. The buildings were of different colors with varying facades. While some of them looked magnificent, others looked third-world. Professor Jeffrey blamed the city’s municipal authority for this mess. He explained how there was a period of de-regulation wherein builders could construct any kind of building they wanted. Additionally, he also touched upon the politics behind the mess. According to him, the authorities in charge of the city are appointed based upon on their political power and not their qualifications. Therefore, they had the wrong people doing the wrong job.

Immediately, I drew comparisons between the Netherlands and Belgium using architecture as focal point in analyzing the difference in cultures. As one can clearly see, Belgium had politics influencing activities more than logic and rationale. Also, they aren’t very sentimental as when old buildings were demolished, there was no resistance to it. In contrast, I clearly remember the resistance that authorities faced in Amsterdam after the construction of a new building. They found the building ugly, and immediately halted the planned change of other buildings in the neighborhood. Additionally, I had earlier spoken about a liberal building policy in Brussels which caused many old buildings to go. This policy was very chaotic, and was heavily influenced by politics. The entire system was bureaucratic which resulted in the relatively ugly faces of many buildings in the city. The Netherlands, on the other hand is very liberal but in a very noble sense. Politics do influence the decision making process, but logic prevails over politics. Or that is at least what we see.

27th July 2010

Modern Art in Eupen

Eupen

Continuing with our focus on the politics of Belgium, we went to Eupen today. First we visited the local museum which was very basic in nature and relatively quite young. Something I admired about the museum was its promotion of local artists. Having visited many museums in the past couple of weeks, this one was probably one of the smallest we have visited. Nonetheless, we received a very warm reception from our hosts who had some snacks and drinks ready for us. Something I really liked about our hosts was that there were only 2-3 people in the museum who seemed to manage everything. Our hosts did a great job of multi-tasking. They had their daily responsibilities to fulfill, but still took out time to show us around the museum talking about the various artists, and describing their work. Additionally, the managers/owners of the museum were very aged, while the art on display was modern art. It shows as to how much the community supports each other. Despite the fact that our host was unable to explicitly explain most of the art that was on display, he still kept it in the museum. It was his way supporting local artists. I found this to be very pleasing and an inspiration for other elderly people to accept the art of the current generation.

Moving on, we later went on to meet the Prime Minister of the German speaking community of Belgium. We had a brief 10 minute video introducing us to the community. From it I learnt that the community was very small with only 73,000 inhabitants. However, interestingly they had 23% of their population below 18. This young population signals that the community has a good chance of achieving a lot of success. These children will be entering the work force in the near future, and I was very excited to learn about how the Prime Minister had planned for their introduction into the work force. Finally, on meeting the Prime Minister all of us bombarded him with different questions. Interestingly, he behaved like a typical politician giving us very vague answers, and most of our questions did not yield much information. For instance, when I asked him about his future plan for the young population, he gave me a very vague answer. He spoke about how 50% of the community’s budget was dedicated to education and vocational training. There was even a cell for enterprise-startup setup for young aspiring businessmen. I found this to be more of a general plan. There were no specifics about how the community was trying to reach out to businesses, or undertaking additional efforts to help this upcoming young generation. While I can understand that the community is very small, and that their powers are limited. Nonetheless, I feel that since the community is so small, there is more scope of greater attention to this generation.

In conclusion, I found the German speaking community very interesting. Even though they are relatively a very small community, there is a strong sense of bond here. The manager/owner of the museum is playing his part in supporting local artists. On the other hand, the community’s parliament is trying to do as much as they can for their citizens. I do realize that I have come down a bit harsh on the Prime Minister for his vague answers to my question. His powers are limited. His parliament has primarily only social and cultural jurisdiction. Nonetheless, I don’t think it would be unconstitutional for them to be directly approaching businesses and trying to get something working for their upcoming generation. I hope in the future I hear some great success stories from the young generation of the German speaking community.