Two Nekos do Urupe 8: Brussels

Chocolate and Lace

Sooooooo we are probably reaching the end of this Nekos do Urupe series as I ran out of European Cities to depict. There are some places that have the name of a city, but do not on any way represent the city or parts of it. However.. we might show them to, just because some people love their city even though it does not look like that city.

(Krisp says there is a place called Dublin that we went to but did not quite cover so we might go and look that place up).

Anyway, lets have  a look at Brussels that has been declared to be the unofficial capital of Urupe because it is the formal seat of the European Union. I must say we have a rather vague feel about Brussels. So what we did is find what we could find on youtube. And we ran into this guy.. Rick Steves. We took the liberty to offer a few  links to some his movies(see beluw).

We liked this one cause she looks cool, even though we did not have a clue what she was saying cause she speaks French and we do not understand French. But you know, it is a great way to learn some, cause that is the language they speak in Brussels. You see, Brussels is the capital of Belgium too and Belgium has a French speaking population, called Walloons and a Dutch speaking population, called Flemish. And there is even a small group that speak German. Brussels is on the border between the two parts, but most of it's citizens speak French.

We recall once visiting Brussels and ordering some chocolate with a Leonidas store because chocolate is a thing that Belgium is famous for. And Leonidas is a famous Belgian chocolate store. So we were Dutch and did not speak a word of French, but we indicated what we wanted with pointing and that has helped in many countries of which we did not speak the language. But the Walloons and Flemish do not like each other very much, so speaking Dutch - which is similar to Flemish - no doubt acts on them Walloons like a red cloth does on an enraged bull.. So they pretended no to understand us. But well, my dad, who was there, just shrugged his shoulders and said in Dutch, "well then we buy something in the other store." And he put his wallet back in his pocket. And for some reason they understood that and got us the things we wanted.. See...money talks!

At the top of this post you see us, to the left was a store that sold chocolate and to the right is another product that seems to connected to Belgium or Brussels, which is lace.  So Krisp is trying to make some and I am trying to get eat something.

Next to lace and chocolate Mussels seems to be a dish that is associated with Brussels, which is interesting as Mussels come from the sea and Brussels is smack-bang in the middle of Belgium, nowhere near the sea.

Atomium

This is the Atomium, built for the  Expo'58 and, I am reading this from the wiki, represents the iron atom very large. It seems that it has not been used much in movies and such, which might be cause by the fact that someone has claimed intellectual property rights on it  till 2075 and any depictions of it, although not for private individuals depicting it for private non commercial reasons(which would cause a revolution, we think.). One wonders how the world would be like, when everyone was copyrighting their house, their car, their whatever. Oh, how about my cows? Or my windmill? A barren world will unfold. The upshot is no doubt that nobody wants to show it. Hence you get to see the Eiffel-tower,Trafalgar square and what not.. but not the Atomium.

Royal Greenhouses of Laeken

Last picture^^ is a picture of a the  inside of the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken. It was not a big representation of the real thing, but with the proper light it actually looks a bit magic. The real life Greenhouses can only be visited during April and May. The Second Life version is never closed.

Rick Steves

Two Nekos do Urupe: Amsterdam

Hi,

Welcome to my two nekos do Urupe: Amsterdam.
I have a blog on wordpress but I am getting a bit annoyed with it because I can not display wide shots unless I pay another 75 dollars. Yes! I say another 75 for I already paid like 90 dollars for a premium account, but this did not include a theme that allows for wide shots. +
Blogger however does, without extra money.
I will therefore add blogger to show my wide shots.. Over time I hope to add more of my post I made on Wordpress.

Now Amsterdam.. that is that city I was born.. and we(= my avatars) went into SL when we found it existed. And exist it does.. I mean not in a small way, but actually there is a rather big place in Second Life that looks in a certain way as Real Life Amsterdam does. Although without the myriads of tourists plodding around and without, for some reason, the bars and the coffee shops pandering soft drugs. Yeah.. that is Amsterdam for you, yet it is not. There are coffee-shops there but it is not like every inhabitant is intoxicated.
I recall my friends and me had this moment in which we smoked pot and stuff like that. It started one day with someone bringing us a cake made with grass and a year or so later it stopped. Just like that.
Smoking lingered long after that. I mean one of those friends, he smoked until his late thirties, until one of his lungs collapsed and his doctor said: if keep this going...
If you were to say that one drugs lead to another.. it would be hard to proof. For nobody of the eight people involved ever touched any kind of drugs after that one year. It was this wild moment and it was over a year later. In fact.. studying at the university and doing soft drugs is not a good mix. I suspect most of us were to serious for that.

Now the picture above shows the dam. That would be the central square of Amsterdam in a way. I guess most inhabitants my beg to differ. I mean the Leidseplein is more of  a center for people who want to go out and have a drink. And the museumplein would be more of a culture place. And yet the munt, not really a square, would be more of a place to watch a movies. The dam however holds the most dominating landmarks that illustrate the dutch mindset: a church, a big shopping mall, monument for world war II, a palace which isn't actually a palace but rather a symbolic palace and also the gathering place for the ruling elite untill it became a democracy. And not far off: the stock exchange. For the three pillars of the dutch are: commerce, religion and a vague authority.

This is a picture that more or less show the damrak that is a broad street running from the central station(way  to the rear of the picture) towards the dam.(behind us in the picture). The building with the flag on it (the dutch flag: red-white-blue) is the former stock exchange. I am not sure what it is for used for now. You can have coffee in front of it as it has a kind of bar. It also seems to have some kind of stock exchange function, but what it is I do not know.
In the front of the picture are the typical trams.. the one you see is somewhat old, as nowadays they have a yellow basic look and somewhat more modern.

Ok I am sorry but I like the versions of the above place. Those show the typical dutch canals, called grachten. I think it's a nice example of how a gracht might look like in Amsterdam. However the grachten seldom ended in a way like this in the way you see here. Usually they either continue on into another gracht. A building that is located at the end of a gracht I have seldom seen.

Ok... not the greatest shot to end.. but still.. I captures Amsterdam. Perhaps the street  is to wide.:P

The two nekos take snapshots... in Syria