Thursday, February 19, 2009

QUESTIONS!

I wanted to open up the "floor," and answer any questions you guys have.  I usually leave a bit out of each post to give me some room in the future to elaborate so if you have questions ASK THEM.  I got a few this week and I'm gonna answer a bunch from Philly and then make some promises I'm not sure I can keep.

Shannon (Philly, USA):
What is the music scene like over there? are you going to go to any shows? or perhaps see one of your fav bands that happens to be playing there? what are the kids listening to over there. roommates, coworkers...

I like this question because I had a conversation on my flight about popular music.  We didn't really talk about specific bands but about the differences in the culture of music in Europe v. US.  It all really boiled down to marketing:  The EU doesn't have genre specific radio stations.  They may have genre specific shows within a single day, but very there is usually a very wide variety of music on the different stations.  
On Shows:  I can only hope I'll be around in July and August.  Two of the biggest festivals in Europe take place IN Belgium.  There is Pukkelpop and Rockwerschter.  Pukkelpop last year was Metallica, The Killers, Sigur Ros, Bloc Party, Soulwax, The Editors... I could keep going for a very very long time.  I kept scrolling and kept seeing names I'd love to see.  The list looks to be about 80 bands long.  Rockwerschter has recently announced a portion of their lineup with Oasis, Kings of Leon and Limp Bizkit (seriously, I can't make that up).  These festivals are pretty serious and I'd love to go to one. 

Shanna (Outside Philly, USA)
Maybe you could let us know what is going on in Brussels right now, current event things- it could even go beyond Brussels to Belgium and some neighboring countries.

Well, As much as I don't want to admit it... I don't really know French.  This makes it difficult to read news papers or watch the news on TV.  In her question she also added I should look up expat news sites and English papers in my area.  I found them, they weren't very interesting.  I have basically absorbed two pieces of news since I arrived here.  The first was that the EU Parliament got robbed.  This is pretty spectacular because there are banks and bars and shopping necessities within the parliament so that dignitaries don't have to go OUTSIDE to do their errands.  This means that someone was able to sneak a weapon into the facility and then hold up the bank within the Parliament and then get out.  Why not just steal from a bank that is only attached to the outside through one set of doors?  Unsure.  The majority of the article covered the fact that no one knows if the bank was held up with a real or fake gun.  
The second piece of news may or may not be global at this point.  A Dutch diplomat to the EU publicly stated something (I wasn't sure what was said I'll guess something negative) about Islam.  Because of this he was banned from England.  I had a discussion with one of my room mates that I'd love to be important enough to get banned from a country.  Its said he was banned for the public safety of all English, but that makes the assumption that a Muslim will decide to take a violent action against this diplomat because of what he said.  No one questioned this.  I'm not sure how the saying goes, but I think its: "The more things change, the more they stay the same"?

Greg (Patterson, NJ... in a very sassy tone):
Night Life... Do nightlife you jerk.

I admit, I'm not "living it up" very much while I'm here.  I work late and then come home and write.  This is a promise that I'm not sure I can keep, but post deadline I'm going to try to go out with a few co workers.  I'll chalk it up to more beer related research.

4 comments:

  1. Good job - - you know what you want to do - - just do it....Rome wasn't built in a day !!

    ReplyDelete
  2. If both you and Sigur Ros are in Belgium this summer, you can definitely count on me surfing your floor...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Who WOULDN'T want to go to a festival called "Rockwerschter?"

    xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete